Nail Art with Megan - Stripes & Roses

Please enjoy another guest post from my sister Megan, she's recreated an awesome vintage rose and stripe design this time!

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Hey all, I'm back with another nail art design to tickle your fancy. This one combines two of my favorite things; roses, which I am a total addict for--the way they look and the scent, and what I consider the iconic Burton-esque style, black and white stripes. In my first post I mentioned how I do a ton of Google and YouTube searches for inspiration and I was lucky enough to stumble upon this perfection of a design from qtplace.com. I fell in love the second I saw it and knew I had to try this look for myself.

I made the stripes using Wet n' Wild Black Creme over one coat of Wet n' Wild French White Creme using a small nail art brush. The base color of the roses is medium pink Pure Ice Flirt Alert and the petal details were done in light pink Pure Ice Love. For the leaves I used bright green Pure Ice Free Spirit, which added the perfect finishing detail. I finished off with KBShimmer Clearly On Top top coat. This design is the closest I've ever some to 100% recreating another's design and I think I did pretty well! I absolutely love the result.

Big thanks to my awesome sis for letting me come back, much love until next time!
Megan

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I was head over heels in love with this design when Megan showed it off to me and I think it is so well executed! I really thought she was wearing nail stickers at first. What do you think of this design? Would you try it out on yourself? Talk to you soon friends!

❤ Kellie

Nail Art with Megan - Simple Steampunk

Today I have a real treat for you, some nail art! I have never been able to make nail art work for me, I end up getting frustrated and wiping all of it off every time I attempt something. However, my older sister Megan is a fellow nail polish lover but her ambition with it has always been nail art and she is quite good at it! So to fill the nail art void on my blog, she will be guest posting every so often with a nail art manicure, yay! Here is her first post, I hope you love it!

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First off, I'm really excited to be a guest on my sister's blog. I love reading her posts and feel very special. :) This blog is actually what inspired me to start doing nail art, with access to so many of her pretty polishes, who couldn't help but let their imagination run wild?

Before I start a new design, I do a ton of searches on Google and YouTube for inspiration. My favorite channels are Young Wild and Polished and SimpleNailArtDesigns. Tip: don't try to duplicate another's design exactly, you'll just end up frustrated. Take their look and tweak it into your own cute style!

For this post I decided to go with a steampunk design, I'm obsessed with the fashion and it's a goal of mine to be able to rock that style on a daily basis! I started with two coats of Petites Bronze Baby, then used a small disposable eyeshadow sponge to dab on Petites Blackberry in alternating corners on each nail. Most tutorials advise using a makeup sponge for the gradient look, but I've found the eyeshadow sponge gives me more control. For the wheels and cogs I used Sally Hansen Hard as Nails Pumping Iron and Milani Good Morning Sunshine. I use a small bristled paintbrush and a mini dotting tool for the designs. The top coat I used is KBShimmer Clearly On Top.

I must confess that with all my designs, I always manage to mess up on at least one nail and have to redo it from scratch. Don't get discouraged if this happens to you, trust me it's always worth taking the extra time! I'm so happy I got to do this, please leave lots of positive comments so my super sister will let me do more! ;) Big thanks and lots of love!

Megan

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Let us know what you think about this awesome steampunk mani! Do you like the steampunk style? Would you rock these nails? Thanks for coming by and have a great rest of your weekend!

❤ Kellie

lippmann bad romance

i'm gaga for gaga. ever since lady gaga first strut out her in her mcqueen platform shoes, i was hooked. "just dance" was my anthem of 2009 and my love for her has grown exponentially since i first heard her album "The Fame". her music, her controversial style, her fierce attitude, her unapologetic life force all make me bow down and worship the monster that is gaga. i even bought tickets to her concert here in salt lake city for next spring more than a year in advance :D

so when i heard that deborah lippmann had made a nail polish inspired by gaga and named it after her song bad romance, i knew it had to be mine. it is has a black jelly black base and is full of small bits of fuchsia glitter and larger hexagonal sequin fuchsia glitter. this is a pure rock n' roll polish and i can totally see gaga wearing something like this :) deb herself has done gaga's nails more than once so it's awesome she came up with this shade. these are my sister's nails, Clarrisa dear, thanks for modeling! this is two coats; opacity and application were excellent!!  she loved it and could not stop staring at her hands.  i heard she showed off her mani all day long today at work too haha :)

xoxo,
kelliegonzo

this product was sent to me for review purposes. please see disclosure statement for more information.

guest hands and glitter

this is a pic of an old manicure my friend, coworker, and polish addict Mickelle did last winter.  this is china glaze emerald sparkle with hard candy break up glitter polish layered over top. her nails are so lovely :) i loved this combo, very christmasy! i have a ton of back swatches i need to post haha. i'm so bad!

zoya's polish exchange and freja on my sista

in case you haven't heard, Zoya is doing their annual "polish exchange" program right now, effective from april 22, 2010 to june 30, 2010. the details are on their website HERE but the gist is that you can exchange old, empty, or just plain ugly nail polish that you don't want anymore for BRAND SPANKIN' NEW zoya polishes! that's right. bomb-tastic! the minimum is 6 bottles of polish, no maximum. and you can do it as many times as you want until the end date! all you pay is shipping & handling for the new bottles, $3.50 each. which if you figure the shipping costs to send them the polishes, and then if you see it as paying $3.50 per bottle w/ free shipping, you still come out way ahead. and the REAL winner is the earth! because lots of nail polish has certain chemicals in it that need to be disposed of in a different way then just throwing them in the trash, fyi. i am fully going to take advantage of this promotion, at least once before it ends and i can't wait! i've already picked out 42 colors that i want haha, so i'll probably have to narrow it down somehow.

anyway, my main point is that i wanted to show you a few of my favorite zoyas over the next few weeks in case this helps anyone to pick out their new bottles. first up is zoya's freja. a marvelous charcoal frosty metallic that shimmers too. this is a manicure i did for my sister Clarrisa so no, these are not my cute petite little hands. she got all the good genes :( haha but i la la love her!  this is two coats.

happy friday! i've had a pretty great week. and it's only gonna get better :D

guest hands & secret periwinkle

these lovely hands are appearing courtesy of my bff mickelle, who is also my co-worker, partner in crime, desk mate, and fellow polish addict (i converted her to the dark side). i'm trying like a dirty dirty ninja to convince her to start a blog of her own or to join mine :D but until then i will have to settle for having her tips appear in my posts every so often.this color is her favorite at the moment, china glaze secret per-wink-le (again, which the punctuation in the names, geez). a lovely creme soft periwinkle blue from the operation color collection. looks great with her skin, which is more pinky pale than mine. i don't know if i could pull this one off :) i'll have to double check w/ her again but i think this is two coats. she topped off her ring fingers with some precious little nail art stickers on the tips. aren't they just adorable! she does such a good job. bravo bff!