My New Nail Shape!

Howdy folks! If anyone remembers last week's post, I had a new nail shape in it, so today I thought I'd turn it into a tutorial. I know it looks pretty simple, but I decided it might be nice to share some tips for what worked best for me. Enjoy! 

Start off by removing any nail polish you might have on. Embrace your naked nails! Hehehe. You'll need pretty long nails for this, so I chose to change my nail shape after I hadn't filed my nails for a week (they're longer here than I'd usually have them). 

Before you get ready to cut, moisturize your nails and cuticles. If you use any nail strengthener (I love Sally Hansen Vita-Surge strength gel), this would be a good time to use it.

Wash your nails and sketch out the shape you'd like your nails to be with a Sharpie. I feel like this makes cutting and filing your nails later so much easier, because all you really have to do is follow the lines, ensuring that your nails aren't lopsided. If you're worried about the Sharpie staining your nails (I had a little difficulty removing mine) put a base coat under it - it will make removing it loads easier later.

Use nail clippers to cut the sides off.

Now use acetone to remove the Sharpie and use a file to perfect your nail shape. Annd you're done!

Here's a design I tried right after creating my new nail shape. This was also the first time I'd used HK Girl for my top coat, and I was having trouble photographing all that gorgeous shine! Don't be too hard on my fuzzier-than-usual pictures. I blame it all on the super shiny top coat. The red polish is OPI Cajun Shrimp (my favorite polish ever) and the black is an Art Deco striper in black.

This definitely isn't the sturdiest of nail shapes, so only try it out if you know you have strong nails (or if you won't be too upset if one breaks). Afterward, make sure to moisturize your nails and cuticles daily to keep them strong!

Thanks for reading! This should be a super fun nail shape for Halloween nail art, so if you've been considering it for awhile, now's the time to change! What do you think about it? Does it look good, or did you like my square nails better? Personally, I liked square better, but I'm really loving trying something different. 

See you all next week! 

Football Season Nails

Howdy folks! So there goes my post-once-a-week schedule. Woopsies. I really stink at keeping track of how often I post, don't I? Sigh. Anyway, this post is based on a request on my Facebook page - I asked what nail tutorial you'd like to see next, and football season nails were requested! Enjoy! 

This might be my simplest tutorial yet. All you need is a brown polish (any shade's fine - this is actually the only brown polish I have, but if you have a shade that's more like a football, go ahead and use it!) and a white striper. And a base coat and top coat, of course!

Start off with a base coat and paint your nails brown.

China Glaze - Foie Gras

Draw a white line with the striper down the middle of the nail.

Art Deco - White

Finish up by drawing horizontal stripes across the first vertical one!

Oh, did I mention I got a new top coat? My Seche Vite was getting goopy, so I ordered HK Girl. Sooo shiny! I've been having trouble taking pictures of my nails because the shine seems to be too much for my poor camera. I think an overly-shiny top coat is always a good thing, though!

Add a coat of whatever top coat you have over the design and you're all set!

So what team are you rooting for this year? Let me know in the comments! I must admit I don't know much about football, but I come from a long line of Bears fans, so I usually cheer for them when they're on.

I feel like I spend most of my time here talking about nails, and I figured some of you might want to get to know the face behind the nails! I'm going to try starting a "what is Allie up to this week" thingy-ma-doo at the bottom so you all can hear what's going on in my life every so often. Here goes!

- Oh, yeah, I cut my nails! What do you think about the new shape? I'm not sure about it, but I've always told myself I'd try stiletto (or something somewhat close to stiletto) nails at least once in my life, and I chose now! Hooray for new nail shapes! I think I'm going to keep them until Halloween (there are going to be so many options for pointed nails in Halloween season!) and then I'll go back to the usual square shape.
- Legend of Korra came back last Friday! Ahhh! I'm a bit unsure of the different animation and the writing so far, but the season's just begun. I won't judge it too harshly yet! And if it does end up being terrible I can always resort to watching the first season over and over again. I apologize in advance for any random Korra references in future posts!
- And on the same path as shows I've been following, a few weeks ago I started watching Sherlock. Since then, a majority of my time has been spent watching and re-watching episodes, mindlessly scrolling through Sherlock gifs on Tumblr, and fangirling over Benedict Cumberbatch's cheekbones. Oh, and Reichenbach Fall feels. So. Many. Feels.
That's all for today! Because I'm terrible at ending this things, and I just professed my love for the show that is Sherlock, enjoy this gif as a goodbye!

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Orange Kitty Nails!

*This is a follow-up to last Saturday's post! You should definitely go read that one first if you haven't already! :)*

Who's ready for Allie's-adventures-with-flocking-powder-part-2? I know I am! Today I've got some more pictures of the cat nails you saw in one of my pictures, but along with the story behind them! So I know orange seems like a random color of flocking powder to choose - there were tons of other options. I could shown you any gorgeous shade of red or blue or purple or pink. 

Why orange, Allie? 

Story time: I chose orange to represent my most adorable, fluffy best friend ever, Oscar! 

So that's my sweet little boy, Oscar. He's cat #2 of the dynamic duo:

Here's Abraham, the big brother. I love him as much as I love Oscar, but Oscar's the one with a tradition of sitting next to me every time I paint my nails and looking on thoughtfully, so this post will be more about Mr. Oscar (and there wasn't any brown flocking powder, which kind of got in the way of any plans for Abraham-themed nails). I still had to post a picture of him to make it even, though!

Oscar's my nail art buddy! Here he is taking a break from watching his "reality television" to pose for a picture. This spot right in front of the computer is where he likes to sit and get in the way of my nail painting. He's sat up here for a good hour or two every day since I've had him. When I saw that orange flocking powder online, I knew I had to paint little Oscar kitties on my nails. Here they are!

So boy, did I have trouble photographing this. My camera doesn't have a manual focus setting (arg), which meant that I needed to take a bunch of pictures and hope my hand was perfectly steady in at least one of them, because it REALLY didn't want to focus on the flocking powder.

For the ears and whiskers, I used my Art Deco black striper. I still can't believe I found that thing at the dollar store. I actually like it better than my more expensive Stripe Rite. It needs to be thinned out more often so mine has gotten a bit less opaque throughout its lifetime, but it's still a great striper. The eyes were made with Sally Hansen - Black Heart and a dotting tool, and for the nose I used the same dotting tool and OPI - Sparrow Me the Drama.

I did get a few sharper pictures with some adjusting of the light and my camera, but they came at the cost of my skin looking even paler than it already is. I swear I'm not THAT pale, you guys! So what if I haven't seen the sun in a couple of days... (kidding, of course. Sort of.).

And for your viewing pleasure, here are some pictures of Oscar watching BBC's Sherlock. He's got good taste, eh? 

That ends today's cat-filled post. I'll be back next week with a (semi) normal post again. See you all then!