Leopard Print and Navy Nails

This was not my original plan for today's nails, but while innocently scrolling through my Instagram feed yesterday, I spotted this outfit post from ASOS, which immediately inspired me to abandon all other plans and do a leopard/navy mani instead. See how spontaneous I am? So spontaneous.

According to some (myself included), both leopard and navy are suitable to be considered neutrals. So g'wan then. Pair them with WHATEVERTHEHELL you want, ladies. It's your world.

The blue I used was a generically titled "Navy" polish from Forever 21's Love & Beauty line. It's actually a really nice polish, despite what the $2.80 price tag might have you expecting. It's shiny, self-leveling, and is opaque in 2 coats. It's also shimmer-free, which gives it some class, I think.

For the leopard accent nails:  the base is 2 coats of Essie's Case Study, the spots are a gorgeous silver-infused cocoa polish from Love & Beauty (aptly called Cocoa), and the darker brown accents are a suuuuuuper old Sally Hansen "New Lengths" polish called Mink Stole Creme.

After cleaning up the edges with acetone, I topped everything with a coat of Seche Vite and gave my hands a nice dose of Aveeno Skin Relief hand cream. My poor hands have been so dry lately that they've been cracking and even bleeding a little. A sign that a) winter is a bitch, and b) I'm possibly dehydrated? Oops.

Tonight I'm going to see one of my favorite comedians perform in Somerville! Ted Alexandro has been a fav amongst my siblings and I for over a decade now, and this will be the third time I've seen him live. Mayhaps you even remember the write-up I did about the time I saw him in Vancouver in 2013 - if not, here it is! I'm not sure yet if anyone else is coming with  me to the show, but whateva - big girls can get their laugh on by themselves if they need to.

In other weekend news, on Sunday afternoon I'm going to be doing something kind of scary: I'll be filming some short workout videos with a local fitness professional for my company's YouTube channel. The girl who was slated to demo the exercises in the shoot had to back out for scheduling reasons, so I volunteered to step in. It's a pretty well-known channel with kind of a lot of subscribers, so I'm nervous fo' sho, but I'm trying to be better about embracing the "if it doesn't scare you, it's not worth doing" mentality to step out of my comfort zone. Wish me luckkkk! And depending on how the videos turn out... maybe I will share them here on my blog ;)

On a related note, I've been going to the gym a lot lately and am thinking about starting back up my "Workouts of the Week" series this Sunday. Would that be of any interest to anyone? Let me know... but I might just do it anyway because it is my party, after all.

What are YOOOOU up to this weekend?
Doing anything outside of your comfort zone?
Whatcha got on dose nails doe?

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Sneak Peek at My Wedding Outfit

Just thought I'd pop in to give you a peek at what I'll be donning at my friend Izzy's wedding tonight... and then pop back out again like I was never even here...

PEEK!

So excited that I have such fierce nails to rock with this outfit. There are also some little beige booties involved. Not sure yet what I'm going to do with my hair... maybe just straighten it and leave it down.

Hope you're having a nice Saturday morning so far :)

If you have a wedding to go to this weekend, show me a pic of what you're wearing on Twitter or Instagram!

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Fierce Autumn Wedding Nails

Wulllll, I know it's not technically autumn yet, but the weather has definitely shifted in Boston this past week. It's become a bit chilly and cloudy, which - honestly - is fiiiiine by me. The humidity around here was making me want to cut a betch, so I'm certainly a better person to be around in the more fall-like temperatures.

Tomorrow evening I'm heading up to Marblehead, MA (a coastal town north of Boston) for the wedding of my friend Izzy and her fiancé Darren. The two of them live in NYC, and I've actually never met Darren before, so hopefully I'm able to snag at least a moment or two of his time to meet him officially! It's been quite awhile since I've seen Izzy too, so I'ma squeeze her fo sho.

Since it's practically fall, the color scheme for my wedding outfit was leaning on the darker side. Burgundy, to be exact. It's a really simple dress, but it's moderately flattering (errr... it was the last time I tried it on anyway - fingers crossed on that one) and is easily dressed up with some accessories. Some of those accessories include two thin leopard print belts to go around my natural waist, which is where these fierce autumn wedding nails come in!

Not to toot my own horn, but... I think these came out pretty damn good. Here's what I used:

Goldie But Goodie by China Glaze, Case Study by Essie, and Raisin Rage and Stiletto - both by Revlon. Case Study hasn't been taken out for a spin in a DOG'S age. What was my problem?? This milky beige polish is awesome!

To start, I painted all of my nails 2 coats of Raisin Rage, except my ring finger, which got 2 coats of Case Study. Next I used Goldie But Goodie to place a few large spots around my accent nail. Using a toothpick dipped into Stiletto, I stippled some C's around the large spots of gold and also added a few smaller random spots around the nail.

You can find more of my leopard print nails here, though be forewarned that they are all pretty old posts:

• Silver Leopard Nails
• Neon Glitter Nails
• Patriotic Leopard Print Nails
• Pink Leopard Accent Nail
• Pink Leopard Print Nails

Speaking of weddings, don't forget that I've still got a re-cap coming up of the wedding that went down over Labor Day weekend. NEVER FORGET. Hopefully also some pictures and tales from Izzy's wedding as well!

What do you have planned this weekend? Anyone else attending a wedding? What will you rock on your nails?

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Silver Leopard Nails

Let's just get this out of the way: When I typed the title of this blog post, I immediately thought of Brian Fontana's Sex Panther cologne in Anchorman. Don't really know why - leopards and panthers are not the same thing.  OR ARE THEY?

Actually they are - did you know that an Asian black panther is really just a black leopard? And an American black panther is a black jaguar. I hope you've learned something here today.

ANYCRAP. On to more pressing issues: nail polish. Silver leopard nail polish, more specifically.

The inspiration for these nails came from Dulce Candy's recent Black Friday video, where she was wearing a silvery/grey leopard print scarf that I thought was pretty:

Leopard nails are fun to do, so I'm always happy to realize new color combinations for the look. And I thooooought that I had some great colors in my nail polish stash to choose from:

.  stiletto by revlon, beware by pure ice, grey by love & beauty  .

Look familiar? I used the exact same trio two weeks ago. #Reeeeeepeeeeeeeeeat!  (I said that in the voice of the "REEEEEEEEMIXXXXXXX" line from all the hip hop songs... But if you were my friend, you'd have already known that.)

After applying a base coat, I used 3 coats of Beware on all of my nails. Then I used the tip of the grey polish's brush to dab a few dots of grey around my nails.  Once those had dried, I put a few drops of Stiletto onto a piece of scrap paper and used a toothpick to draw the small black C's and brackets around the black spots. The last step is to add some small black spots to the empty areas of each nail. 

If you're the kind of gal who's been afraid to even attempt leopard print on your nails - like maybe you think you aren't good enough at "doing nails" to do this - well, if I could reach through this computer screen and give you a good solid shake, I would. The BEST part about leopard print nails is that even if you're an amateur and don't do it "perfectly" (whatever the heck that even means), it still looks BOSS. 

Seriously. You CAN do it. And I'm only saying this because there've been a solid number of people who have commented on my other leopard print nail posts, saying things like, "I could never do this, I'm terrible at nails." If you can find a toothpick (you can), and you feel like putting in about 20 minutes to paint your nails, then you can do leopard print on your nails. It's dots and C's, guys. Just dots and C's. And we've been dealing with both of those things since at least kindergarten, #AMIRIGHT?

But I digress.

The dark grey spots weren't as dark and "stand-outy" as I had envisioned them being. Actually, if I hold my hand away from me I can barely even see the dark grey. It looks more like just a matte version of Beware. (Which now has me interested in doing a full mani of Beware with a matte top coat, just to see what it looks like. Hmm...)

Want to see more leopard print nails? You got it, dude:

• here are some patriotic ones
• here are some glittery, disco ones
• here's one that'll bring all the boys to the yard
• and here are some for your 16-year-old little sister

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Neon Glitter Leopard Nails

Ah yes, the rare neon glitter leopard. Commonly found in the mountains of Vancouver, but occasionally spotted in the hills of Western Massachusetts.

Alright this is a super old nail polish look that I literally wore over a year ago, but I have been so busy with both work and enjoying time with my niece and nephew here in Pittsfield, MA that I haven't had time to do a fresh mani this week. I hated the idea of a Friday going by without a nail polish blog, so I yanked these beauts from ye olde archive. #HopeYewDontMiiiind.

.  please excuse the condition of my old cuticles  .
.  i took up "giving a shit" as a hobby since these pics were taken  .

For my step-by-step leopard print nails tutorial, you can click here ~> Pink Leopard Print Accent Nail

What is your favorite color combo for leopard print nails?

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Patriotic Leopard Print Nails

Happy Independence Day!!!  Whoop whooooooop!

I wanted to do something non-traditional for my July 4th nails, so I played around with a few ideas before settling on leopard print in red, white and blue.

I used Ruby Ruby and Snow Me White by Sinful Colors, as well as a generic Navy polish from Forever21's Love & Beauty line. Ruby Ruby is seriously the perfect bright red polish and it applies perfectly. It does take about 3 coats for opacity though.

I was going to try to add white stripes to my "plain red" nails using a "French tips sticker set" that I just recently picked up from the Essence brand, butttttt unfortunately those stickers really sucked and left an ugly sticky residue on my nails when I peeled them up. Not a good look.

What do you think of the red, white and blue leopard print nails? What are you rocking on your nails today?

Also, #freedom:

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Pink Leopard Print Accent Nail

By now you may have noticed that I love rocking a good accent nail. I've been really craving another leopard print look (check out one of my other leopard print nail looks here) but since it's been so long since I've done it, I was a little nervous to go full steam ahead on all of my nails. The leopard print accent nail was a perfect way for me to reacquaint myself with the technique.

The good news is that it's even easier to do leopard print nails than I remember it being!

There is no bad news. Isn't that awesome?

Here's the really simple step-by-step. You'll just need a few polishes and a toothpick.

1. Start off by painting all of your nails pink, except for your two ring fingers.
2. Paint your ring fingers white.

.  you can't just ask nails why they're white  .

3. Once your nails are totally dry, go in with your pink polish on your ring finger and make a handful of dots around the nail. Make sure to leave plenty of space around each pink spot.

.  yous about to be a leopard  .

4. Again, let that totally dry. Patience, ladies. Put a couple of drops of your black polish onto a little piece of scrap paper. Dip your toothpick into the black polish and use it to trail some polish in bracket ( ) and C shapes around each of your pink dots.

Technique Tip: It's best not to drag the toothpick along the nail, but rather to leave the tip of the toothpick just slightly above your nail and trail the polish along that way. It makes for a smoother-looking line and doesn't scratch up the polish beneath it.

Add in some random black dots in the empty areas.

After some clean-up, you should be left with something that looks like thissss:

.  rarrrrrr  .

And that makes me happy.

Photo vom!

.  meeee - ow  .

.  vogue  .

Just like the polka dot accent nail I did last week, this leopard print can be done in endless color combinations. What's your fav combo?

Pink Leopard Print Nails

It's no secret that I find nail-painting to be a no-fuss outlet for creativity, and the tiny size of my ten little canvases means that I can do some actual artwork on my nails and still get 'er done in not a lot of time!

I love finding new ideas for designs I can paint on my nails, even though I'll inevitably peel the design off within 24-36 hours anyway. I subscribe to a couple of nail polish channels on YouTube as well as have some nail polish blogs bookmarked, which are all great for inspiration when I'm looking for something "extra" to do on my nails.

Here's a look I learned how to do - it looks trickier than it is! These leopard print nails are fun to do in any color combination and can be done on all of your nails or just one or two as accent nails. You don't really need special nail tools to do this either - I used a paper clip to help me draw the "C" designs around the spots. Check it out!

.   snazzy, no?  .

Colors used:

Base color:  Milani - Tip Toe Pink
Spots: Sally Hansen Insta-Dri - Flashy Fuchsia
Rosettes around spots: Nina Ultra Pro - Black
Glitter:  Pure Ice - Beware (2 coats) and Wet 'n Wild - Kaleidoscope (1 coat)

Fun to do and gets lots of compliments from people that I hand my debit card to ;)