KU nails

Post number who knows out of way too many about red & blue nails. I just gotta rep my school spirit!

These are both China Glaze, both from the Wizard of Ooh Aahs collection. I miss Kansas, so I figured this was as good a way as any to fight my homesickness!

Ruby Pumps is darker and more blue than I expect it to be. It's also quite jelly, so it takes a third coat and more drying time than I'm prepared for. It also doesn't have great wear time on my nails, and I don't understand why...

Dorothy Who? is a gorgeous shade of blue; not too light, not too dark, not tooooo primary (though it comes close!). The silver glitter in this is awesome, but I have to be in a really blingy mood to wear it!

Final Four!!

My 'Hawks are in the Final Four! We play late this evening and I'm already so beyond nervous. Tonight is going to be a tough game, but I believe in them.
We're all a superstitious bunch: we're watching the game at the same place we've watched all of the tourney games, we'll sit in the correct seats once there, and I, of course, had to paint my nails. I've done it every weekend since round 1! Hopefully I get to leave these on until forever (or, you know, Tuesday) and don't have to take it off tomorrow.... wish us luck!

I bought a couple striper brushes & some acrylics yesterday to do these. I am really bad at this stuff, so forgive me! But it was fun and I'm excited for people to notice them.
Base colors are SC Ruby Ruby, Nina Ultra Pro Like Butta, and Essie Mesmerize. I have my go-tos when it comes to KU colors. :) Yellow stripes & the Jayhawk are acrylic paint; the blue stripes/dots are Zoya Tallulah; the red stripes/dots are Zoya Kimmy.

I painted the base last night, and then my husband got sleepy early, so there are some sheet marks... Oops.

And another Jayhawk on my thumb!

I'm so excited, and so nervous, and so excited!!!
And don't forget: I'm having a giveaway in celebration!

KU Final Four giveaway!!

I said there would be a giveaway to celebrate KU getting to the Final Four, and here it is! It doesn't end until next Tuesday, giving you a week to enter and me time to add more goodies if we make it to the championship. Follow on GFC & leave your email; for bonus points, follow me on twitter, too!

Red & Blue! Red nails, blue eyeliner, red lips.

Also, and I hate to say this but I have to for monetary reasons: US residents only, please. :(

Sweet 16!

Yet another weekend of the NCAA tourney is upon us! KU plays in the Sweet 16 tonight, so hopefully I'm in for another weekend of red & blue nails!

I started by painting all of my nails solid colors.
Essie Russian Roulette
Nina Ultra Pro Like Butta
Zoya Tallulah

My thumb I painted like a ref's shirt.

 The red is more jelly than cream, so it took a couple coats. I used a really thick coat of Like Butta, and it evened itself out surprisingly well. And Tallulah is absolutely gorgeous in one perfect coat.
No clean up or top coat to be found anywhere here.

But of course I couldn't leave them that plain.

Rock Chalk, Jayhawk!

NCAA Tournament Nails, take 1!

This past weekend was the beginning of the NCAA tournament! As I've talked about before, I'm a HUGE Kansas fan. My husband and I watched both rounds with his boss, who is a descendent of Phog Allen, and if you know who he is, let's be friends! :) So here are the nails I rocked for the whole weekend.
Yes, that means I didn't do St. Pats nails. Basketball is WAY more important to me!!


I started with 2 coats of Essie Waltz.

Waltz is a really pretty sheer. I also have Allure & Marshmallow. Allure is a super sheer wash of barely-color; Waltz is more opaque; Marshmallow is practically-opaque white. They cover all 3 of the levels of coverage I could want really nicely.

Then I reached for some blue & red glitter! A lot of people weren't super pleased with the Muppets glitter, because they weren't opaque, but that's my favorite kind of glitter. I love to layer & sponge & play with glitter, and the clear-based glitters are really great for that!

I used Gone Gonzo & Gettin' Miss Piggy With It for this. GG was actually significantly denser than GMPWI, which I found interesting... but I'm not sure if that's true or if I just shook it up a little more vigorously and got the glitters re-suspended better.

This isn't a sponge gradient; with glitter, I find it much easier to just put a large dollop at the tip, spread it across (kind of like a french!) and, after wiping all the excess off the brush, use short strokes to spread it down the nail a bit.

We played on Friday & Sunday, so I wore Waltz by itself on Thursday & with the glitter for 3 days, and when I took it off Monday morning it was still flawless. These nails made it through two games, one of which was a freaking nail biter (though thankfully, not literally! I think I've really truly broken the habit!), AND building a Melmer (pictures of that coming soon!), which I find so impressive. I really really loved how this looked. It was exciting but still very lady-like, and my nails looked incredible.

And here are a couple pictures from my dslr; I tend not to take pictures of my nails with my dslr, as I don't have a macro lens, and my point & shoot is really high quality, but for some reason I actually did take a couple this time!

Are you rooting for a specific team this tourney? And do you do your nails to show your support?