Spring: Pretty Trees and Allergies

So I hate winter, and that's pretty understandable, right?
I loooove warm weather, so Spring is such a welcoming season for me. It's so pretty and there's flowers and good smells everywhere!! And sneezes!! I have super bad allergies in the spring, through the fall. So lame. However, I'll totally take it over the icky cold weather!
I can't be alone, right?

I got these neat water decals from Lady Queen, and I thought they were nice and Springy, so I felt they were fitting for the season.
The nail art accessories from Lady Queen are awesome! I get super cute manicures with little effort, and they look fabulous! =D

These decals remind me of a nice watercolor painting that I wish I could paint. Find them here at Lady Queen!
Turns out... I don't have any gold glitter. So lame. Aw well! I had a little golden yellow rhinestone to decorate an accent nail with.
I used Zoya Gie Gie as my pretty pink. It has such a delicate shimmer. I thought it was perfect to tag along with these decals and break up the green a bit more.

Use this coupon code at Lady Queen for some dollars off your purchase!

Thanks for reading, and happy warm days!
♥Jo

Lady Queen Review. Water Decal accessory sent for honest review. Please see my disclosure policy here.

Zoya polishe self-purchased.

Freindship Bracelet French Tip!

Hi all...
I haven't been so well in the last few weeks.
Bleh.

But here are nails, so it's okay!!!
Super short post, today!

 

=D Love!!!

This is a suuuper cute water decal sheet from The Born Pretty Store. I wasn't sure how to do a cute manicure with these, but I totally love the designs! They remind me of those little friendship bracelets I used to make when I was a kid!
I used my OPI Can't Let Go and Zoya Mira. The water decal was super easy to apply, and there are tons on the sheet to choose from!

I want to redo this manicure someday with a BFF. Dawwww... I love this sheet of decals, and I want to also do a full french manicure with it, not just a little accent.

Buy stuff from Born Pretty with my coupon code. =3

♥Jo

Born Pretty Review.Water decal accessory sent for honest review. Please see my disclosure policy here.

Zoya and OPI polishes self-purchased.

New boots are a cause of inspiration!

Hi guys!!! I'm off today and should absolutely be doing homework. But this is taking up my time instead, Which I think is perfectly okay, because I'll be doing homework like super soonish, kay??

Si got these little nail art accessories from Lady Queen, and wasn't sure exactly what to do with them. Then I got these super cute new boots from Amazon and was inspired.

Sometimes I think this little 'buckle' looks more like a Pilgrim hat than a nice decorative buckle, but that's okay. It's still super fashionable to wear buckles on hats, right!? This little accessory can be purchased right here through www.ladyqueen.com. They could probably be used with like making little paintings on your nails! Oh, now I want to do that and frame my work with them!!
I just simply applied it with a clear coat as a glue thing,and filled in the space with a clear gel from Sensationail so it was all neat and stuff. The colors used are Zoya Raven and China Glaze Recycle. I used a sponge to create the marbled mixed color effect. I super love these nails, and they matched my dark outfit today. Woo! I thought the matte coat on the accent was a nice touch.


Here is the boots. Awww, so cute. =D They are a little scuffed already, of course. I love the color so much!

If you want these, or many other nail art accessories and things, check out Lady Queen, and remember to use my coupon code for 15% off your order!!

Alright, Java and calculus time.
♥Jo

Lady Queen Review. Metal frame accessory sent for honest review. Please see my disclosure policy here.

Zoya and China Glaze polishes self-purchased.

Slytherin Inspired Snakies

This week started with me crying over a celebrity death. I've never done that before, but hearing the news of David Bowie, the Goblin King who played a HUGE role in my childhood (seriously, I think I could quote about 80% of that movie right here, right now, it's not even on. I had to have watched it at LEAST once a week for many years when I was little), brought me to tears. I promptly purchased Blackstar and have been listening to it all week! If you don't have it, and are a fan of his work, pick it up!

Later, I wanted to do these snakeskin-ish nails with some cool pattern stickers I got from the Born Pretty Store. I had been thinking Slytherin all along, and was sad to see I tossed my size-too-small Snape shirt. Boooo.
And then the news of Alan Rickman came out.
Now I was super sad about my Slytherin inspired nails! What is this, the year written by George R.R. Martin?!? (a stolen, possibly too-soon joke.)

Anyhow, snakey looking nails still happened. I was watching a documentary on abandoned/stray dogs in LA while I was doing it. Needless to say, tears were shed while this nail art was happening. =(
Also... sinus infection. Ugh.

Zoya Ray and Zoya Yara make up the pretty greens, and a mattecoat by Warpaint Beauty, a (discontinued, I believe) brand by Hot Topic. The cool holo(hollow, haha!) nail sticks, I think, were intended to be used on their own. And they certainly are pretty so I could have done that... But SNAKE! Not that this truly resembles snake skin, but eh. The inspiration was there.
These stickers are super easy to use, and as long as you pull them off correctly, they made a nice design! Pulling them off from tip first seemed best, and while still wet.

Get these,and super many other things from The Born Pretty Store and use my code for 10% off! =D

Sarah's lost her King...
God has lost her voice...
So long, and thanks for all the fish!
♥Jo

BPS Review. Holo stickers sent for honest review. Please see my disclosure policy here.

Zoya polishes self-purchased.

Holographic Foil Transfers! And another Frozen manicure...

Hi everyone! I have the worst cold. It's incredibly horrible and I hate it. =(
That only sort of stops me from having nice nails, though.
This was a super awesome idea, so I had to pick it up. I reviewed once before on nail foils, and I quite like them. I think they are innovative and fun, and I've seen some super neat things with them!
So I found this holo foil on the Born Pretty Store, and gave it another go!!

 I tried this on a purple color first, but had a hard time getting it to work, or get decent pics. Later, I was watching Once Upon A Time Season 4... And Elsa happened, so, these are inspired in part by Frozen! Bluueeeeeee.
The foil is number 43 from this selection. I found it was a bit difficult to transfer it onto larger nails (than the little pinky!) and get it to not look cracked. BUT! I still think it turned out pretty great. The Zoya is Kristen. I loooove this color. I forgot how much I did. I've certainly used it many times in the past, and again, it looks so Frozen! =D

If I were to get any others from this selection, I'd probably pick 167 or 160. They have a 'broken' look to the pattern anyway, so I imagine it would transfer just fine, and you wouln't notice anymore cracks as easily. Well, if I ever get them, I'll let you know!

If you want anything from The Born Pretty Store, feel free to save 10% and use my coupon code! =D

School started this week. The week I've been dreadfully ill... I've had to endure that, because if you miss the first classes, they can boot you for the waitlist and  I can't risk that. Here's hoping the end to this is near..
♥Jo

BPS Review. Holo foil sent for honest review. Please see my disclosure policy here.

Zoya Kristen is self-purchased.

Little Wrapped Presents

It's getting closer and closer to Christmas! I was inspired by a wrapping paper I have to bring you today's manicure. This is my favorite thing I've done in a long while, I can't lie!

The base color is Julep Ginger. It's a holographic polish seen on this blog before, but considering it is being covered by Venique Wing Tip White, you can't see the effect much. But that is certainly okay! There is also some Zoya Tomoko happening, but sadly, the image sort of blends that with the Ginger. Still, it's there. Like in the tip of the ring finger, near the snowflake, it's there. =) By the way, tje snowflakes are Zoya Nina. I used two stamping plates for this: BM 205 and BM 319. Finding the right plate for the white stuff was terribly difficult. Time to get more plates, right?!

Cuuute little bow! Because presents need bows! I got this bow from Lady Queen, right here. I've never used such big gemmys before! I hope it lasts a while and I don't lose it. I have a little Christmas dinner thing, so I hope it lasts through that. As everyone knows, gems in general aren't meant to last forever. Brush through your hair too much and they'll likely come off. But it's so pretty for now! The bow came without any flaws, and all of the pearls/gems are intact and where they need to be. I kind of want more, although I have no idea what to do with them! Perhaps also I should go for some smallers, yeah?

Use my coupon code to get neat Lady Queen nail art accessories! Fifteen percent off WOO!

As always, thanks for reading. Have the Merriest of Christmas-es and the Happiest of Holidays!!
♥Jo

Lady Queen Review. Pearl Bow Gem sent for honest review. Please see my disclosure policy here.

All polishes and plates were self-purchased.

I have a koi pond!!!

On my fingers. =3
I love this manicure! I think it's a super cute idea for a stamping plate and I'm going to be a bit vain and say I picked pretty stinking decent colors!!!

The stamping plate used in héhé 037, purchased right here through Lady Queen. This is the super cutest animal manicure I've ever done. I want to always have a koi pond! The plate was perfect. The 'water marble' design is super nice, and I want to use drastically different colors with it some day. I can't wait to use it again!
The polishes used were all Zoya: Jancyn, Neely, and Blu. Neely is the base color, with the ever so slightly different Blu over that. Jancyn made for pretty cute little fishies.

If you'd like this plate, or many other super neat nail art supplies from Lady Queen, please please use my discount code for %15 off. Sick deal, amirite?

www.ladyqueen.com

I have more plate designs to share with you, so hang tight!
♥Jo

Lady Queen Review. Stamp plate hehe037 sent for honest review. Please see my disclosure policy here.

All polishes were self-purchased.

Madam Glam Endless Night

Told you I had one more Madam Glam to show you. =) 

Madam Glam Endless Night is a SUPER dark blue. An endless night, one might say. It looks black. Guys, it's not black! The bottle has a tiiiiny bit of blue going on in it (especially in the middle ridge if you use a color picker tool on your photo edit program haha) The formula is very nice, and one coat is just a but bluer. Still super dark though. This here is 2 coats.

I know you don't believe me, you think it's black. WELL. Here's another:

 Zoya Blu is on the bottom of this one, with Endless Night gradient on top, and why not, an Endless Night stamp using BM 203 . Told you it wasn't black! =D This bottle still shows pretty stinking black, but slightly more blue, yes? Angle of the light hitting the bottle. I couldn't get them quite the same. Aw well.
This color seems very versatile. I love that the gradient and stamps are a nice royal blue.

Overall, I would love to have more of these polishes.The formula is easy to apply, it stamps super awesome, and is so pretty.

Thanks for reading, and, if you were interested in purchasing any lovely Madam Glam products, don't forget to use my code, jo30, to save 30% off! Click here for the website!

♥Jo

Madam Glam Endless Night sent for honest review. Please see my disclosure policy here.

Zoya Blu and BM 203 were self purchased.

Gold n' Gradient

Hi all!
Wooo, I've been busy. School takes a lot of time!
Today I have a couple of fun things to show you from Born Pretty Store!
I've actually got even more fun stuff coming your way from BPS. All in good time.

We'll start with these cute awesome gold heartbeat stickers. OMG so cute! The chevrons make me so happy. =D

The sticker applied perfectly. I was able to remove and reposition it fairly easily, as long as the nail was perfectly dry an I hadn't pressed the sticker down tooo mcuh yet. The middle finger does have some fairly visible lines of the sticker. Not in the image, though! And, you know, not to anyone but me. So I think it's perfectly fine. I love these stickers and should probable get more because I WILL run out!

 Love!

So as you can see with this mani, I've got a nice gradient going on. This gradient is Zoya Neely and Venique Wing Tip White (which is like... GONE! Oh no!).
Generally gradients are suuuper messy, but yet another fancy product from BPS fixes that RIGHT up! I've seen plenty of people use similar products, so I was very excited to get this for myself. The white peel off liquid tape / peel off baseboat! If you were thinking of getting this, DO! It was so great to easily clean up leftovers from gradient. Water marbles, here I come(again!)!

 Left is before gradient (eww, smudge =P) Right is after. you can see the Neeley up on the tape.

I HIGHLY recommend putting lotion, or oil or something nice like that on your skin and rubbing it in before using this tape. It comes off so much easier that way. Just be sure it's off of your nail for polish! I also recommend a nice thick coat for easy removal.

And of course, if you want any of these BPS products, don't pay full price! Use my coupon code. =)

Thanks for reading, and HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!!

I'm sorry this isn't a festive look, but it's nice to have a break from all the festivities, right? =D
♥Jo

Born Pretty Store Review. The heartbeat stickers and white liquid tape were sent for honest review. Please see my disclosure policy here.

Zoya Neely and Venique Wing Tip White were self-purchased.

Great day for a wedding!

Hi friends! One of my very best friends of 10+ years got married today! HOW yay for her!!! =D
So, naturally, I had to have nails to match everything. =)

Her colors were purple and yellow. I almost bought a yellow dress and did yellow nails, but then I remembered purple is my fave color. Oh yeah.

So please enjoy these nails and this beautiful bride and her lovely bridesmaids. We've all known each other as long as I can remember. Such a happy day. :)

 

 Blurry. ☺

And now the nails. =D

The base is China Glaze Evening Seduction with a subtle gradient of OPI Skating on Thin Iceland and a less subtle Zoya Neeka. Purple. =)
My silly index nail so much smaller in width, Haha. I love it. =)

Happy wedding, Himi!!!! ♥♥♥ 

All for now! As always, thanks for reading!
♥Jo

Born Pretty... in Plaid!

Hello my friends! I have a lovely manicure to share with you today created with a Born Pretty stamping plate and stamping polish!

Here we go!!!

 The stamping polish used is number #18 from this collection. I do have to say the color is VERY pigmented and can look very awesome and full!

Here is the plate I used! I think I found my new favorite plate! So many lovely options. Here is the link if you want to own this plate for yourself. I can't say I would blame you!


A quick review about these two products. The plate seems really nice at first glance. It was bent a bit in the corner, as you can see, but that didn't hinder the designs at all. My only beef would be that my normal scraping method had to be somewhat altered. Usually I would go from the top of the design, down, but my scraper would drag the other designs and not give me a clean swipe. Aw well, that was no problem at all! =D
The polish is very pigmented as stated. I applied to to one nail fully, and it was pretty uneven, but nothing a good topcoat couldn't fix.

Using them both together, at first, was awesome! Pink and ring finger applied perfectly, first try. I was in love! And then I got to the middle finger. The stamp wouldn't transfer. It dried on the stamp pad that quickly? So I tried again. And again. And again. For some reason the polish was just drying SO fast. I didn't understand what was going on. I used the Zoya I was using in the plate, and it seemed fine? Was it the polish that was suddenly drying too fast? I have no idea. Perhaps the scraping shallowed the design? I doubt that very much.
In the end, I just tried to blame myself and not the product. The last two nails took about an hour to finish, becaue I had to reapply the base and let it dry two more times. =(

 Using Zoya Odette as a base color. I don't know what I had in mind with these colors, but in the pics they look great!! IRL it's a bit busy and kinda messes with your eyes. =)

If you do decide you like this plate and stamping polish, you can get it from the Born Pretty Store. But that's FAR from all they have!! Use the coupon code below!!
Stay tuned for another review for another awesome product I got from them. I just have to learn to use it... You'll see. ;)

♥Jo

The plate and teal stamping polish was sent for honest review. Please see my disclosure policy here.

Zoya Odette was self-purchased.

Taping Time!!

Hello my friends!
Remember how I said school was starting? Yup! It indeed did and took all of my free time with it! Thank goodness for 3 day weekends! =D
I haven't taped for a while I wanted to do something super elaborate, but figured I should start out small. Haha. Also, omg, I got outside pics! They are the nicest! Outside has such pretty lighting. =)

This is some very simple, yet imho very awesome art. It stands out but didn't actually take too long or too much planning to do. People love it and comment about it a lot. Yay! Enjoy!

 The whole time I was editing these I just kept thinking "Omg, outside, you make things so pretty".  Daytime nail art is rare for me, but so much better!!!

This is 4 lovely shades of Zoya: Blu, Kristen, Yummy, and Breezi. Blu is the light shade on all of the nails. It's such a pretty shade, and one of about one blues in this shade(that I've found!). Kristen has a much more blue/grey tone. I didn't have a better in between shade so I went with it. I like it. Yummy is a nice true sky blue, and Breezie is my favorite shade of blue!

Blue is actually my least favorite color, wouldn't you know?

Don't forget to check out my brand new Instagram! With this here redone blog, I've added neat little social buttons over there ~---> so do all of those. =) Especially follow this blog in general with the google blogger!!!

Thank so much for reading!
♥Jo

Silhouette of Roses

Hi friends! I have a new blog layout! YAY!! I'm sure you may have noticed that though, of course. Please tell me what you think. Need anything? Change anything? Etc.

In the meantime, here is some super duper simple stamping I did. School starts tomorrow, and I feel like my nail times will be halved. So that's sad. I needed to have SOMETHING on for the first day though, right? =) I'm excited though, this is my first real semester of my degree. Oh boy, 4+ long years to go. At least the campus book store sells Junior Mints.

Oooh, and look how long my nails are getting! I'm so happy, it's been a minute since they've been this long! Here's hoping I can keep it going! =D

This is Zoya Faye, and Venique Doninating Thigh Highs for the stamp. This polish is SO nice for a stamping. I love it a ton. The plate I used was BM 323. I truly want more plates, guys. Where did you get your fave plates!?

At first I thought this was super not so good. It looked too busy and messy. But as they do, they've been growing on me the lat few hours. Also I've already gotten compliments so, I'll that them!

Short post. Gotta get school stuff in order, and help the brother make waffles. Yups. Waffles.
Til next time!
♥Jo

Dear Summer, Please Don't End

Hi all!
I got some winter blues the other day. Like, I was super sad because it's going to be cold soon. Ok, I mean in a few months, but still. I decided I needed at least one really good summer manicure to make me feel better, so her is a pretty!

All photos inside, with flash.

This is Zoya Jolene (bottle), and Zoya Jancyn. The gradient kinda workedish. Not too bad though. I'm REALLY pleased with the stamp. Its BM 318 with Julep Eileen. It's a very nice stamping polish I've decided. I'm pleased I didn't forget how to stamp so much.=) However, If I redid this it would be with a stamp over the gradient, and not just a solid color. Middle finger is Zoya Miranda Pixie Dust. I so love texture polish. I need like a thousand more!!!!

Sorry short post. But that's cool, right? =)
♥Jo