How We Take Care of Our Nails

Arden here!  Today, I'm going to walk you through the steps we follow to take care of our nails, and Lisl will break in whenever necessary to tell you guys what she does differently than me.  Obviously we paint our nails a lot, so it's pretty important to try to nourish our nails as much as possible.

***Full disclosure: neither of us are in any way trained in nail care, so don't take this as the absolute best thing you can do to care for you nails.  It's just what we do!***

First, I start my trimming and filing my nails.  I usually only do this once a week or so.

Nails freshly trimmed and filed.  I'd also just taken off some nail polish, which is why the skin around my nails looks so dry.

I know there are a lot of fancy nail files out there, but I just use a regular old orange one you can buy in packs from the drugstore.

As Seen on Pinterest: Criss-Cross Taping Pattern

Arden here:  I've got a quick "As Seen on Pinterest" for you today!  I saw this design on Pinterest last week, and knew I just had to try it!

from http://pinnailart.com/note/5602#.UWDQckQsIeN, but I don't think that's it's original home.  If you find it, let me know!  I want to give proper attribution.

I chose to use Butter London Fiddlesticks and Zoya Storm.  I started with a base coat, then two coats of Fiddlesticks (except for my accent nail, which was Storm).

NOTD: Sunshine Nails

Arden: I've got a quick nail of the day post for you today.  It was a beautiful spring day, and I just wanted something happy and sunshine-y on my nails!

I started by painting my nails light yellow (L'Oreal Creme Puffs).  Then I sponged on a 3 color gradient using Sally Hansen Insta-Dry Lightening, Cover Girl Outlast Stay Brilliant Coral Silk, and Sinful Colors Big Daddy.

But I worried that they looked a little too much like candy corn, so I decided to turn them into sun rays.  Had I been thinking of this in the beginning I would've used striping tape, but it was too late for that!  So I borrowed Lisl's white Color Club striper polish.

 And then I made it sparkly by adding a coat of the gold flakie polish from the Revlon Moon Candy set "Universe" and followed it up with an additional coat of Revlon Snow Flurries.

I wasn't crazy about the finished product (all of the glitter coats on top made it kind of bumpy, even after I added a clear top coat), so I think I will definitely try a sun-themed manicure again in the future!

Gradient Nail Tutorial

Have you just been sitting at home, wondering over and over to yourself, "How do you paint gradient nails?"  Great!  Today's post is just for you.

Start off with a base coat (I use Essie's All in One Base Coat) then pick out the two colors you want to use.  I chose Essie Butler Please and Essie Mint Candy Apple (currently one of my most favoritest colors).  Paint your nails the lighter of the two colors.  (You can do gradients with more than two colors, but we're starting small today.  Baby steps!)

I painted my ring finger white (OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls) because I wanted to show you all what a gradient looks like when you sponge it on over white, and not one of the colors used.

I Can't Afford That - Tokyo Street Style Nails

Hey y'all! Welcome to my new regular feature, "I Can't Afford That," where I take manicure inspiration from expensive fashion things that I do not have enough money to buy.  I may never wear these outfits, or pretty dresses (I will probably not even touch them or be close to them ever), but at least I can recreate elements of them on my nails. That's kind of the same, right? Right?

Anyway, today's manicure is inspired the above photo (taken at Tokyo Fashion Week by Hbnam for Style.com), which I found through one of my favorite fashion blogs, The Man Repeller.  Omg that hair, and I am a sucker for a good pencil skirt.  I guess since I don't know who makes the skirt, or the hair, it could potentially be not outlandishly expensive, but I don't think I could afford emotionally to dye my hair blue ombre (as awesome as it looks), so let's go with that in order to stick with our theme.

As Seen on Pinterest: Stained Glass Nails

Arden: For today's "As Seen on Pinterest," we're taking a step away from the nail art oeuvre and finding inspiration elsewhere on Pinterest!

I was talking with my mom last week about possible crafts she could make with her friends at a future crafting night, and I rediscovered this painting I'd pinned a while ago:

from http://mariateorien.blogspot.dk/2012/06/tape-painting.html

I looked at it and realized it'd be pretty easy to duplicate on my nails!  I started by painting them with 2 coats of Essie Good as Gold.  Then I used striping tape to tape off geometric shapes.

Springtime Gradient Nails

Arden here: Friends, I have a confession.  I ultimately ended up doing two Easter manicures.  After I painted on my cute Easter egg mani, I ended up destroying one of the nails in the shower!  It was slightly devastating.

For my second attempt, I went slightly less specifically Easter, so I could wear it for a few days after Easter.  (I don't know about you, but one of my least favorite things about a holiday-themed manicure is waking up the day after and being like, "UGH, my nails are so out of date now!")  I ended up deciding on a sparkly pastel gradient skittle manicure!  (That was a lot of adjectives all together!)