Toetally Tuesday - Marble + Pink

Can you believe it? More snow this morning! Not as much as the last two weeks but this makes snowfall #3 in March. Sheesh!And I was even going to go for a morning run this morning. I saw the snow and yeahhhh no. Maybe tomorrow. I painted these nails yesterday while I was watching Love it or List it on HGTV. The bathroom in one of the houses had b-e-a-u-t-i-f-u-l marble counters in the master bathroom and I since I love the look of marble I decided to make it a nail design. Clearly I'm in a marble mood these days because I just did another marble manicure on the blog.

I used Sally Hansen Get Mod, Zoya Nikki, and mixtures of white and black to make the marble grains. I absolutely love the look of marble. It's timeless, gorgeous, and simply stunning.

30 Flirty & Thriving: Happy Birthday Sis!

Despite my nails currently growing out what might have been the worst gel manicure I have ever gotten, I have a very special nail post to share with you! Earlier this October we celebrated my sister's 30th birthday! Her and I spent Saturday in NYC stopping by a few *must try* food stops in the East Village and Greenwich Village. They're not the same, right?? Before we get into what we did, let's check out the nails!

These are in fact inspired by part of the design I did for her 23rd birthday in 2010. She celebrated with her husband by going to the Disney Food & Wine Festival in Florida and I had major food FOMO thought it was perfect to work in the design again.

On our NYC trip we had lunch at Raclette NYC, a restaurant that has been on our To Do lists ever since we both tried raclette while we were in Paris. If you don't know what raclette is (I didn't until Steph told me about it) it's similar to fondue but better! Can you get any better than melty gooey cheesey goodness? No. I didn't think so.

After eating ALL THE CHEESE we decided to head for some dessert at Dō, a cookie dough shop serving all kinds of cookie dough to the masses. It's sort of like Coldstone....but with cookie dough. And it was delicious!

We spent the rest of the time walking around the city, shopping, and people watching. Three of our favorite things! It's always fun when we get to #sistersinthecity! It's so weird she's in a different decade than me now! I suppose my brother and I will have to hold down the 20s now!

NOTD: Pink Corset Nails

My nails of today are reminiscent of a previous design shared on this blog wayyyy back in August of 2010, if you can believe it. When I posted the design originally I used shades of blue so for this time I decided on shades of pink. Plus it kind of matched the "Bride to Be" button my sister gave me on my bachelorette so that had to be in the nail photo too.

 

For this look I used Sally Hansen Fuscia Power, Color Club Art Club in white and black, and Zoya Nikki. The button was courtesy of my sister.

31 Week Nail Art Challenge courtesy of Nail Art Novice

I found this challenge over on Nail Art Novice while perusing my nail blogs back in March. I knew I wanted to give it a try so I saved it away on my computer. Because I'm severely lacking in creativity and motivation at the moment I figured this would be a semi-easy way to make sure I update my blog at least once a week, regardless of how busy I get. You guys all know how lax I get with my blog sometimes (yes I only posted twice in both June AND July -- I was busy??). 

So, to start this thing off, we have Week 1: Red Nails. I wanted to do something more festive than just look-at-my-nails-that-are-red so I decided to opt for an adorable design done by my blogger pal Ghila! She posted these on "Kisses Day" in Italy and ever since then I thought they were so cute and wanted to recreate them.

Here are my nails for Week 1 of the 31 Week Nail Art Challenge: Red

Review: Born Pretty Store Three Piece Brush Set

Today's post is the second review in my Born Pretty Store series. For today it's not as exciting as the adorable rhinestones I reviewed yesterday but it's still a great product that I think everyone who enjoys painting nails should have. Personally, I'm surprised it took me this long to find a set of nail art brushes but I'm glad I gave these a try. These are the the Born Pretty Store's White Handled Brush Set. It's a set of three brushes with varying tip length. The longest brush is 145 mm, the second is 10 mm, and the third is 5 mm. You can obviously reuse these (you just have to clean them carefully after each use to keep them nice!). The store retails them at $3.19 and the ID number for these is #12307. I tested all three of them and the brush gives really nice lines. I have to practice with using the actual brushes to make designs that look nice but the design I created with this is:

 If you want to see my first Born Pretty Store product review you can check it here. If you don't know of the Born Pretty Store, it sells all kinds of stuff including nail art and other goodies. If you guys are in the shopping mood and see anything you like on the store's website, please use my coupon code: BWB10. If the code gets used ten times the Born Pretty Store will host a giveaway! 

Easter 2014 - Peachy Keen Jelly Bean

Alright ladies, here we go with a design for Easter 2014 that makes me proud! I hope everyone had a Happy Easter spent with the ones they love. One of my favorite parts of the fun Easter celebrations are the Reese's Peanut Butter Eggs (aka "Reester Eggs!") that I get in my Easter basket (yes I still get an Easter basket...). Thanks Mom! Anyway, here for the Easter design I decided to do Easter eggs and pastels.

EDIT! And because I never include my right hand in a design....holding my camera in my left hand is awkward!

For this post I used: China Glaze Peachy Keen, Icing Mint 2 Be, Zoya Julie, Zoya Nikki, Ink Nail Art in Hot Pink, and Kiss Brush-On Nail Art Paint in Black, White and Silver. Peachy Keen reminds me of the saying "peachy keen jelly bean!" Also, here is a tiny sneak peak of something exciting (and blog-related) hidden among the chocolate and Easter eggs in my Easter basket.... Expect more details in a post coming soon!

Thanks for looking and Happy Easter!

100 Cherries on my nails, 100 cherries indeed!

Thank god it’s Friday! Since I have no classes on Fridays I spent a good chunk of the last couple hours swatching like a fiend. I can’t wait to post everything for you guys! Oh and by the way, this post is the 100^th post here on NikkisNailFiles! J 1-0-0! Wow, that sounds like so many posts. I’d like to take a quick second just to thank everybody who has started reading, following, or just happened to land on my blog by chance. You guys are the reason I haven’t quit so here’s to many more posts here on NikkisNailFiles. Anyway, I meant to swatch more today but I had an idea during one of the swatches and when I was finished trying the design I thought they looked so good I had to post them up right now. I stopped swatching and left my nails like this:

Don’t they look awesome? Don’t tell me they look bad it’ll crush me. I was so excited when the gradient didn’t come out looking like poop and then I decided to stamp a little something to complete the design. The three polishes I used for the gradient are (1) Zoya Nikki, (2) Zoya Dawn, and (3) Zoya Quinn. Yep, three of my 12 new polishes! Then for the stamp I used China Glaze Let’s Groove and BM plate 21. Topped everything off with Seche Vite.