MANICURE MONDAY- Zebra Print French Manicure Tutorial

I admit that I have fallen for the animal print trend (I even bought a pink leopard print bathing suit :] hehe). One day when I was at Walgreens in the beauty section I saw these great zebra print fake french manicure nails. I used to have the picture, but it was on my black berry :[ Anywaysss whether it was out of just cheapness or craftyness (I prefer to think it's the latter), I decided that I could just re-create the nail art myself at home :) This is the second time I've done it (honestly I think the first time turned out a little better, but this time I took pictures ;)

ZEBRA PRINT FRENCH MANI

So here we go:
The first step is (obviously) to clean off ay existing nail polish on your nails, trim and/or file them. My nails are naturally pretty long, so even when I cut them you can barely tell.

These are the MATERIALS for the next steps. Any type of sparkly top coat nail polish. I used a really old New York Color gold-ish nail polish it. I like it because of the multi-colored sparkles :) Next you need a black nail polish. I used Wet n Wild Fast Dry in Ebony Hates Chirs (I'm obsessed with the name!!). You're also going to need a white nail polish and tooth picks, or some other sort of small pointy object [when I did it on my friend's nails we used a safety pin] :) Also it's optional, but I used Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear clear top coat, which protects the design and adds shine.

The second step is to paint the white french tip on your nail.

I just used the brush of the white nail polish to make the line of white on my nails. As you can tell the lines are not perfect (i dont have steady hands at all!) but I would suggest to paint fast rather than slow. I've also heard of using rubber bands or those ring/hole reinforcers that you use on three hole punched paper to get a straight and smooth edge, but the ringie-dingies would not stay on my nail!

The third step is to use the tooth pick and the black nail polish to paint on the "zebra stripes"

Basically to make the zebra stripes you dip the tooth pick (or sharp object) into the nail polish and create vertical "squiggly-ish" lines or triangle-like shapes. Be creative and dont worry about a shaky hand because the point is not to make straight lines.I found it helpful to look at examples of zebra print nails and just try and mimick the lines I saw.

The fourth step is the fun part, but completely optional. You may be satisfied with your zebra print looking nails the way they are, but if you want to add a little "pizazz" to the nails you can use the sparkly top coat to paint over the french tip part.

^Sorry the sparkles are a little hard to see^

The fifth step is of course optional and that is just to paint the whole nail with a clear top coat which adds shine :)

And now to model them off :)

OOTD - cheetah and floral

Last week was beautiful! On Thursday I knew I would be going to our school's tennis match and track meet, so I decided to wear a dress [i was trying to get my tan on ;) lol]. I wore my "go to" navy blue dress that you might recognize from my first OOTD. I was going to style it similarly to how I did back in December, but instead, on a whim, I tried a cheetah print belt. I really liked the combo and got a lot of compliments on it. So here's just a couple of   pictures of it. Sorry for the bad quality! :(

 

 

The ruffles around the collar make the dress very flattering. I also like that in contrast to the small busy print of the dress, my legs look really smooth and even toned.

I paired the look with a plain gray cardigan and converse, which i often do when styling dresses for school :)

New Hair Braiding Style

I also wanted to do a post on my new favorite braid hairstyle. Since I have very thick and curly hair I'm always looking for new and pretty ways to style my hair since I can't just brush it and walk out the door like straight haired girl can. I found this really sweet hairstyle when I was stumbling (how else do I find anything remotely cool? lol) and I wanted to share it because it works for both curly and straight haired girls (if your hair is long enough to braid).

I'm pretty sure the beauty blog I found on it is Lauren Conrad's hairstylist's, which is pretty awesome.

                  http://thebeautydepartment.com/2012/02/you-asked-for-it/

This is the photo of the braid from the site. Basically it is a normal side braid except when you separate your hair into the three sections for the braid, you braid one of the three sections. In all of the times I've tried it I've used the middle section as the one to braid. Then once you've braided one of the sections you pull it apart horizontally a little bit to loosen it up. Also you should keep a couple of thin pieces of hair out around both sides of your face, and then bobby pin up the longer pieces on the side with the braid.

Okay so now for my pictures:

Keep in mind these pictures are from the end of the day, and the braid was a little less messy when I went to school. This was on a day that I straightened my hair first, so I had to curl the wavy pieces on the side. To style my hair, I made a slight side part curled some pieces of hair close to my face (then raked my fingers through them). Then after I made the braid I used bobby pins to touch up the look.

             

                                                 

For the curly hair, the strategy was basically the same except I didn't have to curl the pieces that framed my face (yay!) I tried to show a close up of the braid above, but you can't really tell what's going on it just looks like a complicated braid.

I get bored of the same hairstyles all the time, so I really like this twist on the traditional side braid. Plus the pieces of hair hanging out give it a girly feel rather than regular side braids that can kind of seem athletic.

Well I'll be sporting this new hairstyle for awhile and I encourage you to do the same because it's not too complicated, nor time consuming. <3 

OOTD - February

Even in California we're feeling the cool temps of February. I based this outfit off of a look I found on lookbook ( which of course I saved on my blackberry :(... so i cant share it with you). Basically the idea is jeans, a chunky sweater, a thin belt and a scarf and booties :) It's warm and cute!

  

        

Pac Sun jeans

JC Penney sweater

Target leather belt

Back to Blogging

Ahhhh! omg I haven't made a blog post in forever. This is the second week I've had my new computer (I was without one for over seven weeks....it felt like eternity) and I got a new phone because i dropped my blackberry in a bucket of water........only me. Anyways I had a lot of cool things on my phone that I wanted to blog about including T-shirt reconstruction, lion makeup, and how to do a zebra print french manicure (it was awesome! haha) but sadly now all my pictures and such are gone, so I will be working on re-making those blog posts. Well anyways I'm back to blogging :)