The Good, Bad and Ugly.....

Since I have been doing my nails now for a few months... I figured I would do a post to catch you all up. I am going to post everything I try and everything I do with these nails. Why? Because I am just starting and I know there are lots of you out there that are also just starting as well. So I want you to know there are other people out there who don't always get it right. But you will see... I do get better!

I make NO claim at all to being a pro... I am a newbie to this and my nails will reflect that.

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Here we go!
I am going to start from the beginning and take it to my most recent at the end. The Good, Bad and Ugly ratings are based on my opinion.

You can click on the images if you want to see them larger. 

12/21/2012 - (Good) : This is the manicure that started it all. This was done by my friend Keely. She used a shimmery base color and then used Nail Stamps to make the holly leaves and then a dotting tool to get the berries and the alternate dots at the top. My nails were very short then, but she made then look good. Boy my hands were really dry! :)
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2/11/2013 - (Ugly) This is the first manicure I did on my own. I had some nail polish on hand that was very old. But I decided to play with it anyway. The base color is a hot pink peal. I love it. I wanted to add something to it so I added some dots using the pointy end of an orange stick. This didn't stay on my nails long because I was too inspired to stick to just this one design. My nails had grown a little since the first picture.
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3/26/2013 - (Bad) : I had purchased a Nail Stamping kit by Salon Express. It was just 5.00 on Nomerack. When Keely did my nails that's what she used. It looked easy and some great designs. UGH! I could not get it to look good at all. I tried and tried. I was done with Stamping.

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3/30/2013 - (Good and Bad) : This started out as something else. I got a bright idea to use some painters tape and cut a perfect circle. I am OCD so I wanted it to look perfect. The painters tape idea was a fail!  Instead I used different color polishes that I have since purchased and just painted some circles. I ended up calling these Easter Egg Nails. I call this one Good and Bad because I really loved the colors against the white base and so I was happy. But the truth is, it is pretty sloppy all in all. But I was pretty proud of it I must say. :)
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4/2/2013 - (Good Turned Bad) : I was playing around and was trying to decide what I wanted to do. I have really grown to love the white base on my nails. It makes your nails look longer and it really makes them stand out. But plain white wasn't working for me. I had bought a thin liner black polish and so I pulled it out and just started to paint stripes.

I can honestly say this is a fantastic way for a beginner to start. You really can't mess it up that much. Zebra stripes aren't perfect so small mistakes can go unnoticed. :)  Of course me being me, I did mess it up by trying to add some silver sparkle dots in there. :/  But honestly in the end, I think this one was really good. 
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4/4/2013 - (Good) : This is my Princess manicure. This was the first time I really loved something I have done. By this point I have purchased a few more nail polishes to have more options. The base was just a clear sparkly glitter and then I used the silver glitter liner to do the french tip. It was really pretty especially in the sunlight. It just felt so princess like.
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4/9/2013 - (Bad) : This is the same manicure as above... but since it looked like a Princess manicure, I wanted to add a Princess. Belle is my favorite from Beauty and the Beast. I thought I was being creative by printing the image and top coating it onto the nail. It worked, but my nail felt stiff and hard. So off it came. This would lead to my Waterslide obsession.

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4/11/2013 - (Good) : I really wanted to figure out stamping. My previous attempt was terrible. My friend Keely gave me some white nail polish that she said would work really well. After 2 hours of playing around with it, I was able to get ONE good stamp done. She ended up saying it looked like an egg. LOL. It came out good.. but only this one. I won't give up on stamping, I will try again. I just don't know what I am doing wrong.
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4/12/2013 - (Good) : This was the first time I ever felt like I was onto something. I loved this manicure so much. I was very proud of it. It was just a design that came to my head. Since I love dots, that was a given. The only downside of this manicure is that the dots were much bigger on my right hand. My friend Katie gave me a great tip to do the right hand first. I have since been doing that.

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4/19/2013 - (Ugly) : This was my first attempt at using acrylic paints to do nail art. I have a collection of Donna Dewberry one stroke videos. This was my attempt. While I do think it came out ugly, I was happy with using acrylics and the ease of using them. I just need to improve my painting. I am no artist, especially on such a small canvas.
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4/21/2013 - (Good but Ugly) : I hated this one with a passion. It stayed on my nails for less than 2 hours. I couldn't figure out why I hated it so much but I did. Truth is... it came out good. I think I hated it because it made my nails look shorter and I think they were too busy for short nails. I had recently trimmed my nails down a little. So I don't know. It's pretty well done, but... blah!
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4/22/2013 - (Just Ok) : I found this great tutorial for nails with stitched hearts on them. I loved everything about them. This was my attempt. Nothing like theirs. I used the dotting tool to make the hearts. I used a gunmetal shimmer nail polish that I bought and hadn't used yet. I am not big into darker colors. It was ok... Nothing fantastic.
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4/25/2013 - (Good) : A design I really wanted to try was Zipper Nails. I thought it would look so cool. So I went on a search for a tutorial and someone talked about "Waterslides"... I found someone selling zipper waterslides and bought some. I also was dying to try a "Water Color" nail tutorial I had found. So this is a combination of those two ideas. I liked the multi color look of the nails. I enjoyed this one.
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4/27/2013 - (Good) : So I began an obsession with Waterslide decals. But I wanted to be able to make my own. Found a tutorial, bought some paper and off I went. I am pretty good with graphics and editing so it was easy for me to resize images etc. I loved the colors and everything about it. However, in hindsight I would have done it differently, but for my first attempt at making my own, it was great!
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5/2/2013 - (Good) : Just used a dotting tool and made some white daisies on my green nails with an orange center. Simple, but I thought it was really pretty. I just placed the daisies in random spots on all the nails. I have since learned to do my right hand first so the left hand will match instead of vice versa. I really liked this one.
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5/5/2013 - (Meh) : Honestly this one wasn't bad. I just wasn't feeling it. So not good, not bad, not ugly... just... Meh!  



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5/7/2013 - (Good) : One of my favorites. I bought this new pink nail polish that I loved. It's called 24/7. I think I got a bad bottle though because it went on like crap. Took me a few coats to get it to look solid. I loved how this one looked and as simple as it is, I got a lot of compliments on it. I will definitely do this one again.

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5/8/2013 - (Ugly) : This one had potential. I used a Bee waterslide I made and did a black french manicure over my new yellow. The problem is, the black wasn't quite dry when I did my top coat, so it smeared black all over the yellow. That's the only reason why I think it's ugly. So I will do this again some time.

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5/11/2013 - (Good) : I had stepped into the world of rhinestones. I was trying to decide what I wanted to do. I also wanted to play around with some red. I like Red and Black together and so this is what I came up with. I got a lot of compliments on this one as well. I will do this one again with other colors and try and do it neater, but it was really pretty.
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5/14/2013 - (Ugly) : I also jumped into the world of striping tape. I really wanted to try Bee nails again. You know.. spring and all. They came out ok.. but let's be honest... it looks more like "Caution" nails than bee nails. LOL

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5/14/2013 - (Good) : Ok, I did this the same day as the above manicure. I really liked it, but it was a lot of layers and a lot of work. Oh yeah.. I also bought some pearls. As you can tell the obsession has grown! LOL. I only did the thumb nail, but I did like it. Eventually I will do this on all my nails. Well.. most likely a variation of it. Maybe not as much detail. Sometimes less is indeed more.

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5/16/2013 - (Bad) : Waterslide gone bad. This was a pretty black lace flower that I made with a Navy Blue ribbon. Well.. as you can see, it didn't go as planned. So I painted the black on the flower and painted white over the navy blue. It was all messed up. Too bad too because it was a good concept.

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5/17/2013 - (Good) : I decided to try something different. I used Acrylic paint to do a water color manicure. Doing it with Acrylic paint is sooooo much easier than the one I posted above. It works perfect and your brushes don't get messed up at all.  Then I decided to try and make them look like tye dye. This picture doesn't show it as well, but I loved it! I will do this one again and change it up a little. Maybe even write a tutorial for it.
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5/20/2013 - (Good) : I was visiting my Sister and Keely came over. She is my go to person for tips and advice. I told her about my struggles with stamping and so I got a live demonstration. I used her red polish called "Red Carpet" by Sally Hansen. I was in LOVE! I have since bought 2 bottles. :)  She made me do my own stamp and VOILA! It came out perfect. I really think it is her polish that does it tho... cuz when I went home to try.. no such luck again. Plus she has much better plates than me. 

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5/20/2013 - (Good) : Last but not least. I often do my thumb nail first to try a design. Keely gave me a package of micro glitter from Avon. I had to play with it. So I came up with this idea. The two black dots are actually pearlized black pearls. They are bulky.. I think they are 3mm. Not sure. So I will do my nails with this design at some point, but no pearls. Now we are all caught up!

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Thanks for reading!
Jaided