Pastel Gradient & Holo Birthday Nails

Happy Birthday to me today! I can't believe I'm 32 already. When I was a kid I totally thought I'd have this life stuff figured out by now. At least one thing is turning out well- I always have awesome nails. If I could only get one thing about adulthood right I'm glad it's this.

For my birthday I wanted to paint something that would make me happy. Screw you holidays, I'm taking a break to do these very spring-like pastel gradient nails, and because I'm lazy and didn't want to work too hard on my birthday here are also some holo nails.

 This holo polish is Milani 3D Holographic- HD. The pictures I took in my light box with my fancy camera don't really show off the holo to its full potential. The picture above was taken in my kitchen with the stove as the background using my iPhone camera. Who would have guessed it'd be the most holo-tastic picture? HD is a scattered holo with chunky (but very smooth) particles in a clear base. It looks gold and silver at the same time depending on the light and angle. This is probably the most unique holo polish I own. It took 4 coats to build it up, but it has an awesome depth and rainbows that you can see much better in person than I was able to capture on film.

For my gradient I used Sinful Colors- Candy Coated (lavender), Spoiled- Mar-zi-panna (blue), and Ulta- Mint Condition. I started with two coats of Mar-zi-panna and then brushed all three colors onto a makeup sponge and rolled it over the nail to create the gradient.

This dress from Victoria's Secret was my gradient inspiration. I saw it over the summer and it was way too expensive to risk ordering it and then looking exactly 0% like a VS model in it. But guess what?? If I ever change my mind I can still order it on eBay. Only $80-$200 depending on the listing! I think I'll stick to wearing it on my nails only.

Badass Birthday Nails

My birthday is this week and I'm taking a break from Christmas nails to do something that's more "me." I'm not sure exactly what side of me this is because I would normally paint something like a unicorn puking glitter, but this feels right too. I've found myself oddly drawn to the look of stiletto nails lately, but not so much that I can actually see myself filing down my own. I think I'll just fake it every now and then by painting on pointy tips.

When I envisioned these in my mind they were matte, but as usual I can never leave well enough alone so I also have a shiny version. Which ones do you like better?

I love that the black rhinestones look like tiny buttons on my fingers. Random fact #582- I absolutely love buttons and sometimes can't resist buying jars full at antique stores. I've got on two coats of Spoiled, Only in Creams. I used the brush from the bottle of LA Colors, Black to freehand the tips. I'm pretty impressed they came out as straight as they did. I added black rhinestones from Born Pretty and finished it off with NYC Matte Me Crazy and then later Sally Hansen Dries Instantly.

And of course there was birthday cake. I call this Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Cake. I combined a couple different recipes I liked to make one super mega extra delicious cake.