Do The Watermelon Crawl

Bella Sugar posted a little note about a watermelon pedicure being offered at a salon in NYC. I thought it was super cute, and since I like to have fun with my toesies, I decided to copy it and present it to you guys. I'm certainly not going to New York any time soon, so I'll have to make do with D.I.Y. watermelon for now.

You will need:

• Hot pink or watermelon red nail polish, lime green, pale pink (like one you would use to do a french manicure), clear polish, and black.



• A fine paintbrush, nail art brush, or a couple toothpicks.



• French manicure adhesive guide strips.



• Polish remover, fruit scented lotion (watermelon if you can get it), pedicure goodies.
  
  

Step 1- Get your feet into fighting condition. Buff up your heels, trim your nails so that they are nice and straight, and give them a quick filing to soften the edges. Lotion up, and then remove all old polish. Even if you have bare toes to start with, give them a quick swipe to remove oils from your nails. Let dry.

Step 2 - Place the manicure strip along the edge of your nails so that no edges peek out. Ensure that there are no bubbles or warps and press it down firmly.

Step 3 - Paint the entire toe with the pink or red polish. Don't worry if you get some on the manicure strip, it will come off later.

Step 4 - Peel off the manicure strip. See how it left a nice clean line of unpainted toe? This will be the rind. With the fine paint brush, toothpick etc., paint this strip green. Rinse your brush thoroughly with polish remover.

Step 5 - With a steady hand, use the pale pink to draw a super fine line along the edge of the green and pink. Rinse the brush with polish remover.

Step 6 - Using the black, add 3 teardrop shaped dots on a diagonal line. These are the seeds. Rinse the brush.

Step 7 - Give everything a good coat of clear polish, slip on some flip flops, and go enjoy the sun with your new summery toes.

Listening to: Rainbow Stylin' -Royksopp

Put A Little Spring In Your Step

On Friday and Saturday, it was gorgeous here. I felt so uplifted; I went and poked around looking for pretty sun dresses at the mall and skipped through the slushy puddles. The sun was out, the snow was melting, and one of the spring irises was blooming in my garden! I couldn't help but go buy a pretty spring nail colour to match my mood.

I picked up N.Y.C.'s In A New York Color Minute Quick Dry polish in Uptown (242B) for a very affordable $1.99. This is a perfect petal pink, just like the lipstick Barbie wore in the 90's. Uptown applies really smoothly without streaking or getting that weird layered look pink polishes sometimes get, so you can choose to apply a more understated single coat or a bold 12-inch-doll double coat. It really is so springy and cute, it instantly lifted my mood.

Which is good, since Sunday it snowed like a mutha and turned back into winter. Great.

Listening to:The Beginning Is The End Is The Beginning - Smashing Pumpkins

How to: Make Miniature Art On Your Toe Nails.

I love crazy stuff on my toe nails. My fingers will be neutral colours, or even bare, but my toes are always done. Sometimes I opt for a simple, bright colour and leave it at that. But most of the time, I do some pretty insane things whilst pedicuring. One time I did tiger stripes with blingy jewel adhesives. That was ghetto-licious! I always get compliments, or at the very least comments, on my toe-art. People wonder if it's hard to do - and I answer no. Because it really isn't. So, I'm going to teach you how to do my personal favorite - The Tropical Sunset! It's winter, everyone needs a mini-vacay to perk up. Turn on your favorite program (I watch America's Best Dance Crew) and get painting.

You need: normal pedicure supplies (foot lotion, pumice stone, nail clippers, nail file, polish remover), a clear coat, yellow, bright orange, hot pink, grape purple, black with a thin, fine brush (or a toothpick), and optional sparkly polish.

1.) Do your pedicure. Clip your nails to a length you like, lotion your heels, run some nail polish remover over your nails to make sure all traces of old polish get removed and oils from the lotion are gone.Then, buff the tops of your toe nails with the nail file. Give them a quick clear coat to keep your nails from getting yellowed from the colours you'll be putting on.

2.) Make a yellow half circle in the middle of your big toe, pushed right up against the cuticle.

3.)Add a wash of bright orange around the yellow.

4.)Add a coat of hot pink above the orange.

5.)Add the purple over the pink in the last 1/4 of your nail.

6.) Now take the black, and and load enough polish to make a fluid line, but not so much that you'll get a blob of colour when you place the brush (or toothpick used as a brush) onto your nail. Practice the movements below on a piece of paper if you are unsure of your artistic ability.

Draw a straight line from left to right up against your cuticle (yes, over the colours!). This will be the shore. Then make a curving vertical line from the 'shore' to about halfway through the pink. This will be the tree trunk. The 'trunk' should be situated on the furthest left side on your left toe nail, and on the right toe nail, it should be on the furthest right side.

Then make 5 short, quick strokes around the 'trunk'. This will turn into a palm tree.

7.) Add 2 "m"'s for birds in the opposite corner from the palm tree. If you want, add gold or irridecent sparkles around the yellow to make the sun shimmer, and purple sparkles in the purple section of the sky.This blurs the lines in between the sections of sky. Finish everything off with a good clear coat. Now be careful with your toes for about 2 hours until the polish is fully dry. Paint the other 4 toes on each foot pink, purple, or orange (pick just one, the big toe is busy enough as it is!) and add a coat of sparkles and a top coat.

Enjoy your own personal sunset whenever you look down!

Listening to: We Walk - The Ting Tings