31DC2014 Day 11: Polka Dot Nails

Honestly, I was too lazy to do anything more complicated for this day of the challenge. But I really like how it turned out anyway!

Polishes used:

OPI My Vampire Is Buff (off white crème)

China Glaze Riveting (orange jelly with gold shimmer)

China Glaze Harvest Moon (metallic copper)

Since the formula can be a bit tricky, I started off with three coats of MVIB. I only used the green dotting tool from this set. With the larger side of the dotting tool, I started by placing a few big dots of Riveting on each of my nails, then did the same thing with HM. After that, I just filled in the blank spaces with smaller dots using the other side of the dotting tool. Like I did with the larger dots, I started off with Riveting, then switched to HM.

You can never go wrong with a good polka dot manicure. They're so simple but they really make a statement. I also really like the colors I picked for this; it reminds me of fall!

Thanks for reading!

31DC2014: Day 10: Gradient Nails

For this day of the challenge I decided to put a few of my (many) blue polishes to good use! 

Polishes used:
Essie Bikini So Teeny (cornflower blue with subtle shimmer)
Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Pacific Blue (cobalt blue crème - original formula)
China Glaze First Mate (navy blue crème)

Originally I was planning on doing a reciprocal gradient (which is this), but I accidentally left the striping tape on for too long and it bled onto my base gradient. By then it was already pretty late at night, so I opted for something simple and relatively quick. So I grabbed a few blues and did this diagonal gradient instead!

I started with three coats of BST (since it has a bit of a sheerer formula) and waited for that to dry for a little bit. Then I took a makeup sponge and painted the three colors I was using diagonally on top of it. I placed FM on the corner of the sponge, then PB diagonally next to it, then BST diagonally next to PB. After doing that, I positioned the sponge on my nail to where I wanted my gradient to go, and started sponging it onto my nail. I did this three times to each nail. Once I was done, I cleaned up around my cuticles with pointed cotton swabs and an angled brush, then finished with top coat. You could totally use Liquid Palisade or something like it to make cleanup easier, or if you're like me and allergic to the stuff (since it's made of latex), I've found that Elmer's Glue works just as well!

I really like how this turned out! I usually do regular horizontal gradients, so this was a nice change to a technique I love doing!

Thanks for reading!

NOTD 3/17/15: St. Patrick's Day Nails

I wasn't originally planning on doing much nail art for St. Patrick's day since I've been super busy lately. But all the kids at my job (I do before and after school child care) love seeing my nail art and wanted me do something special for today, so this is what I came up with for them!

Polishes used:
China Glaze Emerald Sparkle (glittery emerald) - thumb and pinky
OPI Goldeneye (metallic gold) - index, middle, and ring
Sally Hansen Insta-Dri OMGhost! (white crème) - middle and ring
Sinful Colors Garden Party (medium greem crème) - shamrocks

I painted my thumb and pinky with three coats of ES, my index finger with three coats of Goldeneye, and my middle and ring fingers with three coats of OMGhost!. Then I added a quick layer of top coat to every nail. I like adding top coat over my base when I'm doing nail art so that if I mess up, I can use remover and not have it mess up the base color since the remover would have to go through the top coat first.

To do the little shamrocks, I used the smaller side of the pink dotting tool from this set. I dipped the dotting tool into GP, made a dot, and dragged that dot down a little bit so it made a little tapered out blob. Then I made another dot right next to the first one and dragged that down so it met the end of the first "blob" at a point. I did that three times to make each shamrock, except for one on each nail where I did four! I pretty much followed Cutepolish's technique here. After that, I took an orange stick (because I was too lazy to get a nail art brush), dipped that into GP, and dragged that down below the shamrock leaves to make a stem. Using an orange stick is a good substitute for a brush, you just have to be a little more careful with it and use a stippling motion instead of a dragging one. I didn't make a pattern on the shamrock nails because I wanted them to look random. After painting all the shamrocks, I took Goldeneye and dotted it where there was too much white showing using the same size dotting tool. On the one four leaf clover on each nail, I added a piece of green hex glitter from this set that I got from BornPrettyStore. I finished everything off with one more layer of top coat.

I love how this turned out! I really like having my accent nails either just on my ring finger, or together like I did here. On my right hand I have the thumb and pinky the same, but my index and middle fingers have shamrocks on them and my ring finger is gold. I really like how these look pretty intricate, when in reality they're so simple and easy!

Thanks for reading!

31DC2014 Day 8: Metallic Nails

Wow, it honestly took me this long to realize that I completely forgot to post day 8... Oh well, here it is now!

Polishes used (all from China Glaze):

Gossip Over Gimlets (metallic silver with gold flecks)

Strike Up A Cosmo (metallic pink with gold flecks)
Rendezvous With You (metallic deep purple)

I started by painting all my nails with two coats of GOG; Whenever I'm doing a design like this, I always start with the lightest color I'm using as my base since it's a lot easier to paint a darker color over a lighter one. After letting that completely dry, I took a piece of striping tape and blocked out a third of my nail diagonally. I had to actually think about where I wanted to place the tape on my nail, though. Since I wanted the patterns on each nail to all be different, I needed to have the first section of some nails (the one starting from the cuticle) be the lightest color. So to do that, for the nails I planned to have GOG be the first blocked section, I placed the striping tape a bit lower down on my nail bed than the ones placed on the nails that began with other colors. That's because the striping tape covers up a bit of the color to begin with, so if you adjust the placement of it by a millimeter or two, all the color blocked sections will end up being the same size as all the others.

I did one block at a time, one nail at a time; Meaning that I would block off one section of each nail with striping tape, paint that section, and then move on to the next nail. I did that so each nail would have enough time to dry before I used more tape. From there, I basically painted each nail the same design, but in different color sequences using SUAC and RWY. It sounds so overly complicated trying to type this out; Trust me, it's SO simple.

I absolutely LOVE color blocked designs. I think it would look great with really bright, fun colors, or even just simple black and white! That's the best part about graphic-looking nail art, it looks awesome with pretty much any type of color!

Thanks for reading!

31DC2014 Day 9: Rainbow Nails

So this manicure ended up being one of my absolute favorites from the entire challenge! This isn't my original idea though, I saw it on Instagram a while ago but I don't remember from who. Regardless, I was thinking of what to do for this day of the challenge and I remembered this manicure; I thought it would be perfect!

Polishes used (all from Color Club):

Halo-Graphic (pink holo)

Cosmic Fate (orange holo)

Kismet (yellowy-greenish holo)

Angel Kiss (light green holo)

Over The Moon (blue holo)

Eternal Beauty (purple holo)

This is the base I used for this manicure that I posted a while ago. That post explains how I did everything, it's super simple. I liked it so much from the challenge that I decided to do it again but with a twist! For the challenge though, I just wanted the rainbow to really shine through so I left the gradient as is. My favorite part of this manicure is how it looks in direct sunlight:

I mean just look how cool that looks! Photographing holographic polishes doesn't do them justice at all. You really have to see them in person. Still looks really cool though!

Thanks for reading!

31DC2014 Day 7: Black and White Nails

So I'm sure it's pretty obvious, but I've been doing some major blog redecorating recently (hence the lack of posts). But I think I have most everything the way I want it now, I just have to tweak a few more things.

Anyway, for this day of the challenge, I was totally stumped. I literally had no idea what to do because I felt that all the ideas I had in mind were either too commonly done, or were upcoming challenge prompts (stripes, dots, etc.). I asked my mom what she thought I could do and she left the room, came back a minute later with these tiny bar straws and said, "Here, do something with these!" So this is what I came up with!

Polishes used:

OPI Alpine Snow (white crème)

OPI Black Onyx (black crème)

I was originally going to do black and white splatters, but I really didn't feel like dealing with cleaning that up afterwards... So for these nails I just dabbed a bit of black onto a piece of scrap paper, then dipped the end of the little bar straw into the black, then kind of pressed / wiggled it onto my nail a bunch of times. I had to go back into the black a lot with the straw though, because I wanted the circles to be super dark and noticeable, and the little straw didn't pick up very much polish to begin with. I wasn't going for anything precise, I wanted it to look somewhat messy and haphazard. I think with contrasting colors like black and white, precise and clean designs look really good, but so does something random like this!

Honestly, I completely forgot about this technique since I did it for the challenge; I've forgotten how much I like it! I'll have to play with it a bit more and see what else I can come up with!

Thanks for reading!