Purple Tweed Nail Art

Last week at camp was color war week, so choosing what color to paint my nails with was a piece of cake! While I didn't get to do what I originally set out to do due to lack of time (I wanted to do a different pattern on each nail), I'm still happy with how this turned out!

Polishes used:
OPI Do You Have This Color In Stock-Holm? (royal purple crème)
Butter London Molly Coddled (light purple crème)
Essie Go Ginza (light lilac crème)

So if you couldn't already tell, I was on the purple team (duh). The whole week was purple vs. yellow, and I was secretly hoping that I was gonna be put on the purple team since I have way more purple polishes than yellow!

I started by painting my nails with two coats of DYHTCIS-H? (weirdest acronym ever wow). Then I took MC, wiped almost all the polish off the brush, then brushed that onto my nails vertically and then horizontally. I did the same thing with GG, and then with DYHTCIS-H? one more time. I finished with one coat of Gelous top coat to smooth everything out, followed by one coat of Essie's Good to Go.

While I've done a bunch of dry-brush manicures in the past, I've never done it with horizontal drags before. I love it so much more! It reminds me so much of a tweed pattern, hence the name of this post!

Thanks for reading!

31DC2014 Day 23: Inspired By A Movie

So this day in the challenge was when I started to really get not inspired to do anything at all haha! I had ran out of ideas and I needed some form of inspiration desperately, so I did what I usually do when that happens: I turned to Cutepolish!

Polishes used:

Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Mellow Yellow (yellow crème - original formula) - base color

Sephora by OPI Iris I Was Thinner (light purple crème - lighter than what's shown in the photo) - base color

China Glaze First Mate (navy blue crème) - yellow minions' pants

Wet n Wild Black Crème (black crème) - purple minions' pants, mouths, pupils, goggle straps, & yellow minions' hair

China Glaze Mahogany Magic (medium warm brown crème) - yellow minions' eyes

China Glaze Grape Pop (medium purple crème) - purple minions' eyes

(?)Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Lacey Lilac (lilac crème - original formula) - purple minions' hair

Sally Hansen Insta-Dri OMGhost! (white crème) - eyes and teeth

OPI Haven't The Foggiest (metallic pewter) - goggles

I knew I wanted to do something from an animated movie, and since Cutepolish has two different minions tutorials, I figured why not do those? I pretty much followed her tutorials for the yellow minions here, and the purple minions here, but with a few differences. I didn't use an actual googly eye, so I just painted the eyes on using polish and dotting tools. I also added colored irises, I used a metallic grey for the goggles instead of a crème, and I gave the yellow minions hair, too.

While this wasn't my favorite day of the challenge, I still really like how it turned out! It's super cute!

Thanks for reading!

NOTD: Leopard Print With Complimentary Colors!

So this manicure was the result of the classic "I'm stuck between two colors and I have no idea which one to chose" dilemma. I ended up just going with both since I really couldn't decide!

Polishes used:

China Glaze Too Yacht To Handle (bright teal crème)

China Glaze Flip Flop Fantasy (neon coral-y pink crème)

Wet n' Wild Black Crème (black crème)

I actually started by painting all my nails with one coat of TYTH. Then I was thinking "I've really been wearing a lot of blues and teals lately... I need something different." So I pulled out FFF, stared at the two bottles for a while, then decided on just doing some accent nails! I removed TYTH from my middle and ring fingers on my left hand, and my index and middle fingers on my right hand. Then, I re-painted them with FFF.

I used the same technique for the leopard print as I explained here. I used the same dotting tool, which was the smaller end of the yellow dotting tool from this set. Once I finished though, I used two coats of top coat instead of just one. It may be because I just got a new bottle of top coat so it's still pretty thin, but I find that even with a generous amount, there's still some texture that shows through from the leopard print. So, I used two coats to avoid that.

Honestly, I was a little concerned that this manicure wouldn't look good since the colors are so different from one another (in neon-ness and in color), but I think the leopard print really tones that down and kinda pulls it all together!

Thanks for reading!

31DC2014 Day 22: Inspired By A Song

So it's been over a week since I posted anything... Um, whoops? Honestly the time just got away from me since I didn't do any nail art this week, even for the theme day at camp. This week was Pirates vs. Ninjas, and since I wore my Tae Kwon Do uniform on Tuesday, I painted my nails just matte black (at the request of my co-counselor). So, since I have no new content to post, here's the next day of the 31 Day Nail Challenge!

Polishes used:

Wet N Wild Black Crème (black crème, wOW WHat a shocker)

OPI Alpine Snow (white crème)
OPI Don't Touch My Tutu! (sheer white jelly)

I was inspired by the song Starlight by Muse, which is one of my all-time, if not, my favorite song ever. I started by painting two coats of black. Then I used a thin nail art brush and painted two diamond-ish star shapes on each nail. After that, I took the larger end of the green dotting tool from this set and placed a large dot of DTMT! right in the middle of the stars to make it look as if they were glowing. I finished by dotting different sized white dots in the empty black spaces, and sealed everything in with one coat of Essie Good to Go top coat.

Looking at this manicure now, I really with I could have added something else, like Fairy Dust by China Glaze. Especially with a name like Starlight, I feel like it should twinkle at least a little bit. I still really like this manicure, though! Especially since I think of my favorite song whenever I look at it. I'll definitely do it again, but next time with a little sparkle!

Thanks for reading!