31 Day Challenge

Hey guys I have been wanting to try something fun lately and I found this 31 day challenge throug Chalkboard Nails it seems fun and it is going to push me to think of some more creative nail designs I think.


I will start tomorrow and try to do a post everyday to every other day!

Mix N' Match

I felt like some doing some over the top, cute nails today.  This is another inspiration from WAH Nails they are always doing these fun mix n' match nails and I also found an image on Pinterest from Little Nails that I used for inspiration as well.  I love them they are so cute!  I would like to try these out with a darker palette of colors too I think they would look less "springy".

I used Sinful Colors Rise and Shine, OPI Do You Lilac It?, China Glaze Dance Baby, Wet N Wild Hallucinate and a white striper polish from Amuse.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Slumber Party

Here is another one of the Lush Lacquers that I got.  Slumber Party is a cute mix of white, black, blue, purple and pink matte glitter.  Similar to Mr. Bubble but with more colors thrown in to the mix!

I decided to do a jelly sammy with this one, it was just calling for it haha.  I used two coats of OPI Don't Touch My Tutu!, one coat of Slumber Party, and two more coats of the OPI.  I later topped it with one coat of OPI I Juggle...Men.  I don't think it really did anything because the shimmer is barely noticeable on the nail.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Party Hearty

I got a few more Lush Lacquer's today!!  Seriously they have some super gorgeous glitters and I think I am officially obsessed with them.  I got three mini's and I will post the other two as my next two posts more than likely.

First up is Party Hearty, this has a coral jelly base with pretty gold micro-shimmer, there is small round matte red glitter, medium square blue and green glitter, medium round purple glitter, larger purple square glitter and a few larger blue heart shaped glitter (this makes this polish even cuter!).

I used one coat of Orly Cotton Candy and two coats of LL Party Hearty

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gradient Accent

Here is a gradient mani I did, with a gradient accent.  This didn't turn out quite like I planned because I was going to do a ring and thumb accent and completely forgot and went over my ring with the wrong color so I did the index and thumb instead.  Go here to find my gradient tutorial!  Also a couple of tips that I have learned by doing a few more gradient.

• dampen the sponge before applying polish to it
• to make sure you have the tips covered I will apply a small amount of the color to the tips kind of like you do with a french tip
• When using sponges to do gradient it can get a little gritty looking, to help that I use a glitter top coat.  It really smooths the look of the gradient and it also helps to blend and cover any imperfections!

Hope these tips are helpful!

Now onto the nails, I used OPI Pink Friday and Color Club Tangerine Scream for the pink to orange one and Orly Skinny Dip and Color Club Ultra Violet for the blue to purple.  I topped them all off with Cover Girl City Lights and the white base I used was Orly Dayglow.

Duo-Chrome Splatter

I tried out a splatter with some of the duo-chromes I have.  I like the result but I feel like the color combo I chose looks a little Mardi Gras themed.  I need to get a blue duo that would have been a better choice than the purple I think.  Oh well I still like them!  If you want to see the tutorial for splatter nails go here

I used Wet N Wild Ebony Hates Chris, OPI Just Spotted the Lizard, China Glaze Unpredictable, and Color Club Alias.  Sorry there is a whole bunch of pics of this one...

First up is an underwater one, gah if only the duo showed up like this out of water!

Indoors with flash

Direct sunlight

Natural light, shade

Care To Danse?

I have yet another jelly sandwich today.  I think I like paler, more pastel toned jelly sandwiches rather than a brighter one.  

I used 3 coats of  OPI Care To Danse?, 1 coat of NYC Starry Silver Glitter, and one more coat of Care To Danse?.

Leopard Print Nails Tutorial

Here is the leopard print tutorial I said I was going to do.   Hope you enjoy and give them a try!

I used Orly Pure Porcelain, Color Club Resort to Red, and Amuse Black Nail Art Pen and Striper

Step 1:  Paint your nails a base color

Step 2: Choose a color to do your spots in and dab on several spots on the nail.  You can use any color you want and you can do a bunch of spots in different colors too.

Step 3: With your nail art pen or striper and practice making your spots on a piece of paper.  You want to do sort of wonky half circle or c's.

Step 4: Paint your your c's around the colored spots on your nail, add a few random blotches to fill in empty space.

Now you should be done! 

A few tips:

• Make sure to wait a good 15-20 minutes before applying a top coat over your leopard print or you risk dragging the design.  Which you can see that I did when I applied my top coat!  I need to be more patient.
 
• Also it really does help to practice drawing those half circles before doing your spots. 
 
• If you want to use a quick dry top coat like Seche Vite, remember to use a regular top coat first over the design. This will help prevent chipping and seals the design better, I find quick dry top coats drag designs more too.



Leopard Accent Mani

I did a cute leopard accent mani today.  Funny in the past I have tried the leopard thing before but was never able to get it to look right and then I decided to give it a try and it turned out really nice.  I think I will do a tutorial on this one soon.  I used Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Coral Reef, Wet N Wild I Need A Refresh-mint, Revlon Whimsical and OPI I Juggle Men... 

Also sorry for the wrinkling of the black on the leopard spots it is I Juggle Men... it is really hard to work with and I really wish that I had not used it over the accent nails because it looked so good before I added that dang polish!

Every Month Is Oktoberfest

I picked up one of the new OPI Germany collection the other day.  I was really only interested in finding Every Month Is Oktoberfest, but I may have to grab a couple more of the darker colors.

This one is very dark blue/purple base with a dark red shimmer running through it.  On the first coat you can really see the blurple base and reddish shimmer but after another coat it gets much darker and looks almost black under most light.  But this one really shines in the sun, the shimmer comes out and you can see the blurple base much more.  I love it and this one will be perfect color for the fall!

this one is in the shade see how dark it is, you can barely see the shimmer and it appears almost black

But these two taken in direct sunlight show that shimmer so much better!

A Minty Bubblegum Mani

I am really loving the two Lush Lacquer polishes I got and I just ordered a few more yesterday!  I cannot wait for them to be here so I can show you guys.

I used Orly Ancient Jade, Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Bubblegum Pink and Lush Lacquer Salt N Peppa.

Modern Grace

I did a simple mani today!  I used Revlon Top Speed Modern Grace and Finger Paints Motley, which is a blue/green flakie polish.  I loved that Finger Paints came out with a bunch of different flakie polish but they need a lot of coats to get the look of something similar like Sally Hansen Hidden Treasure.  Anyways I like the end result and I used 2 coats of Motley for this it is really subtle but so pretty especially in the right light.

Melting Popsicle Mani

I have seen this done several times. Wah Nails does this design a lot and Let Them Have Polish just did a really cute Nickelodeon inspired mani, which was the main inspiration for mine. 

This is pretty easy to you start with a base color and for your "melting" color you use a dotting tool and draw the drips on then kind of fill it in with the dotting tool.  I will try to post a tutorial on it sometime for you guys.

I used OPI Pink Friday and Color Club Tangerine Scream for the melting color.  I then topped it all with Wet N Wild Hallucinate.

Fall of Surprises!

I picked up one of the new Finger Paints fall nail polishes , Fall of Surprises!, the other day.  I had seen some promo shots of them and I knew that I needed this one.  It is a copper glitter that has small round and larger hexagonal glitter in it.  It is packed with glitter and would probably be opaque on its own with two coats.

I decided to do a glitter gradient with this one and my base is Revlon Top Speed Royal.

Unpredictable

I picked up one of the new China Glaze New Bohemian polishes today.  These are all duo-chromes and I grabbed Unpredictable.  It is a blue to green duo and it is so pretty!  I would love to try out a glitter gradient with this one for a really cool mermaid mani.  Also there is a crazy amount of pics for this one since it shifts colors and photographs different in the sun than in the shade.

Direct Sunlight

Direct Sunlight

Shade, natural light

Shade, natural light

And for fun an underwater pic because it brings out the crazy duo-chrominess of polishes.  I wish it could look like this out of the water!

My First Tape Mani

Ok I have tried and tried to get the hang of tape manicures and I think I am finally getting better at them.  I did a simple zig-zag design that is pretty simple to do.  Once I get a little better at them I will post a tutorial.

I used Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Pacific Blue and Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Bronze Ablaze.  Pacific Blue is probably the hardest nail polish to photograph, it is deeper and dustier than these pictures show.  Sorry I could not get the color right even after editing the color as much as I could.  Also I apologize for the not so great pics.  This mani was not wanting to get it's pictures taken apparently and I smeared the bronze on my middle finger with top coat a little bit and it is really noticeable in the pictures but not really at all in real life!

Pink Glowstick

Fun neon mani today!  I used Orly Glowstick, China Glaze Pink Plumeria, Cover Girl City Lights and some little star glitter pieces from a Dollar Tree set.