Floral Nail Art

Hey guys,

So I am super happy today, I just got a new job!  There may not be as many posts coming up since I am starting my new job tomorrow, but I will try and post at least three times a week.  Anyways, today I have some another floral nail art design, I used the same technique as my Hawaiian Style Flowers post.  I love this nail art because it is so easy and requires very little skill to do and it looks really pretty.  Hope you all enjoy.

Colors used:  Orly Pure Porcelain, neon coral, pink and red frankens, Color Club Twiggie, and Orly Lucky Duck

80's Inspired Nail Art

Hey guys,

So some of my favorite bloggers have been doing some awesome nail art and I have become so inspired by them!  This mani is loosely inspired by Chalkboard Nails Hipster Mix and Match post, I really loved the color combination she chose and the little overlapped 3-D looking dots she did were so cool looking I had to give them a try.  Also I hate how my pinky turned out, I really should have redone it but I was too lazy to do that.

Colors used: Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Coral Reef, Color Club Pucci-Licious, Essie In the Cab-ana, and a white striper polish

Faded French

Hey guys,

I have a nice twist on a french manicure today.  I have seen some photos of faded french mani's on Pinterest and I have meant to do one for a while now.  Then the other day Nailed It posted a tutorial and it reminded me that I really wanted to try this one out!  The technique for this is the same as any gradient that I do (if you need to check out my tutorial it is here ) although I did way to much white at the tips, so be aware of that when you are doing this.


Colors used: Color Club Get a Clue, Orly Dayglow and OPI I Juggle... Men

 

 

 

 

Tie Dye Nails Tutorial

Hey guys,

I have a tutorial finally!  A couple of weeks ago I posted my Neon Sponging mani and I decided to do a tutorial on it.  I ended up calling them tie dye nails, that is what this technique I think looks like when it is finished and neon sponging was just not such a great name. This is also almost identical to the technique I used for my Thunderstorm Nails the only difference is that in the thunderstorm one I made sure to leave some of my base color showing.  


Products used
Base: OPI My Vampire is Buff
Tie Dye Colors: Color Club Volt of Light, Color Club Pure Energy, and Finger Paints 15 Minutes of Frame
Glitter Top Coat: Is a franken I made with a couple of glitters from Sallys Girl but it is very similar to Sinful Colors Hottie

Step One: You will need 3 different colors, I used neons but any 3 colors will work.  I would recommend colors that will blend together well though. So choosing something like two primary colors and then their secondary color like I did with the yellow, blue and green.  Pink, yellow and orange is another example that would work beautifully.  Next cut up a sponge (really any sponge will work I used the one from my China Glaze Ombre set for this one) make sure the pieces are fairly small so you don't cover your whole nail with one color.  I also would advise using tweezers to hold the sponge since the pieces are so small it makes the job way less messy!

Step Two: Apply a base coat, I just used an off-white for my base because it would really allow the neon colors to pop against it.

Step Three: Begin applying your tie dye colors onto the nail.  As you can see I just pounced the sponge onto random spots on my nails.  Make sure you leave enough room for your other colors!

Step Four: Continue applying your other colors onto the nail, as you can see I made sure to leave enough room to lay down my third color.

Step Five: Finish applying your tie dye colors, you can go back over the colors to get the right opacity and to make sure that none of your base is showing through.  Leave the desing to dry for a minute or two and then top it with a glitter top coat of your choice and then a fast drying top coat over that and you are done!

Thunderstorm Nails

Hey guys,

I found this blog post my Pshiiit and I love how she did the base and I thought I would try something similar.  Mine didn't turn out looking really similar to hers at all but it was what I was inspired by.  This reminds me of thunderstorm clouds, the pictures also do not do this mani justice.  It is darker looking and the glitter looks ten times better in real life. 

For this mani I started with a base of Sally Hansen CSM Gray by Gray (not sure if this one is available anymore since the CSM line was redesigned).  I sponged OPI Do You Lilac It?,  Essie Turquoise and Caicos, and Color Club Get A Clue on random spots on my nails using small cut pieces of cosmetic sponge. I then topped them off with Sally Hansen CSM Snow Globe over the entire nail.  The technique for this mani is similar to doing galaxy nails, however the are some differences so I may post a tutorial on this one for you all.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Across the Universe

Hey guys,

I saw this Across the Universe tutorial by Totally Cool Nails on Youtube and I pretty much went and instantly re-created it.  Across the Universe is one of my favorite movies and I love what she came up with for this inspired mani.  In hindsight I wish I had done my dots way smaller or actually skipped that step but I still think they turned out pretty cool.

I used Color Club Naughty-Cal Navy, Orly Royal Navy, Orly Dayglow, inm Northern Lights Holographic Topcoat, and red and green acrylic paint.

 

 

 

 

Design Seed Skittles

Hey guys,

I was on MakeupAlley the other day and someone had posted about this website Design Seeds which basically has a bunch of color combos for design inspiration.  It is great for getting ideas for mani's, either if you want to do a fun skittle mani or if you want to think of different color combos for nail art.  I can't find the pic that I was inspired by now though.  I used (from pinky to thumb) Sally Hansen Grey Area, China Glaze Make Some Noise, Color Club Get a Clue, Orly Pure Porcelain and Color Club Sheer Disguise.

 

 

 

Sparklicious Gradient

I did this reverse gradient with L'Oreal Sparklicious, a gorgeous glitter from their holiday collection.  This glitter is serious perfection, it is such a light gold it is almost silver but is still appears gold. Haha sorry that is a weird description of it, really this polish is a cooler toned version of China Glaze Blonde Bombshell, which is probably one of my favorite glitters ever, except for there are no tiny bar glitters in this one.  I wanted to try it with a gradient first but it would look really good over a bunch of different polishes and is a perfect accent nail color.

I used Color Club High Society and L'Oreal Sparklicious

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Also on a side note I am working on the way I take my pictures and the lighting, so I will appoligize in advance if my pictures are cropped differently or the lighting is different than usual.  I am just working on improving my photo quality!

 

 

 

 

Spiderwebs

I am trying to churn out as many Halloween themed nails before Wednesday as possible haha.  I always have all these ideas for Halloween mani's and then time gets away from me and I end up not doing most of the ones I planned on!

I used Wet N Wild Black Creme, Color Club Pucci-Licious, Cover Girl City Lights and a silver striper polish

 

 

 

 

 

31 Day Challenge, Day 31 Recreate a Manicure You Love (with link)

The end is here!  Haha I cannot believe I actually finished this challenge, it was hard sometimes and I really wanted to give up about half way through.  But I stuck with it and I am really happy I did.  So for this last challenge I tried to recreate this grunge mani by Nails Adored.  I have seen these kind of grunge/acid wash nails around Pinterest and I figured now was a good time to try them out.  Mine didn't turn out looking exactly like hers did but I did use all of the exact same polishes as her except for the black.

I used Wet N Wild Ebony Hates Chris, Color Club Wham Pow!, Chelsea Girl, Warhol, and Twiggie.

 

 

Hope everyone has enjoyed this challenge, I can't wait to start some of my Halloween nail ideas next!



 

 

31 Day Challenge, Day 29 Inspired by the Supernatural

This was another hard one for me I couldn't think of what to do.  Really because I have a bunch of ideas for Halloween and I kind of didn't want to use one of those for this haha.  In the end I went with a vampiric inspiration, I love how this mani turned out.  To me it looks like a mani a vampire would wear on their nails!

I used Finger Paints Signed In Wine and Color Club Red Velvet

31 Day Challenge, Day 26 Inspired by a Pattern

Getting close to the end of this challenge now!  I was inspired by a shirt that I have a had for a little while.  I did smear one of my fingers a little bit so I apoligize for that. 


I used Color Club Naughtycal Navy, Sally Hansen Xreme Wear Lacey Lilac, Essie Tart Deco, Sinful Colors Ruby, Ruby, China Glaze Fuchsia Fanatic, and China Glaze Skyscraper

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

31 Day Challenge, Day 15 Delicate

Hmm this one was one that I wracked my brain to come up with.  I don't do a lot of stamping and I don't have any "delicate" looking stamping plates so I had to free hand something.  I went with feathers, I really, really like this though.  The feathers were much easier to do than I thought they were going to be. 

I used Color Club Get A Clue and an Amuse white nail art pen

 

 

 

 

 

31 Day Challenge, Day 9 Rainbow

At first I figured I would just do skittles for this one but I decided to try something different.  I have seen this mani on either Pinterest or Beautylish and loved it so I figured it would be perfect for this challenge.  This is what is nice about doing this challenge to, it has made me try new things!


I used LA Colors Color Craze Live, Zoya Maura, China Glaze Papaya Punch, Finger Paints Lemon Sour, Color Club Twiggie, and Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Pacific Blue.

 

Sorry for the reflection of the flash in this one, metallics are so hard to photograph with flash or in direct sunlight

 

 

 

 

 

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

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.



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.

Get A Clue

This is a pretty, soft, feminine mani.  I used Color Club Get A Clue, this color is a little on the lighter side for my skin tone so I added Sinful Colors Pinky Glitter to it, which added just enough of a pinker tint for it to look better against my skin. 

Splattered Gradient

Oh my goodness I am sort of obsessed with this mani!  I did a gradient and then splattered over it, the finished look is so cool. 

I did a white base (Orly Dayglow), then sponged with FingerPaints 15 Minutes of Frame, Sinful Colors Why Not, Color Club Pucci-Licious, and an unamed neon pink from Cosmetic Arts.  I then splattered with China Glaze Electric Pineapple.  I alternated which way I applied the gradient on the nail alternating between starting at the cuticle with the pink then flipping the sponge and starting with the green at the cuticle on the next nail.