Back to Blogging!

 I'm back! Sorry for the long absence, I fell out of the habit of regularly blogging. I'll try to post some of my backlog. So happy to be back! These nails were inspired by a little notepad given to me by a friend, and were originally painted December 5th, 2014.

I started with a base of OPI Alpine Snow topped with Nicole by OPI Others Pale by Kim-parison to get a super light beige background. For my thumb and ring finger, I used a base of Color Club Lavandarling.

The damask-ish design was painted with a mix of Morgan Taylor Varsity Jacket Blues for the lovely bright blue and SpaRitual Shoot for the Stars for the dark purple. Gold accents were added with Sally Hansen Liquid Gold.

On my accent nails, the butterfly was painted in more Varsity Jacket Blues and outlined in more Liquid Gold. The leaves were done with OPI Here Today, Aragon Tomorrow and flowers in OPI Alpine Snow. I added a little accent gem to the center of the butterfly to match the notepad.

Colors Used:

OPI Alpine Snow

Nicole by OPI Others Pale by Kim-parison

Color Club Lavandarling

Morgan Taylor Varsity Jacket Blues

SpaRitual Shoot for the Stars

Sally Hansen Liquid Gold

OPI Here Today, Aragon Tomorrow

Celestial

 I'm on a roll with my nails this month! I decided to match yet another of my scrub tops this week. This time I chose a neat sun and moon pattern. I think I managed to pull it off pretty closely!

 I started with a base of Sinful Colors New Wave. I love this polish, it's just the perfect dusty navy blue. I'm going to be so sad when I use this bottle dry! Next, I blocked in the rough shapes of suns and moons with Sephora by OPI Natural Beauty. It's a nice honey-tan color that's thick enough to not need five coats for opacity. On top of that I added a splash of Sinful Colors Unicorn to brighten the shapes.

 I then took a small brush and the smallest touch of acetone-thinned Sinful Colors Coffee to start shading.  I focused on areas around where I planned to put eyes and other features, and also added a few details to the 'regular' moons while I was at it.

The features were drawn in with a little marker. For being a simple journaling pen, it's been really good about not bleeding or smearing.

 To make the clouds, I used a makeup sponge held with tweezers to first dab in OPI Alpine Snow, followed by Revlon First Class for the royal blue shading. The colors matched pretty closely when I compared it to the scrub top!

Colors Used:

Sinful Colors New Wave

Sephora by OPI Natural Beauty

Sinful Colors Unicorn

Sinful Colors Coffee

OPI Alpine Snow

Revlon First Class

Musical Mayhem!

 I was in the mood to play around with newspaper transfer again, but I love doing it with sheet music. I knew I'd mess up a few times, so I just used my right hand as practice first. It's still passable...ish. Heh!

 I started out with three coats of Nicole by OPI Others Pale by Kim-parison  on my thumb, index, and pinky nails. On my middle and ring fingers I used ORLY Rock the World, which is a very awesome shimmery polish that shifts from purple to mauve to gold. Once the cream was super dry, I pulled out the sheet music and some rubbing alcohol. It takes a lot of pressure to transfer the design correctly, but when it works it is so worth it!

Once the transfer step was complete, I used ORLY Platinum across the tips of those three fingers. I traced the border in a dark gray Shany nail art polish and a gold Sinful Colors nail art polish. I then brushed a diagonal line of Platinum across my middle and ring nails, then also bordered that in dark gray and gold. I actually thought I was finished for a while, but at the last moment I added on some Icing Milky Way across those bands, since it kind of looks like notes! As a final touch, I added a gold treble clef to my thumb nail.

Colors Used:

Nicole by OPI Others Pale by Kim-parison

ORLY Rock the World

ORLY Platinum

Icing Milky Way

Shany Nail Art 17 (dark gray)

Sinful Colors Nail Art Gold

Day 3: Sheet Music

 Day 3 of my self-challenge is here. This is my first attempt at trying the newspaper nail transfer method! It's totally easier than I had expected and worked really well once I got the hang of it. My right hand turned out much better than my left, after I'd had that little bit of practice. If I do this again I'll definitely use a less sheer polish. Took quite a few layers to get the polish this opaque, and took that a bit to dry enough for me to smoosh paper all over it.

Colors Used:

Revlon Powder Puff

Day 2: Leopard Print

 I had so much fun with these! The theme today was 'Zoo,' so I took this opportunity to try a leopard pattern! I decided to try my own spin on these, so I ended up doing a gradient and included solid spots at the tips, since leopards have that light transition as well. I started with a few layers of Wet n Wild 2% Milk before realizing that it was too sheer. So I covered that with one coat of Revlon Powder Puff, which is a nice matte suede polish.

Colors Used: 

Wet n Wild 2% Milk

Revlon Powder Puff

Revlon Socialite

L.A. Colors Gold (Nameless)

Revlon Fig Jam

Wet n Wild Black Lace Creme

Paisley!

I have learned that paisley is rather difficult to do freehand. I like to think I didn't do too badly at it, at least...

 Started with two layers of NYC Velvet Rope, which reminds me of beets. One coat looks like beet juice, two looks exactly like beets. And cleaning up around my nail bed was challenging because it totally wanted to dye my hand to look like I'd just punched a beet. Haha! Paisley pattern was painted freehand with a small brush.

Colors Used:

NYC Velvet Rope

Sinful Colors Unicorn