Egyptian

Prompt: Egyptian

A quick and simple design, but it's kind of fun that way! Foil stamping on the middle nails means the gold is super mirror shiny.

Supplies: 

Essie Sunny Daze

Color Club New-tral

Zoya Caitlyn

Seche Astute

BMC Royal Blue

Moyra Foil Gel Polish Black

Gold foil

BM-S250

Chic Peek BM-XL476

Fall Trees

Prompt: Fall Trees

I wasn't sure if this would turn out well, but I think it works! I'm a bit sad that it was overcast and I didn't get to capture the subtle holo of the polish too.

Supplies:

Rogue Lacquer Petrified Forest

Born Pretty Galactic Center

Seche Astute

Twinkled T So Extra

BPL-026: Maple Leaf

Ejiubas + Sarah R2: Small Leaves (row 4, column 2 and 4)

Ejiubas + Sarah R2 reverse side: Small ovals (row 4, column 4)

Beauty Big Bang XL-022: Small Tree

Beauty Big Bang XL-011: Tree

Geological Wonder

 I am in love with these indie polishes from Rogue Lacquer. The holo, the multichrome flakies, the color... it's all love. This is Geological Wonder.

I just had to decorate with some simple stamping.

Supplies:

Rogue Lacquer Geological Wonder

Twinkled T So Extra 

Ejiubas Plate EJB-02 Reverse Side, swirls on lower left

Birdies

 Prompt: Birds/Feathers

Layered quite a few stamps to make these nails! I also had the slightly tricky task of reversing the bird image by stamping to a second stamper - took a few times to get it to transfer properly.

Supplies:

Sinful Colors Navy I Do

Born Pretty Galactic Center

Moyra Stamping Foil Gel Black

Gold Foil

Twinkled T Stamping Polish White

EJB-X01: Birds

Ejiubas + Sarah R2: Leaves

 

Leopard Spots

Handpainted leopard spots and a leopard face. I rather love how this turned out!

Supplies:

OPI Alpine Snow

China Glaze Gold Fusion

Black Acrylic Paint

Black striping tape

Foil gel and gold foil

Gold studs

Day 30: Challenge Day - Simple Design

 For the last day of our month of nail art, my friend challenged me to do something simple. So I decided to take a multichrome polish since I already have trouble covering up the lovely shifting hues, and just add a tiny accent.

 I used a single coat of the amazing Dance Legend Knight over China Glaze Liquid Leather. I love this copper-to-pewter multichrome so much, it's magic!

 As a tiny little accent, I added a metal square to my middle two nails and put a square nail gem in the center. Not much, just something for a little extra punch.

Colors Used:

Dance Legend Knight

 China Glaze Liquid Leather

Day 28: Classy Animal Print

 Sorry for the delay in getting these last designs up! I actually did finish the challenge in April, but just didn't get around to posting! For the animal print challenge I decided to do a color blocked leopard print, because leopard print is always good.

 I began with a base of OPI Baring it All, which is a nice mid-tone nude. I then used OPI A-taupe the Space Needle, more Baring it All, and Nicole by OPI Others Pale by Kim-parison to apply a gradient to each nail. I wanted a bit more brightness, so I sponged some China Glaze White on White onto the very trips of each nail. I then added one coat of Sinful Colors 24 Karat to give it all a sparkly finish.

 Once that was dry I blocked off sections with some striping tape, then filled in portions with China Glaze Liquid Leather.  I then used a dotting tool to draw in some leopard spots with more Liquid Leather. The centers of the pattern spots were colored yellow with an unnamed ORLY goldenrod yellow (FBI40037?). It's such a pretty yellow; I have no idea why it wasn't named. As a last touch I added champagne colored nail gems to my index and pinkie nails.

Colors Used:

OPI Baring it All

OPI A-taupe the Space Needle

Nicole by OPI Others Pale by Kim-parison

 China Glaze White on White

 Sinful Colors 24 Karat

China Glaze Liquid Leather

ORLY FBI40037

Day 3: Easter Chocolate

 Not sure if I'm entirely happy with how these turned out, but they at least look like chocolates to me! I originally thought about doing all of them as foil eggs, but decided to actually show some chocolate. For this day in particular dealing with my needy needy cats was a headache, so I'm glad I got anything done at all!

 The base chocolatey brown is Sally Hansen Cinnamon. I really like this brown! Starting with my thumb, I added some texture by pressing into the drying polish, and put in a touch of 'cream filling'  spilling out with light brown OPI Samoan Sand and white L'Oreal Hit the Slopes.

My index nail is a Cadbury creme egg! I pulled out the nail foils to do this one. I applied blue and red foil to half of the nail, then added a blobby shape in gold once those were dry. Using the dark blue China Glaze One Track Mind and a small brush, I wrote in the tiny Cadbury logo.

 My middle nail is a simple dipped design with Sally Hansen Cinnamon and OPI Samoan Sand. I really need to try doing dipped effects more often, I love the effect!

For my ring nail I tried a crosshatched textured effect by doing the 'spun sugar' technique with Samoan Sand and Hit the Slopes. It didn't turn out as well as I hoped, and it seemed like these two polishes didn't want to get to the perfect consistency to drag across my nail for the technique. Bah!

Lastly, for my pinky I added foil to just the tip to look like a half-unwrapped chocolate, then put some pink and yellow tiny pieces of crushed shell to the base as a topper. Finally I mattified all but the foil!

Colors Used:

Sally Hansen Cinnamon

OPI Samoan Sand

L'Oreal Hit the Slopes

China Glaze One Track Mind

Saint Patrick's Day

 I almost posted this one on time, almost! These are of course my St. Patrick's Day nails, which I really had fun with! Can't go wrong with gradients, I love them so much!

 This began with a base of OPI Alpine Snow. Once that was completely dry, I added on some wavy nail tip guides. I liked the swooshy shape they had, and this let me keep a uniform wave to each nail. Next, I painted my tips in a light green, China Glaze Grass is Lime Greener. I'm so glad I snagged this color, it's so bright and spring-y! I then built a bold gradient using that, China Glaze Four Leaf Clover (because I just had to!), and OPI Christmas Gone Plaid. I used a makeup sponge to create the gradient, and then carefully applied that to each nail.

 After removing the nail guides, I blocked off the gradient in a gold border using Butter London Marbs. I just realized how few WARM golds I have, so I'm glad I snagged this one at TJ Maxx!

I then used a dotting tool and some white acrylic paint to add clover shapes within the green and across the border. Green clover then was added within the white space and layered over the border as well, using more China Glaze Four Leaf Clover. I really had fun with my green nails!

Colors Used:

OPI Alpine Snow

China Glaze Grass is Lime Greener

China Glaze Four Leaf Clover

OPI Christmas Gone Plaid

Butter London Marbs

Swirls on Scouse

 For a little inspiration, I asked the Random Number Generator to pick a polish for me. It fell on Butter London Scouse, a beautiful blue shimmery polish with a bright purple flash that gives it a duochrome effect.

 I really like the formula to Scouse. It's a bit thin, but three coats is enough for full coverage.It's so shimmery! I adore this shade of blue, and when you add in the purple flash it's just perfect to me.

 I didn't want to cover all of the lovely blue up, so I decided to just accent things with a stamped design and some studs. I used SpaRitual Copper and a design from Pueen plate SE01A. I love these new Pueen plates and can't wait to use them some more! The studs are actually 'nail heads' from the scrapbooking section at the craft store. I love their copper color and they're the perfect size for nail art.

Colors Used:

Butter London Scouse

SpaRitual Copper

Pueen plate SE01A

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

Blaze of Glory

This is the beautiful and amazing Blaze by Daily Hues Lacquer. It is amazing duochrome bronze/copper linear holo. I took so many photos trying to catch the beauty of this color!



Blaze was easy to work with, and these photos show three coats, though it was passable with just two. The formula was on the thicker side, but not unmanageable.

The shift from soft bronze/gold to reddish copper is fairly subtle, but definitely present. The amount of holographic flair is rather amazing, without really dulling the color. Normally I can barely capture holographic sparkle in my lightbox, so I'm amazed it was bright enough to show up in these first photos!

This is going to definitely be a image-spam post, so please click through to see more photos!

Tequila Sunrise

 The prompt for the Weekly Challenge for the Nail Polish Queens this week was 'cocktais'. I am completely in the dark about cocktails; all I know is that they're colorful, alcoholic, and I love playing with the umbrellas. So I turned to a friend and she suggested Tequila Sunrise!

 I began with OPI Samoan Sand as an undercoat, to try to cut down on how much buildup a thin yellow jelly would need. I then started layering on Sinful Colors Yellow Out There, which is a sunny yellow jelly with scattered holographic bar glitter. It's a subtle effect, but it does really shine in sunlight!

Next, I used Sinful Colors Curry Up on my tips. It's a light melon orange jelly filled with red glitter and silver bar glitter. However, it was nowhere near dark enough to make a meaningful gradient. I added the sheer tint OPI Amberrassed across most of the nail, followed by a generous pass of Sally Hansen Vitamin D-Light. Next, I used a bit of a darker red tint with OPI Be Magentale with Me and Sally Hansen Jell-ous? before finally adding a touch of OPI Don't Violet Me Down. The violet was sheer enough that it did a wonderful job deepening the color without turning everything purple.

 And lastly, I remembered that I had cheap little dollar store FIMO fruits, so I added those along with little red gems to represent cherries.

Colors Used:

Sinful Colors Yellow Out There

Sinful Colors Curry Up

OPI Amberrassed

Sally Hansen Vitamin D-Light

OPI Be Magentale with Me

Sally Hansen Jell-ous?

OPI Don't Violet Me Down

Totally Teal

I love finding surprisingly awesome polish in places like Claire's and Icing. There are definitely some under-appreciated treasures! I've had this glitter sitting in my collection for a bit, and now that I've tried it, I'm in love!

 To begin, I used two coats of Ulta Dance Teal Dawn, which is a gorgeous dark teal with a subtle shimmer. I love this shade of teal! The downside to this polish was that it is a staining monster. I had both base coat and strengthener under this, and still I had a slight bit of staining on my nail bed. My cuticles were nightmare to clean up! Still, part of me thinks it's almost worth it for the awesome color.

 The glitter I used is Claire's Mardi Gras. The name surprised me, as I mentally picture Mardi Gras to always include purple, though that could just be me. The glitter is a mix of teal hex glitter, yellow-gold square glitter, large white hexes and bars, and a scattering of small white and teal glitters in a clear base. I love the base for this, it's just the perfect thickness to pick up a good amount of glitter. I was almost able to just swipe this glitter on with the brush, though I did dab a little to get good color spacing.

As an extra touch, I added little glittery teal studs that conveniently matched the glitter to my index and pinkie nails. I then grabbed a few squares from Mardi Gras to accent those nails. So shiny!

Colors Used:

Ulta Dance Teal Dawn

 Claire's Mardi Gras

Chrome Gradient

I stopped by the store this week and was so excited to see the Sally Hansen Color Foils! I love super-shiny polish, and decided I had to pick up a few. They have a formula similar to OPI Push and Shove, but don't require the extra special base coat. I decided to try something a little less controlled than I normally do, and I ended up with this interesting experiment!

 I started with two coats of ORLY Saturated, which is a super intense purple. It dries matte, and dries quickly, so it was a bit of a challenge to get even coverage.

 Next, I dabbed blobs of the Color Foil on a piece of scrap foil, then dipped my fan brush in to pick up the gradient. I found this nifty fan brush that has sections of bristles removed, so it ends up with widely spaced stripes on one stroke. Starting from the base of the nail, the three color foils I used were Sally Hansen Purple Alloy, Minted Metal, and Liquid Gold.

Even over the matte neon purple, they easily dried to that super-chromey shine. Photos really can't do it justice!

Colors Used:

ORLY Saturated

Sally Hansen Purple Alloy

Sally Hansen Minted Metal

Sally Hansen Liquid Gold