Day 28: Rainbow Tips

 Fun times with rainbows! I had to do two colors per nail in order to fit the entire spectrum. I think the effect is fun and crazy without being overwhelmingly bright, which is nice. I started with one coat of Revlon Barely Peach and let that dry for a long while. I then used paper hole reinforcer stickers to help make the curve of the tips more even. I used a sponge to apply color so that they'd blend a little easier in the middle. After I finished applying the solid creme colors, I cleaned up and refined the edge with some glittery polish.

 Colors Used:

(Solid cremes)

NYC Pure Orchid

Sally Hansen Blue By!

Sinful Colors Exotic Green

Revlon Electric

Wet n Wild Club Havana

Wet n Wild I Red A Good Book

(Glitters)

Sinful Colors Star Dust

Icing Electric Sapphire

JulieG Under Mistletoe

Confetti They Call Me Mellow Yellow

Wet n Wild 9.0.2.1. Orange

JulieG Big Red Bow

Day 25: Fun with Edgers

 For this design, I used my rather poor quality edger scissors to cut thin strips of scotch tape. I placed those strips across my nails, then sponged on a gradient of green to blue. Gotta love gradients! As a last touch, I added some shimmery glitter in matching tones down the gradient. Since I had green, teal, and blue glitter, I just followed the gradient. It does look really nice when it catches the lights and the colors shift! It's hard to tell in the pictures since all three hex glitters have a green shimmer to them.

Colors Used:

China Glaze White on White

Sinful Colors Mint Apple

Sinful Colors Sweet Nothing

Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Blue-ming Fast

Day 24: Inspired by Abstract Art!

 This ended up being way more fun than I expected! Today's theme was 'paintings', and since I didn't have the time or energy to do something like Van Gogh or Dali, I decided to look for some abstract art. 

The inspiration: Thorton Willis' piece, Alien (2005).

I didn't have a good cool tan to match that light shade, so I decided to improvise. I started with two coats of Sinful Colors Tantalize, which is a mid gray with a slight shimmer. I then added two coats of Sally Hansen Beige. The beige was a thin enough consistency that it shifted the tone just enough to make me happy. 

I then went to town with striping tape. I tried to mimic different portions of the artwork that I thought were interesting, and I like the end result! Plus, this used colors that were very far from my usual palette, which was exciting!

Colors Used:

Sinful Colors Tantalize

Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Beige

Revlon Infamous

Revlon Electric

Revlon Espresso

Day 23: Texture!

 Yes, I know today was supposed to have a different theme, but I wanted to play with my new textured polishes! I was totally surprised with how durable these polishes were. No chips all day on a matte polish with itty bitty ridges? MADNESS.

 Decided to try taping off in sections for a geometric look, and it was really easy! The effect didn't come off as sharp due to how dark that purple is next to the dark gray, but the teal is bright enough that it's still fun!

Colors Used:

Milani Shady Gray

Milani Aqua Splash

Milani Purple Streak

Milani Spoiled in Fuchsia

Day 22: Earth Day!

 So I didn't do new nails yesterday, but I think only missing one day this month is pretty dang good still. Anywho, today was supposed to be weather-themed, but I had forgotten that it was Earth Day! So I did Earth Day nails  instead. I rather like how the Earth turned out on my ring nail. On my right hand, I tried to do the recycle logo.

 My favorite part was the blue jay, though. I'm slowly mastering the art of drawing really freakin' tiny on my nails, haha! Blue jay and butterflies were added to move some of that bright blue between nails, and I like the effect.

Colors Used:

NYC Pinstripe White

ColorMates French Beige

Sally Hansen Blue By!

ColorMates Nail Art Lime

Pure Ice Free Spirit

Revlon Emerald City

Revlon First Class

ORLY Instant Artist Chocolate

ColorMates Stormy Weather

Day 20: Butterflies

 The theme of the day was butterflies, so I decided to try to do butterfly wing nails! I wanted to try to emulate the blue morpho butterfly, but I didn't have a good polish to get all the purty colors exactly right. So I improvised with a three-polish color combo that did the job fairly well. Unfortunately, I couldn't capture it perfectly on camera due to how super shiny and metallic it ended up being! I started with just pure black creme polish, then layered on two coats of Sinful Colors Love Nails, which is a blue-green shimmer that apparently turns more green when over dark colors. I then sponged on a dusting of Pure Ice A List, to create a lighter effect near the tips. Lastly, I added China Glaze Want My Bawdy, which is a a blue-purple shimmer. 

 And because I like doing tiny butterflies, I just put a ton of tiny butterflies in for something different! Predictably, my left hand ended up better than my right, but it's still fun!

Colors Used: 

Wet n Wild Black Creme

Sinful Colors Love Nails

Pure Ice A List

China Glaze Want My Bawdy

Wet n Wild French White Creme

Day 19: Water Marble

  Ah, it's nice to return to water marbling once more. Especially now that I've found a fuchsia that will behave well for marbling purposes. For future references, gimmicky scented polishes don't like to play well with others on water. Heh!

Anywho, I decided to play with doing half-moons on my marbles and then tossing in some pretty flowers to jazz things up. I think it works well!

Colors Used:

Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Orange Impulse

Icing Purple Haze

China Glaze Gaga for Green
Wet n Wild French White Creme

Day 18: Steampunk!

 I went all out with this theme! I love the steampunk aesthetic, so I wanted to do something awesome. With these, I started with a dark brown, then layered in an orange-brown over that.  Bright turquoise was added to make things more dramatic, and possibly also because I love teal. To get the texture effect, I actually cut small portions of a lacy fabric I had sitting around, then fixed it on using Seche Vite. I then grabbed some of my 4mm chain mail jump rings for the details. On the ring finger I added a nail art pearl, and on the middle finger I painted the interiors black to make them appear to be goggles. And on the thumbs I added some corset details. Woo!

 The fabric was less lacy than I probably could have hoped for, but I love the effect of all those hexagons!

Colors Used:

ColorMates Decadence (dark brown)

Revlon Fig Jam (Orange-brown)

China Glaze Turned Up Turquoise 

Sinful Colors Tokyo Pearl

Wet n Wild Black Creme

KISS nail art Black

Day 17: Moody Half-Moons!

 I am in love with this polish. I happened upon Icing's 50% off clearance items sale a week back, and ended up getting a boatload of awesome $5+ polish for roughly $1 apiece. Whee! This was one I picked up because it was blue and I'm a sucker for blue polish. It doesn't seem to have a name. So yes, Icing's Mood Swing polish. The bottle itself looks like a teal/purple duochrome, but the polish itself loses the purple. One thing that surprised me was the fact that this was a matte polish! No mention appears on the bottle, at least. It could be that all color-change polishes are matte, I'm just not certain.

 Anyway, when warm the polish changes from dark shimmery navy to bright shimmery teal! In this photo, I just dipped two fingers in warm water (hence the shiny nail) to show the effect. The polish used in the half-moons was also an Icing polish I snagged in that sale, a wonderful cool gold called Oh My Gold.

 These last two pictures were taken once I came home after work, while my hands were warm. For being a matte polish, it's surprisingly durable!

And lastly, the bottle. (Papyrus font is attacking, haha!) I'm still surprised so much teal was hiding in that purple/teal mix. Woo!

Colors Used:

Icing Mood Swing (Nameless?)

Icing Oh My Gold

KISS nail art Silver

Day 16: Purple Iris

 The theme for the day was flowers, so I decided to do purple iris! I love bearded iris. I did most of my fingers as the 'falls' or hanging petals of an iris, but painted the entire iris on my ring fingers.

 I had a hard time capturing all the shimmery tones in this one. Under the white striping at the base of each nail is some orange shimmer that shows through in person.

Colors Used:

L.A. Colors Purple (BCC 590)

Sally Hansen HD Cyber

Icing Purple Haze

Icing Falling for You

Sally Hansen Lacquer Shine Spark

Revlon Infamous

Wet n Wild Sunny Side Up

China Glaze White On White

ORLY Boho Bonnet

Sephora Fancy Schmancy

Day 15: Dragonflies!

The challenge today was to use microbeads! And even though spring is slow in coming, I'm totally ready for some nicer weather. So, time for fun nails! I decided to use the microbeads as eyes for some dragonflies. 

I have no idea why I love leaving some bare nail showing on designs like this, but every time I do I enjoy the effect.  Though to be fair, 'bare nail' does involve clear base coat and top coat still.

I also love the Dollar Tree for having so many awesome Sinful Colors nail art polishes. That could possibly be the secondary theme of this design, haha!

Colors Used:

Sally Hansen Blue-ming Fast

Sinful Colors Nail Art Jungle (Dark green)

Shany Nail Art Purple (24)

Sinful Colors Nail Art Peace N Love (Pink)

Sinful Colors Nail Art Worn Before (Green with gold shimmer)

Sinful Colors Nail Art Simple But Fun (Green)

Shany Nail Art Red (07)

ColorMates Nail Art Tangerine

Sinful Colors Nail art Pot O Gold

Sinful Colors Nail Art Lagoon (Dark blue)

Sinful Colors Nail Art Anxious Azure (Bright blue)

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Day 14: Dragon

 This idea turned out rather fun! Rather than just painting some dragons and going all literal like I usually do, I decided to just abuse my magnetic China Glaze polishes. Snagged an awesome magnet on extreme clearance at Icing the other day, woo!

The idea I had was to just do more of a dragon scales theme. It might not look particularly 'dragony' in the end, but I do like the effect!

Colors Used:

China Glaze Positively In Love

China Glaze Gold Fusion