Party Party!

 My birthday was this past Saturday! I wanted to do something silly and fun to celebrate, and this was the result of just being ridiculous. I started with a base of three coats of Maybelline Drops of Jade, which is an amazing teal with black and white matte glitter in various sizes. After that was dry, I used some striping tape to block off some triangles. I then attacked with textured polish! I'm addicted to textured polish, I swear.

Pairing textured and glossy polishes is interesting! I've been wanting to pair up the shimmer and matte textured polishes, so this was a good opportunity. I find myself tempted to repeat the textured polish portion on a white or black base.

Colors Used:

Maybelline Color Show Drops of Jade

Sally Hansen Sugar Fix (White)

Icing Sand Dollar (Silver)

Sally Hansen Gummy Grape (Purple)

JulieG Crushed Candy (Purple Shimmer)

Sally Hansen Razzleberry (Blue)

JulieG Blueberry Fizz (Blue Shimmer)

Sally Hansen Sweetie (Yellow)

JulieG Tangerine Dream (Yellow shimmer)

Sally Hansen Red Velvet (Red)

JulieG Hot Cinnamon (Red shimmer)

Milani Aqua Splash (Teal spots)

Red, White, and Blue

 I think these came out fairly nice and classy! My white lines didn't come out quite as crisp as I'd like, but they're not unforgivably bad.

 I started with two coats of Sinful Colors Sugar Sugar, which is still my go-to red shimmer of choice. The original idea was just to do red polish with a pearl stamp design. The pattern I chose to stamp is a swirly one from Pueen plate 26. I stamped it on using Sinful Colors Tokyo Pearl.

 I then decided to try adding a little, so I used striping tape to block off a V shape. I used Nicole by OPI Listen to your Momager since it has a very similar glitter/shimmer quality to Sugar Sugar. I then used a KISS nail art striper in white to further decorate that V shape.

Colors Used:

Sinful Colors Sugar Sugar

Sinful Colors Tokyo Pearl

Nicole by OPI Listen to your Momager (blue)

Kiss Nail Art White

PUEEN26

Blue Stripes

Back to blue nails! I was challenged to do blue nails with pink sparkles. I cheated a little on the pink, but I love it nonetheless!

 I started out with a layer of China Glaze Flying Dragon, which surprised me by being a lovely matte polish. It's a dark fuchsia/purple polish with blue and pink microglitter. After that dried, I used striping tape to block off diagonal sections. I chose three blues that I thought worked well together, and painted them in a gradient series. From darkest to lightest: SpaRitual Undercurrent, Revlon First Class, and ORLY Snowcone. All three are amazing (though I might be biased due to my love of blues)

 After the polish dried, I used a prismatic flakie glitter, Color Club Snow Flakes. It tends toward a rose red/pink effect when looked at directly, but shifts all the way from cyan to red as the observed angle changes. Photos can't do the effect justice, but I tried to catch some of the color shift.

 Colors Used:

China Glaze Flying Dragon

SpaRitual Undercurrent

Revlon First Class

ORLY Snowcone

Color Club Snow Flakes

Magnetic Monday!

 

I've managed to acquire quite a few magnetic polishes, but I've mainly used them for stamping as they tend to be such pretty metallic colors. It's time to play with magnets! 

Today I decided to use Sinful Colors Polar Opposites. It's a silver metallic polish with awesome blue/teal shimmer that really pops when magnets are applied. I love it! The effect doesn't seem to capture as well on camera, or at least I couldn't catch it..

Because I can't leave well enough alone, I decided to decorate with a little craft store hex glitter. I used a small triangle of light blue on each nail, framed in silver glitter. 

 

 Colors Used:

Sinful Colors Polar Opposites

Bridesmaid Bling

 My brother's wedding was last week, and it was really nice. I was a bridesmaid, and I decided to use the excuse to do super over the top sparkly nails! I think they turned out fairly well, though they looked the best from a little bit of a distance:

 I started off with a single layer of Sally Hansen Bliss followed by Orly Honeymoon in Style, a pink/gold microglitter. Once that was dry, I used China Glaze White on White to do french tips on all of my nails. I decided I wanted to do an asymmetric shape, but I wanted a base guideline to follow.

 The bridesmaid dress color was a bright blue/teal. The color that actually best matched it was a Blue Cross nameless 'Color Zone' polish that was a bit too watery. So instead, I started out applying two layers of Sinful Colors Savage, which is a matte teal polish. I topped that off with that nameless Color Zone to brighten the teal. The design was then refined with nail art brushes in white and silver. Because that obviously wasn't shiny enough, I used Milani Blue Flash on the last section of the tips.

 I used Swarovski flat backed gems from the craft store, which are a little oversized for most nail art use, but they were fun and shiny and matched the color scheme. And they managed to stay on the whole night!

Colors Used:

Sally Hansen Bliss

ORLY Honeymoon in Style

Sinful Colors Savage

Color Zone (Nameless teal/blue)

Milani Blue Flash

KISS Nail Art White

KISS Nail Art Silver

Brown and Beautiful

 These were done without a plan in mind, and I enjoy them! Seems some of my best nail art comes when I just do whatever I'm in the mood to do. I wanted to do some brown nails, so I pulled out my favorite brown, ORLY Dating the Drummer. It is very hard to photograph, but this polish has the tiniest blue and pink microglitter mixed throughout. I decided to compliment that with a subtle glitter gradient of Nicole by OPI Just Busta Mauve, which is a brown/blue/pink glitter. It matches nearly perfectly! I started the glitter at the cuticle of each nail and just brushed it out with the bottle brush.

I then thought there was some extra shnazz missing, so I pulled out my stamping plates. I used a blue flower design on each nail, with a grassy larger design on the thumb. I followed that with gold bug designs, which include butterflies, a dragonfly, and a ladybug.

Colors Used:
Sephora Dating the Drummer
Nicole by OPI Just Busta Mauve
China Glaze Blue Bells Ring
Milani Signature Gold
Pueen 02, 39,46

Beauty and the Beast

 Well, this turned into a little bit of a trainwreck. I was attempting to do Beauty and the Beast-inspired nails, and I was rushed, so I didn't get to make it look all that great. And of course, what I did do I had to try to do around incessant feline interference. Oh well! I really want to try stained glass again later, that was my favorite part.

 I tried to do stained glass on the thumbs, the ring/middle fingers are Belle's dress and the Beast's suit. My left ring finger was the rose in its jar, and my right ring finger was the mirror.

And the culprit for most all of the annoyance while trying to paint these, complete with smarmy expression as he gets in my way:

 

Colors Used:

Revlon Lemon Meringue (yellow)

Spoiled Designated Driver (yellow)

CQ Tropics (blue)

China Glaze White on White 

Wet n Wild Black Creme

Revlon Emerald City (green)

Sinful Colors Exotic Green

OPI Oy-another polish joke!

Milani Lemongello

NYC Velvet Rope

Nicole by OPI Kourt is Red-y For a Pedi

Milani Hot Pink

Elf Mango Madness

Revlon Steel-her Heart

ORLY Golden Jubilee

Superman!

 I am a fan of superheroes, so I am loving that apparently we are in the Age of Superhero Movies. Superman is one of my top favorite superheroes, so of course I had to do nails to celebrate the new movie. I wanted to do something for the new costume, trying to replicate the textured effect with the darker colors.

 I first put down a layer of Sonia Kashuk Taunting Teal (Seriously, I need to get away from my addiction to this color) on my thumb, middle, and ring fingers. On my index and pinky nails I used NYC Velvet Rope, which is a dark red. Once those were dry, I stamped on a dotted pattern from Pueen. For the blues, I used Milani Sail Away, and for the reds I used Sinful Colors Sugar Sugar.

 I then used both NYC Velvet Rope and Sinful Colors Sugar Sugar to make the S-shield. I did the yellow sections with two layers of Nail Fetish California Love, which is a pale yellow. I then shnazzed it up a bit with a light dusting of OPI Oy-Another Polish Joke, so the gold really pops. The effect turned out really neat, and didn't get captured as well on these photos.

 Finally, I added an exaggerated M-shape to the base of each index and pinky nail, to emulate the top of the boots. I filled in the base side with more Taunting Teal and dots of Sail Away. On my right middle finger I tried to emulate his belt design.

Colors Used:

Sonia Kashuk Taunting Teal

NYC Velvet Rope

Milani Sail Away

Sinful Colors Sugar Sugar

Nail Fetish California Love

OPI Oy-Another Polish Joke!

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