31 Day Challenge, Part 2!: Day 31, Recreate a Manicure

For the final mani of this challenge, I decided to recreate Geeky Owl's Inspired by Fashion mani. I did change things up a bit and still tried to fit in with the Valentine's Day theme I've been rolling with.

My base coat is 2 coats of O.P.I. DS Opulence. It's a very pretty mauve-ish color with some holographic glitter. The color is sort of a neutral color.

I got my glequins from the dollar store. They came in these cute little glass jars and had 8 different colors in a pack. Not bad for a $1! They are pretty tiny though, but I think I like them at this size.

I did different designs on each nail including a cute little heart on the pinkie for Valentine's Day. I think I like how the middle and pinkie fingers turned out best. 

Check out some other recreated manis for the final day of the challenge!

31 Day Challenge, Part 2!: Day 30, Inspired by a Tutorial

For today's challenge, I decided to follow the Nailside's famous cloud design tutorial. It's such an easy design, and I've never done it before so I thought today was the perfect opportunity.

Once again, I went with a Valentine's Day theme. My base coat is two coats of Zoya Loretta. Then I used Pure Ice Peony and NYC MoMa to create the clouds.

This mani was sooooo easy to do. I need to do this in every color. But the pink? Way too girly for my taste!

Check out other manis inspired by tutorials below.

31 Day Challenge, Part 2!: Day 29, Inspired by the Supernatural

For today's mani, I was originally just going to go with an alien and a spaceship. But since I did a few manis this week with a Valentine's Day theme, I decided to go with alien love for today's mani

I love how super cute this turned out!

I used two coats of Sinful Colors Neptune for the base. The shimmery blue was a perfect not-too-dark space background. The spaceship was done with Barry M Emerald Green. The first alien was created using Sinful Colors Dream On, and I used Sinful Colors Rise and Shine for the other alien. The hearts are Pure Ice Peony. I added in the black and and white details using Rimmel Black Satin and Rimmel French White Nail Tip Liner.

Check out some other far out manis inspired by the supernatural below.

31 Day Challenge, Part 2!: Day 28, Inspired by a Flag

For today's challenge, I wanted to do the state flag of Wisconsin. However, it's pretty complicated with TONS of details so I decided against it. Instead, I went with the flag of Texas which is where I was born.

Source: Wikipedia

I did the lone star on the flag around my index and ring fingers. It was kind of hard to do, but I think I did okay!

The colors I used are Revlon Royal (blue), Zoya Sooki (red), and Sally Hansen Whirlwind White.

This mani was super easy to do, and I really how like how it came out.

Check out other manis inspired by flags below.

31 Day Challenge, Part 2!: Day 27, Inspired by Artwork

I decided to continue the Valentine's Day theme and was excited when I found this piece of art by Robert Indiana called "Classic Sky Love." I've seen this artwork before and thought it would fun to do as a mani!

Source: Art.com

I started with a base of Essie Mojito Madness.

The rest of the mani was done with acrylic paint. I should have done a second coat on the red, but I really do love the way this turned out!! I stayed turn to the artwork, and I love the pop effect.

Check out other manis inspired by artwork below.

31 Day Challenge, Part 2!: Day 26, Inspired by a Pattern

For today's challenge, I really wanted to do something with heart since Valentine's Day is coming up soon. So off to Google Images I went!  I found this pattern with pink hearts on a grey back ground and loved it!

Source: Dreamstime

I started with a base coat of Rimmel Grey Matter. I really like this polish because I love the color, the Rimmel brush, and its fast dry time.  I added the hearts using acrylic paint.

Check out other manis inspired by patterns below.

31 Day Challenge, Part 2!: Day 25, Inspired by Fashion

I am definitively not a fashion person! So for today's challenge I scoured the Neiman Marcus website until I found this beautiful dress by Vera Wang.

Source: Neiman Marcus

For this mani, I started with a base of Nicole by O.P.I. Khloe Had a Little Lam-Lam. This is my favorite color, but I had a hard time photographing it this time. Look back on this post I did to see the color in a better light.

On top of it, I stamped using Konad Black and Mash-08 to simulate the lace on the dress. The mani was really dark so it was super hard to photograph, and this was the best photo I could come up with :(

Also, my poor middle nail broke. I didn't really want to trim down my other nails, but looking at these photos is really bothering me so I'll be shortening it up before my next mani.

Check out other manis inspired by fashion below.

31 Day Challenge, Part 2!: Day 24, Inspired by a Book

My thought process to complete today's mani was a bit different than normal. I decided I really wanted to use A-England Tess D'Ubervilles somehow in this mani because 1. it's beautiful!, 2. it's one of my few untrieds, and 3. it's named after a book heroine.

Here is Tess on it's own. A-England says Tess is "like the secretive black of a deep forest, sublimely displaying its provocative emerald secrets" and I think that describes it well! The emerald shimmer peeks out from the black base.

I can't leave well enough alone searched for a cover of Tess of the D'Ubervilles by Thomas Hardy for inspiration to add to this mani.

Source: Phillip J. Pirages

 This cover is the first edition illustrated copy from 1891-1892.  I took my inspiration from the the corners on the cover and the square/diamond pattern there.

I stamped using BM 203 and Barry M Foil Nail Effect Gold.

Check out other manis inspired by books below!

31 Day Challenge, Part 2!: Day 23, Inspired by a Movie

 

My favorite movie of all time has got to be The Little Mermaid so of course I had to use it for today's inspiration.

I went with a mermaid mani. On ring finger, I created multicolored dotted scales and did scales using glitter on the other nails.

The base coat on this is 2 coats Sinful Colors Rise and Shine. It doesn't dry to a shiny finish, but I wouldn't call it a matte finish either. It's pictured on its own below.

For the accent finger, I created scales by dotting on Sinful Colors Rise and Shine, NYC MoMa (pink), Illamasqua Phallic (dark blue shimmer, but reading almost black here), Wet n Wild Metallic (silver), and A-England Lady of the Lake (purple holo).

For the other fingers I did a gradient using NYX Girls Emerald Forest and then painted Orly Mermaid Tale over whole thing. Mermaid Tale is a very fitting polish to use for this mani, I think!

Check out other manis inspired by movies below.

31 Day Challenge, Part 2!: Day 22, Inspired by a Song

In one of my small nail groups, we've been reminiscing lately and sharing old photos. So I starting thinking about old songs that I could use for today's mani when I finally figured out what I should do!

Kryptonite by 3 Doors Down was one of my favorite songs in high school. I still love it actually! What makes the song even better is that the first time I heard it, I was wearing my Superman t-shirt.

To save myself some time, I decided to paint the Superman logo ahead of time as a decal. It sorta worked. I made the decal a bit too big and when I put it over the blue base, the colors didn't stand out as much as I wanted.  The face and suit were inspired by these Superman nails.

The base coat on the face is Essie Brooch the Subject. The base coat on the other nails is Rimmel Chill.  I used acrylic paint for the rest of the design (other than the logo which was done using Migi nail art pens).

I like how these turned out, but I feel like I could have done a neater job.

Check out some other manis inspired by songs below.

31 Day Challenge, Part 2!: Day 21, Inspired by a Color

The Inspired by a Color day can refer to being inspired directly by a color or by a polish name. I chose to be inspired by both!

The base color on this mani is Sally Hansen Green with Envy. See? Green's right there in the title! I used two coats.

Next, I used striping tape to tape off a design and painted using Essie Mojito Maddness and China Glaze Glittering Garland.

I've seen several other bloggers do the color block thing, but this was my first time trying. Boy, do I love it! I can't wait to explore other combinations!

Check out some other manis inspired by color below.

31 Day Challenge, Part 2!: Day 20, Watermarble

Since you know that my time is super limited lately, I was trying to figure out how to so a water marble mani is a short amount of time. At first, I thought about just doing an accent nail, but then I remembered that Bundle Monster has a plate with a water marble stamp and I had that plate (BM 320).

I started with a base coat of NYC MoMa. MoMa is named after the Museum of Modern Art. I only needed 2 coats for this mani. MoMa is part of the In a Minute line and dries nice and fast (I wouldn't say in a minute), plus I really like the brush. They are pretty cheap too so I really should pick up more of these.

As you can see, my stamping didn't work out so well. On the pinkie, I tried Konad Psyche Pink. The colors look cute together, but Psyche Pink isn't as opaque as I hoped it would be. I was having stamping issues so I thought I would try Konad Black with the plate. It sorta worked on my middle finger, but not really. When I was scraping off the excess polish from the plate, I noticed that there wasn't much left on the image. I tried the process several times so I'm going to have to guess that my plate isn't etched very well :(

Check out some other water marble manis below and see if they had better luck than me!

31 Day Challenge, Part 2!: Day 19, Galaxies

I love the way galaxy nails look. I've only done them one time on myself during the 31 Day Challenge in August, but I already knew I wanted to do something different for today.  I saw this pin which lead me to this mani on Tumblr and knew I wanted to do something like it.

I especially knew I wanted to do a Northern Lights/Aurora Borealis mani because I've been lucky enough to see them once several years ago while in college. Because I was farther south, the only color visible was green, and it was pretty dim at that.  I decided to Google some images and was inspired by the ones with green.

Source: Aurora Borealis Photo Gallery

Source: The Guardian

This mani took several different steps. First I painted on two coats of Revlon Royal.  Next I sponged on Rimmel French White Nail Tip Liner to give a base and to ensure the brightness of the other colors.  To create the lights, I sponged on China Glaze I'm With the Lifeguard (green), Sally Hansen Green with Envy, O.P.I. Don't Mess with OPI (green), Sinful Colors Dream On (neon purple), Sinful Colors Amethyst (purple) and Revlon Royal. Whew!

I topped with INM Northern Lights Hologram Top Coat "Silver" (very suiting for this mani!). I created the trees with a small brush and Rimmel Black Satin. Finally, I finished the design with stars in Rimmel French White Nail Tip Liner.

The result turned out pretty awesome, if I do say so myself! The husband even gave it his seal of approval!

Check out other far-out galaxy manis below.

31 Day Challenge, Part 2!: Day 18, Half Moon

I really don't like half moon manis. They are just not my thing. But when I saw these, I kinda liked them! They are definitely not the traditional half moon, but I'm not a traditional kinda girl.

For my base, I used Essie Sew Psyched, a army green. Then I dotted on black in the half moon shape using Rimmel Black Satin. Finally, I dotted Revlon Gold Coin on top of that.

I like this non-traditional half moon! It could be done in a bunch of different colors to make it funky or classy.

Check out some of half-moon manis below!