Halloween Nail Art: Leopard Print and Stripes

I love leopard print nail art! It's such an easy go to design for me and you can really have fun. I did some for 4th of July this year so decided to do a Halloween version! 

I used almost all OPI polishes for this mani: My Boyfriend Scales Walls, Chop-sticking to My Story, and Don't Mess With OPI. The black is my standard Wet n Wild Black Creme. I used nail vinyls from Nailvinyls.com for the striped nail. Everything is topped with Essie Matte About You

Lime Crime neon polka dot skittles

My titles feel boring to me. How does everyone else come up with titles for their blog posts?

The inspiration for tons mani comes from the photo below. The watermark says linda165, but upon searching Instagram I find the proper name is @linda165_yt

I didn't have the exact colors she used. I've got a couple untrieds, and I hate having polishes go used so I decided to combine my new Lime Crime Pastelchio along with old love Lime Crime Peaches <3 Cream.

For my index finger, I used two coats of OPI Push and Shove followed by OPI Crown Me Already. The white base is my go-to white, Wet n Wild French White Creme.

I topped it all off with Rica Glossy Glam. After it dried, I added a coat of Essie Matte About You.

I had less issues with Glossy Glam this time. No smearing nail art (I floated the top coat better). I did have a TON of shrinkage on my nails with French White Creme as the base. But the Lime Crime hands were fine. It just must not like Wet n Wild.

Anyone try Glossy Glam? What are your thoughts?

June Nail Art Challenge, Day 25: Nude

How's everyone doing today? My day hasn't been too exciting. Got a good work out in with my husband this morning at the YMCA. Our local Y is really nice and has cheap daycare. It's a total win since it gives T a chance to play with other kids (I'm a stay-at-home mom) too.

The little guy's been a cranky butt though. He hasn't really wanted to nap at all. He did finally take one this afternoon and bedtime is soon!

Anyway onto today's mani. I've been really loving nude manis lately.

For this one, I used a base of Essie Brooch The Subject and China Glaze I'm Not Lion. Then I freehanded the design using Cosmo Wild Thing (a neon pink I won about 2 years ago from Cosmo magazine) and Milani Fresh Teal.

If the mani looks familiar, that's because I was inspired by an awesome blogger! 

@PolishCandies does some great stuff so  be sure to check her out.

My nude day didn't turn out quite how I wanted it. And I'm Not Lion didn't agree with me and it popped off in sheets the day after I did this mani (I did it at night and I noticed one nail already missing that morning!)

June Nail Art Challenge, Day 1: Sky

Over on Instagram, there's a pretty popular monthly nail art challenge.

What's great about this one is that it's spread out so much more easily doable. Plus the hashtag makes linking nail art doers easier than I think than blogging.

I posted mine yesterday on Instagram, but didn't have a chance to blog yet so here is my day 1!

I thought about going literal with clouds, but I've seen lots of daisy-like flowers and tutorials on Instagram that I've been loving so I went with that.

I only use nail polish for this design. Base is Barry M Blueberry. After topping the design with top coat to dry, I added a coat of Essie Matte About You. It does sometimes leave random white dots which can be a pain.

Royal Madness Flowers

Normally I don't stick to seasonality in regards to polish colors. However, for me flowers really are a spring/summer MAYBE even fall thing. I love doing simple dotted flower manis too, and they've become a sort of go-to for me.

For this flower mani, I first used a base of Revlon Royal. Then I dotted on flowers (I tried to do some different sizes) with Essie Mojito Madness (that's where I tried to get creative with the title of today's post....not quite sure it worked). The white is my go-to, Wet N Wild French White Creme.

LynBDesigns TARDIS matte

Hey everyone! Super quick post here today. I've shown LynBDesigns TARDIS here before, but it's still one of my favorite colors. I wanted to wear it again, but in a fresh way for the blog.

So I just slapped some on and added Essie matte top coat. I love it!!! The mani lasted surprisingly well for how hard I am on my hands too.

Cherry Blossoms Redux

I decided to recreate my very first mani that I posted on this blog over two years ago. The concept was good (cherry blossoms), but I definitely could improve on the execution, clean up, etc.

I really wanted to do a lighter base with something like China Glaze For Audrey but stuck to the original spirit of things.

The new mani uses a base of Rimmel Blue My Mind.

For the original, I used only nail art pens in black, red and white. This time I used brushes and dotting tools. The vines are Essie Little Brown Dress. For the cherry blossoms, I dotted using Zoya Shelby. Then I mixed Shelby with a bit of Wet n Wild French White Cream and dotted on that. Finally I added dots of French White Cream and top coat.

Here's the mani all on it's own:

St. Patrick's Day: Green Studded Skittles

I love green nail polish so St. Patrick's Day is a great excuse to use all of them!!! LOL

This year, I decided to forgo the usual St. Patty's designs of shamrocks, rainbows, and leprechauns and just focus on using green polish.

For these skittles, I used a combo of Essie Mojito Madness and A-England Dragon, both fabulous one coater green polishes.
I also used straight nail vinyls to create the design. I REALLY like these. While striping tape is super cheap on eBay and nail art supply sites, I don't find that it sticks well enough and nail polish often seeps underneath the tape. These vinyls also come in three different widths which make designs super easy to do. I used the skinniest vinyls for my ring finger and the medium one for my index.

My manis don't often get seen (except on the internet, lol) since I'm a stay-at-home mom. But the children's librarian complimented this one during baby story time which made me day!

Zoya Normani

Tomorrow, we'll heading out of town for the wedding (well, reception since they had a destination wedding) of two friends.

I wanted to paint something simple yet beautiful on my nails. I always wanted to lean more neutral. I saw this idea and was going to use a tan as the base. HOWEVER, I just got my Zoya order in and *knew* Normani would make a great neutral base without being boring. I was right :)

Zoya Normani went on great in two coats. I wouldn't recommend two because then the coat would be pretty thick and so it would tak longer to dry plus be more likely to chip.

I used China Glaze I'm Not Lion for the glitter. After topping with NYC In A New York Minute and letting dry, I added Essie Matte About You.

Merry Christmas!!

Hey all! Tomorrow is going to be super busy since the family is coming to our place. I'll be working on last minute cleaning plus cooking.

As much as I loved my last mani, it chipped super fast on me :(

So I had to redo it and I didn't have too much time. I also filed my nails down short since winter is taking quite a toll on them.

The base is 3 coats of Essie Marshmallow topped with China Glaze Twinkle Lights.

used the DIY Gel method on these to get longer wear. So I painted in this order: Gelous, Marshmallow, Gelous, Marshmallow, Gelous, Marshmallow, Twinkle Lights, Seche Vite.

I would not recommend the DIY Gel method with a polish that takes so many coats. It worked out fine; just took a while  to do.

Bloody Splatter

Base: Wet n Wild Black Creme followed by Seche Vite to dry. Added Essie Matte About You on top.

Splatter: Zoya Isla and Zoya Sookie

Beachy Nails with Zoya Godiva

I know this has been done before, but I just had to do my own beach nails with Zoya Godiva.

Crab is done mostly with Zoya Sookie. Starfish is Sinful Colors Orange Cream. It's hard to see but I did footprints on the ring finger and a heart with A + J in the middle on the pinkie finger. I did those using Essie Brooch The Subject.

Neon Animal Print

Base coat: Cosmo Girl Wild Thing (pink) and Essie Brooch the Subject

Leopard print was free handed using Wet n Wild Black Creme

I stamped on the zebra print with Konad Black and went over some parts that didn't fully stamp.

Cookie Monster

As several of you know, I have a little guy at home! Some days he can be quite the handful. He's teething finally(!), but that's making him super crabby. He normally fights his naps big time, but it's been even worse with the teething.

We were headed out of town for 2 days, and I had a ton of stuff to do around the house (as you usually do before leaving on trips). The husband was off to work, and of course little man was a big crank that day! Well, I called in for back up!

My husband's coworker is a good friend of ours and lives just down the street. Her niece was visiting so I had her come on over to play with the little man while I got stuff done. She was great and wore him out!

He ended up eventually taking a nap so I did her nails as a big thank you.  She asked me to do Cookie Monster nails so of course I obliged!

I started with a base of Wet N Wild French White Creme on all the nails. I used two coats.

Next I added Cookie Monster using L'Oreal Notting Hill Blues and Wet N Wild Black Creme for the details.

The cookies were done with Essie Brooch the Subject and Essie Little Brown Dress.

You can't see it very well in this picture, but her pinkies have exclamation marks while her thumbs say, "Yum yum."

Raindrops Frogs

I decided to add some nail art to Illamasqua Raindrops. I went with this frog design, but I didn't follow the video and just freehanded base upon the picture.

My nails aren't quite long enough to do both the frog and the lily pads on the same nail so I split them up.  This could be a super cute design to add cover up tip wear by simply making sure the lily pads are on the tips only instead of by the cuticles like I did.

I used a ton of different colors for this design:

Light green: Sally Hansen Green with Envy
Green: Essie Mojito Madness
Light pink: Ulta Encore Pink
Pink: Pure Ice Peony
Wet N Wild Black Creme
Wet N Wild French White Creme

I used a small nail art brush for the whole design and it was super easy. I was a bit worried about the lily pads, but I just sorta did light pink blobs, outlined them in dark pink, and added some dark pink accents. They turned out great, but I love the one on my middle finger best. I do sorta like that the one on my pinkie kinda looks like a heart though <3

June Polish Days: To Boldly Go

The theme for this month's Polish Days is To Boldly Go. Anything sci-fi goes for this theme.

I'm fairly new to the cult of Doctor Who (just started the 11th Doctor), but I've been wanting to do Doctor Who nails since I got hooked.  Doctor Who nails work perfectly for the sci-fi theme!

On my nails I painted (from index to pinkie), the 9th Doctor's outfit (he's my favorite!), the (new) Doctor Who logo, a Dalek, and the T.A.R.D.I.S.

I started my painting the base I needed for each image. Here's what I used:

Index: Essie Brooch the Subject

Middle: Zoya Storm

Ring: Revlon Gold Coin

Pinkie: Revlon Royal

Then I added on the details using some small nail art brushes and several different polishes. Here are the rest of the polishes I used:

Index: Revlon Royal (blue), Wet N Wild Black Creme (black)

Middle: Barry M Silver Foil (silver)

Pinkie: Wet n Wild Black Creme, Wet n Wild French White Creme

I adore how this came out. The Dalek and the 9th Doctor's outfit are my favorite :)

Check out other mani from June's Polish Days through the links 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 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 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!