Cactus Nail Art

Have you noticed that cacti seem to be a trend lately? Perhaps it's just a new one in the Midwest, but I've seen cactus nail art ideas popping up on Pinterest lately too.

There are so many cute designs that I decided to do my own.

For my design, I used Illamasqua Load as a base coat. The cactus are done using Zoya Wyatt, and I added an accent of Zoya Chita.

Illamasqua Grab Negative Space Mani

I've been seeing negative space manis all over Instagram lately. I wanted to try out my own design and went with something simpler.

First I painted a base coat. Then I taped off the space I wanted naked or negative. I painted the remaining space with Illamasqua Grab. I'd recommend using a one coater for this part.

After I peeled up the tape, I used a small brush and Barry M Silver Foil to freehand the lines. Other than messing up my pinkie a bit, it turned about really well! It was surprisingly easy to do too! 

Springy yellow gradient

I've had the idea for this mani floating around for a while. I just haven't gotten around to it, but since it's finally spring (even though we got snow overnight....) I thought I'd finally do it!

I did a base of Illamasqua Load on all my nails. On the ring and thumb, I added one good coat of Dollish Polish Hylian Princess. I REALLY loved the mani at this point. Not that I don't love the outcome, but I just loved that so much more. I may end up sporting that some time soon.

Anyways, then I did a gradient of Zoya Pippa over that and stamped using a Bundle Monster plate (bad blogger! I'll put the name later) and Konad White. The flowers are super subtle and honestly the gradient looked better with out them.

Phallic Flowers

Not quite as dirty as the title sounds ;)

Base: Illamasqua Phallic and Barry M Gold Foil

Details: Wet n Wild French White Creme, and studs from Born Pretty Store

Spiderwebs and Raindrops

I used a base of 2 coats of Rimmel Grey Matter and followed it up with one thick coat of Illamasqua Raindrops. I like the sorta stormy/glistening effect this created.

Then I freehanded spiderwebs using Barry M Silver Foil. The spider was done with Wet n Wild Black Creme and Zoya Isla for the eyes.

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

Illamasqua Raindrops

OMG, I'm soooo excited to be showing you this polish today!!! Can't you tell?!?

Illamasqua Raindrops has been on my wishlist for forever so I was super excited when it was announced that they were bringing it back! I managed to purchase this bottle from a nail polish sales Facebook group. I just couldn't help myself!

Raindrops is a beautiful light grey creme polish base with the tiniest hint of blue that has added silver/white flakies.  I love grey polish to begin with, but the flakies really make it stand out.

It had that great Illamasqua formula and went on in only two coats. I did one thinner one to set the foundation and one thicker one to add the color. I've been doing this method lately for application, and it seems to work well!

Grab Another Polish from My Stache :)

The title is my attempt at humor and a clue to what today's mani features :)

In case you can't guess, today's mani features moustaches, but it also features Illamasqua Grab.

Illamasqua Grab is a almost neon magenta-pink color. And it's beautiful. I normally don't like pink, but I really like this one. The formula is great too. I used 2 coats on this, but you could possibly get away with one.

On my index finger, I used another sample Jamberry nail shield courtesy of Kelly.

The mustaches are vinyl nail stickers that I got in a swap, but they are similar ones available on Etsy through various sellers. I love these because they sizes get gradually smaller so they look very nicely proportional on all my fingers.

I am so in love with my mani. Like for real. It took 10 minutes to do which is great since my little man has been taking short naps lately (his poor teeth are bothering him).

What do you think of the mustache trend?

Rainy Love

I decided to add some nail art to Illamasqua Load, but I wasn't quite sure what I wanted to do.  I thought about doing some rainy day nails, but I did some last year. The art on last year's design could be improved, but I still wanted to do something more original.  I decided to head over to my Inspiration board on Pinterest. There, I save things that I can use as inspiration for manis.  A lot of the pins are patterns, but I also have some pictures.

I saw this picture and knew it would be perfect! It would great with Load as a background, plus it had the rainy day idea.

Source

I really love the way this turned out! I do wish the shape of the birds was a teeny bit better, but I am my own worst critic!

I think I love the cloud on here the best. I love that little heart on it <3

Colors used were Illamasqua Load for the base, Nina Ultra Pro Ink-ling for the body of the birdies, Zoya Dove for the other grey details, Wet n Wild French White Creme, and OPI Chop-Sticking to My Story for the perfect orange.

Here's a close-up of the birdies and the cloud.

Where do you find inspiration for your manis?

Illamasqua Load

This is another polish that I got as part of my Illamasqua group order. Load has been a major lemming of mine for a while so I'm soooo glad that I got it finally! I ordered a second one as a backup too :)

Load is a pastel creamy yellow-ish white. I love the sort of neutral color it is without being a plain ole white.

I needed 3 coats for this mani, and the dry time was a bit slow which is pretty expected for a pastel/white color. I used Seche Vite on top, and it still took a while to dry for me.

I still love the color of Load, and the Illamasqua formula (very little cleanup needed here!)

Monday Mani: Purple Up! For Military Kids

This week's Monday Mani theme at PAA (Polish-aholics Anonymous) is Purple Up! for Military Kids.  This picture explains today's theme quite well.

I did a group order forever ago it seems when Illamasqua was doing a sale on their website so we could get free US shipping. It took a long time, but my polishes finally made it to me a week or two ago.

I got Illamasqua at part of my order and KNEW I had to use it for today's purple mani.

Look at that glow! Illamasqua describes Baptiste as "a deep royal purple" with a "shimmer finish."  I would say it's so much more than that. It has this beautiful inner glow to it that really makes it stand out.  I used two coats for what you see here. I used thin coats so you could probably get away with one thick coat.

On my accent fingers, I used Rimmel Black Satin and one coat of Milani Lavender. Lavender is a super dense glitter with lavender hexes and purple micro glitter. It applies great and really stands out over black.

What is your favorite glitter to layer over black?

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 10, Gradient

For today's gradient, I decided to go shimmery!

The base coat is Essence Rich & Pretty. I used 3 coats for this mani which I'm totally okay with since it dried very quickly. With my little man, I'm all about fast (but pretty!) manis!

On top of it I used a wedge makeup sponge and sponged on Illamasqua Phallic. It's a gorgeous metallic blue.

To bring it all together, I topped with one coat of Sally Hansen Ice Queen.

Check out some other gorgeous gradient manis below.

31 Day Challenge: Day 5, Blue

Today's challenge is Blue.

I started off this mani with 2 coats of Illamasqua Phallic. I've had this polish on my wishlist for a while and was lucky enough to get it from a friend in my birthday group! It's a super dark blue with tons of blue shimmer that shows up well in the sunlight.

I also added 1 coat China Glaze I'm Not Lion to my accent fingers. In the sun pictures you can see the awesome holographic effect.

Finally, I finished up this mani with some stamping.  My pinkie finger I used BM 301 with Barry M Gold Foil, my middle finger I used Mash 22 with Barry M Silver Foil, and I used Born Pretty M71 with Color Club Lumni-icecent for my index finger.

 In these two sunlight pictures, you can see the shimmer from Phallic and as well as the holographic effect from I'm Not Lion.

Check out some other blue manis using Inlinkz below.