Valentine's Day: Leopard Skittle

I've been really wanting to do a Valentine's Day leopard print, more specifically a heart shaped one. I decided to skittle it up on this mani.

A friend of mine lent me her gel system to use as well so I did a gel sandwich (gel bad coat and cure, regular polish and top coat, dry overnight, gel top coat and cute). I'll post pictures later to show you a wear test :)

I used two coats each of Zoya Keiko (purple) and Zoya Shelby. For my ring finger, I used three coats of Glam Polish Unicorn Sparkles! The black accents were added using Wet n Wild Black Creme.

Zoya Jules skittles

Base: Zoya Jules, two coats

Freehanded chevron with Wet n Wild Black Creme and added square black studs

Pastel Galaxy

I don't know if any moms read my blog, but if you are a mom you just migth have heard of the Baby Center website. They have tons of information about babies and kids plus several chat boards. One of the boards I belong to has started a nail board that is going very strong! (Shout out to my BHB ladies!)

What's great about that is that we understand time restraints since we are all moms. We're all super supportive of each other which can be rare both in mom groups and the nail polish community. It's a neat little haven.

Anyway, we've decided to do weekly challenges. We get one theme for the week. Again as moms, getting a whole week to do a challenge works great! This week's theme is galaxies. I've done regular and Northern Lights ones. Today I decided to go with another "new" one and do pastel galaxy nails.

I followed a few different tutorials for this one and made it my own. It's not as pastel as other pastel galaxy manis, but I like some of the pops of dark colors.

I used a crap ton of polishes too:

Base is two coats of Sinful Colors Candy Coated.

I added the galaxy using Wet n Wild French White Creme, Barry M Blueberry, Zoya Pippa (yellow), Sinful Colors Fig, A-England Lake of the Lake (purple holographic), Zoya Pippa (pink), Revlon Minted (mint green that was mostly used to tone down purple base as Minted was pretty sheer), and Nubar Absolute (very lightly sponged to add the shimmery effect).

Black ombré stripes

Colors used: Wet n Wild Black Creme, Rimmel Grey Matter, Zoya Dove, and Rimmel French White Nail Tip Liner

Holographic Christmas Dotticure

I wanted to do a water marble Christmas mani, but time is tight these days and I'm not very good with water marbles so it will take forever!

So I did a simple Christmas dotticure.

The base is Gosh Holographic Hero. I believe it's the new version. I used two colors here. The top photo shows the holographic effect nicely.

For the dots I used Sinful Colors Ruby Ruby (red), OPI Don't Mess With OPI (green), Wet N a Wild Black Creme, and Wet n Wild French White Creme.

Christmas Leopard Print

I've had this idea in my head for ages so I knew I had to do it as soon as the holiday season came around. It turned out pretty great, if I do say so myself :)

I used two coats each of Zoya Sooki (red) and OPI Don't Mess With OPI (green) for my base. I alternated the polish across all 10 fingers.

I don't have a leopard print stamping image so I freehanded this using Wet n Wild Black Creme and the pointy end of an orange stick. Then I added a thick layer of Seche Vite over the top.

Whimsical Ideas by Pam Just Add Milk

3 coats Whimsical Ideas by Pam Just Add Milk

Base of Wet n Wild French White Creme

Art done using Migi nail art pens

Double Challenge Day featuring Snow Man Nail Art

Today's challenge for the Polish-Aholics Anonymous Winter 2013 Challenge is Inspired by a Holiday Movie. I'm also participating in the Nail Polish Canada 2013 Holiday Nail Art Challenge. The first week's theme is Snow. I decided to combine the two ideas and did Frosty the Snowman nails.

I was inspired by a post I saw on Pinterest and created this.

Base: Wet N Wild French White Creme and Sally Hansen Glass Slipper
Details: black acrylic paint, Zoya Arizona (orange), Barry M Pomegrante

Berry & Silver Skittle

Sinful Colors Berry Charm

Wet n Wild Sprinkled with Love

Nail Craze NC02 stamped with Barry M Silver Foil

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

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

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.

Pumpkin Skittles

Base: China Glaze Riveting

Art: Wet n Wild Black Creme

Neon blue skittlette

Here's a mani I did earlier this summer, but didn't get around to posting yet.

The base is Wet n Wild Teal Slowly and See (not really a teal at all) topped with one super thick coat of Lynnderella Bird Brain Blue. I had to do some digging for glitter in this one. I also added some studs for an accent.

Glam Polish Vegas Baby!

Rachel of Glam Polish makes beautiful polishes! I got my hands on some and will be featuring them here over the next few days.

Today's polish is Glam Polish Vegas Baby! I layered it over Wet n Wild French White Creme and did an accent using the splatter technique on the other nails.

Also don't forget to follow me on Instagram @rubytadpole. Feel free to leave your Instagram name below so

I can follow you as well.

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.

Tropical Sunset

Gradient created using O.P.I. Chop-Sticking to My Story, O.P.I. The "It" Color, Zoya Pippa, and Zoya Arizona.

Details added with small brush and Wet n Wild Black Creme.

Black Poppy Skittles

I belong to an awesome nail polish group where we swap polish but also post polish for free (just pay postage!).  Today's feature polish is one that I just paid postage for :)

This is a dark teal polish courtesy of Black Poppy. Black Poppy polish is sold at PacSun. Unfortunately, that's all I found out about this company. This is also no name or number on the polish.  But it's gorgeous!

I used two coats of the dark teal as my base coat. It was wonderfully opaque in one coat though. I needed the second to help cover up brush lines though and even things out.

The dark teal is soooo opaque that it stains though :( It's also watery so it flooded a bit and was hard to control. (Maybe that's why I got it for free).

But I still like it. The color is just too pretty not to! I left the dark teal polish by itself on my middle finger.

On my ring and thumb, I layered a coat of Lynnderella Connect the Dots.  I added a simple stripe on my index using China Glaze Stone Cold and left the matte finish there. On my pinkie, I used Wet n Wild Black Creme to create a gradient effect which looks so great with the dark teal.

I loved how this mani turned out so much that I couldn't stop myself from staring at it! That's especially dangerous while driving ;)

Glittering Garland Mosaic

I've seen quite a few mosaic designs on Pinterest (my favorite place for inspiration!) and put it on my nail art to do list.

I love love love the way this turned out. Unfortunately, it started chipping right away. I'm not sure if it was the base coat (I just changed that so we'll see) or the Seche Vite I used as the top coat (I normally use Sally Hansen or NYC).

I started with 2 coats of China Glaze Glittering Garland.  It's a silver holographic glitter.  I would say it's a bit dense to use as a layering polish, but with 2 coats it works nicely as a base. You can see a teeny bit of my nail peeking through, but that didn't bother me.

Next I used some striping tape to block off some sections.

I used a small brush and filled in the shapes with Wet n Wild Black Creme, Wet n Wild French White Creme, Barry M Pomegranate, and O.P.I. Fly. Then I removed the tape carefully and top coated.

The colors went together very nicely, and I love the little bits of holo glitter peeking out from the mosaic design.  This design was super easy to do too, so I foresee myself doing more in the future!

OPI DS Temptation

I bought O.P.I. DS Temptation a while ago from a friend. I've seen several manis on Pinterest creating chevron/zig zag design over glitter so I decided to do one!

I used 2 coats of DS Temptation on my middle and ring fingers and my thumb. On my index and pinkie, I used two coats of Wet n Wild Black Creme.

To add the chevron design, I just used nail stickers! Super easy! I love the ease of this design plus it's super pretty. Normally, I do my accent nails as my thumb and ring finger, but I enjoyed playing around a bit with this design and switching things up!