Halloween Nail Art: Black and Orange Swirl

How's everyone doing? We have a super busy week coming up including swim lessons starting today; surgery for the dog, vet appointment for the cat, and Halloween story time tomorrow; loads of errands on Wednesday; Trick or Treating on Friday; and T's second birthday on Saturday. Whew!!!!

Anyway, today's PAA Mani Monday is Black and Orange only so I combined Zoya Arizona and Storm to create this swirly mani. This technique was created by the fabulous Sveta Sanders. Check out her Instagram @sveta_sanders for a tutorial.

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

Monday Mani: Black and White with ManGlaze

This week's Monday Mani theme is Black and White Only. It worked perfectly because I recently received two new ManGlaze polishes in the mail!

I used two coats of Matte is Murder and 3 of Mayonnaise. They both have shimmer, though you can't really see it in Mayo.

NOPI Khloe Had A Lam-Lam skittle mani

One of my favorite polishes of all time is Nicole by OPI Khloe Had A Lam-Lam. I'm not a huge Kardashian fan, but this darkened teal color is so great. I'm almost 1/2 way through one bottle so I'm gonna have to find another soon.

For today's mani, I added a holo topper of Hits Hefesto (the original!) then stamped using Konad Black and Bundle Monster BM305.

Finnish fabric inspired mani

When I've for time or I'm bored, I love to browse Pinterest for new mani ideas. I don't just mean manis posted by other bloggers. I love to browse fabrics, designs, and color seeds for other inspiration. This particular mani was inspired by a Finnish fabric I found on Pinterest.

It was really easy to do too! I used Zoya Skylar plus Wet n Wild Black Creme and French White Creme. Then I just randomly placed on the polka dots and added top coat. Done!

And my poor hands are now done completely to nubs. My middle finger received some serious damage and had a low side tear. It just kept getting worse so I cut it off, hence the strange shape.

Blue skittles

Quick post today.

I did this mani as part of a mani swap on Instagram.

The colors were Revlon Royal, Wet n Wild French White Creme, and Wet n Wild Black Creme. I used Rica Glossy Glam on top. Still not sure if I'm a fan it it. It's smearing my art, plus I'm having same day cuticle shrinkage. Not even Seche Vite gives me shrinkage that bad.

Below is the mani swap collage.

June Nail Art Challenge, Day 28: Destinations

A day late in blogging this, but I was able to get it up on Instagram in time! It's a Instagram challenge, so that's what counts, right?

Anyway, I bought Cheeky Jumbo Plate 3 (European Romance) a while ago because of the beautiful images on it. It's got some great full nail images that I really like. But it's also got some super cute smaller images that I haven't gotten around to using yet. So this challenge theme was a perfect excuse!

I chose to go with Italy as the theme simply because I have spent time there.

I chose the airplane to represent travel in general. The other images are for 3 of the cities in Italy I was able to travel to: Pisa, Rome, and Venice. The little gondola driver is so cute!

The base of this two coats of Milani Fresh Teal which I found at Dollare Tree. Score! I stamped the images using Konad Black.

June Nail Art Challenge, Day 11: Neon Gradient

Wet n Wild Black Creme

Glam Polish Vegas Baby!

(Sorry for the short post. Baby and I are both sick).

Safari Leopard Nails

When I do my nails, I don't often like to do the same on all of them. I LOVE accent nails, but I like to switch up my normal (ring and thumb accents) sometimes. I did that today!

I've already been really wanting to do a leopard print on top of a super glittery polish. I decided on China Glaze I Herd That and used two coats.

When I was grabbing out polishes and holding them up to see what I should use an accent, I ended up with China Glaze Exotic Encounters and decided it was perfect since they are both from the On Safari collection.

I finished this up with dots of I Herd That on the index and middle fingers. The black for my leopard print is my standard Wet n Wild Black Creme.

Orly Rage skittlette

I purchased Orly Rage a bit ago during a BOGO sale at Sally's. I don't have anything quite like Rage which is why I decided to get it.

I can't remember how many coats I used, but probably 2-3. On my middle and ring fingers, I placed some chevron nail vinyls, painted over with Wet n Wild Black Creme, and took the stickers off right away. My index and pinkie fingers are also a base of Wet n Wild Black Creme plus some gold studs.

Green Glitter Gradient

I'm not a person who is super big into fashion. I'm a jeans and tshirt kinda gal. And when I say tshirt I mean the kind with pictures on them like from Threadless. My husband is the same way, and we buy similar stuff for our little guy like this super cute shirt we just order from Kohls!

Anyway, I was browsing some photos from Mercedes-Benz New York Fashion Week for some inspiration. I came across the Zang Toi Fall 2014 collection inspired by 1930s Shanghai. It's beautiful! He used mostly a black palette with pops of emerald green. The designs are timeless and seem very wearable too. Zang Toi also worked with Zoya for this show (as the two have in the past)

I picked one of the cocktail dresses and created a mani inspired by it.

I started with a base of Wet n Wild Black Creme. Then I added a gradient at the tips using NYX Girls Emerald Forest. Finally I added a super sparse layer of Orly Mermaid Tale to the whole nail.

Here's the mani by itself. I love how it came out, and my husband did too. He said it was "cool" which is sorta big because he hasn't said anything lately about my other manis :P

Princess Jasmine Inspired Nails

This super simple mani was inspired by Princess Jasmine from Disney's Aladdin.

Colors used:

China Glaze For Audrey

Wet n Wild Black Creme

Barry M Gold Foil

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

Black ombré stripes

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

Happy New Year!

I don't have anything special going on this year for New Year's Eve. We're not really party people (like going out), and with a one year old it's not so easy to have people over that late or to go to someone else's house. My husband is working until 9pm today as well. I think when he gets home, I'll make a ginormous batch of stove top popcorn and we'll watch some Doctor Who (I'm all caught up; he's on Series 5 still).

Anyway! I still did some simple New Year's Eve nails just for fun :)

Colors used: Barry M Gold Foil and Pure Ice Black Crackle

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.

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.