Zoya Ryan Mixed Metal Nail Art

Today I have a simple nail art design.

For the base, I chose Zoya Ryan. It is a super dark navy blue that applies in one coat! I was able to clean up around the cuticle area easily with no staining. I'm currently wearing it so I'm not sure about removal. 

On my ring and pinkie nails, I stamped using Barry M Gold and Silver Foil. Those polishes are discontinued, but any gold or silver polishes will work. The design is from Bundle Monster Plate BM-314.

Julep Halloween Cat Tutorial

I was contacted by Julep asking if I'd like to participate in their Halloween event. It sounded fun so I said sure!

The first part is that they sent me photo tutorial to recreate. This tutorial is a blogger exclusive and pretty easy to follow. They are also doing a Halloween nail art contest so be sure to check out their Instagram for details on that :)

Here's my interpretation.

I used LynBDesigns Time And Relative Dimension in Space as the background plus acrylic paint. I don't actually own any  Julep polishes which I was told was fine.

Anyway, here's the tutorial below! It was easy to follow, though my cat looks a bit strange. Blame that on user error ;) Be sure to check out some of Julep's new nail polish colors as well.

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.

Zoya Bevin Roses

My tea bag patch just wasn't working. The corner of my nail was super weak and it just wasn't holding so I'm down to nubs. I still have a tear low on the side that I'm trying to keep patched, but that's not working well.

I love flower manis. I don't know what it is about them, but they are just so beautiful!

I decided to use Zoya Bevin for the base of this in order to continue my quest of reusing polishes.

The roses are mostly Zoya Sooki though I mixed it with white and black to add details.

I'm playing around with lighting. These photos were taken at night using direct and diffused artificial light. I gotta play more, but I still think I'm a fan of natural light.

And bonus! Here's a pedi I did. The purple and blue are Zoya Kieko and Zoya Breezi respectively.

Space-y Blue Skittles with MoYou London

What's that? Skittles in the title again! Well, at least I tried to get creative with the first half ;)

This mani is sort of a combination of a few different things: wanting to use and feature Dollish Polish Expecto Patronum again as well as wanting to use some more of my new MoYou London images.

 

I started with a base of Dollish Polish Expecto Pantronum first. I used 2-3 coats.

To jazz it up a bit, I freehanded some tips using Barry M Silver Foil and added on some square blue rhinestones.

The images are stamped with Barry M Silver Foil as well and are from MoYou Sci-Fi 03. It's such a cute plate!!!! See????

(Image courtesy of MoYou London)

I love all of the images on there and need to find some time to play around with them. Advanced stamping, on top of galaxy nails, oh the possibilities!!!!

Fast and Easy Nail Art: Negative Space Flower Mani

And now I have an extra long title! I can't win at this blog title business!

BUT today's mani is as promised: fast and easy! I want my nails to look pretty, but as a mom that doesn't always happen.

Negative space manis are very on trend lately. What's great about them too is that you skip the step of laying down a color base or sometimes even a base color. That process itself lends to a fast mani, but how to make it faster? Use a matte polish! Matte polishes dry faster making this mani easily done in 15 minutes or less.

OPI Russian Navy Suede is unfortunately discontinued. But I still wanted to use it for this mani. You can do this look, just use another matte polish. Or even using a texture polish could make this fun too! So I used two coats of Russian Navy Suede on my middle finger with no base or top coat.

On the other fingers, I started with a base coat just to give a smoother appearance to my nails, but you could skip that. Then I dotted on flowers using Russian Navy Suede. I used OPI Push and Shove for the dots and flower centers just to keep this mani in the OPI family but also because Push and Shove dries so fast. You could easily use any fast dry silver or just a regular polish but wait longer to dry. And that's it! 

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.

4th of July Part 2: Flag skittles

This is my second 4th of July mani and the one I'm currently wearing. I wanted to get both ideas so you'd have time to do your own nails before the holiday. My sister-in-law and her boyfriend are visiting today through Sat and Sunday is my birthday so I'm gonna take a little break :) I'll be back with a post on Sunday or Monday.

I just went simple again, though I wouldn't consider this my best work. My star is a bit wonky and I think that's because I used polish instead of acrylic paint. I just don't have luck using white polish for art.

Here are the colors used:

Wet n Wild French White Creme (star design)

OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls (white polish base)

Zoya Sooki (red flag stripes)

Rimmel Blue Eyed Girl

Savvy Ruby Slippers

4th of July Part 1: Leopard Print Skittles

Hello! I wasn't sure how I was gonna squeeze in any 4th of July manis since my birthday is coming up and I have family coming, but it's a holiday! I fricking love doing holiday manis! They are so fun and everyone really gets in the spirit.

I decided to go simple for both to make things easy on myself.

I started with a base of Wet n Wild French White Creme on all nails. On my index and middle, I added one thin coat of Glitter Gal Light As A Feather.

On my ring and thumb, I created a leopard print using Zoya Sooki (the perfect red) and Revlon Royal.

June Nail Art Challenge, Day 30: Zoo animals

Last day, woot woot! I have to say it's been totally fun and I'm glad I did it this month. July is going to be completely busy as in the just first few days alone my sister-in-law (who used to live in Ireland until her visa expired but is going back to the UK in the fall for school) and her Irish boyfriend (red hair and full beard, totally awesome!) are visiting for the 4th and then my birthday is on the 6th. On the 8th, I start a very part-time job as a personal assistant/mother's helper. The 3rd weekend of the month is a massive family reunion for my maternal grandfather's family and a Wisconsin polish meet up. Plus TONS of minor things in there. And August is just as busy! Whew! 

So for today's mani, I turned to my trusty friend Google and found an awesome tutorial for super cute elephants from Adventures In Acetone.

The base color is Rimmel Blue Eyed Girl. The elephant is Rimmel Grey Matter. His ears are Zoya Shelby. The rest of the colors are acrylic paint or polishes I custom mixed.

And here's a collage with all this month's designs!

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.

Happy Memorial Day Weekend!

Happy holidays everyone! For those of you not in the US, Memorial Day falls on the last Monday of May. It is a holiday to commerate our soliders who have fought and died for this country. It also is a big BBQ weekend and basically a kick off to summer.

Since it's such a patriotic holiday, I got my toes and fingers in the spirit!

For my nails, I used Zoya Sooki, Revlon Royal, China Glaze Fairy Dust, white acrylic paint for the French line, Konad White, and Bundle Monster BM14.

For my piggies, I used Zoya Chyna and Zoya Liberty plus I repeated the stamping from my fingers.

China Glaze floral skittle mani

Hello! Anyone have any fun plans for the weekend? Tomorrow we're heading to our state capitol in Madison. They do a wonderful farmer's market right around the Capitol Square. Then we'll hit up the free zoo there. The weather is looking to be nice so I can't wait to go! Sunday we're going to do lunch somewhere and then maybe a little shopping at a children's resale shop. Our little guy could use some more summery clothes.

I did this mani as part of a hashtag on Instagram called mani swap. The premise is that you and another Instagram-er pick a mani of the other person's and recreate it. Then you post a collage of all 4 manis. Be sure to check out my Instagram for my inspiration as well as the recreated mani.

I used all China Glaze polishes to create this look. The colors are For Audrey, Exotic Encounters, and White on White. The roses themselves are acrylic paint while the leaves are polish. 

Shiny Star Mani and Born Pretty Store Review

Hey all! I'm back! I really needed that break and I'm feeling much better about things from the blogging end. I see a lost a few followers too, oh well!

Today I have a review from Born Pretty Store of two different items (disclosure policy). Today I'm reviewing some gold studs and loose glitter.

I decided to use the glitter a bit differently and made star decals (check out my Instagram @rubytadpole for a little tutorial on how I did this!). I layered those and the gold studs on top of Barry M Blueberry. I loved how it turned out and the stud stayed on surprisingly well through diaper changes and all that.

Remember Born Pretty Store has free shipping everyday! Use the code below for 10% off

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.

Sally Girl Brainy

When I went to Sally Beauty a bit ago, I browsed their Sally Girl mini polishes. They have some neat colors sometimes, and they're only like $1 or so.

When I saw Sally Girl Brainy, I KNEW I needed it because it looks just like Deborah Lippmann Mermaid Dream.

I used two coats for this mani, I think (it's been awhile). I also used Barry M Gold Foil and nail vinyls for the details. I loved how it turned out, and the wear time was pretty good too!

NOTD: Octopus

Quickie post today. I used China Glaze Sea Spray, Konad Sky Pearl, and Bundle Monster BM-401.

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:

Sweet Peacock & Water decals

These gorgeous flower water decals are another item I received from Born Pretty Store for review (disclosure policy).

I'm really liking reviewing their stuff simply because I would be buying it anyway! They're definitely is a bit of pressure to make my photos and mani look prefect since I am reviewing, but I've found a good spot in the house with some natural light that's been working really well. Plus I rather do few manis if they look awesome rather than a bunch that look like crap.

Anyway! I used two coats of Orly Sweet Peacock. It's super pretty, but Orly hates me. I've tried a few polishes before, but have given away/traded off/sold them all except one glitter because the formula just isnt compatible for me. The two coats were thin yet took FOREVER to dry even with fast dry top coat. Then this gorgeous mani chipped the next day :( it's lasting well on my toes though.

The decals are super easy to use. Just cut out whatever flower you want to use (I trim pretty close to it), take off the front plastic protection, place in a small bowl of water, and wait a bit. The decal will usually separate after 30 seconds to 1 minute. Use tweezers to gently place the decal on your nail. If you've done top coat before this step, your nail surface will be slippery and you can easily slide the decal around. Then let dry a bit, and add top coat!

I didn't do the top coat step prior to my decals this time. So I had a few minor places where the vines of the flowers went off the color base. I used my clean up brush and acetone and was able to clean that right up! I was very pleasantly suprised to find that out!!

I love use water decals sooooo much! I have a few I've purchased myself in the past. They are simple to use and make manis look so nice.

Don't forgot to use my discount code if you want to get these decals (or anything else) from Born Pretty Store.