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: Decals using Water Marble Decals

Today's Monday Mani theme is decals. It's such a great theme because they are SOOOO many things you can do.

I decided to go with water marble decals which seem to be popular lately. The idea is that you do your regular water marble.

Instead of dunking your finger in, you let it dry for a long time (I did about an hour I think) and gently lift it out, letting it dry on paper towel.

Then you can cut the decal and apply it to a semi sticky base on your nail.

I see tons of advantages to this: less waste (I used one go for 4 nails), less mess, time saver (I marbled more nap time and finished my nails during nap), and more accurate (you can redo the marble over and over again without redoing your whole nail plus you can cut the exact part you want to use instead of hoping you're dunking right!).

Onto the mani!

I used China Glaze Kalahari Kiss as the base for my thumb, ring, and pinkie. I also used it along with Zoya Pepper and O.P.I. Chop-sticking to My Story for the water marble decal.

The brown glitter is Hits Glitter Forte 389 Brown.

Fall Colors: Revlon Autumn Spice & China Glaze Riveting

When I thought about fall mani ideas, these two colors seemed perfect!

I kept it simple and used two coats each of China Glaze Riveting and Revlon Autumn Spice plus some tiny gold studs.

Born Pretty Store Review: Studs and Decals, Oh My!

I love it when Born Pretty Store/ sends stuff for me to review! They have great stuff and at a cheap price.

I received three different items this.
The first are these pearlized studs. Here's a close of just the studs. They are plenty of them and looks to be like three different sizes.

I used two of the sizes on top of Funky Fingers Kingston for this bright, fun mani. The studs have flat backs so they stick nicely to your nails.

Next I have these full size floral water decals. They apply much like other water decals so it was easy to get on. Once they dried a bit, I used acetone to gently dissolve around the edge. I applied topcoat to protect them as well. They take a bit longer to dry than other water decals likely because they are so big, hence the tiny little nick on my index. I love the image and the detail that I could in no way is freehand.
I do have to say while their are 10 decals in each sheet (one sheet per order), I had to use two for my number as they are pretty narrow. Still, they make a gorgeous accent nail like I paired up here with Sinful Colors Solar Flare.

Lastly, I have these adorable owl water decals. 

They are soooo cute and look great over my base of Button London Bumster.

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?

Happy Birthday to me!

Another year older here!

Just a quick post, and I'm going to go back to enjoying it :)

For the last two years, I've used OPI Guy Meets Gal-veston (since I was born in Galveston) and Deborah Lippmann Happy Birthday for my birthday mani. And this year is no exception.

I was trying to figure out what exactly I wanted to do when I saw this gorgeous mani on Instagram by Wondrously Polished. Her polish was a jelly based glitter, but I figured I could sorta do the same effect with my two polishes.

So that's what I did! After my base coat, I did one coat of Guy Meets Gal-veston then Happy Birthday, then Guy, then Happy Birthday and finishing with Guy. I painted the flowers using white acrylic paint and topped the whole thing with top coat.

It's not quite as good as the original, but I still love it!

Grey with neon polka dots

Just a quickie post for today.

Rimmel Grey Matter

Lime Crime Peaches <3 Cream

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

Go Bears!!!

Today is the big Chicago Bears vs. Green Bay Packers game. Even though we live in Wisconsin now, hubby and I both grew up in Illinois so GO BEARS!

I used one coat of Zoya Sunshine and two coats of Julie G Tangerine Dream.

Pumpkin Skittles

Base: China Glaze Riveting

Art: Wet n Wild Black Creme

Fall flowers

I've seen tons of fall manis with leaves on them, but I love flowers so I decided to do some fall colored flowers.

I used a base of Zoya Pepper. I added flowers using O.P.I. Chop-sticking to My Story (orange) and O.P.I. The "It" Color (yellow). I dotted the center of the flowers using Barry M Gold Foil.

Julie G Tangerine Dream

This is Julie G Tangerine Dream. Needed two coats for coverage. Dry time and wear time was good.

Lime Crime Peaches Cream

I saw two of my nail friends where this color recently and decided I needed to have it. So glad I bought it!

I also decided to wear it right away since summer is coming to a close. We're having strange up and down weather here in Wisconsin. See? (That's my town name I so carefully scribbled out.)

Anyway, I used 3 coats to get full coverage. I might try it over a white next time to conserve the polish.  I freehanded a black tribal design and stuck on some metal studs too. 

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.

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.

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?

Monday Mani: Easter

This week's Monday Mani theme at PAA (Polish-aholics Anonymous) is Easter. I decided to go super cutesy for today's mani, and I love how it turned out. It was super fast to do too!

On my ring finger I used a base of 2 coats of Sinful Colors Candy Coated. The formula is really nice on this, and the dry time is decent considering it's a pastel.

On my index finger, I used a base of 3 coats of Sinful Colors Unicorn. Since it's a yellow and a pastel, dry time was pretty slow though the formula was decent.

I used 2 coats of Candeo Colors Jellybean on my other fingers. I knew I had to use Jellybean for this mani, because well the name is jellybean! Plus the yellow base matched Unicorn and the purple glitter matched Candy Coated.

I painted on the bunny and the chick shell using Rimmel French White Nail Tip Liner and just the brush from the bottle. The black details on both are done with Wet n Wild Black Creme and a nail art brush.

The chick's beak is Zoya Arizona, and I just used the brush that came with Arizona. The pink details on the bunny are Ulta Encore Pink, and I again just used the bottle brush to add in those.

I topped everything off with top coat after I let it dry for a while (to prevent dragging of the colors), and tada!

I love how this turned out!

Bright Skittles

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get my other Easter post up and ready because we headed out of town to visit family. In fact this post is scheduled and posting while we're on the road! I'll get my that other post up on Monday (which coincides with Monday Mani anyway!).

Luckily for all of you, I did this mani not long ago that I think is still very appropriate for Easter. Since this is an old post, I still have long nails.

I LOVE LOVE LOVE this mani! The super bright colors are fun and make me wish soooo hard for spring! But it's coming! We're scheduled to have a high of 54 today!

For this mani I used (from left to right) 2 coats of Sinful Colors Why Not, 2 coats of Sinful Colors Rise and Shine, 3 coats of OPI The "It" Color, 3 coats of NYC Spring Street, and 2 coats of NYC MoMa.

Next, I topped each nail with 1 coat of L.A. Girl Uninhibited and added my topcoat.

I attempted to make these look like Whoppers Mini Robin Eggs, but it didn't work out so well. I'm glad I took these pictures before I attempted it though because otherwise you would have missed out!

Orange Cream Easter Skittles

I recently picked up a few new Sinful Colors and thought they would be perfect for Easter themed manis! Today, I used just Sinful Colors Orange Cream.

I used one thin coat and one thick coat for this mani. Orange Cream isn't very orange, in my opinion! It's a peachy orange that leans heavily toward pink. I don't have any colors like this. While I don't usually wear pink, I decided to step out of my comfort zone, and I'm glad I did! I think Orange Cream looks great on me!

You may also notice my super short nails. Well, I had a deep side break on my middle finger that I patched. A few hours later, I got one on my index finger! So I decided to chop off all my nails! I also chopped off all my hair yesterday (went from almost mid-back to chin length). It's spring (or almost here in Wisconsin) so it's time for fresh starts all around.

Orange Cream also had a beautiful micro shimmer that is hard to see from far away, but you can see it in this macro shot.

I added some random designs on my nails using Rimmel French White Nail Tip Liner. The pinkie is sort of like a flower or sun design. Make sure you wait long enough to add top coat! I didn't on my pinkie, and the color dragged a bit.

On my other two fingers I added two coats of Lynnderella Connect the Dots. I love Connect the Dots over brighter colors. It really pops!

I hope you all enjoyed today's mani! I'll have another Easter themed one later this week that features a bit more nail art.