Bright Pink Checkerboard Nail Art

Hello everyone! How are you today? I was up last night with an upset stomach so I'm a bit tired today. I do have a quick post to share with you today!

Artificial lighting

I've never done a checkerboard pattern so course I decided to completely freehand my first one lol. It didn't turn out too bad! You definitely need a steady hand for this. I'm a bit shaky today, so there's no way it would have worked.

Artificial lighting

I love mixing patterns and polishes so I decided to pair the checkerboard pattern with Zoya Dixie, a bright watermelon pink. That plus the heart on my index finger gives is sort of a punk rock feel, I think.

Natural lighting

Monday Mani: Chevrons

Today's Monday Mani theme is chevrons! It was actually a super close race!

I was gone for a family reunion on Sat and wasn't sure how much time I'd have so I did this mani on Friday. To make sure it would last, I actually used a gel base! I did a regular gel mani using Finger Paints Stay True to the Art (white) as the base. Gel manis don't last super long on me, but that last longer than a normal mani so I figured white would be a good base to use with other stuff on top!

After finishing up the gel part, I added the details using Nabi Fushia (yes that's how it's spelled :/) and some nail vinyls. Topped the whole thing off with Rica Glossy Glam which is also how I secured the studs).

Negative Space Skittles

Negative space manis are everywhere lately, aren't they? I'll admit, I wasn't a big fan at first. I still don't like some of them (I'm not a fan of visable nail line so that needs to be mostly covered for my personal taste), but they have really grown on me!

Plus if you skip a base coat, they're super fast to do especially for tape manis. And that's part of what I did for today's mani!

I laid down a base coat on all but the index and pinkie fingers so I wouldn't have to worry with dry time and tape.

I painted the thumb and middle with one coat of Barry M Pomegrante. I used nail vinyl straights to block off a section and painted on Milani Fresh Teal. For the ring finger, I combined the two colors to make flowers and added Barry M Silver Foil dots in the centers.

I topped the whole mani with Rica Glossy Glam. I just bought the top coat to try. It's thinner than Seche Vite (which I normally use) so I did have a tiny bit of dragging from not floating enough. It did dry quickly. I didn't keep this mani on long enough to see if shrinkage would occur, but I will with the next one.

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!

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 25: Nude

How's everyone doing today? My day hasn't been too exciting. Got a good work out in with my husband this morning at the YMCA. Our local Y is really nice and has cheap daycare. It's a total win since it gives T a chance to play with other kids (I'm a stay-at-home mom) too.

The little guy's been a cranky butt though. He hasn't really wanted to nap at all. He did finally take one this afternoon and bedtime is soon!

Anyway onto today's mani. I've been really loving nude manis lately.

For this one, I used a base of Essie Brooch The Subject and China Glaze I'm Not Lion. Then I freehanded the design using Cosmo Wild Thing (a neon pink I won about 2 years ago from Cosmo magazine) and Milani Fresh Teal.

If the mani looks familiar, that's because I was inspired by an awesome blogger! 

@PolishCandies does some great stuff so  be sure to check her out.

My nude day didn't turn out quite how I wanted it. And I'm Not Lion didn't agree with me and it popped off in sheets the day after I did this mani (I did it at night and I noticed one nail already missing that morning!)

June Nail Art Challenge, Day 22: Tropical

How was everyone's weekend? We went to Greek Festival yesterday and ate some yummy food. Also picked up some delicious frozen custard at a place we don't get to very often since it's far away.

Today my husband and I got some time away while my parents watched T. We hit up some sushi :) It was very yum!!

Today's theme is tropical, and I tried to not be super traditional (sunset with palm tree which I've done anyway).

For this mani, I first painted one coat of Wet n Wild French White Creme. You need 2 for it to be opaque, but I just needed a base for my gradient to pop.

Then I sponged on Sinful Colors Dream On and Rise and Shine. Next I added a thin layer of China Glaze Fairy Dust.

Then I stamped a flower from Bundle Monster BM318 using Konad White.

June Nail Art Challenge, Day 18: Picnic Day

Super tired tonight so a quickie post.

Base is OPI Guy Meets Gal-veston. It's a jelly so it gives it a nice squishy look which is perfect for watermelon.

If you want to know the other colors, just ask ;)

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! 

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:

Valentine's Day: Pink and Grey

Just a quick post today. I have company coming over today, tomorrow, and Monday plus we're going out tomorrow and Sunday! Hence the crappy cuticles because I've been cleaning, though my husband did do quite a bit last night while I was sleeping as a Valentine's Day gift.

Rimmel Grey Matter

Zoya Shelby

Wet n Wild French White Creme

Valentine's Day: Skittle mani

I'm not a huge fan of how this turned out, but I'll share it anyway.

I did a base of Wet N Wild French White Creme. On my thumb and pinkie, I added a coat of Wet n Wild Sparked, a pink glitter. It's pretty, but I wish it was more dense.

On the other fingers, I added two coats of Lynderella Mon Petit Chou Chou. It's soooo sheer! This is layered over white, and you can see how sheer it still looks. Not a fan.

I used Migi Nail Art Pens to do the details on my ring finger.

This mani came off the next day. It just didn't work for me.

Valentine's Day: Cupid

I plan on trying to do as many Valentine's Day manis as I can before the day! I might post a few after because I have soooo many ideas!

This is the mani I'm currently wearing, but I have another that I did earlier this week that I'll post over the weekend. Then I'm hoping to fit in two more: one for next week and one for the actual day of (or rather the day after since my husband works on Valentine's Day and we're gonna go out the next day while my amazing mom watches our wee one).

Anyway, onto this mani! I've mentioned the Baby Center group before, and our threadly challenge was to do nail transfers. They could be simple store bought stickers/decals or you could make your own using the freezer bag/parchment paper/page protector method. I chose to make my own using the advanced stamping method.

I used all Zoya polishes for this other than my stamping polish. I started with a base of Zoya Dove and added the hearts/dots using Zoya Sooki (red), Zoya Shelby (pink), and Zoya Kieko (purple).

To do the stamp, I started the process like normal using Konad Black and Cheeky Jumbo 3 (European Romance). I left the stamp on my stamper and let it dry for a bit. Then I carefully filled in the hearts and let that dry. Next I added a thick layer of top coat and let it dry for probably about 2 hours. After applying my base coat on my nails and letting it dry a bit, I gently peeled my stamp off the stamper, trimmed it, added top coat to my nail, applied the decal and gently pushed it down! Whew! I cleaned up the edges (very easy with acetone and a small brush since it's all nail polish), and added more top coat. It sounds hard, but it was pretty easy!

With having a baby, this was easy to do since the process could be easily spread out. I definitely plan on using this technique more!

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.

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).

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

Neon skittle

I did this mani using Cosmo Girl Wild Thing (pink), Sinful Colors Dream On (purple), and Sinful Colors Why Not (blue). The neon glitter topper is Hit Polish Not So Plain Jane (she makes amazing glitter toppers; check her out!!!).

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.

Strawberrific Oobleck

The last polish I bought from a sale at LynBDesigns is Oobleck. I bought a bunch of mini polishes Hit Polish since she was having an awesome sale on them (she might still have some on sale, so check her out! Plus her regular prices are great too!!!) and decided to combine one of them (Hit Polish Strawberrific) for a cute and easy mani!

LynBDesigns Oobleck is a minty seafoam green with tons of shimmer. It was pretty thick, but application was still good and dry time was decent.

Hit Polish Strawberrific is loaded with pink, green, and red glitters. On my middle finger, I used one thick coat while I did a thinner one on my pinkie. By doing this, you can change the look of your mani. I prefer the more glitter dense look myself.  Strawberrific went on very nicely and wasn't thick at all despite the tons of glitter in the bottle. I even had a mini bottle and didn't have to dig out any glitters! You can say that about all minis.

Zoya Kieko and Hit Polish Mr Bubbles

Base color: Zoya Kieko

2 coats of Hit Polish Mr. Bubbles