St. Patrick's Day Plaid

Here is day 3 of my green series in honor of my favorite polish color as well as St. Patrick's Day.  I tried out a St. Patrick's Day plaid.

The base coat is 2 coats of OPI Don't Mess with OPI. For the plaid design I used Rimmel French White Nail Tip Liner, Sinful Colors Nail Art Time Off (black), and Wet N Wild Sunny Side Up (orange).  The white and black were both striping colors, and I used a small paintbrush to put on the orange.

I REALLY love how this turned out! I was inspired by several plaid designs I have seen and was happy that i was able to make this look how I had pictured it in my mind.

Monday Mani: Pets in the Photo

Today is the 2nd day of my Green series in honor of all the greens in my stash and St. Patrick's Day.
This design was inspired by these French army nails at Polish Art Addiction.  To stay on theme, I used only greens (and yes, teal counts as green!).

I also combined this with the Monday Mani theme at Polish-aholics Anonymous: Pets in the Photo.  All pictures were taken with my iPhone because my cat decided to lay on me so I was able to get some cute 

photos!

My base coat is 2 coats of OPI Stranger Tides, a beautiful murky military-esque green.  For the French tip, I used Nicole by OPI Khloe Had a Lam-Lam, a dark teal that is one of my favorites.  The dots were made using OPI Don't Mess with OPI.

I didn't realize until typing up this post that all of my polishes were from OPI! It's just a coincidence.  OPI is by no means my favorite brand, but they do make some great green polishes.

This is my baby, Ari. She's 4 1/2 years old and spoiled rotten.  She loves napping, knocking things off the counter, playing with boxes, and chasing her stuffed puppy.  Her favorite foods are shredded cheese, ice cream, Shamrock shakes, yogurt, tortilla chips, and fried chicken.

I had to include this one just because her face looks so goofy!

A-England Dragon

Today, I have the last of my A-Englands to show you. They are more holographic polishes made by the company, but I only purchased four.

So this is the end of my mini A-England series, but the beginning of a new series: Green!  I love green polish so much, and it's very fitting since St. Patrick's Day is coming up too. (I'm a wee bit Irish!).

A-England Tristam

Continuing on with my A-England series, I have Tristam for you today.  The color is dark blue holographic.  Application and all that jazz was wonderful so I won't bore you with the details.  Just enjoy these photos!

Both pictures were taken outside on a cloudy day so I did use flash as well.

Monday Mani: Sun, Moon, Stars

I decided to incorporate my mini-theme of A-England with this week's Monday Mani theme at Polish-aholics Anonymous. I choose A-England Lady of the Lake as my base, although Tristam would have been a most fitting choice.

I love holographics, and A-England sure does make some nice ones. Beautiful application and color. I used 2 coats for this just because I found some spots that were lighter and I wanted to make sure everything was covered up.

It wasn't super sunny the day I took these pictures so you can't see the holo effect as well as I wish.

Then using my Migi nail part pens, I drew on some stars and a moon on my ring finger. I was in a bit of a rush so I don't think it looks as good as it could have. I will definitely revisit this idea in the future.

A-England St. George

Not too long ago, I received 5 A-Englands in the mail from Llarowe.  They are such beautiful colors so even though I have other untrieds to use, I decided to use these first!
I will be posting a mini A-Englands series here.

I knew I had to have this color because I love greens and holographic nail polishes. This picture is outside and in the sun and you can really see the gorgeous holographic effect here. Drool.  Here you can see St. George is a dark-ish green with some big splashes of teal. Without the holo effect, it would remind me of Nicole by OPI Khloe Had a Lam-Lam.

This one is still outside but when a cloud passed by. You can still see the holo effect, but it's not as present. Here St. George seems shows a more of a forest green.

Not only does this polish look pretty, but application was wonderful in 1 very easy coat. I had very minimal cleanup to do here. 

I really love this polish. You all should pick this one up when you get a chance!

Monday Mani: Water Marble or Happy Birthday (to our fearless leader)

At Polish-aholics Anonymous this week's Monday Mani theme is Water Marble or Happy Birthday (to our fearless leader Krissi!).  I totally voted for the Happy Birthday theme even though Krissi posted it as a joke. In fact, lots of people voted for it! I've never water marbled before and really wanted to do cupcakes so I decided to go with the theme that I voted for!

I really love the way these turned out. They're super girly which is not really me, but I loved them all the same.

Here's a list of all the polishes I used.
Index, middle, and pinkie fingers: base coat is 2 coats of Disney Villains #40 Urusula, pink dots with Ulta Encore Pink, white dots with Rimmel French White Nail Tip Liner, and silver dots with Wet N Wild Metallica

Ring finger: base coat of 2 coats ELF Light Pink, cupcake liner with Disney Villains #40, pink stripes with Ulta Encore Pink, white frosting with Rimmel French White Nail Tip Liner, sprinkles with Wet N Wild Party of Five.


And believe it or not, all I used was a dotting tool! No brushes here!

Dotted flowers

So I meant to post this earlier in the week but time really just ran away from me.

I created this design for Chalkboard Nails dotting tool nail art contest.

I actually took photos of my right hand instead of my left hand since the top coat left tons of bubbles.

For the base coat, I used 2 coats of Zoya Bevin.  The flowers/dots are done with OPI Fly, Orly Purple Pleather, and Ulta Encore Pink.

Mermaid-esque

I started off with a new polish, layered on another new polish, and was inspired! So this look was born.

I started off with this new color that I picked up at Walgreens during their 99¢ sale last week. It's Sinful Colors Rise and Shine.  It's the beautiful sort of neon green with hints of blue to tame it and lots of shimmer.

This picture was taken at night so I had to use a flash, but it's pretty true to color.  I needed to use 2 coats of polish.

Next I layered on 2 coats of Sinful Colors Nail Junkie. At this point, I was really reminded of mermaid nails. The sheer base of Nail Junkie turned Rise and Shine into this beautiful teal color and all of the glitter reminded me of mermaid scales.

So I added on some Milani Jewel FX Gold onto just the tips. I sort of blobbed it on to get the look that I wanted.  All told I used 9 coats of polish  for this mani! (2 of OPI Nail Envy, 2 of Rise and Shine, 1 coat of Seche Vite, 2 coats of Nail Junkie, 1 blobbed coat of Gold, and 1 more coat of Seche Vite) Yowza!

Also, you may notice that my nails are shorter. Well, I've been having tons of breakage so I spent a good amount of time taking off length and filing down my nails. I've been using OPI Nail Envy for about a month now. I do notice that my nails grow longer and stronger, but I still have about 3 more months of damage to grow out.  I don't mine my shorties though. I think this color combo looks really good on them!

Monday Mani: Dreaming of Spring

I live in Wisconsin so when I think of spring, I think of clouds, rain, and mud. We don't get pretty flowers here until summer.  I also really wanted to use my new Nerd Lacquer Don't Blink so that was a big inspiration for this manicure.

I started with one coat of Rimmel Grey Matter for base coat. Then I added a coat of Nerd Lacquer Don't Blink (I really should have taken a picture at this point but I forgot!).

Here's the rest of the colors that I used:
Clouds: Nina Ultra Pro Ink-Ling
Lightening: mixed Maybelline Sunshine and Sinful Colors Let's Meet
Raindrops: OPI Fly
Umbrella: OPI Don't Mess with OPI and mixed with white for details