Green Mani March: Day 3

Happy Friday!!!! How did your week go?
Mine was not the greatest. I am not going to get into it here, but this weekend promises to be better!

Anyway, this post is a bit later than I wanted it to be because of the previously mentioned bad week.

Today's green mani for March features just one green polish, Glam Polish Evanora.

Since Evanora isn't super opaque, I couldn't just sponge it on. Instead, I painted about 2/3rd of my nail black. Then I painted the upper third using Evanora and dragged some of the polish down to create a gradient effect.

I really like how this mani turned out, and it was easy too!

Green Mani March: Day 2

Welcome to day 2 of my green mani theme for March.

I love doing skittles style manis. I tend to stick to simpler skittles designs which means they are usually pretty fast to do. They also use quite a few polishes which is great because I don't like having untrieds (it spikes my anxiety!) plus I can feature a couple at a time which is especially great for larger collections!

Today's mani features 3 green polishes (and 1 non-green polish).

For this mani, I used Barry M Black Pistachio, China Glaze Re-fresh Mint, and Dollish Polish 1-Up.

Barry M Black Pistachio is a very dark green polish. It looks almost black, especially in my photos since I took them on a cloudy day.

China Glaze Re-fresh Mint is a super light, dusty mint green. I was expecting 3 coats, but it went on in just 2!

Dollish Polish 1-Up is, I believe, discontinued. It's most green hex glitters with some white matte hex glitters and white matte bar glitter. Any other glitter polish would work with this look as well. This mani is a great way to feature any glitter polish you have.

Green Mani March: Day 1

So it's been over 3 years since I have posted to this blog. But I've decided to return! I enjoy sharing my nail art and have enjoyed posting to my blog in the past. I'm really hoping to make this a regular thing again.

For my first post back, I'm starting a new series! I'm not sure if I've talked about it here in the past, but I absolutely love green nail polish. It's one of my favorite colors to wear, and I own quite a few shades in various finishes. Not as many as some though :) I tend toward minimalism a bit so I try to keep my collection down.

Since I love green polish and March makes me think of green with St. Patrick's day and spring, I'll be focusing on my love of green polishes this month.

This first mani uses OPI Don't Mess with OPI and Cupcake Polish Delishiously Jaded.

OPI Don't Mess with OPI is a pretty old polish and is from the 2011 Texas Collection. You could use another green creme polish if you wanted.

Cupcake Polish Delishiously Jaded is a gorgeous holographic green polish. It almost covered in one coat too! It also apparently has a blue shift, but I was blinded by the holo.

I used both of these to create this simple mani. The half moon element was freehanded.

If you're reading this, I welcome you back to my blog! I've still been lurking around Facebook and Instagram. I'd also love links to new blogs you think I should follow!

Monday Mani: MOVEMBER

Today's Monday Mani theme is Movember. The idea is to raise awareness for prostate cancer. Movember comes in because mustaches are the symbol and some men (and maybe women!) participate in something call No Shave November. My husband's done it in the past, but he has a full beard so it's not much different.

I received Glam Polish Lisbeth and decided to use this stunner as the base for my Movember mani. I used three coats of Lisbeth to get full coverage and depth. The details are all black acrylic paint.

I recently changed up my nail shape I got a big corner break.

It's not my favorite, but seems to be more "in" than square or squaoval these days.

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

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.

Halloween Nails: ERMAHGERD Happy Candy Corn

Okay so there's totally a reason for the silly title!

Smitten Polish ERMAHGERD CANDY CORMS is my annual Halloween/fall polish. I save it for this time each year. I don't have any other holiday polishes so it's sorta special. 

I think this is my 3rd year using this polish and suprisingly, I've never paired it with candy corns! So I decided to this year.

The purple base color I used here is Sinful Colors Amethyst while the candy corn is entirely acrylic paint.

This little cutie was inspired by the talented @lacquer_daze on Instagram.

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.