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.

Monday Mani: Black and White with ManGlaze

This week's Monday Mani theme is Black and White Only. It worked perfectly because I recently received two new ManGlaze polishes in the mail!

I used two coats of Matte is Murder and 3 of Mayonnaise. They both have shimmer, though you can't really see it in Mayo.

Fresh and Funky

Just a quick post today! I've got a little back log of manis and this is one of them.

This is Fresh Paint Square Candy (3 coats) which is a bright green jelly polish topped with a Funky Fingers Teen Spirit.

Both polishes are from 5 Below.

Fall Owl Nail Art with Sinful Colors Nirvana

Look at how cute these owl nails are!!!

I even did a video tutorial on how to do them which is over on my Facebook page and my Instagram.

The base is Sinful Colors Nirvana topped with Hit Polish Patina, a great fall glitter with copper and teal.

NOPI Khloe Had A Lam-Lam skittle mani

One of my favorite polishes of all time is Nicole by OPI Khloe Had A Lam-Lam. I'm not a huge Kardashian fan, but this darkened teal color is so great. I'm almost 1/2 way through one bottle so I'm gonna have to find another soon.

For today's mani, I added a holo topper of Hits Hefesto (the original!) then stamped using Konad Black and Bundle Monster BM305.

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.

Recent September manis, Part 1

Here's some more recent manis I've done.

Remember to go to my Instagram @rubytadpole for more details

Catching up: August edition

Hey all! Sorry I don't post here much anymore. I find it too difficult to keep up with everything and have sorta chosen Instagram first. I'm @rubytadple if you want to check me out there.

Anyway, here's my nails for August. Head over to Instagram for details.

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.

Sinful Colors Fig line work

Hello everyone! Sorry for totally forgetting to post yesterday!

So after I took after my gel nails, I noticed my middle finger on my blogging hand looked pretty rough. I had to file it down a bit, but they was a side year pretty far down. I tee bag patched it and put a gel top coat on this mani to make it last longer. We'll see.

I've been trying to use some of the polishes I have that don't get much love. I still like them and want them in my collection; I just don't use them much.

Sinful Colors Fig is one. It's a berry purple color with a very light shimmer that doesn't come out on the nail very well.

I wasn't quite sure what I wanted to do, so I grabbed some black acrylic paint and a nail art brush I had trimmed down and went to town. It was really fun to play around with lines and see how well I could do. I'm pretty impressed with myself and think I'm getting better at my nail art skills.

Rainbow Tie Dye

I've had the concept for this mani in my head for a bit and decided to go ahead and do it finally!

So I used the Saran Wrap water color technique for this where you put a few blobs on color on your base and then smoosh it with a piece of plastic wrap or plastic storage bag. I've seen this technique around a lot, and I'm not sure who is the original creator of it.

My idea was to create rainbow tie dye effect with this technique. And it worked!

I started with my white gel base coat from the other day. Then I did blobs of all the rainbows colors and smooshed! The heart and peace sign were added in with acrylic paint. I wish I hadn't added Pure Ice Black Crackle on top because I laid it on a bit too heavy and the tie dye doesn't show through quite as well.

I topped the whole thing off with China Glaze Fairy Dust.

The watercolor technique was really easy and I can't wait to try it again.

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).

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!