Sunday, March 31, 2013

Guest Post for The Crumpet ~ Stained Glass Inspired Flowers

Hi everyone! So if you'll remember, last month I was chosen as the winner of The Crumpet's Amateur Nail Art Contest and Debbie was lovely enough to allow the winner to do a guest post on her fabulous blog! Pretty swell prize if you ask me! I wanted to come up with something worthy of sharing there and stressed far too much about it ;) You can see my guest post here...and here's a sneak peak of what I did! ;) Go check it out! 

Saturday, March 30, 2013

Spring/Easter Nail Art!

I've been so busy lately that I haven't had a chance to post OR do my nails! Such a sad day when I'm too tired to do my nails :( with Easter just a few days away, I figured I would get a spring time Eastery theme in before it was too late. I have seen quite a few different Easter manis, a lot of them incredibly adorable! Many of them incorporated bunnies into their art so I decided to go a slightly different direction. While I still have the Easter Eggs, I used chicks as my easter animal instead of bunnies :)

I created these with two of my dotting tools and my trusty striping brush. I used....17 polishes...OH MY. I think that may be a record for me! The base color for this look is Julep's Susie which is a lovely light mint color. It reminds me a bit of China Glaze's Re-fresh Mint. I was a bit disappointed with the application of Susie, but the color is fab. 

Monday, March 25, 2013

Tribal Print

Why is it already Monday again!? Days are going way too fast for my liking and I was so busy in classes and studying this weekend that I hardly had time for anything outside of that for "me" time...and by me time, I mean nail paintin' time ;) Tonight I was exhausted and while I really wanted to do something will my nails, I struggled a great deal with figuring out what to do that wouldn't be too time consuming. Somehow, I landed on Tribal print...yeah, I don't know what I was thinking because tribal print takes me forever and never ends up the way I want. So yes, that is what happened tonight ;) 

I'm not overly happy with how clean my line work is on these. I don't think I've got a knack for tribal print like some people seem to. I get so frustrated and feel like mine are always so minimal in comparision to some other nail artists out there. Maybe one day I'll be fabulous like them! ;)

Anyway, I've only got a few photos of these for you tonight. I did these freehand with my striping brushes and now I'm off to go pass out from exhaustion! 

Saturday, March 23, 2013

March Nail Art Challenge - Vintage and Swatch

So, yet again, I've fallen behind on my nail art challenge for March :( In my defense, I have been crazy busy, sick, and was completely in love with my previous flower mani that I couldn't bear to say goodbye to it (I wore it for over 5 days!? WHAT? I never do that!). Despite my lack of maintaining the schedule this month, I'm still on track to finish every challenge! Maybe next month I'll even have them done on the right days ;) 

The two themes I had to do on the 19th and 22nd of this month were "Vintage" and "Swatch," respectively. I've been wanting to do the vintage roses that you see everywhere for awhile now but didn't want to use the colors I keep consistently seeing them done in (mint background with pink flowers). Well, I varied in one of those aspects and ended up using China Glaze's Kalahari Kiss as my base color AND, because I'm super sneaky and multitask-y, it is my "Swatch" theme! 

I know that this color isn't for everyone, but I really love it. I think it's just a fabulus neutral that isn't too yellow. 

Monday, March 18, 2013

Hodge Podge Flowers

I am loving all the spring colors I'm seeing around as of late and have especially loved wearing them on my nails. However, I have done some sort of pastel color for the past few manis and I'm a little burnt out on those hues. I decided to mix it up slightly and use some deeper colors for today's look. I'm really excited to show you how it turned out! 

I used OPI's Skull and Glossbones as my base color and I am fairly positive that this will become a regular in my rotation of polishes. I really love how fresh and clean it feels on its own. I ended up using 5 additional colors to complete the flowers. I really love how these colors go together -- one of my favorite combos :) I would tell you the names of said colors but there are a lot of them and the bottles are all the way in the other room...and I'm lazy so it's not going to happen right now ;) Let me know if you're curious about a particular color and I can get you the info on it! 

Sunday, March 17, 2013

The Hungry Asian: Li-lacquer Swatch and Art

Hiya! So I'm not feeling in tip top shape--my boyfriend managed to bring some sort of plague home with him from work and of course I have now caught it...I just didn't want him to be alone in his misery ;) Anyway, because of this, I just have something simple for you tonight. I used my newly adopted Li-lacquer made by The Hungry Asian and I'm so happy I did! This lilac creme jelly glitter is amazing and feels so much like spring and Easter to me. Loveliness in a bottle if you ask me! The application was great as is expected, and while I did have to do some fishing for glitter, it wasn't something a few coats can't handle. 

March Nail Art Challenge - Day 6: St. Paddy's Day!

I'm a tad bit burnt out on St. Paddy's Day Nails :/ After putting together my Four-Leaf Clover tutorial I had looked at clovers WAY too much. I am also pretty exhausted and, while I wish I could say I was doing something fun for St. Paddy's, I will be up in 6 hours to get ready to go to a class at 8 am :/ Oh well! I ended up throwing together something quick and festive enough that I won't get pinched today ;)

Friday, March 15, 2013

The Hungry Asian Kiwi Smoothie & Rectangles!

Hiya, everyone! Hope your Friday is going wondrously! I spent my Friday night nail artin' it up. I'd like to say that normally my Fridays are much more exciting than just painting my nails...but who am I kidding?? This is my normal and I love it :D

Yesterday I received my order of The Hungry Asian polishes and oh my goodness! I am in love with all of them! I absolutely LOVE sheer cremes with glitter in them and all the polishes I ordered were just that. The first one I tried was Kiwi Smoothie and I was not disappointed. I absolutely adore this polish and am regretting not buying a full size bottle of it. It's that amazing. Take a look. 

Thursday, March 14, 2013

Can't Find My Czechbook Striping

I think some of my favorite manis are striping based looks. They are just so clean and classy to me. And I love geometric shapes more than is probably normal so any time I get to make an interesting design using only lines, I'm immediately in love. 

I recently became the proud mother to OPI's Can't Find My Czechbook, which is a fabulous blue from their Euro Centrale Collection. LOOK AT THIS COLOR! unf. 
I love it. It's fabulous. Let's move one. 

As I've mentioned before, I finally bought a new bottle of OPI's My Boyfriend Scales Walls (yet another unhealthy obsession). I decided to whip out my striping tape and put my new bottles to use. 

Wednesday, March 13, 2013

Four-Leaf Clover Tutorial

I'm really excited to share this with you all! I finally made my first tutorial!! Aren't you excited!? ;)

I ended up doing a quick tutorial of the color blocking clover I did from today, and while I'm incredibly awkward and terrible at explaining what I'm doing, I had a blast creating this video. I can't wait to put together another video to share with you all. Let me know what you think and I would love to hear comments and suggestions for tutorials to come. I'm still figuring out iMovie so bear with me...the video is still a bit sad ;) 
Here's the tutorial! Be nice...
Here is the look I created. 

One Love Lacquers Review

*Products provided in exchange for an honest review. Please see my disclosure policy for more info.* 

I've got something very exciting to share with you all today! I have a review of the Peter Pan Collection made by One Love Lacquers! Victoria at One Love Lacquers has just started her shop and so far I think she is doing a fabulous job of making polishes. Her polishes are big 3 free and I was so incredibly excited to hear from her. I couldn't wait to share these lovelies with you all!

Her first collection is inspired by Peter Pan so it's only fitting that the names go along with that. I'll be reviewing Captain Hook, Lost Boys and Mermaid Lagoon...though not in that order ;)

March Nail Art Challenge - Day 4 & 5! (I'm cheating...)

Alright, alright. Yes, I am cheating a bit with this one. I was supposed to do Color Blocking for the 4th day of the March Nail Art Challenge but I fell behind :/ Well, I've decided to combine the 4th theme with today's new theme of Luck! As it is March and everyone's mind is on St. Paddy's Day coming up in less than a week, I decided do a color blocking with a four leaf clover! Luck and color blocking. There, I've met both themes in one mani ;) 

I've also added a touch of gold for some good luck as well :)

These are pretty simple to create. I used Julep's Courtney, Hoch, and Fiona, along with China Glaze's Running in Circles to create the initial squares. Then, using my dotting tool, I create small hearts in each corner of the boxes. The rest of my fingers are Courtney and Essie's Good as Gold in a simple gradient. 

Sunday, March 10, 2013

March Nail Art Challenge - Day 3: Gradient

Okay, so I suck at keeping to a schedule. But I think I have a worthy excuse! I have been so busy studying for a big engineering test every weekend all day long on top of working all week. No days off makes for little time for nail art. 

I finally got around do doing the 3rd installment of the March Nail Art Challenge (though, I was supposed to start the 4th one today...oops!). The theme was gradient and I wanted to use two more of my new Julep Polishes to create the look. I ended up pairing Georgia, a pretty peach micro shimmer, with Susie, a muted mint green creme. These were colors I wasn't 100% sure would look nice together in a gradient, but I'm really happy with them! A happy surprise :)

Friday, March 8, 2013

Julep's Taylor and Dandelions

In February I joined the Julep Maven program where for $20/month you get at least 2 polishes, one extra item (sometimes another polish) and one small free gift. I actually tried the first month free using the code FREEMAVEN at checkout. It might still work so give it a go if you're interested! So far, I have been so happy with this program! The packaging, marketing, products, everything has been great. I actually feel like I'm getting something great for my 20 bucks. For the March box I got two polishes, some awesome smelling and non-greasy hand lotion, and some great chapstick. I definitely feel like I got more than $20 worth of product and I'm really excited to see what comes next for this program :) 

Anyway, totally got side tracked, BUT the reason I mentioned this program, is that because I paid for my March subscription box, I was privy to a "Secret Sale" by Julep and OH MY GOSH this was worth paying for the box! Normally, Julep polishes run for $14/bottle...well, this sale had sets of 3 and 5 for $12.99 and $17.99 respectively. WHAT!? So, naturally, I bought a 3 and 5 set and am in love! So excited! 

The polish that really spoke to me from my new lovelies is Taylor, a fabulous deep, sky blue creme that I am so in love with! I added some simple dandelion's with OPI's My Boyfriend Scales Walls (I actually ordered a new bottle of this tonight!) using my striping brush. They were really quick and easy but I absolutely love how these look! 

My friend is celebrating her birthday tonight (Friday) and I'm super excited to go out with these on! Fun and bright and fun...and bright! 

Wednesday, March 6, 2013

Julep Color Blocking

What do you do when you have just received 4 fabulously lovely Julep colors and can't decide which one to use first? Well, use them all in one mani! I ended up doing a simple free hand color blocking of Julep's Joy, Hoch, Parker, and Gloria and I am really liking how these look. They are definitely on the funkier side of things, but if you haven't noticed yet, that's the sort of thing I love ;) I used my trusty striping brush and sat down to watch Shakespeare in Love while doing these babies. I sort of really love that movie...and now I'm watching Pitch Perfect...which may be my favorite movie at the moment. SO GOOD! 

Monday, March 4, 2013

March Nail Art Challenge - Day 2: Stripes

Today marks the start of the next theme in the March Nail Art Challenge! Stripes is the theme and boy do I love me some stripes :) I was a bit impatient tonight, so rather than wait for my base color to dry, I went ahead and did my stripes free hand. My inspiration came from what I was wearing tonight, actually. I have a cute striped skirt in this navy and tan, and then I was wearing a plain what t-shirt with it. Pretty literal interpretation ;) 

I used a striper for this and about pulled my hair out in frustration when my lines weren't perfect. I used OPI's My Boyfriend Scales Walls (big surprise) as my base, Zoya's Natty is the navy and Zoya's Jacqueline is the tan/light yellow. Overall, I think it's a simple and classy look that is a bit on the nautical side. 

Sunday, March 3, 2013

Retro Flowers

Raise your hand if you like skittle manis! No, not the candy...for those who don't know, a "skittle" is typically a mani that has different colors/patterns/designs on each nail. I really like doing these since it gives me a theme, yet gives me a lot of freedom within that theme. I went a bit retro with these nails. Partly because I enjoy retro patterns, but partly because there is a retro themed contest on Instagram that I am contemplating entering ;) It's always nice to have some inspiration. 

I did this design free hand and I like the outcome a lot. They are definitely funky and different, but I'm happy with them. I'm still learning how to create smooth curves and arcs, but it's tough in a small area with a brush that refuses to listen to you. Sometimes I think I'm improving, and then other times my hand and brian don't talk and suddenly I have polish everywhere but where I intended it to go. 

Saturday, March 2, 2013

The Crumpet February Amateur Nail Art Contest

Well something exciting happened today! At the beginning of February I entered this heart mani in Debbie at The Crumpet's Amateur Nail Art Contest in hopes of getting mentioned by her on her blog as well as being able to do a guest post on her blog. 
First off, if you love nail polish and nail art, you should definitely check out The Crumpet! Debbie has some fabulous stuff on her blog and is so supportive of anyone and everyone interested in nail art. 

Anyway, several very talented ladies entered their nails in the contest as well and at the end of the month, voting went live for a few days when people were able to vote for their favorite submission. Looking at the way the voting went, one girl had almost 50 votes for her nails to my 7. However, as Debbie explained it, I guess the theme was strictly Love and Heartbreak so the mani with the most votes didn't keep with that theme. So, that meant the winner went to me! I feel bad that this other girl had more votes and wasn't selected, but that doesn't stop me from feeling excited to be deemed the "winner."You can check out the post about it here and hopefully sometime soon I'll get to do a guest post on The Crumpet! Still slightly in shock and can't believe I was even in the running as there were some fabulous other manis entered. 

Okay, I'm off to go grin stupidly by myself ;) 

Happy Polishing :)

March Nail Art Challenge - Day 1: Chevrons

Well, apparently it's already March? Where did the time go!? Craziness!! March brings with it the start of a new monthly challenge with new themes! I definitely failed and didn't finish the February Nail Art Challenge...however, I did complete 5 of them which is far better than I have done with the other monthly challenges. I figure I'll actually be able to complete every theme in the month by say, September or so ;) 

The first theme for March is Chevrons! I wasn't quite sure which way to go with these as I did chevrons only two posts ago but I recently received a bunch of loose glitter and figured I'd make something with those! These were pretty simple to do, but definitely a bit more time consuming. I ended up watching a movie while working on these which made the tedious task of hand placing tiny hexagons on my nails slightly more bearable :) As it's nearing spring and I've been feeling bright colors lately, I decided to go with a bright neon pink as my base. This is China Glaze's Escaping Reality and 4 different colored glitters.

Friday, March 1, 2013

Simple Tribal Print & Zoya's Avery

Something super quick and simple tonight...I'm tired! Thankfully it's Friday today! I ended up using Zoya's Avery as my base color and a nude polish like this tends to create mannequin hands...you know, like no finger nails and what not. So I went in with my striping brush and made a simple tribal pattern of sorts. I really like how these look in person. They didn't photograph as well as I'd hoped - so many imperfections! - but I like these nonetheless :)

These are really easy to create. Just take your striping brush and and draw three black lines, evenly spaced. Then go in and add your chevrons with the same black striper. Finally, paint in your different colors...like a coloring book :) If you've gotten things a bit messy, just go back over your line work with the black until you've got a straight and even line.