31 Day Nail Art Challenge - Day 17: Glitter

Hope everyone had a great week and that you're as happy it's the weekend as I am ;) I feel like whenever I have a short work week, I'm even busier than normal trying to cram as much as possible into my day. I'm tired!

I really had no clue what to do for tonight's look. Should I go with a classic glitter gradient (something I've done before) or stray a bit and try something more complex? In the end, I knew I wouldn't be satisfied if I went with a design I've already done. I'm going to keep this post short because I'm so exhausted, but I wanted to note that the inspiration for tonight's glitter mani came from one of the nails Meghan did for her tribal print mani on Tuesday (found here!). I absolutely loved the design that she did on her ring finger and knew I had to recreate it...I just didn't realize it would be so soon that I recreated it! 

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.

GLITTER Stripes

Part of my Valentine's Day Haul from the Boyfriend included the China Glaze Cirque du Soleil collection (I also got a BUNCH of nail art pens that I am so excited to get to using!) and I decided to use two of the polishes from that, as well as one of my recent acquisitions from my trip to Sally's Beauty. This by far one of the sparkliest manis to day but I like it so much more than I was expecting to! I used China Glaze's Water You Waiting For and Running in Circles and Orly's Bubbly Bombshell and made super simple stripes. Easy peezy, lemon squeezy!

Sparkle Gradient with BL, CG and SOPI

Today's nail art challenge is Sparkles! I'm really loving this look and it's super simple to create. The base color is Butter LONDON's Royal Navy and the gradient is made with China Glaze's I Herd that and the chunky glitter is Sephora by OPI's Only Gold for Me top coat.

China Glaze's I Herd That Chevrons with Purr-fect Plum

Happy New Year's Eve!! Well, it's still the 31st here in California so Happy New Year to anyone 9 hours ahead of me! ;) 

To celebrate, I put together this sparkly fun mani to ring in the new year :) I busted out the striping tape and got started. 

 

I used China Glaze's Purr-fect Plum (left) and I Herd That (right) for this mani and I really like how it turned out. I tried to make it look like the Chevron on my middle finger extends along the rest of the fingers. 

Deborah Lippmann - Across the Universe

I was so spoiled this Christmas. Not only did I get to spend 10 days in Costa Rica, my boyfriend bought me enough polishes to keep me busy for a LONG time! Yay! He ended up getting me the entire On Safari collection from China Glaze which I fell in love with from the first moment I saw it. It's a Trap-eze! from their Cirque du Soleil collection was also included. If that wasn't enough, I got 3 new ButterLONDON's AND my very first Deborah Lippmann!!! To top it all off, I got a new Shany image stamping plate that I absolutely love. I can see myself using every single one of these stamps. I am so excited about all of them and feeling so fortunate for everything I have right now :)

I fell so hard for the Deborah Lippmann that I had to put in on immediately. I went with something simple and ended up using two of my new China Glaze's as well, Man Hunt (blue) and Exotic Encounters (green). And of course, I couldn't leave well enough alone so I added a stamp using my new plates! I really love this look...possibly because I am back to my favorite colors ;)

I was busy! :(

Here are a couple manis that I did over the Thanksgiving break and wasn't able to post.

The first is Ulta's Concrete Evidence with Pinata-Yada in a reverse gradient.

While at home, I ended up raiding my Mom's polish collection and found Sally Hansen's Shell We Dance and...a sharpie! Shell we dance is very sheer and I had to do about 5 coats to get it to this color. I also discovered that Mom does not own a fast dry top coat and because I had to do so many coats of this, I spent about 2 hours waiting for my nails to dry :/ But here's the result!

Happy Polishing :)

Is it too early for a Christmas mani?

Autumn and Winter are by far my favorite time of the year. I love being able to bundle up on the couch next to the fire with my hot cocoa and a great book. Reading and nail painting are essentially tied for favorite things to do so don't make me choose! (Maybe I'll do some book reviews on here occasionally...hmm). Anyway! The past few days have finally begun to be gloomy and cold (only took to the end of November!..but that's what you get in California) and driving home after work with the sun already down and all the Christmas lights up really solidified the feeling that it is in fact winter! My favorite! 

I was feeling inspired by the time of year and landed on PRESENTS! Everyone loves to give and/or receive gifts and I've been slowly finding presents to give to friends and family so it seemed fitting. 

I used, YET AGAIN (sorry!) Sephora by OPI's Mr. Right Now because it is my all time favorite red and I am going to have to go buy more soon. My striping accents (you have no idea how many times I checked to make sure that didn't say stripping accents...) are Ulta's Concrete Evidence and a mini Sephora by OPI called Already Famous that came as part of their winter Tinsel Town Collection. 

Essie Beyond Cozy Gradient

It's winter! And after Thanksgiving it finally feels like it! Yay! My favorite! 

Err...well it doesn't snow in my part of California, but a girl can dream, right? I am pretty envious of the those in the cold snowy weather because all I want to do is get bundled up and go play in the snow all day long!

I suppose painting my nails wintery-ish will have to suffice for now, though. So! I present, another gradient look (this time done following proper technique!). I used Ulta's Smoke Screen and Essie's Beyond Cozy for my gradient colors (with a foundation of white).

Happy Polishing.

Zoya Blaze

A quick swatch of one of my newest Zoyas, Blaze. Blaze is part of Zoya's winter 2012/2013 Ornate Collection and oh my goodness is this a stunning color! Wow. I don't even...

It's a great full coverage purple with lots of holographic glitter that is incredibly easy and smooth to apply and makes me want to dance with how lovely it looks as it sparkles in the light. 

Happy Polishing :)

Boyfriend, boyfriend.

I was struggling a bit with what colors to go with tonight so I asked my lovely (and possibly color blind) boyfriend to choose for me. He took the job very seriously--paused the show he was watching and settled in with my case of polish to find the perfect color. He started with a florescent yellow...um, no. I had to remind him it was fall and that wouldn't fly. He finally settled on two Kleancolor polishes, Red Alert and Fuchsia Glitter. But here's the thing...these colors look pretty swell together...my questionably colorblind boyfriend who often argues with me over the actual color of his shirt...chose some nice polishes...

Source: http://gifguppy.com/movies/jurassicpark/hfsitsadinosaur.html & Jurassic Park 1993

Okay, all joking aside, I decided to slap these colors on and go for it! I decided to add some Essie Matte About You because honestly, who doesn't love a good matte?

Happy Polishing. 

Disco Biscuit

As is well known by many, the quality of polishes varies by brand. A majority of my collection consists of Milani, Kleancolor, and Sally Hansen which are lovely brands in their own rights. Each have some unique and beautiful colors that many people yearn for. Then you have brands like Essie, OPI, and China Glaze that run you a few dollars more a bottle and are likely the most polish popular brands. However, once you leave the $8/bottle range, I tend to tap out and wait for a miracle of a sale to happen so that I can purchase the highest end brands. One such brand is Butter London. I was lucky enough to have someone purchase this for me and when I opened the box yesterday to look at the color, it was love at first sight.

Meet Disco Biscuit, "a tropical hot-pink nail lacquer with an undercurrent of tiny iridescent glitter particles." Can we please talk about how great a name that is? I have no clue what it means but I think it's perfect. It's very possible that because the brand is in fact based out of London, my American self has yet to encounter the situation where that name would make any sense. Possibly a drug tripping reference in which seeing this color would be all the more exciting. Regardless the name, the color speaks for itself.

The formula of this is really great. This is about 2 coats with Seche Vite on top. 

The best way to describe this polish? Is magical bubblegum fairies dancing on my fingertips sufficient? :D

Happy Polishing. 

It's Wednesday!...I mean Monday

Well, I don't know how to just let things be...so! I've added a fun new touch to the Storm polish I did earlier. I slapped on some Zoya Wednesday and covered it in the lovely China Glaze Luxe and Lush and voila! MAGIC. PRINCESS. MERMAID. HAPPINESS.

Happy Polishing.

Zoya, you have Stormed into my heart...

I had fully intended and planned on doing some new fun design tonight or starting on one of the challenge chains...however...Zoya Storm happened.

Oh. My. Goodness-gracious. After Hurricane Sandy, Zoya ran a promotion where you would get Storm from their new 2012 Ornate Collection for free with purchase of any other item (aside from their spoons). I ended up getting Wednesday and Natalie to add to my collection, but I was most excited for Storm. And boy oh boy, was I right to be excited! I WISH my camera had the capabilities of capturing the amazeballsness of this amazeballs polish. But here's my try!

Such sparkly goodness all wrapped up in one bottle. The concentration of diamond holographic glitter is absolutely perfect.

This is roughly two coats of Storm with a coat of Seche Vite to pull it all together (though this is already a fairly smooth and shiny polish on it's own). 

Zoya describes this polish as "elegant, powerful and versatile" and I could NOT agree more!!

Happy Polishing.

Follow Me on Glitter V-Gaps

I've been painting/polishing/lacquering/loving my nails for as long as I can remember. My Mother used to paint my sister's and my nails on the weekends and we'd spend the rest of the week slowly chipping the polish off through our childhood activities. Apparently, making mud pies and being a kid are hard on polish. Who knew!?

I've since moved on from there and am slowly growing a new collection of polishes. I've also been strictly a one color kind of gal, but lately I've been expanding my horizons and realizing that I like adding a little pizazz to my nails. For the most part though, my manicures remain understated, with a little bit of a kick ;)

My first "real" nail art if you will, was a taping attempt at simple chevrons. Basically, I'm in LOVE with the polish and the look of these nails.

The Green is OPI "Don't Mess With OPI" from the Texas Spring/Summer 2011 Collection

And the lovely gunmetal/silver/glittery goodness is Nicole by OPI "Follow Me on Glitter" Kardashian Collection

Happy Polishing!