31 Day Nail Challenge - Day 6: Purple

I'm finding that the colors I most love painting my nails are giving me the biggest problems with this challenge! Perhaps I don't want to create something that doesn't do those colors justice. Regardless, I had to think a bit about what to do for the latest installment of the 31 Day Nail Challenge. I actually tried a few things before landing on this...and I think I like it haha I haven't done anything with taping in a long while so it was fun to get back into that. This is a pretty simple design and easy enough to recreate :) The base purple is Creative Fantasy from last night's swatching and I've added Lime Crime's Lavendairy, OPI's My Boyfriend Scales Walls (have I mentioned I'm obsessed with this color?!?), and the grey is my new OPI, French Quarter for Your Thoughts (also ridiculously obsessed with this color now). 

China Glaze Creative Fantasy Swatches

After I finished my smooch mani tonight, the boyfriend disappeared again into the depths of the garage, only to reappear holding what is apparently another part of my Valentine's gift. Can it be the 14th yet so I can see whatever else he has hiding back there!?! He was pretty excited to give me China Glaze's Creative Fantasy and I was even more excited to receive it! It is such an incredible royal purple that has a very unique formula. I was going to try and hold off on swatching this since I JUST did my previous mani, but I honestly couldn't wait to try this out. It took me 3-ish coats to get to this opacity, and though in the pictures it still looks a bit sheer, in person it's hard to tell. This is definitely more jelly than opaque. I added a top coat to this because I'm impatient, but it has a really neat rubbery finish that is very unique. I'm just incredibly excited about this purple!! :D

February Nail Art Challenge - Day: Smooch!

Of all the themes for this month's nail art challenge, I was least excited for this one. I'm not really one to want lips...on my finger nails. I did, however, decide to give it a go and dug around in my nail stamping plates to see if I could find something suitable that could work for this one. Well, not only did I find one lip stamp, I found out that I apparently have an ENTIRE plate of lips. That's 6 different designs! Of lips! Who ever would need that many types of lips stamps is beyond me...although, I did use 4 of them for this design...but that's beside the point! I actually really love this purple by SOPI called Ms. Can't Be Wrong. It's got some really pretty holo/shimmery-ness happening that I love. I let that color lead the way and ended up with these!  

31 Day Nail Challenge - Day 5: Blue

Grrr!

I have been so completely stuck on an idea for a blue mani. You would think that because it's my favorite color for nails lately I would have ideas up the wazoo, but alas, I struggled over the past week trying desperately to come up with something to do. I finally complained to my boyfriend about my horrendous first world problem and got a sarcastic "I'm sorry, babe". However, he soon after disappeared into the garage and returned with his hands behind his back...and he produced two new BLUE China Glaze's that are apparently part of my Valentine's Day gift!?! How great is he!? Now to restrain my urge to go in search of my gift that is living in the garage. I was so incredibly excited to have new colors to play with but...I realized that I was STILL stumped. Ugh. I ended up just painting and seeing what happened and this is what I came up with. I'm not even close to in love with it (boo!) but I guess I can't have that with every thing I create. Anywho, my man is basically excellent :D

February Nail Art Challenge - Day 3: XOXO

I am giving myself a little pat on the back right now because this is the first time that I've actually kept up with one of these challenges as well as stay on time with one of these challenges! This was a more difficult theme for me as it's a fairly simple concept and therefore only so much you can do with it. I know since it's February, everyone always wants to use pinks and reds and purples in their manis (especially when you're doing an "XOXO" theme) but I'm so burnt out on them!...Yes, I know I've only done one mani with those colors :p Maybe I'll make it through the whole month without using overtly Valentine's colors together!?! Err, not likely...anyway! I went with two of my absolute favorite colors together on this one--Turquoise and Caicos and the lovely coral Tart Deco! 

These were super simple and quick, but I think still fun and hopefully unique-ish :)