31 Day Nail Art Challenge - Day 31: Recreate your Favorite Challenge

Well, after more than a 2 week hiatus, I'm back to finish up the 31 Day Challenge! I am so proud of Meghan and I for completing this and I feel like we've both seen ourselves improve throughout this challenge. I can't believe we started it back in July! Time flies - all too soon we'll be doing this all over again! 

While I considered other options, I don't think there was ever a doubt in my mind that I would be recreating my Inspired by a Song look for this theme. I loved everything about this look. The song I chose was the Florence and the Machine song, Shake it Out, and the chorus "It's always darkest before the dawn" was my major source of inspiration. However, this time around I decided to glom onto the "dawn" portion. My reasoning was that it was paying homage to the new dawn that this challenge has brought for our nail art! Yeah, I went there. Welcome to chees

e-ball city, I'll be your guide.

31 Day Nail Art Challenge - Day 30: Inspired by a Tutorial

Tonight I've got my second to last theme of the 31 Day Nail Art Challenge to share with you all. Today was "Inspired by a Tutorial" and I knew immediately which tutorial I wanted to do. My partner in crime through this whole challenge, Meghan over at Will Paint Nails For Food, recently did an AMAZING dreamcatcher tutorial that had a filtered look to it and was grungy and edgy and just fabulous. I knew I could never create anything as stunning as what she managed, but I thought I'd try my hand at it anyway!

31 Day Nail Art Challenge - Day 29: Inspired by the Supernatural

Wow! I can't believe how close to the end of this challenge we are! I've got a short post to share for today's theme of Inspired by the Supernatural. I really wasn't sure how to interpret this theme - just like with the flag theme, this feels like they ran out of ideas and just threw it into the mix at the end. But, since it's almost Halloween I figured I would keep with that theme and do something that can work for both!

31 Day Nail Art Challenge - Day 28: Inspired by a Flag

I'm mirroring what Meghan said in her post, inspired by a flag is the least inspiring of all the challenge themes. I really struggled with what to do for this. There are so many flags to choose from, but it felt wrong to choose some random country's flag that I had no association with. That narrowed down my choices substantially. California State flag or the US flag. I've lived in California my whole life and love it here. It's beautiful and has incredible variety wherever you go and I figured I couldn't not attempt the state flag of my state.

But holy bear, I did not think this was going to be so tricky! The Bear Flag, as our state flag is named, features, well a bear. A fairly realistic bear at that. And I don't do realism well...but hey! I gave it my best shot ;)

31 Day Nail Art Challenge - Day 27: Inspired by Art

Grrr! I'm so sorry I've completely failed at posting with regularity - when I started this blog I was working part time and had a lot of flexibility with my schedule and never had issues posting when I wanted to. My new job (I can't believe I've been there over 3 months!) is full time and incredibly demanding and I'm often at work for 11 hours at a time. This results in a VERY burnt out Lindsey by the time I get home. Often, despite wanting to be creative, I can't find it in me to get paint on nail and begin the process. Such was the case this week and hence why I'm posting this 2 days late ;) 

Inspired by Art was very intimidating for me. It's hard to look at someone's master piece(s) and say "Yeah, I can recreate that on a micro-scale and it's going to look just as good as that." While it's very loved style, impressionism is far and above my favorite type of art. I love the perceived randomness of the strokes that somehow work so flawlessly together and love the texture that is created when oils are used. There is just so much to love about it. 

I went back and forth between a ton of artists and struggled with whether I should do pieces that have been done before in nail art or if I should forge my own way with something that hadn't been done yet. I actually ended up complaining to the art expert herself, Meghan and asking for suggestions and guidance. In the end, I settled on Monet's Regatta at Argenteuil. I cheated a bit in that I only did 4 fingers, but I wanted to make a cohesive look across the even canvas of my fingers.

31 Day Nail Art Challenge - Day 26: Inspired by a Pattern

Happy Sunday, everyone! I can't believe that we are getting so close to the end of this challenge - I'm going to miss doing this! It's been great having some accountability and motivation to force me to create each week (even though I'm always late!) and I want to continue participating in different challenges after this finishes up. I do have some thrilling news to share that involves (in my opinion) the ultimate challenge each month. I'm planning a post just about that soon though! Stay tuned :) 

The theme for today's challenge is inspired by a pattern. I wasn't sure if I should stick with a type of pattern that everyone knows (e.g. plaid, stripes or paisley) or if I could find any pattern and be inspired by that. I decided to go with the latter. Though floral is still very much a pattern on it's own, I think it has a much broader range than some other patterns have. There are so many different combinations and types of floral that can be created and I think that is why I'm drawn to creating them in nail art. 

A few months ago I found a website by the name of Pattern Addict run by an incredibly talented lady named Gill. I love every single thing she has created on her site and when I was thinking of things to do for today's theme, I went strait to her website to feel inspired. There are so many great things to look through on her page, but in the end I went with this pattern. While mine doesn't quite do this print justice, I think I did a decent job of it. They are funky and different and I like that.

31 Day Nail Art Challenge - Day 25: Inspired by Fashion

Oh my gosh! If there is anyone out there who reads my blog regularly, you may have noticed that I've been MIA for the past 2 weeks (I can't believe it's been that long!). Meghan and I decided to take a brief hiatus from the 31 Day Challenge since we both had busy weeks last week. While I've been doing tutorials for other blogs over the past 2 weeks, I haven't quite managed to post them here yet - hopefully I'll have those up by tomorrow night! I missed you all!

Anyway! We are both back tonight with our Fashion inspired nails! I am not exactly fashion savvy so I wasn't really sure where to even begin with this look but then friend of mine found this fabulous stained glass print dress from Alexander McQueen and I fell in love. I wish I had $1000 to drop on this dress!

31 Day Nail Art Challenge - Day 24: Inspired by a Book

I have been looking forward to today's challenge theme since the very beginning - and now that it's here, it feels so underwhelming! I've wanted to do a mani based on one of my favorite kids books, Harold and His Purple Crayon. The story is about a little boy named Harold who one night decides he's going to for a walk with his purple crayon...but finds he doesn't have light to walk by so he draws himself the moon...and he soon find that his walk isn't very interesting so he draws some things to keep it interesting. You can see the book read here if you're interested! 

I decided to recreate some of the my favorite scenes from the book and here is the result!

31 Day Nail Art Challenge - Day 23: Inspired by a Movie

I think I've known from day one of this challenge that I was going to pick 1 of 2 movies for today's theme - Wall-E or Up. These are probably obvious choices for this part of the challenge, but they are 2 of my favorite movies and I couldn't resist recreating one of them. Fair warning, this is a long and rambling post!

I ended up settling on Wall-E for a few reasons. The first is probably weird, but it stems from the fact that Wall-E has been interpreted into nail art far less than Up has. I wanted to be able to put my own spin on them without too much outside influence...if that makes sense? The other reason was that robots felt much less daunting to paint than cartoon humans - I thought I'd have a better chance at staying true to the look of the characters with Wall-E. Regardless, I just love Wall-E and think it's such a great film and am so happy with how they turned out! 

31 Day Nail Art Challenge - Day 22: Inspired by a Song

Today is a bit of milestone for me - this is my 200th blog post! And I am so incredibly happy that today's mani turned out even better than I was hoping for! 

Today's theme was "Inspired by a Song"...which can be taken a few ways I'm sure, but I decided to be inspired by a specific lyric. One of my all time favorite artists is Florence + the Machine. I'm obsessed. Total fan girl. If any of you ever have tickets to see her, I will trade you my polish collection for them. 

I was listening to the song Shake It Out and when she got to the lyric "It's always darkest before the dawn" I had a sudden burst of inspiration and knew exactly what I wanted to do...so, without further ado, here they are!

31 Day Nail Art Challenge - Day 21: Inspired by a Color

Happy Friday/Saturday, All! Hopefully everyone has fabulous plans for the weekend :) 

Tonight I've got the latest in the 31 Day Nail Art Challenge - Inspired by a Color! A little over a month ago I bought the entire OPI Euro Centrale collection and immediately fell madly in love with My Paprika is Hotter Than Yours. This polish has made an appearance in quite a few of my manis over the past month and it is definitely one of my favorites to incorporate into my nail art. It only seemed fitting that I use this polish as my inspiration for tonight. 

31 Day Nail Art Challenge - Day 20: Water Marble

So I know that it has become pretty standard for me to post these challenges late, but this time, it wasn't for lack of time or being tired that I didn't post on time. I didn't post because water marbling is in fact, the worst thing in the world. At the very least the most infuriating thing. File these under "never want to do again!"

I've spent at least 6 hours over the past 3 days trying to get some semblance of water marbling on my fingers to post for the challenge. I think I can safely say that water marbling is not, and will never be, a part of my repertoire. I hate it. I bow down to all the ladies who continually produce beautiful works of water marbling art, but I can't do it! It's so frustrating and I just waste polish! I didn't even try to do my thumb - I'm a failure! ;) 

31 Day Nail Art Challenge - Day 19: Galaxies

Hi all! Sorry I've been a bit MIA the past few days - I had a crazy work week and spent the day recovering from my lack of sleep throughout the week. Today I'm really excited to share the galaxy nails that I put together for the latest 31 Day Nail Art Challenge! Fair warning, this is a long post! ;) Stick around though, I'll love you forever for it!

Before I started these, I was kind of dreading having to do them. Not because I dislike how galaxy nails look, but because for me, they are really time consuming and I tend to over think the color blending. I struggle with when to stop adding color and often go too far and have to repeat my steps to get the look I'm going for. In the end though, as soon as I actually sat down, found my inspiration and got going, I thoroughly enjoyed doing these :) 

31 Day Nail Art Challenge - Day 18: Half Moons

Tonight's post will be short and sweet! I'm exhausted and can't even believe that I'm still awake...I'm definitely not functioning on all cylinders so bear with me if I don't make sense through out this post ;) 

Today's challenge theme was Half Moons - a look I haven't tried before but has been on my list. I contemplated a few different designs for tonight and considered adding some stripes or patterns inside the half moon, but in the end, I did a really simple mani. 

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! 

31 Day Nail Art Challenge - Day 16: Tribal Print

Yay! We're officially past the half way point with the 31 Day Challenge! I am so proud of us! I didn't actually know what today's theme was until about 5 hours ago, but I was so excited to see that it was tribal print. I really like the details that must go into a tribal print and I find it really relaxing to do these (I may be the only one in the world that feels that way haha). My ring finger nail broke today so I'm down to ultra shorties so bear with me!

There are so many different types of tribal print out there but I decided to go with a print central to my area of the world - Navajo print. The Navajo tribe are from the Southwest of the United States and are the largest native american tribe still in the US and I just love the colors and patterns from their pottery and weaving.  I tried to stick to colors that were more likely to actually be used in Navajo artwork instead of the bright and crazy tribal print I've been seeing a lot of (though I do love those so much as well!).

31 Day Nail Art Challenge - Day 15: Delicate Print

Can we just change the date of the 31 Day Challenges from Tuesday and Friday, to Wednesday and Saturday? ;) It would appear those are the days I post on more frequently!

Let's cut to the chase, shall we? Today's (yesterday's) theme was "Delicate Print" and when I think of delicate things, lace, flowers, and butterflies come to mind. I considered doing a butterfly wing for a long time, but in the end, I settled on my first love - flowers! I actually ended up going on pinterest and typing in delicate flowers and one of the first things that popped up was this photo...Delicate rose? Check! Delicate Baby's Breath? Check! Ethereal feeling to the photo? Check! Perfection! I don't think that I am particularly good at painting roses so I felt a little apprehensive about trying to replicate this look but in the end, I tired my best. You'll have to tell me how close I got! ;) 

31 Day Nail Art Challenge - Day 14: Flowers

So I've failed yet again at posting on time for this challenge :/ If anyone is waiting with bated breath every Tuesday and Friday...well, I'm sorry I'm always late! haha I actually had this manicure painted and photographed late last night but I had some misgivings about posting them. I decided to sleep on it and after looking back over my photos, I decided to use these as my flower nails!

What were my hesitations, you ask? Well, I was putting a ridiculous amount of pressure on myself for today's mani. I feel like on the whole I am relatively good at doing floral manicures but that has become a bit of a double edged sword! I feel like I've got to outdo myself every time I do florals and I've managed to let it stress me out - sad right!? ;) Please tell me I'm not the only one who is crazy and does this to themselves!? 

I was also a bit hesitant about using this design for my flower look because I don't think they are immediately recognizable as flowers. I saw this print from colourlovers and went for it anyway. They are very abstract and more of a sketched and messy look (Meghan and I were totally on the same brain wave with our flowers!) and I thought that maybe I should stick with a more realistic look. In the end, though, I'm really happy with this mani. 

31 Day Nail Art Challenge - Day 13: Animal Print

I'll start this entry with yet another apology - I'm so late with this post! I made an impromptu trip up to my parent's house (4 hours north of where I live) and was gone Friday and Saturday. But, I'm posting now!

The latest theme of the 31 Day Nail Art Challenge is animal print, and as Meghan had also mentioned in her post, animal print is not really my thing. This is in fact the very first animal print I have ever done - I've never had the desire or need to do it before now! 

When I think of animal print and nail art, leopard print and maybe zebra print and the two that really come to mind. I like a lot of the leopard print ones that I've been seeing lately that use unique colors and varying textures and really contemplating going down a similar route for today's look. However, I decided that I wanted to go with a print from either one of my favorite African animals - Giraffe or Elephant. I was going to make an attempt at the wrinkly and wise skin of an elephant, but as that is not really a "print" per say, nor is it a very recognizable design, I went instead with Giraffe print!

31 Day Nail Art Challenge - Day 12: Stripes

I can't believe we're already on day 12 of this challenge! I'm so happy that Meghan and I are sticking with this - I'm still really loving this challenge :) 

For today's stripes theme, I thought about doing something complex with striping tape and going crazy, but in the end, I settled on classic vertical stripes. I recently bought the China Glaze Avant Garden collection and I've kind of been obsessing over the colors since I got them. I used 38 strips of striping tape for this hand alone and I felt my eye start to twitch in frustration after about the 12th strip being placed on my nail! How is it that the tape suddenly acquired a magnetic attraction to my nails for this mani!?