Neon outlines

Neons! And some more neons! 

Because eff-you winter that's why ;) 

Those winter blues keep trying to drag me down but I've been using neon polishes to fight them off and so far I'm succeeding! Neon outlined nails have been on my to-do list for about forever... and I'm not sure if these are a fail or not quite yet so let's see what you guys think :) 

I started with a base of Wet n Wild Black Creme. When that was dry I outlined with OPI Alpine Snow first so the neons would pop. Looking back now I probably should have outlined with some white acrylic paint because it wouldn't have been so thick, ehhh oh well. Then I used China Glaze Pool Party, China Glaze Orange Knockout, Orly Highlighter, and China Glaze I'm With The Lifeguard to finish the outlines. I used some Poshe for top coat and the design was finished. 

I really liked the idea of these nails, and I have to say I got quite a few compliments on them but I just wasn't happy with them. I had to do some back painting with the black to get the outlines nice and thin and it just made them too thick right near the edges -_- Not even top coat could smooth it out. *sigh* I suppose I'll just have to be more careful next time. 

What do you guys think? Fail or not?
Thanks loves :) 

Heart-icure

Time for some Valentine's Day nails!! Woohoo! 

My nails today are kind of half and half... half Valentine's Day, half not Valentine's Day. They are hearts but they are also black so I suppose it could go either way :) 

I sat down to do my nails and knew I wanted to do a dotticure using my Color Club holos since I've wanted to do it for months now, and after I finished the dots I just envisioned black hearts in the center of each nail..... talk about a divine intervention! ;)

I started with a base of Wet n Wild Black Creme on all of my nails. Then I took my dotting tool and created the different sized dots using Color Club Cosmic Fate, Color Club Eternal Beauty, Color Club Kismet, Color Club Miss Bliss, and Color Club Over the Moon. I went back using all of the same colors and a toothpick to fill in the bigger spaces with tiny dots. When everything was dry I took Wet n Wild Black Creme again and painted a heart in the center of each nail. I finished off with some Poshe top coat and I was good to go! 

I tried to put some indirect light on these ones because the glare from the light makes it difficult to see the black hearts as you can tell in the first picture! So that's why my hands kind of look funny here.

What's your favorite Valentine's Day of Anti-Valentine's Day go to manicure? Maybe I'll take some suggestions for future manis... with credit given of course! ;) 

Thanks so much loves :) 

Neon watercolor houndstooth

I suppose 'watercolor' is kind of stretching it a bit... it's technically a random gradient but it looks pretty watercolor-ish right?! 

Since I'm still growing my nubs out I've been reaching for stamping plates more then ever, I'm not really sure what it is about short nails and stamping that attracts me so much LOL. 

Anyways I wanted to do something bright since winter is so blah and everything so I rounded up my favorite neons and tried to figure out how to incorporate them all in one mani. I'm pretty proud of the outcome ;)

I started with a base of OPI Alpine Snow on all of my nails so the neons would really pop. Then I took a makeup sponge and painted random blocks of China Glaze Pool Party, China Glaze Orange Knockout, Orly Highlighter, and China Glaze I'm With The Lifeguard. To get the different patterns on each nail I just rotated the sponge for each one. After I sponged and cleaned up I stamped using L.A Colors Black Striper and Bundle Monster BM-322. I top coated everything with some Poshe and the design was finished! 

I really enjoyed how bright and fun these were it almost made me forget how sad I am about my nubs... *almost* ;) 

What's your go-to polish to fight off those winter blues? 

Thanks loves :) 

You can stand under my Umbr-ella ella ella

Rolling along on the nub train all aboard!!!!

So I'm still growing out my little nubbies, I will be for a while :( But the nail art will never stop! 

I was looking at some more fabric swatches to get some inspiration again and came across this adorable fabric that had little umbrellas all over it and I just knew I needed to do some umbrella nails! So let's get the look started shall we?! 

I started with a base of OPI Alpine Snow on all of my nails. Then I used some light blue acrylic paints to paint little rain drops in the background although I am aware that you can't see them at all -_- Trust me they are there! Then I used various acrylic paints to create the umbrellas. I top coated with NYC Matte Me Crazy because I just felt they needed that matte finish :) Check them out! 

Oh man I'm totally in love with these LOL! I don't know where I can get that fabric but I just have to get my nubs on it! The umbrellas were surprisingly easy to create and I wore this look for a few days before I could bare to take them off! ;)

What do you think?
Thanks loves :) 

Fabric swatch-spiration skittles

Mehhhhhh NUBS!!

Yeah you read that right.. NUBS! T.T I haven't had a bad break in a long time so I suppose it was about time. I snapped off my middle finger nail trying to pull up my covers on my bed. I won't repeat to you all the select words I decided to use when it happened.... I don't want to skew your view of me! ;) LOL Needless to say I wasn't a happy camper. So I filed my nails back down to nubs, my middle nail actually snapped the corner off lower then I could file but I tried to position my nails so that you couldn't quite see that part ;) 

Anyways, I was surfing the web looking for some nail inspiration and I have heard that some bloggers use fabric swatches for inspiration and I'm like "DUH" why haven't I tried that? -_- Sometimes I'm not the brightest crayon in the box... or ever ;) But hey what are you going to do?? One of the first things that came up was a pile of pastel yellow and gray fabric swatches with various patterns and I immediately fell in love. I didn't use all of the patterns on the fabric because I just wanted to run with the yellow / gray idea and I'm super excited about the out come!

I started with a white base of OPI Alpine Snow on my index finger. On my pinky and thumb I used E.L.F Misty Haze and on my middle and ring I used Lime Crime Crema De Limon. I used white acrylic paint for all of the details except for my index where I used E.L.F Misty Haze to create the chevrons. I top coated everything with a generous coat of Poshe and I was good to go :) 

How did I do camouflaging the break? With the exception of the middle picture of course.. I'm not really sure why I thought that was a good hand pose -_- lol! But I really loved the gray and pastel yellow color combination and I was so happy that all of the designs worked so well together! I know it's a little bit difficult to see the designs on the yellow nails, they were much more apparent in real life, but I like that it gives the finished product a soft look.

What do you think?
Thanks loves :)  

Grinding those steampunk gears

It's been quite a while since I've used any stamping plates...

It's not that I don't like stamping because I actually love it, it's just that my favorite thing to do is free hand work and the only way to get better is to practice right? But for those times when I'm short on time I really love picking up my stamping plates and going to town and that's what happened this time :) 

I sat down to do my nails the other night and realized I only had right around an hour to get them finished. So I closed my eyes and reached into my untrieds pile and grabbed OPI German-icure by OPI. German-icure by OPI is a gorgeous vampy blackened burgundy that just seems to glow from within. I knew I wanted to do some gold stamping over it and the gear stamp BM-414 from Bundle Monster's newest 2013 'create your own' stamping set was begging to be used ;) I used Maybelline Color Show Bold Gold for the stamping and finished it off with some Poshe. I really love the finished product, check it out :) 

Oh and.... STEAMPUNK ALL THE THINGS!!! :)

Burgundy and gold just make the perfect pairing don't you think? I had forgotten how much I enjoyed stamping so I'm definitely going to be doing more in the future.

What do you all think?

Thanks so much loves :) 

Inspiration Nation: Work / Play / Polish

I'm sure the wonderful Work / Play / Polish needs absolutely no introduction to the nail community. Leslie is so wonderful and incredibly talented I'm surprised I haven't done an inspiration nation post inspired by her yet. 

Well no more! 

A while back leslie posted THESE nails using OPI's Minnie Mouse collection. I fell in love with her textured rose nail and knew I needed to try it out. I'm not so sure if it works for an entire nail design though... but hey I had to give it a shot ;) 

I started off with a base of Wet n Wild Black Creme and topped it with some Poshe so that it was super shiny. Then I created the roses using OPI Magazine Cover Mouse and a small nail art brush. No top coat for this one as I wanted to keep the textured look! 

I really love this design, but I think next time I'd use it as an accent like Leslie did. I'm glad this textured trend is still going strong and I'm hoping it continues that way!

What's your favorite textured polish?

Thanks cupcakes! :) 

Inspiration Nation: Freckled Finger Nails

Been a long time since you've seen one of these posts hasn't it? 

When I saw THIS design by Freckled_Finger_Nails on Instagram I instantly fell in love. This design has been on my mind for quite a while now and I'm so glad that I've finally been able to try it out. I'm not going to lie, it wasn't easy. I tried for hours trying to get the right technique for the water colored roses and I can't tell you how many times I failed. I finally googled some water colored nails and found the right technique! 

All you have to do is mix acrylic paint and water to make the water color mixture. Then you take your brush and draw a bumpy circle. Once the pain starts to dry I sucked up the wet part with a q-tip. Then I just kept adding circles smaller and smaller until I felt they looked rosy! 

So, I started with a base of Lime Crime Milky Ways. For my index and pinky I taped off the stripes and sponged on Color Club Miss Bliss to give it a vintage sort of look. Then I created the roses using the technique above and red and green acrylic paints. I topped everything off with some Poshe to give it a great shine.

I am so in love with these nails! I think I wore them for 4 days which is almost unheard of for me ;) Thanks so much Freckled_Finger_Nails for creating such beautiful and inspirational nail art! 

Thanks loves :) 

Matte / Shiny leopard spots

It's been quite a while since I've done any animal print nails or matte / shiny nails on this little blog. I'd say its overdue! 

So hey, if I need to do animal print and matte / shiny why not combine them?! Not a bad turn out if you ask me ;)

I started with a base of Wet n Wild Black Creme. I topped my ring, middle, and thumb with NYC Matte Me Crazy and my pointer and pinky with Poshe. When everything was dry I took a nail art brush and painted on the leopard spots with NYC Matte Me Crazy on the shiny nails and Maybelline Color Show Clear on the matte nails. No top coat for this one or else all the hard work would disappear!!! 

I love the difference between matte and shiny I really should do more manicures including them both! 

What's your favorite color to mattify?! 

Thanks loves :) 

 

Pastel Negative SPACE Nails with tutorial

Negative space,

What can I say about it besides that it's awesome?! Many talented bloggers have played around with negative space and I thought it was high time for me to jump on that wagon! I had this really cool idea of negative SPACE nails and, even though it took forever, I made up a little tutorial for you guys! So keep on reading to find out how to create some pastel negative SPACE nails! 

TUTORIAL:
1. Gather your supplies:
    - you need a pink polish [Lime Crime Parfait Day], a purple polish [Lime Crime   Lavendairy], a blue polish [Lime Crime Once In A Blue Mousse], a green polish [Maybelline Color Show Green With Envy], a white polish [Azature White], and an optional glitter top coat [China Glaze Fairy Dust]
    - you will also need a small nail art brush, a toothpick or small dotting tool, a makeup sponge and small star hole punch and tape or star stickers
2. Cut out your stars using the hole punch and your tape.
3. Stick the star stickers to your nails, make sure you press all the edges down.
4. Paint your nails white.
5. Rip your make up sponge and sponge on your blue all over the nail.
6. Use another piece of ripped up sponge and sponge your white on randomly.
7. Sponge over the edges with your green.
8. Sponge on your pink in the white area.
9. Sponge over some of the pink with your purple.
10. Add white dots and stars using your white polish.
11. Layer on your holo top coat.
12. Carefully peel off star stickers with tweezers, you may need to fix up the stars using your brush and some acetone. 
13. Clean up your edges.
14. Add top coat.

Whew! I hope you found the tutorial at least a little bit helpful! ;) 

What do you think? Will you try out some negative space nails?
Thanks so much loves :) 

Never let anyone dull your sparkle!

Sparkles.

Does anything else really need to be said? I mean who doesn't love sparkly things?! I was really excited about this prompt because sparkle should literally be my middle name. I add sparkle whenever I can, why? Because sparkles make me smile and smiling is my favorite! ;)

So moving on with the prompt, I was surprised at how much I actually struggled with this one. It's not that I didn't have any ideas, I just didn't know which direction I wanted to go in. I actually had a different mani in mind but once I got half way through and messed it all up I decided that I should go for a simpler route. I really enjoy sparkly gradients so let's do that shall we?! 

I started off with a base of Orly Gumdrops. When that was dry I taped off around my nails and did a glitter gradient using Orly Sparkling Garbage and Orly Bubbly Bombshell. I added a rhinestone on top and finished up with two generous coats of Poshe top coat to give it a great shine. 

My favorite color is definitely SPARKLES! I stared at these nails for so long but unfortunately had to take them off shortly after they were finished... I didn't want to but there was so much glitter on there I knew if I let it dry I'd NEVER get it off lol! 

Take another look at the challenge picture to see what's coming up soon on the blog! 

Thanks lovelies :) 

So fresh, so clean!

I've decided that the new year is the time to take on some new challenges and make some changes. You know, new year, new me ;)

Among some of the changes and challenges I'm going to be doing I think it's about time for another nail polish challenge. I love doing challenges because it really gets my creative juices flowing, I find it especially helpful when I'm feeling decidedly uninspired. This challenge is pretty laid back which I'm excited about and it was created by @californails on instagram. The first day of the challenge was actually yesterday but hey, better late then never! 

Anyways the first challenge is fresh. Whenever I think of fresh I think of mint so I knew I wanted to incorporate it in my mani somehow. Other then that though I struggled coming up with an idea for this one and then it hit me, what's fresher then a old school white french manicure?! 

I started this design by painting the tips of my nails with OPI Alpine Snow. Then I cleaned up the smile line with a cleanup brush and some acetone. After everything was dry I layered two coats of OPI Bubble Bath and then I added three dots of Orly Gumdrop up the side of each nail. To finish the design up I added some Poshe for top coat to give it that super shiny look! 

Here's a picture of the challenge so you guys have an idea of what's coming up next! ;) 

So what do you think? Is it fresh enough?! What would you have done for this challenge, I really struggled with an idea so I'd love to hear your thoughts! And who knows... maybe I'll decide to recreate some! ;) 

Thanks darlings :)