*I feel like this design element must have a particular name, and I feel terrible that I can't find it anywhere, so feel free to let me know if you know what it's called and I'll update the post!
Tuesday, September 17, 2013
Silver & Black Swirly Stamping
I was short on time this past weekend, so I took a little break from my (very slow!) progress on the 31 Day Challenge to do a little quick stamping manicure.
I started with a base of Zoya Freja and then stamped this pretty little wind/cloud-like design* from the Messy Mansion MM09 plate using Essence Stampy Polish in black. Not too much else to say about this one, other than the fact that this was my first time using the Stampy Polish and it worked beautifully! I'll definitely be picking up more of it.
*I feel like this design element must have a particular name, and I feel terrible that I can't find it anywhere, so feel free to let me know if you know what it's called and I'll update the post!
*I feel like this design element must have a particular name, and I feel terrible that I can't find it anywhere, so feel free to let me know if you know what it's called and I'll update the post!
Monday, September 16, 2013
31DC2013 Day 3: Yellow Nails
I mentioned it last time, and I'll say it again now in the interest of full disclosure: I really don't like yellow. I think other people can look amazing wearing it, and I've seen it used brilliantly in professional decor, but I usually go to great lengths to avoid having it in my own wardrobe or decorations. I just think it looks terrible with my skin! But just for the 31 Day Challenge, I made a point of going out to find a yellow polish I could stand to have on my nails for any length of time. In the end, the winner was butter LONDON Jasper, and the manicure I came up with was... well, interesting:
My husband said it reminded him of a cartoon turtle or dinosaur, and honestly, I think that's a pretty fair assessment. After I got the base of Jasper applied and dried (and it covered beautifully, as you can see, especially for a light colored polish), I added butter LONDON Slapper to the tips using striping tape and to the cuticle line using a dotting tool. The overall effect is definitely not a subtle one! If I had it to do over I'd probably leave off the dots, or maybe do something different at the cuticle, but... oh well. What're you gonna do. :) I'm glad to have Jasper in my collection now, though, for those rare occasions when I need a nice, soft yellow. I may even use it again in another 31DC manicure this year—I have a few ideas already!
Another note about this manicure: since I knew I wouldn't be wearing it for very long, I topped it with Seche Vite to get it dry as fast as possible. And while it did dry super quick, I ended up having the same problem I always do with Seche Vite: within a few hours of these pictures being taken, my polish started severely shrinking up away from the edges! I'm so envious of people who don't have this problem with the Seche Vite top coat because if it weren't for that issue, I would use it all the time.
My husband said it reminded him of a cartoon turtle or dinosaur, and honestly, I think that's a pretty fair assessment. After I got the base of Jasper applied and dried (and it covered beautifully, as you can see, especially for a light colored polish), I added butter LONDON Slapper to the tips using striping tape and to the cuticle line using a dotting tool. The overall effect is definitely not a subtle one! If I had it to do over I'd probably leave off the dots, or maybe do something different at the cuticle, but... oh well. What're you gonna do. :) I'm glad to have Jasper in my collection now, though, for those rare occasions when I need a nice, soft yellow. I may even use it again in another 31DC manicure this year—I have a few ideas already!
Another note about this manicure: since I knew I wouldn't be wearing it for very long, I topped it with Seche Vite to get it dry as fast as possible. And while it did dry super quick, I ended up having the same problem I always do with Seche Vite: within a few hours of these pictures being taken, my polish started severely shrinking up away from the edges! I'm so envious of people who don't have this problem with the Seche Vite top coat because if it weren't for that issue, I would use it all the time.
Sunday, September 15, 2013
31DC2013 Day 2: Orange Nails
I've been so busy lately that I haven't had any time to queue up posts—and, I have to admit, I haven't been super excited about days 2 and 3 of the 31 Day Challenge. Orange is one of my least favorite colors (second only to yellow!), so I had a hard time coming up with something I liked okay that featured orange prominently. I know that's the whole point of the challenge, however, so here we go!
When thinking about orange as an inspiration, I kept thinking about blood oranges, so that's what was in my head when I did this manicure: the vibrant orange of the rinds and the ruby red fruit inside.
The base color here is China Glaze Jamaican Out and the bloody red tips are Zoya Blaze. After the base color dried, I used a nail art brush to roughly outline the wavy edges of the accent color and then filled them in with the brush from the polish bottle. The color palette here still isn't my favorite, but I do like the way this kind of looks like I had a plain orange manicure and then started digging into the juicy insides of a blood orange. Also, Blaze is a really gorgeous, sparkly polish and my camera didn't really do it justice here.
When thinking about orange as an inspiration, I kept thinking about blood oranges, so that's what was in my head when I did this manicure: the vibrant orange of the rinds and the ruby red fruit inside.
The base color here is China Glaze Jamaican Out and the bloody red tips are Zoya Blaze. After the base color dried, I used a nail art brush to roughly outline the wavy edges of the accent color and then filled them in with the brush from the polish bottle. The color palette here still isn't my favorite, but I do like the way this kind of looks like I had a plain orange manicure and then started digging into the juicy insides of a blood orange. Also, Blaze is a really gorgeous, sparkly polish and my camera didn't really do it justice here.
Monday, September 9, 2013
31DC2013 Day 1: Red Nails
It's September once again, which means many of the big names in nail blogging are all participating in the 31 Day Challenge. If you're not familiar with the challenge, it's designed to stretch nail art skills and creativity: every day for 31 days, you create nail art based on a particular theme (various colors, patterns, and even media types are all on the list).
After seeing my favorite bloggers' results for the first few days of the challenge, I decided that I needed to get in on this fun, too! However, since I'm still new to nail art and my schedule also gets pretty crazy this time of year, I'm going to spread the challenge out over a couple of months instead. I know that eliminates what is probably the most challenging part of the challenge—having the dedication and inspiration to do something new every single day—but, baby steps, right? I'll still be working on my skills, which is the most important thing to me right now.
Anyway, on to the manicure!
Day one of the challenge was red nails, and I came up with this red glitter gradient that photographed kind of terribly but was quite rich and pretty in real life:
My camera completely flattened out the depth of this manicure, so you'll have to trust me that the glitter gradient at the tips looked much nicer in reality. I used NARS Jungle Red for the base color here (which I wasn't thrilled with, by the way—three coats and I still had issues with streakiness!), and then carefully applied I Love Nail Polish Bella to the tips in increasingly shorter layers to create a gradient effect.
If you're curious about what else the 31 Day Challenge has in store, there are some great little graphics over at Chalkboard Nails that show the full list!
After seeing my favorite bloggers' results for the first few days of the challenge, I decided that I needed to get in on this fun, too! However, since I'm still new to nail art and my schedule also gets pretty crazy this time of year, I'm going to spread the challenge out over a couple of months instead. I know that eliminates what is probably the most challenging part of the challenge—having the dedication and inspiration to do something new every single day—but, baby steps, right? I'll still be working on my skills, which is the most important thing to me right now.
Anyway, on to the manicure!
Day one of the challenge was red nails, and I came up with this red glitter gradient that photographed kind of terribly but was quite rich and pretty in real life:
My camera completely flattened out the depth of this manicure, so you'll have to trust me that the glitter gradient at the tips looked much nicer in reality. I used NARS Jungle Red for the base color here (which I wasn't thrilled with, by the way—three coats and I still had issues with streakiness!), and then carefully applied I Love Nail Polish Bella to the tips in increasingly shorter layers to create a gradient effect.
If you're curious about what else the 31 Day Challenge has in store, there are some great little graphics over at Chalkboard Nails that show the full list!
Thursday, September 5, 2013
Nail Art: Black & White & Pink All Over
My apologies for putting up two very PINK posts in a row, but this one builds on my swatch from last time, so it just made sense to do it this way. The next post will be very much the opposite of pink, I promise!
The day after I swatched Shocking by Marc Jacobs, I wanted to dress up my nails a bit more for an out-of-town event I was going to, but I had almost zero time to pull together something elaborate. So I grabbed a few coordinating supplies from my stash and came up with this:
The day after I swatched Shocking by Marc Jacobs, I wanted to dress up my nails a bit more for an out-of-town event I was going to, but I had almost zero time to pull together something elaborate. So I grabbed a few coordinating supplies from my stash and came up with this:
Tuesday, September 3, 2013
Swatch: Shocking by Marc Jacobs
Today I've got some swatches of one of my new favorite polishes: the color is called Shocking and it's from the new Marc Jacobs Enamored Hi-Shine Nail Lacquer line.
