Garnished Galaxy

I really, desperately wanted to do some Guardians of the Galaxy nails before seeing the movie over the weekend. (It's amazing, by the way! Go see it!) I racked my brain for ages trying to come up with a concept that would be both a recognizable representation of the movie/characters AND doable for my skill level, but I couldn't come up with anything. I love the Guardians to bits, but they just don't have super iconic (and nail-art-friendly) logos or costumes like the Avengers & other superheroes. In the end, I went with some embellished galaxies and called it a day—I had a movie to go see, after all!

Purrfectly Grey

I know, I know... that title is the oldest cat pun in the book—I'm so uncreative today! I hope everyone will forgive me, though: things at work have been really busy for me lately, so I haven't had much time to work on super intricate nail art (OR come up with clever post titles). But I did manage to do this happy little kitty manicure recently that I wanted to share, dumb title notwithstanding!

Teal the Stags Come Home

This is one of those manicures where I just had no clue what I was going to do until I started doing it. And even then, it was all pretty much just winging it from one nail to the next!

I started with a base of Julep Misti on all my nails and then sponged the gradient onto my pointer, middle and ring fingers with Misti and Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure Jungle Gem. Then I added Formula X for Sephora Blast Off to my thumb and pinky. I was almost prepared to stop there, but the overall look still seemed incomplete, so I added little black studs from the Born Pretty Store to my pointer and middle fingers and the stag silhouette nail tattoo (from Big Ruby) to my ring finger.

There's not much rhyme or reason here, but I like how it all came together! I think these teal shades pair really well with the black.

What do you think—too random, or just right? I'd love to hear from you in the comments!

Thanks for looking!

Adventures in Stamping Post #3: Robots in Love

I have to start this post by saying that I'm incredibly proud of the manicure I have to show you today. I got brave and stepped way, WAY outside my comfort zone for this one, and I'm so pleased with the result!

These cute little robots are from the MoYou Sci Fi Collection Plate 02, which I used to make my own decals. I did a lot of research and watched tons of YouTube videos before attempting this, but in the end, the methods I used are #1 and #2 (as demonstrated by Lucy's Stash in her amazing video tutorials). And I'll be honest: it wasn't as easy for me as she makes it look! I went through a lot of stamping attempts that didn't turn out quite right, and I had a heck of a time getting the finished decals to adhere smoothly to my nails. (Thankfully, my pictures don't really show most of the little air bubbles I accidentally trapped under the decals!). It ended up taking me an entire evening to make six successful decals (three for each hand), but I think it was more than worth it! I wore this manicure for several days and couldn't stop looking at my nails the entire time.

The polishes I used are as follows:

• Zoya Rue for the base
• essence black stamping polish for the stamped outlines
• Zoya Trixie, Zoya Purity, and a-england Rose Bower for the detail on the decals (all painted in with a small detail brush)
• Julep Joelle for the glitter on the accent nails

As I mentioned, putting this manicure together was a really big challenge for me, especially given my overall struggles with stamping. I made sure to go slow and give myself lots of chances to fail/learn from my mistakes, which I think made all the difference for me. I also just had to accept that there would be a few imperfections in the finished look and let go of my frustration over them! So if you're inclined to try making your own decals, my main recommendations are to set aside plenty of time, and don't be afraid to make adjustments and try new things as you go. For example, I learned after applying the first decal that I needed to put down a base of my slowest-drying topcoat first, to give myself plenty of time to get them stuck in the right place before the topcoat dried!

I'm also counting this as a Valentine's Day manicure, because these robots just look so sweet together and I'm convinced they're in love. :)

Anyway, I'd love to hear what you think about making your own decals—hit me up in the comments! Have you tried this before? What worked/didn't work for you? If you haven't tried it, what would you be interested in hearing about/seeing before you do?

Thanks for looking!

Black & Grey Moody Mani

I was in a bit of a mood when I did this manicure—a cranky mood, as you can probably guess from the motif! But in spite of that, I really like how this turned out. I wear black and grey at work almost exclusively, so this matched with my daily attire really well.

The black is Julep Cleopatra, which has a very cool latex finish before you apply the topcoat—I definitely plan on wearing it without at some point. (It's super gorgeous with the topcoat, too, however!) The grey on my ring finger is FNUG Flat Boots, and it's topped with a nail tattoo from the Big Ruby His collection.

If I could go back in time, I would probably put the skull and crossbones on facing the other way: they were right-side-up for me, but upside-down in all the pictures! But other than that, this is a very "me" mani and it actually ended up improving my bad mood. Go figure!

Seattle Seahawks Nail Art

We're big Seattle Seahawks fans in my house, so when they played their big Monday night game recently, I decided to do some crazy Seahawks-themed nail art to celebrate (and to match my jersey!).

As you can see, I couldn't decide exactly what kind of look I really wanted, so I did a little bit of everything. I started with a base of Nars Galathee on my thumb, middle finger, and pinky, and then a base of Sephora by OPI It's Totally Karma on the other two fingers. Then I used striping tape on my middle and ring fingers before adding a coat of OPI I Saw...You Saw...We Saw...Warsaw and peeling the tape off. I applied the blue hex glitters (from the Born Pretty Store) to my pinky using a toothpick and clear nail polish, and a coat of ILNP Matthew Peri finished off my pointer finger. Finally, I applied the Seahawks helmet waterslide decal from Nail Country Decals to my thumb and finished everything off with a couple coats of topcoat.

After wearing this mani for a full week (butter LONDON P.D. Quick Topcoat does not mess around!), I decided that the design on my ring finger—the navy blue with the bright green stripes—is probably my favorite. The two colors together in a pinstripe just look really sharp, I think. What about you—which nail do you like best out of this random assortment?

Anyway, thanks for reading! Go Seahawks!!

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: