Misty Green-Grey Halloween Nails

Happy (early) Halloween, everyone! Halloween is one of my favorite holidays, so even though I've been super busy with work and vacation and then getting sick at the end of it all, I couldn't let the occasion pass without posting some seasonally appropriate nails here.

Golden Coral Gradient Nails

I don't really have any excuses about how long it's been since I've posted here. I'm not quite sure what happened! I've been distracted with other things for the last month, but I have still been doing nail art when I can; for some reason, sitting down to actually focus and write a blog post is the part of the process that's been eluding me. Can I blame it on the sunshine and my backlog of novels that I've been devouring?

Anyway! On to the nail art. Today I have some simple but very summery gradient nails to share. I ended up with this look recently when an initial nail art plan didn't pan out and I needed to come up with a plan B to cover the mistakes I'd already made. I never would have thought I'd end up liking a peachy-orange & gold design so much, since I usually don't like orange or gold, but I really fell in love with this as I wore it.

Double Gradient Leopard Print Nail Art

I'm making an effort to force myself away from my comfort zone of stamping, so I'm turning to some tried and true nail art techniques for inspiration. Up this week: the gradient leopard print!

Tri-Holo Lined Gradient Nail Art

Surprise—another stamping manicure! I swear I'm going to push myself to branch out a bit more in the coming weeks, but I just couldn't resist this one.

Bright & Sparkly Stamped Gradient Nails

Gradients and stamping: they're my go-to techniques when I'm short on inspiration. So on those days when I'm feeling doubly uninspired, a stamped gradient must be the way to go, right? Right!

Stitched Gradient Nail Art

Happy November! I can't believe how fast the year is flying by. It's already well into sweater weather where I live, so I decided to embrace the cold temperatures and rock the cozy sweater look on my nails, too.

Teal Butterfly Wing Nail Art

I see butterfly wing nail art everywhere and always admire it, so one day recently when I was in the mood to spend a good chunk of time on a design, I finally gave it a try. This is by no means breaking new ground here, but I did at least attempt to go with a color palette I personally hadn't seen before!

The Lacquer Legion: On Holiday - A Familiar View

It's another Lacquer Legion day! I get so excited for the end of the month now—I just love participating in this group.

The LL mods chose "On Holiday" as this month's theme, and I have to say, this one was equal parts fun and challenging for me. I knew early on what I wanted to do and was excited to try, but I also knew that it would be difficult, so I spent most of the month psyching myself up for it.

Easiest Gradient Ever

Gradient manicures are one of my absolute favorite things, but sometimes they're just a little too much work, y'know? Waiting for the base layer to dry, painstakingly sponging on layers, dealing with cleanup—it can take forever! That's why all the thermal polishes popping up these days are so great: if your nails are long enough, you can (sometimes) get that gradient look without all the hassle.

Cyberpunky Holo Stamping

I have a confession to make: I think I'm addicted to holo gradients. I don't know what it is... I've been kind of unenthused about holo polishes in general lately—they're pretty, yes, but they're everywhere, so they just don't excite me too much anymore. But take two or more and sponge them together into a gradient? Oh man, I am so on board for that every single time!

The Lacquer Legion: Adoration

Sometimes I struggle with nail art inspiration, but coming up with my look for this month's theme from The Lacquer Legion was actually pretty easy! I just thought about everything I truly adore in the nail art world—polish brand, type, and color, as well as my favorite nail art technique—and combined it all into one manicure.

Gradients will always be my first nail art love. One of The Nailasarus's beautiful gradient manicures was the first nail art I really fell hard for and felt like I just had to try myself, and from that point on, I was hooked. As I've experimented with gradients more during the last year, I've found that I especially love them when they're done with holographic polishes: something about all that sparkle transitioning from one color to the other just really works for me. Add in my favorite colors (purple and black) and my favorite polish brands (piCture pOlish and a england), and you've got a gradient I just can't help but adore!

To get this look, I started with a base of piCture pOlish Hussy and then sponged on a gradient using Hussy and a england Bridal Veil with a makeup wedge. It was actually my husband's idea to do the gradient vertically and alternate the color order on each nail, and I really love the effect. It's almost like the gradient runs in both directions at once, which is pretty genius, I think. Thanks, honey!

I would happily wear gradients on my nails all the time, but I know this blog would get pretty boring if I did! However, I do want to sincerely thank the Lacquer Legion ladies for coming up with a great prompt this month that gave me the perfect excuse to put together all the things I love.

See you next month, Lacquer Legion!

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!

Sweet, Sprinkled Skittle

I don't often find myself gravitating toward super girly pinks and pastels, but as soon as I saw piCture pOlish Frosting online, I knew I had to have it. It just looked so sweet and delicious! However, because this color palette isn't my usual thing, I struggled a bit with how to incorporate the polish into a manicure once it arrived. After pulling out lots of polishes and playing with them for a bit, I finally settled on a good ol' skittle mani to highlight the beautiful, creamy base and colorful glitters in Frosting.

My pointer and middle fingers are two coats of Frosting (and a few coats of topcoat to make everything super smooth). It went on really well and I got exactly one heart glitter per hand, which is what I wanted. My ring finger is a gradient of Julep Nellie and China Glaze Spontaneous (applied with a makeup sponge), and my thumb and pinky are Spontaneous stamped with Zoya Marley and plate 03 from the MoYou Fairytale Collection.

Please excuse the slightly botched stamping job on the corner of my thumbnail—the section of the plate I was using wasn't quite big enough, so I patched it as best I could. (My patching skills still need work, ahem. Adding that to the list of stamping stuff I need to improve!)

As is usually the case whenever I do a skittle mani, I have a favorite nail from the group: this time it's the gradient. I just love how perfectly the two colors transition from one to the other!

Here's a closeup of Frosting, just for fun—don't you wish you had a cupcake or cookie that looked like that on top? I know I do!

I'd love to hear what you think of this look—please hit me up in the comments!

Thanks for looking!

Pixie Dust Gradient

My apologies for slacking off on my blogging so much lately! I had a lot going on to get 2013 wrapped up and 2014 under way, but I think things may settle down some now. Of course, there's still one more thing I need to do: share my Christmas Day manicure!

Thanks to some last-minute prep I had to tackle, I didn't have much time at all to put together a super fancy Christmas look for the big day. Gradients are still my absolute favorite thing right now, but since I'd already done a more typical gradient for the holidays, I decided to try my hand at a textured version.

I started with two coats of Zoya Tomoko and then sponged on both Tomoko and Zoya Chyna to create the gradient. So easy! The textured polishes blended really well—I love how the bumpiness accentuates the gradient even more. I have to confess that I'm actually not the biggest fan of wearing textured polishes (the rough surface brushing against things is like nails on a chalkboard for me!), so I ended up adding a couple layers of topcoat to this by midday on Christmas. I didn't get a photo with the topcoat on, but the overall effect was still very nice.

Thanks for looking, and happy new year!

a-england Christmas Gradient

For my one truly Christmasy manicure this year, I went to some of my favorite polishes to create what I think is a really classy holiday gradient that I ended up loving a lot.

This is a-england Saint George and Rose Bower on the tips of my nails done in a gradient with Bridal Veil. I wore this to an evening holiday event so I wanted something festive but not too over the top, and I think this fit the bill perfectly. I'd wear a-england polishes in various gradients every single day if I could! They just blend so beautifully and create a flawless look every single time.

Because the darker color was at my cuticles for this manicure instead of on the tips, I tried a slightly different technique for the gradient. I started by just painting the tips of my nails with Saint George and Rose Bower (just freehanding it with the brush from the bottle, nothing fancy), and then doing the same with Bridal Veil, but starting at my cuticles and stopping about halfway up the nail. And then from that point, I used the usual makeup sponge method to dab more of the two colors onto each nail to cover up the harsh, unblended line and create the actual gradient. I had no idea whether this was going to work when I started, but I think it went really well and I'll definitely be doing it again! I love the look of the color emerging out of the black from the cuticle.

Since my Christmas tree was right there next to me as I worked on this manicure, I grabbed an ornament off a nearby branch and experimented with a more "artistic" shot for my last photo, just for fun. :)

Sadly, I chipped this manicure like nobody's business while I was cleaning house in preparation for holiday visitors; otherwise, I'd definitely still be wearing it! Next time I'll show you what I ended up wearing for actual holidays (Christmas Eve and Christmas Day) themselves.

Have a safe and happy holiday, everyone!

Rosy Gradient

Since the Christmas holiday is fast approaching, I've decided this will be red week on the blog! I've got a few great red-based manicures to show you, starting with this one:

I know red and black may not scream holiday colors to everyone, but I really love them. I think this gradient of a-england Rose Bower and Bridal Veil would be perfect for a holiday cocktail party or other classy Christmas event.

The gradient itself was super easy: I just started with a base of Rose Bower and sponged on Bridal Veil (both amazing polishes, by the way) with a makeup wedge. Holographic polishes are a great choice for gradients because they tend to blend well with each other and make for a nice transition between colors without too much fuss.

Also, while I'm at it, Rose Bower is a really perfect holiday red, in my opinion—so shimmery and rich. It would make a great base for all kinds of holiday nail art!

A Little Glitter Goes A Long Way

Today's mani uses a technique I've admired for a while, but just never got around to trying until now: a reverse glitter gradient.

There are tons of tutorials for this look—I watched this one from Lucy's Stash before I did mine, but I think following just about any of them would work. I used Sephora by OPI Beauty Junkie for my base and Finger Paints Hue Left A Message? for the glitter gradient. It was very quick & easy—the technique is super forgiving! And I got lots of compliments on this look, which is always nice (and a great incentive for wearing a mani like this again soon).

Thanks for looking!

Nail Art: Pink and Purple Holo Gradient

My second ever attempt at a gradient manicure—and it actually went pretty well!

Nail Art: Blue-Teal Gradient

Gradients are one of my very favorite nail art looks: when done well, they're so impressive! I'm still trying to perfect my own technique (fully blending the colors is my biggest challenge), but I'm reasonably happy with how my first three-color gradient turned out.