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!

The Lacquer Legion: Reinvention

Today is the first posting day for a new nail art challenge: The Lacquer Legion! This awesome idea was put together by the very talented ladies at Chalkboard Nails, The Nailasaurus, Work/Play/Polish, and Rebecca Likes Nails, and the idea is that people from around the nail art community all post manicures fitting a particular theme on the same day and tag them so that they can be viewed across a variety of platforms. I thought this sounded like a lot of fun, and a once-a-month challenge is definitely doable for me, so I decided to put together a contribution of my own.

The first theme they chose was reinvention. I spent a lot of time thinking about this and all the different ways it might be interpreted, but I kept coming back to the idea of a phoenix. The whole death/rebirth in fire thing just seems like a quintessential form of reinvention to me! Also, I knew that a fire-themed look was going to require pulling off some fairly involved nail art—involved for a non-artist like me, anyway!—so I feel like taking the plunge and attempting something like this symbolizes reinventing myself as someone who can be a little brave and try something outside my comfort zone occasionally.

In the end, I went with a stamp/freehand hybrid technique to make my fire and phoenix come to life. I started with a base of Sephora by OPI Never Enough Shoes on all my nails, and then stamped an image of flames from the Messy Mansion MM27 plate using white stamping polish from the Born Pretty Store. Then, using a small detail brush, I added color to the flames on top of the white using Julep Nadia, Julep Marjorie, Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure Red My Lips, and Julep Brenda, in that order.

I mentioned that this manicure was outside my comfort zone, but that's probably a bit of an understatement! Between the stamping and freehanding the colors, I felt very, very challenged by all the techniques I used here. Overall, it didn't turn out quite as neatly as I'd have liked, but from a normal viewing distance it looks okay, so I'm focusing on that. And, more importantly, I came up with an idea and found a way to execute it, which definitely makes me proud!

Thanks for looking, and thank you to the wonderful bloggers who came up with this idea. I can't wait to see what you have in store for us next month!

Pinky-Purple Waterfall

I read The Nailasaurus regularly, so I've really fallen in love with all of Sammy's waterfall manis during the last several months. So much so that I can't resist doing more of them myself! Here's a recent one featuring several of my pinky-purple polishes:

The base here is China Glaze Sweet Hook, and I used a striping brush to create the waterfall with four other colors:

• Lancôme Vernis In Love Brilliance Gloss Polish Rose Boudoir
• Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure Trouble Maker
• Zoya Areetha
• China Glaze Rendezvous With You

I took an extra-close shot of my pinky finger to get a good look at the detail of the brush strokes, so I thought I'd include that one here as well for fun.

Thanks for looking!

Nail Art: Chicago Blackhawks Feather Nails

I'm a huge Chicago Blackhawks fan, so of course I had to express my excitement for the Stanley Cup champs through manicures several times this past season. Here's one of my favorites:

 

 

Nail Art: Galaxy Nails Attempt #1

I've seen a TON of different takes on galaxy nails recently, and the concept seemed easy enough, so on a day when I had a dark base color already pre-applied and ready to go, I decided to give it a shot.

Swatch: Sugar Coat in Red Velvet by Sally Hansen

I think textured polishes can be really fun on occasion, so when I saw Sally Hansen's Sugar Coat polish in this gorgeous Red Velvet color on the store shelf, I just had to have it.

Nail Art: Pink Tips and Studs

I'm often pretty busy with work, chores, etc., so it's not unusual for one nail art look to take me a couple of days to complete. I'll start by applying a base color one day, and then a day or two later, I'll go back and incorporate some fun details when I have another small chunk of time. That's what happened here: I started with the base color from my previous post and then added to it the next day. It's actually a really great way to approach nail art, if you have the patience for it, because you don't need to be nearly as careful about messing up your base color when it's had a day or more to fully set up.