Tales From the Borderlands Nails, Part Two: Fiona

When I posted my first Tales from the Borderlands manicure a couple of months ago, I heard from a few folks that I should also do some nails for the game's other main character, Fiona. Well, I love Fiona a ton, and the only reason I shied away from doing a design for her the first time around was because I knew how much harder it would be, so... I really have no good reason for not doing it the first time around, is what I'm saying here.

It took me a little while to pull together my ideas—and supplies—to execute this look how I'd envisioned, but it turns out my timing is actually pretty good: the fifth and final episode of Tales from the Borderlands was released just a couple of weeks ago, making now a great time to get excited about the game and go check it out. I talked up TftB a bunch in my last post, so I won't repeat myself, but guys, seriously. Go play it. You won't regret it.

Anyway! On to the nails!

She Said Yeah Striped & Stamped Nail Art

I feel like it's rare for me to run across a (US-based) nail polish brand out in the wild that I've never heard of... but it does happen! When I was at the salon recently, I stumbled upon a new-to-me brand called Smith & Cult, so of course I had to grab a bottle and give it a try. The eye-catching, rocker-inspired display and packaging definitely helped draw me in, too.

The Lacquer Legion Crisp: Striking Striped Nails

After missing the last couple months of The Lacquer Legion, I'm back to join the fun for today's prompt, "crisp." I'm so glad to be getting back into the swing of things with my nail art—I really missed The Lacquer Legion in particular!

Happy as I am to be back at it, however, I'll admit that I had a bit of a hard time with this theme. For the longest time, I could really only think of crisp apples or fall leaves, and I wasn't feeling quite confident enough in my freehanding skills to go that route. In the end, I decided to embrace the idea of crisp, clean lines and just go nuts with some colors that inspired me.

Pink & Grey Speckled Stripes

Today's look is pretty simple (and I've got a bit of a family emergency happening this week, unfortunately) so I'll be keeping this post short and sweet. I hope to be back to my usual, long-winded self soon!

A Walk Around the Color Block

My husband and I were out doing some outlet mall shopping recently, and as we breezed through the Kenneth Cole outlet, this mixed-pattern blouse caught my eye. As you may have already guessed, I always love a good mix of color blocking and patterns—and this combo in particular was so striking to me that started recreating a version of it on my nails almost as soon as we walked in the door at home.

Red and Black Book Binding Nail Art

I have just about zero time for a post today (I'm running late for work as I write this!), but I still wanted to put up this red & black stamping/tape manicure before the weekend. I'm not really sure how or why I came up with the idea, other than I was just in a red & black mood (as I often am), but my husband said it reminded him of a fancy book binding. I thought that seemed strange at first, but after scrolling through these image search results, I think I see where he's coming from! So now I can't help but think of this as the book binding manicure.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier Nail Art

I really enjoy doing nail art that reflects my other (non-nail-related) interests. During the last year I've done manicures to celebrate my favorite hockey teams and events, my local football team, fashion I admire, and movies I like. It's just so much fun for me to wear my various loves on my nails that I jump at the chance to do so whenever one arises.

With that in mind, I think the nail art event I've personally been looking forward to the most all year has finally arrived: the release of Captain America: The Winter Soldier! I'm a HUGE Marvel comics/movie geek, so I've literally been counting down to this one for something like two years now. And as soon as I started seeing official movie stills and magazine covers being released a few months ago, I started getting nail art ideas.

Mini Matte Mani

Mini Matte Mani... it almost sounds like a long-lost Latin phrase, doesn't it? Or maybe that's just my many years of Latin classes warping my brain...? It's hard to say. :)

Anyway, I digress! I wasn't sure whether I wanted to post this manicure because I still don't know how I feel about it, but as a friend so kindly reminded me when I whined to her, I did learn a few things from the experience. So, I think that alone makes this worth sharing. Thanks, L!

The idea for this look came from a somewhat random place: I was driving home from work one day and saw a Mini Cooper painted this way. I was really drawn to the color combo and the off-center stripes, and I knew I had just the right colors in my polish stash, so I decided to go ahead and recreate the paint job on my nails that very evening.

Muppets Most Wanted Nail Art

Like every true '80s child, I love the Muppets. I grew up watching reruns of The Muppet Show (I'm just a little too young to have seen the original airings, but not by much!), and even now, I always get excited when a new Muppet movie gets released. So when I started seeing trailers for the upcoming "Muppets Most Wanted" movie, I knew I had to do some nail art to celebrate the occasion.

At first glance, I know this may not seem like the most Muppet-y manicure ever, but bear with me! I'm not really enough of an artist yet to hand-paint cute little Muppet faces on my nails, so I decided to match the characters' outfits (and the movie's logo, in Kermit's case) in this image instead:

Wallpaper by stuartreeves.com and characters ©Disney

I really admire other nail artists' abilities to do super detailed, hand-painted nail art for movies and other events, but I know I'm just not quite there yet. So my goal with this design was to capture the fun, colorful look & feel of the movie using techniques that are generally pretty doable for someone without a lot of amazing art skills (like me!). I feel like I succeeded—at least, I hope I did!

Read on for more details and lots more pictures!

Stars and Stripes for Sochi

I try not to post two days in a row—I only have time for a few posts per week and I like to spread them out a bit more—but this week is special! So I'm making an exception.

Anyone who's followed me for a while might know that I'm a big hockey fan. I generally follow NHL hockey, but right now there's Olympic hockey happening, too. The US women's team is playing Canada for the gold medal today (as I'm writing this, in fact), and the men's team plays Canada tomorrow morning for a chance to go to the final. So, needless to say, it's a big day for USA hockey, and I couldn't let the opportunity to do some USA hockey–themed nail art pass me by!

When I first started kicking around the idea of doing some USA hockey nail art, I knew from the beginning that more than just doing a red, white, and blue design, I really wanted to capture the three main elements of the jerseys Team USA is wearing in Sochi this year: the crest on the front, the thick red and white armbands, and the shiny stars across the shoulders.

Team USA hockey jersey

Conveniently, all these elements lend themselves really well to nail art!

I'm going to write out all the steps I used in a numbered list to help keep things organized. It may still be somewhat long-winded, though, so if you're not interested in the process, just hit the jump (link below the sharing buttons)/scroll down for more pictures!

Christmas Candy Gram

I've been wearing this manicure for a few days now, and I can't decide what it reminds me of more: mint candies & other delicious holiday goodies, or an over-the-top holiday sweater. Either way, I think this is definitely a Christmasy look through and through!

I started with a base of tenoverten Carmine on all my nails (except the ring finger—that got a base coat of Zoya Trixie). Then I stamped the snowflake-y pattern from MoYou's Artist Collection Plate 04 on my index and middle finger with Trixie, and used striping tape and Carmine to do the stripes on my ring finger. Finally, I painted/dabbed on a generous coat of ILNP Candy Gram on my thumb and pinky.

This manicure marked my first attempts using my new MoYou stamping plates, and I'm really loving them so far! MoYou is the hot new name in nail stamping right now, and I can definitely see why. The plates are very high quality and full of gorgeous images that transfer really well. I'm kind of a terrible stamper—my New Year's resolution is going to be improving my stamping skills, in fact!—but even I had a pleasant experience using these plates. Check them out if you have the chance!

Thanks for looking!

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!!

31DC2013 Day 5: Blue Nails

Day five of the 31 Day Challenge was one of those "well, it was a good learning experience" days for me. Which isn't to say that I don't like how my nails turned out—because I definitely do!—but next time I try this kind of manicure, there are some things I'll do differently.

My "blue nails" idea was pretty straightforward: start with a sparkly blue base coat (butter LONDON Big Smoke, in this case), do some neat designs with striping tape, and then add a coat of creme blue (OPI I Saw...You Saw...We Saw...Warsaw) to create sparkly lines when the striping tape came off.

Well, that's exactly what I did, and it worked perfectly, but as you can see, I really should have picked two blues that were a little less similar. Photographing the tape designs was basically impossible!

The effect was somewhat less subtle in person, and I did enjoy playing with different tape designs, so overall, I was happy with how this turned out. Definitely going to use more contrasting colors next time, though!

Nail Art: Inspired by the Michael Kors Resort 2014 Collection

I was feeling a bit uninspired recently, so I decided to spend an evening browsing through some designers’ recent collections in hopes of finding some ideas that might work well for nail art. Well, I ended up finding LOTS of things, so expect this to be the first of many fashion-inspired manicures from me!

As soon as I saw this eye-catching little dress in Michael Kors's Resort 2014 collection, I knew I had to do a manicure inspired by it. And although it took the better part of an afternoon/evening to do (with lots of long breaks to allow for drying time between steps!), I couldn’t be happier with how it turned out!

Nail Art: FNUG Color Blocking Trio

I have a lot of neutral polish colors, but I always seem to get distracted by other, brighter colors and forget to use them! So I decided to use multiple neutrals all at once and really make an effort to feature them in this manicure.

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.