Zoya Spring 2015 Delight Collection

*press samples*

The sun is shining and it's trying to be a tiny bit warm where I live, so I think that makes it an especially apropos day to share these fresh & colorful swatches from Zoya's Spring 2015 Delight Collection.

Argyle in Green

I generally don't do much to celebrate St. Patrick's Day, but I do love green, so I couldn't resist adding a little St. Paddy's spirit to my nail art this weekend by using two of my favorite green polishes.

Michael Kors Resort 2014 Nails (Part 2)

Nail art inspired by fashion is one of my absolute favorite things—both to see others do, and to do myself. I did a fashion-inspired look once before, when my blog was still living exclusively on tumblr (and I was still learning how to take decent pictures, eep!), but as it turns out, I guess I wasn't quite finished exploring the possibilities of the Michael Kors Resort 2014 collection. I still might not be, to tell the truth!

All the color blocking, clean lines, and excellent use of patterns in this collection really inspire me and make me want to recreate every single look on my nails. I also adore the colors in this particular look: so smart and classic, but fresh and interesting at the same time. I thought about recreating the whole dress on each nail, but I ultimately decided things would look too cramped and cluttered that way—not at all in the spirit of the collection.

Creating this look was pretty straightforward: I started with a base of Zoya Purity on my pointer and middle fingers, and a base of FNUG Cashmere Sweater on the rest of my fingers. Then I used a dotting tool and Cashmere Sweater & Essie Licorice to add the leopard print pattern to the white nails, as demonstrated in this Chalkboard Nails tutorial. Finally, I taped off the remaining nails and added Licorice to the tips. Everything is finished with a couple coats of topcoat.

I wore these nails for several days, but I still wish I could have worn them longer. I guess that just means I really do need to do another manicure inspired by this collection in the future!

What do you think of nails inspired by fashion? Do you have a favorite designer whose looks you like to see recreated?

Thanks for looking!

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!

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!

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!

Let's Leopard

I've been doing nail art regularly for about eight months now, but there's one classic look I hadn't tried creating until recently: leopard print!

Now that I've leopard print, I can't believe I didn't do it sooner (and I'll definitely be playing with it more in the future)! I used the technique demonstrated by Sarah at Chalkboard Nails in her video tutorial, and it couldn't have been easier! Because the print doesn't have to look perfect or uniform—and, in fact, looks best when it's not either of those things—her method of using a dotting tool to create the spots works really well.

I used Zoya Odette (a shade from their new Naturel Collection) for the base, and then applied Zoya Marley for the light spots and China Glaze Rendezvous With You for the dark accents.

And just because it's such a lovely color and is my hands-down favorite from the Naturel Collection, here are a couple of swatches of Odette on its own. I think I'll be using this as a base for art quite a bit! It's a perfect transition color between winter and spring, in my opinion.

What about you—do you ever do leopard print nail art? What technique(s) and color combos do you like best?

Thanks for looking!

12th Man Waterfall

The whole city of Seattle is super excited about the Seahawks' playoff run right now—me included! So I decided to try out a waterfall mani (a technique invented and made famous by The Nailasaurus) in Seahawks colors to match my 12th Man jersey and help celebrate the playoff spirit.

This was my first time trying a waterfall look on top of a dark base color, so I had no idea what to expect or whether it would even work, but it turned out great! I think waterfalls are really perfect for showing off your team colors because they're genuinely fun and easy to do, and they look impressive paired with a matching jersey or other accessories.

I used OPI I Saw...You Saw...We Saw...Warsaw for my base color, and the stripes were created with four different polishes:

• Nars Galathee
• FNUG Bandana
• Sephora by OPI It's Totally Karma
• Zoya Rikki

Galathee, It's Totally Karma, and I Saw...You Saw...We Saw...Warsaw are pretty much my go-to polishes when I want to do something Seahawks-themed. Bandana and Rikki were new additions this time, but I love the extra depth and sparkle that they add to the group.

What do you think—do you like the idea of using team colors in waterfall manis? What team's colors would make the BEST waterfall?

Thanks for looking! GO HAWKS!

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!

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!

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!

Scarlet & Silver Half Moons

I know I should be continuing with the 31 Day Challenge if I want to have any shot of getting through it before the end of the year, but I ran across this Nailasaurus post the other day and was reminded of how much I love this look, so I just couldn't resist doing my own version of it.

I pretty much followed Sammy's technique exactly: I started with a base of Nail Envy and let that dry, and then applied hole reinforcers to my cuticles one at a time before adding a coat of Julep Aisha and removing them right away. Then I decided to add some topcoat before continuing (butter LONDON Hardware P.D. Quick top coat, in this case), just to make things easier on myself.

Once all that dried a bit, I used a small nail art brush to add the silver lines using Zoya Trixie. My accent lines turned out quite a bit thicker/wider than I'd originally planned, but I'm still happy with them! I kind of like that the silver is very noticeable, actually.

 I'd love to hear what people think—did I do this look justice at all? Do you like silver accents better, or gold?

Thanks for reading!

31DC2013 Day 8: Metallic Nails

I was really stumped when it came to putting together a metallic nails look—and I'm not even sure why! I have plenty of metallic polishes that I love. As a result, I went through a couple of different manis before I finally settled on one that I liked well enough to wear and post here.

My brain kept circling back around to the idea of diamond plate when I tried to think of "metallic" ideas, so after trying some other things, I decided to just give in and attempt a diamond plate look. I started with a base of Zoya Claudine on all my nails, and then on my thumb and ring finger I used Zoya Trixie and a small nail art brush to freehand a diamond plate pattern. Then I used some nail glue to attach diamond-shaped silver studs from the Born Pretty Store to my other fingers.

Looking at these pictures, I just realized that I've now done two monochrome manicures in a row—sorry about that! I promise I'll include some actual colors next time. :)

31DC2013 Day 4: Green Nails

I'm not sure what happened—it feels like I just blinked, but more than two weeks have passed since my last post! I really want to avoid those kinds of breaks in the future, so I'm going to make more of an effort to space things out better from here on out. I still have so much to learn!

Anywho, I've been moving along with the 31 Day Challenge at my own leisurely pace over here, so let's get to the nails, shall we?

Day 4 called for green nails. I really love green, so even though I went with some simple half moons for this manicure, I'm super pleased with how this turned out. I started with a base of Zoya Rikki, and when that dried, I used hole reinforcers to mark off the half-moon shape before adding a coat of Zoya Hunter. Very easy, but the results are so satisfying!

As a side note, I think the photo above is one of the best pictures I've ever gotten with my current camera, so hooray for that, too! I guess green really agrees with my skin tone and lighting situation.

Thanks for reading!

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!

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.

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!