Just some nail spam

  So far all my posts have been apart of the 31dc2013, which i'm still planning on continuing, I just wanted to post some other looks i've done. The first look is from the summer time. I live in upstate NY and it's already starting to get a bit chilly here which leaves reminiscing about summer so I had to post these.

      Ooooo Tropical! haha!  I had been eyeing this design since last summer and finally decided to give it a shot. I started the look with a gradient using yellow, orange and red.

     I even liked the way they looked before doing the design. Very bright but for some reason kinda cozy.

     I simply added a black line across the top of my nail. I then did one or two lines up from that. I added some lines from the top of the line in the middle of the nail and added squigles over it to make them look leafy. I did all the line work with a nail art pen in black. This was a pretty easy pattern to replicate and I was super happy with the outcome. I can't wait until next summer (or perhaps a tropical winter get-a-way, husband if your reading HINT HINT) to try this look again!


     Steady hands to all!

31dc2013 Day Ten

31dc2013 Day ten: GRADIENT NAILS

     I do a LOT of gradients apparently. I just really like the effect and it's fairly easy. I wanted to try something a little different so I decided to use some duo-chrome polishes to perhaps add to the effect.

     The color above is one of  my long time favorites! It's by Revlon and is called Khaki Zing. This polish is pretty old, I believe I wore it to my junior prom (which was many moons ago). It has been discontinued but still seems to be pretty popular in the duo-chrome world. It shifts between purple with a pink flash, dark grey, and green with gold flash. It's a really run color that goes with just about anything. The one down side is that it takes FOREVER to dry, which i'm pretty sure is just due to how old it is. It still applies very nicely though. I started my manicure off with two coats of khaki zing on my thumb, pointer, and middle finger. I kept the nail decal from the rainbow manicure on my ring finger to see how they hold up. Pretty good it started to pull away from my nail a little but nothing a little top coat wouldn't fix.

     Then I sponged my tips with Sally Hansen luster shine in "lava" which is a very pretty duo-chrome that flashed between gold, yellow, orange, and bright pink.  I also did two coats as a base on my pinky finger to mix up the gradient a bit (I sponged khaki zing over lava on my pinkie)

   I finished this gradient off with a coat of Zoya Opal. Which is a opalescent flakie glitter topper that tends to lean on the green side.

    I think this photo captures the shift the best, you can see at the bed of the top nail khaki zing flashes green/gold while lava is orange/yellow and on the bottom nail the base is a purple pink and lava becomes a pinky orange.

     The flakies really popped in natural sunlight! I think this manicure had a pretty majestic look to it. I like the way that these colors worked together very fun, interesting and eye catching (to me anyway).  I must say the removal of lava is kind of a pain. It's like a really fine glitter instead of being a pigmented base. Still a very pretty and wearable color, just remember the removal process and be time consuming.


   Steady hands to all!

 

31dc2013 Day Eight

31dc2013 Day eight: Metallic Nails

   Typically i'm not a huge fan of metallic polishes because they become streaky or they can be rather sheer. Two of the 5 metallic polishes used for this look were quite sheer.

    The photo above is one coat of the each of the four polishes I used for this gradient. On my thumb is sinful colors "hot wired" which is a dark silver/pewter color which is very sheer. On my pointer (top right) is sinful colors "super nova" which is a shimmery light gold which was the sheerest of the bunch. On my middle finger is Julep "dakota"  which is a nice rose gold that has pretty good coverage, and on my ring finger (far left) is one coat of Julep "Rachel". Rachel is a nice rich shimmery copper color that is richly pigmented, but tends to get that streaky look. Now back to the final product.

    I started this look of with a coat of China glaze "attraction" which is a dark grey metallic color from the Magnetix collection. Since it's a magnetic polish it's super saturated and only needed one coat for full opacity. Unfortunately I didn't snap any photo's for the process of this manicure, just the finished product and some swatches... Oop's!

   I painted a gradient of hot wire, super nova, dakota, and Rachel onto a make-up sponge and then sponged each nail with the copper colors closest to the tips. Almost like a rainbow of metallic polishes. I finished the whole thing off with a coat of Sephora O.P.I. "It's real" 18kt gold flake top coat. I LOVE this top coat! It has the prettiest matte gold flakies in a really nice thick (but not gloopy) clear base. Although I would never pay the original $30 price tag for it, I was totally happy to snag it for $6 when it was marked down on the sephora web-site. It adds an almost marble/stone effect to this look, but look great over pretty much any colors especially darker vampy colors. Thanks for reading!

    Steady hands to all!

31dc2013 Day Seven

31dc2013 Day seven: Black & White

     For the most part this was a pretty simple manicure. I used Sally Hansen "black out" as the base for my middle and ring finger, and the pure ice platinum magic base coat (that was used on day four for my green nails) on my thumb, pointer, and pinkie. I used a larger dotting tool to add white polka dots to the middle and ring finger, Then added black dots to the pointer and pinkie.

    For my thumb I used a make-up sponge to do a black, grey and white gradient starting the black near my cuticle fading out to white at the tip.

     I then used a black nail pen to add some lines starting from the nail tip then added leafy and floral shapes and some little black dots toward the bed of the nail. I was going for a black and white photo look of some wildflowers at dusk. I really liked this manicure and it was pretty simple. What do you guys think?

  Steady hands to all!

31dc2013 The Beginning!

31dc2013 Day 1: Red Nails

           So, I've been painting my nails for years. Recently I've grown a tad obsessed with reading and looking at nail blogs. About a year ago I told myself that collecting nail polish and doing nail art was a good hobby to keep me entertained while quitting smoking. While the quitting didn't last, the nail art continued. My once meager collection of 5 colors has blossomed into a caboodle type case overflowing with polish and nail art supplies. I have driven my Husband and friends crazy showing them my nails, polish, and design ideas. So I decided to start my own little blog to share with people who might actually care about my hobby.

        I decided to start my foray into the nail blogging world with the 31 day challenge:

     I'm a little late getting this up, but i will update later with day two and three to get back on track,
now back to the nails!

    Excuse the fuzzy photos. I'm still working on that aspect of the blogosphere.
For this manicure I used a NYC coral red as a base then sponged two darker jelly like red's from wet n wild for a slight gradient effect. Then on my ring finger I used two coats of julep "Mila" which I guess julep has retired, which is a shame. This polish is dense with multi and charcoal glitter, goes on really nice and no fishing or dabbing needed for full sparkly coverage! The first photo in this post shows the red color the best. This manicure was hard to capture it just kept looking soooo orange and not red like it was in person.

       This photo shows the multi-sparkles of Mila very well, and the red is closer to what it looks like!

          So there you have it my first go at nail blogging. I will be trying to keep up with this 31 day challenge as best as possible, but do forgive me as I am a newb to blogging.

Steady hands to all!