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 Fourteen

31dc2013 Day fourteen: Flowers

    I've never been big on floral prints, and I've actually have never done ANY floral nail art.  All I know is that I wanted to use NYC wine bar. Really loving this color lately. I also knew I wanted to do something simple since I had never ventured into the realm of floral nail art.

    I started by painting two coats of sephora OPI "under my trench coat" as my base. Under my trench coat is a slightly shimmery greige or khaki grey.  I then used my dotting tool to make simple dot flowers  using NYC wine bar (or fried egg flowers as I like to call them), Then added a little yellow dot in the middle to finish the flower.

     Overall I liked how the colors went together.  Next time I try this i'll try using a smaller dotting tool just so I can add more flowers to each nail. So that's all for today,

    Steady hands to all!

31dc2013 Day Thirteen

31dc2013 Day thirteen: Animal print

     As mentioned in my previous post i've been a little uninspired lately, so excuse the lack of imagination for my animal print. Just a simple leopard print from me today.  I do love me some leopard print though.  I also love the combo of glitter with a creme polish.

    For the base I used sinful colors "zincing of you" which is a sheer shimmery gold with extremely tiny micro multi colored flecks. I used three coats for full opacity.

    I then took my dotting tool and made brown spots with china glaze  "Mahogany Magic". Once that dried I used my black nail art pen to go around the brown. Topped it all off withe a generous amount of top coat.

     Voila! easy peasy. This is such a fun easy look that can be done with practically any color combo. It's a go to design for me. What about you?


   Steady hands to all!

31dc2013 Day Twelve

31dc2013 Day twelve: Stripes
   

     Normally I start my posts with a picture. Today i'm going to start off with a little disclaimer.  I had a very hard time with this, and not because I can't paint straight lines, just because I was lacking inspiration, motivation, or patience for that matter. Everything I tried came out looking like crap. First I was going to do some Steelers inspired stripes (my husband is a huge steelers fan), but that didn't work.

   See total crappola! This was my second attempt and still terrible. Then I thought maybe a blue purple brown stripe combo would work nice, but my hands we're being shakey and I couldnt concentrate. bleh.

     It looked wonky so I thought maybe adding some Julep melissa would finish it up. NOPE still terrible.

      Even fuzzy and far away I wasn't into it. After this I just took my polish off and went to bed. Messing up my nails that many times made me so frustrated this is all you get for the stripes challenge. SORRY! oh-well

    Steady hands to all!

31dc2013 Day Eleven

31dc2013 Day eleven: Polka dots

    Hello again! Today's challenge is polka dots. There is something so simple and smart about polka dots. It's such a happy print in my opinion. I've already done a polka dot manicure using black and white for day 7 of the challenge, so I wanted to do something a little different. I've seen this gradient style polka dot manicure floating around the web for a while so I figured I would give it a shot.

    I started this look off with a coat of sinful colors "last chance" which is a dark green jelly polish. Then I did a diagonal sweep across the top of the nails in julep "Melisa" which is a opalescent topper.

     I then did a line of polka dots in Melissa along the line then continued on to the green. Then I used the green over Melissa. over all a very easy look to accomplish.

    I really like the way Melissa looked in different lighting. It had this very pretty shimmer to it.
Well that's all folks!

   Steady hand 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 Nine

31dc2013 Day nine: RAINBOW NAILS

    This may have been the first time i've done rainbow nails! Not to say I don't like rainbows, I just typically wear darker or more muted manicures. I has a hard time deciding what to do. There are SO many options: dots, stripes, gradients, watercolor, and so on... I decided to do something a little on the lighter side. I started by painting a rainbow gradient (can't remember which colors I used, sorry) directly to a makeup sponge, then I sponged all my fingers except my ring finger. I decided to use one of my "studded" nail wraps from Julep. I originally didnt think i would like these nail stickers because they are very textured, but they applied easily and did have a pretty cool effect. I like them used as an accent I think a full manicure would be a little much.

     I then went over my rainbow gradient with Milani 3D holographic polish #509. Which is a silver holographic micro glitter. I couldn't really capture how sparkly this is and how well it complemented the subtle rainbow effect. This is two coats over my gradient.

    I then tried my hand at stamping, by adding a zebra print stamp to my thumb. Which i'm pretty sure is my only finger most stamps will work on since my nails are so tiny.

    Not perfect, but not bad!  The white looked nice over the rainbow gradient so I was happy, although the white polish seemed to bubble a little bit when I added my top coat. It really wasn't noticeable.


   Steady hands to all!