31DC2013: Day 29 Inspired by the Supernatural

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Morning friends!

We are sooo close to the end here! Today's prompt is inspired by the Supernatural. I think this is supposed to be geared more towards ghosts, goblins and vampires, but I decided to go in the superhero direction! They have supernatural powers!

If you can't tell these are Wonder Woman nails! I feel like she's a pretty awesome heroine with a multitude of superpowers so she's totally worthy of this prompt! If you know nothing about Wonder Woman you can check out her awesomeness here!

For these nails I started off with Cult Nails Evil Queen on all my nails except my ring nail which I used Essie Butler, Please. Then I just started abstractly adding Wonder Womanesque images on all my nails. The other polishes used are Essie Good As Gold, Cult Nails Tempest and Wet n Wild Black Creme. All of it was done freehand with my small cut down nail art brush!

These were pretty fun to do and I think they fit in with the theme! I can't believe there are only two more days to go in the challenge! It's blowing my mind! Do you like my Wonder Woman nails?

Check out The Lacquerologist to see what inspired Emily today! Also only a few days left to enter our giveaway!!
See last years supernatural nails here

31DC2013: Day 27 Inspired by Art

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Morning friends!

Today's post is Day 27 in the 31 day challenge! I am soooo excited and proud that we are nearing the end! We've almost finished another year! So awesome! I am really excited about today's nails because I have been wanting to do this design since June! One of my really good friends Ashley O'Brien is an amazing artist. She paints beautifully and I got the pleasure of seeing this design in person, so when I was thinking about what to do for today's nails I finally had the excuse to do these nails!

She created this beautiful piece for her cousin's wedding so this is now in Ireland. I love the rough purple gradient and the paisley pattern. The whole thing is really amazing! For my nail interpretation I started out with my go to Cult Nails Tempest on all my nails to have a nice blank canvas to try to replicate Ashley's beautiful work!

The whole manicure was done with my smallest cut down nail art brush and a bunch of polishes! I pretty much just kept looking at the picture of her painting and painting on my own nails and adjusting until I was happy with it. Here are all the polishes used! If you're wondering about a specific one just ask below!
Pure Ice Jail Bait
LAQA & CO. Nookie
Pure Ice No Means No
OPI Miss You-Niverse (review coming soon)
OPI I'm Feeling Sashy (review coming soon)
China Glaze Gothic Lolita
China Glaze Fancy Pants
China Glaze Snap My Dragon
Born Pretty Store Sweet Color #009
Essie Good As Gold


It's a little hard to see in the picture, but on the right hand side of the painting in the purple gradient there were awesome purple rhinestones! So On my pinky and thumb I added a line of purple rhinestones to emulate that! I even tried to get her signature on my pinky! :D

I'm so happy I finally got around to doing these! That you Ashley for the amazing inspiration! What are your thoughts on these nails?!

Make sure you head over to The Lacquerologist to see what art inspired Emily today! Also be sure to enter our giveaway!!
Check out last years inspired by art nails here!

31DC2013: Day 23 Inspired by a Movie

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Morning!

Today's nails are to be inspired by a movie! I actually really struggled with this prompt. First of all there are about 6 bajillion movies out there and I reaaallllyy didn't want to take off my Roar nails from yesterday. So I pretty much procrastinated starting these all day. I cleaned, did homework, and marked before I even started looking at prompts. I asked friends what they thought and started and took off 4 other manicures before I did these. Eventually I settled on Kill Bill nail art.

I actually only saw Kill Bill for the first time this past summer! My boyfriend and I only had a few select DVDs to pick from to watch a movie and when I mentioned that I'd never seen it he was shocked and immediately said it had to be watched. I really like Quentin Tarantino movies and this was no exception!!

For these nails I started off with Sephora by OPI Cab Fare and then did all the nail art with Sally Hansen Rapid Red, Essie Good As Gold and black and white creme. It was all done by looking at various Kill Bill posters on google and using my favourite cut down nail art brush!

I'm not super thrilled with these, but that could be more because I loved yesterdays so much and I was sad to take them off! What do you think about my Kill Bill nails? Have you seen the movie?

Be sure to stop by The Lacquerologist to see what movie Emily has been inspired by today! Also ENTER OUR GIVEAWAY!
Check out last years inspired by a movie nails here.

31DC2013: Day 21 Inspired by a Colour

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Gooood Morning friends!

Today moves us into the 'inspired by' portion of the challenge. Basically if this challenge was a baby we'd be in the third trimester! This portion of the challenge is really fun as it really allows you to get creative! Last year at this time I was feeling really burnt out by the challenge, but this year I feel like it's smooth sailing! So I'm very much looking forward to the next 10 days :D

Today's prompt is Inspired by a Colour. Since we already did so many colours at the start of this challenge I, like many other lacquerheads have chosen to interpret this day as inspired by a polish colour! My choice was Essie Cute As A Button!

How cute are these buttons?! See what I did there, he he :P Ok I'm the only one laughing right? For this manicure I started off with Lime Crime Milky Ways and then proceeded to draw on my buttons using of course, Essie Cute As A Button as well as China Glaze For Audrey and Nailtini Parfait Armour.

After the initial circles had been drawn and filled in I went back with Milky Ways and drew the circles inside the buttons and finished off with a dotting tool and adding two dots inside each button to make it a button! Woah I just said button a loooot :P

These are super cute and I really love them! I hope they fit the theme, even though I didn't use Cute As A Button as my base, it's still in there, as a button :P Ok enough with the bad puns lol

Make sure you swing over to The Lacquerologist to see what inspired Emily today! Also be sure to ENTER OUR GIVEAWAY for one of two $30 gift cards to Born Pretty Store!
Check out last years Inspired by a Colour nails here!

31DC2013: Day 19 Galaxies

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Good Morning loves!

Today's challenge prompt is Galaxies. The usual route of galaxy nails involves sponging on a mixture of colours until it looks like a galaxy and then adding in some stars so it is a very far away perspective. I like galaxy nails, but decided to go for a more 'close up' perspective.

Our Solar System!! I know nails like these have been done before, but I had much more fun making these than I would have doing classic galaxy nails. The base of this manicure is the beautiful Essence Jacob's Protection. This is a deep navy jelly with green and turquoise micro glitter that I thought would mimic stars in the distance.

Pretty much every colour was custom mixed so I will list all the polishes I used below. All the work was done with my smallest cut down nail art brush :D Here are all the polishes used
Sally Hansen Lightening (yellow)
Sally Hansen Rapid Red (red)
Revlon Sorbet (light orange)
Essence Wake Up! (dark orange)
China Glaze Sunday Funday (light blue)
Essie Pretty Edgy (green)
Essie Marshmallow (white jelly)
NYC Sidewalkers (gray)
Sinful Colors In The Mist (green gray)
Pure Ice Bikini (light blue)
Revlon Bare Bones (nude)
China Glaze Desert Sun (brown)
Essie Bulter Plese (cobalt blue)
Sally Hansen Ion (grey white)

SUPER love these and have been showing them to all my friends :D I don't want to take them off today to do watermarble nails. Bleh. Another least favourite :P Do you like my galaxy nails?!

Be sure to stop by The Lacquerologist to see Emily's galaxy nails!
Check out last years galaxy nails here!

31DC2013: Day 18 Half-Moon

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Good Morning!

Today's manicure prompt is half-moon. I had a hard time coming up with something because last year's half-moon nails are still some of my all time favourites. So I literally spent hours thinking of things that are round, and images with the moon in them and after sketching out about 5 ideas I finally settled on the wolf howling at the moon!

I actually love these! I started off with Pure Ice Bikini on all my nails as this was what I wanted the base of the moon to be. Then I pulled out Revlon Midnight Affair and freehanded the moon shape using my medium length striping brush. Then I used the brush from the polish bottle to fill in the rest of my nails with Midnight Affair.

I then used Essie Butler, Please mixed with acetone to mimic the effect of the surface of the moon. I wasn't entirely happy with that so I went back with Bikini and acetone over that in some areas to get a more layered look. I then went in with my smallest nail art brush and Midnight Affair to draw the wolf howling and some trees to give it a scenic feel! I almost used a deep blue creme instead of Midnight Affair, but I am really glad that I went with the blue shimmer as I feel it adds to the look!

I quite like this manicure and am happy with these even though I don't think they come close to topping last years nails! :P What do you think of my wolf howling at the moon manicure?!

Be sure to stop by The Lacquerologist to see what Emily's half-moon nails look like! I am sure they are awesome as she has been kicking this challenge out of the park! Also ENTER OUR GIVEAWAY!
See last year's half-moon nails here!

31DC2013: Day 17 Glitter

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Morning!

Today's prompt in the 31 Day Challenge is Glitter! There is something about this prompt that really does not spark much creativity. I probably could have tried a little harder, but I did this late last night and this was all the creativity I had in me :P

I started this manicure off, knowing that I wanted to do something in a black, blue and silver combination. I pulled out my standard Wet n Wild Black Creme, my new blue crush Essie Butler, Please and my favourite silver glitter China Glaze Glistening Snow. I used Black Creme on my thumb and middle nail, Butler, Please on my index and ring nail and Glistening Snow on my pinky.

Then I grabbed my silver holographic glequins and got to work! I just did random designs on my three middle nails and then dipped my thumb and pinky in the pot to get some disco ball nails going on.

I'm not sure, there just seems like something is off about these nails. They aren't my favourite, but maybe you like them?! Let me know your thoughts below!!

Make sure to check out The Lacquerologist to see Emily's glitter nails today! Also be sure to enter our giveaway :)
Check out last years glitter nails here!

31DC2013: Day 11 Dots

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Good Morning!

Today brings us another installment of the 31 Day Challenge, this time the theme is dots! I went for a simple bold gradient of dots in some bright earth tones. I actually love how graphic this ended up being so let's get to it!

My inspiration for these nails came while browsing Pinterest, seriously it's how I find 85% of my inspirations. Unfortunately like many pins this was improperly sourced so here is the link to the image.

For these nails I started off with Cult Nails Tempest, what else really. Then I started dotting using a number of polishes which I will list below!
China Glaze Sunday Funday (bright blue)
China Glaze Def Defying (chartreuse green)
OPI A-Piers To Be Tan (caramel tan)
Essie Mesmerize (dusty blue)
OPI My Vampire Is Buff (light nude)
Revlon Midnight Affair (deep blue)
Pure Ice Bikini (light blue)

I always somehow forget about dotticures when I sit down to do my nails so I am really excited that I had another chance to try one! These were fun to do and to wear. What do you think of this dotted gradient?!

Be sure to check out The Lacquerologist to see what Emily did for dot nails! Also be sure to enter our giveaway :)
Check out last years dot nails here!

31DC2013: Day 8 Metallic

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Morning friends!

I hope you are all having a wonderful Sunday! Today's 31DC2013 prompt is all about metallic nails. I love the look of metallic polishes, but I really struggled coming up with a design for todays prompt. I actually scratched 3 manicures yesterday before coming up with the idea of doing cogs in gold, silver and bronze!

I started off my manicure with Sephora by OPI Never Enough Shoes, which is a black with flecks of gold, silver and bronze throughout. Then I started freehanding the cogs using Essie Penny Talk, Essie Good As Gold and Essie No Place Like Chrome.

I loved this look, but it was screaming at me to be matted. I pulled out OPI Matte Top Coat and matted away!

As much as I like this glossy, I think I like it even better matte! The cogs really pop against the black background. I wish I didn't have to take this off to do another day! Alas that is the nature of the challenge!

What do you think of these cogs? Do you prefer this matte or glossy?

Make sure to head over to The Lacquerologist to see her metallic nails! Also make sure to enter our giveaway!
You can see last years metallic nails here!