Gradients and Accents Plus Where I've Been

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Hello Polished Friends!

Wow it has been a long time since I sat down and wrote a post on here. I can't believe I haven't talked to you guys in over a month! There have been a number of things going on in my life that have prevented me from blogging recently. I' not going to go into too much detail, but I have been dealing with some personal and familial health issues as well as juggling grad school, and working 4+ days a week in order to pay for everything. It has been a struggle and blogging has been pushed to the back burner. I'm not going to promise that I'm coming back to full strength, but I did want to check in and let you all know I am alive and relatively OK :)

I did these accents and gradient nails a while back now, and I wasn't 100% sure I liked them at the time, and honestly I'm still not convinced lol. It seems like there is something missing... hmmmm. I do love me a gradient though and that is where the inspiration for this manicure began.

For the gradient I started out with Pure Ice Bikini which is such a soft pretty blue. Then proceeded with the gradient using Bikini and Pure Ice Flirt Alert. I did this on every other nail and then added two accents to mix things up a little. On my index nail I started with Color Club Harp On It and then added a coat of Happy Hands Motherboy. On my ring nail I started with my still favourite Cult Nails Tempest and then stamped with PUEEN 20 and black creme.

What do you think about these gradients and accented nails?! I hope I can start posting relatively more regularly soon :) Miss and love you all!

The Digit-al Dozen Does Skittles: Floralesque

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Afternoon friends!

Today I have yet another skittle manicure to share with you as part of the Digit-al Dozen's Skittle Week! I really like this combination of floralesque patterns and think it's cohesive and pretty all at the same time :)

I stumbled upon this and was completely inspired to create my own version. I used a ton of polishes for this look and I'm running short on time writing this post, but if you have any questions about a particular polish just ask!

I did all the detail work with my smallest cut down nail art brush and then added some holographic silver glequins from Born Pretty Store to add a little pizazz!

What do you think of this skittle?! Be sue to stop by the rest of the Digit-al Dozen to see their skittles today!

31DC2013: Day 30 Inspired by a Tutorial

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Morning friends!

Here we are in the last day in September! I can't believe we are here already! This month has seriously absolutely flown by. Today's prompt is inspired by a tutorial. There are a ton of tutorials out there for some awesome nail art. I stumbled upon this super cute Piglet tutorial by Qt Place and knew I had to do it!

Isn't this adorable?! I absolutely loved the Winnie the Pooh series when I was growing up and Piglet always stuck out to me because he was so cute and had a stutter somewhat like I did growing up. So Piglet always resonated with me.

I won't get into details about how to do this manicure because you can go check out the tutorial here! The light pink is OPI I Theodora You and the dark pink is Nicole by OPI Something About Spring. All the purple outlines are China Glaze Gothic Lolita.

What do you think of my Piglet nails?! Would you wear these?

Make sure to head over to The Lacquerologist to see what tutorial inspired Emily today! Also enter our giveaway!!
See last years tutorial inspired 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 22 Inspired by a Song

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Morning friends!

Today I have some nail art that I am very excited to share with you. I'm pretty much doing these nails day by day right now and I didn't have time to even start these nails until last night around 11pm. I was only supposed to work until 9, but ended up having to stay until 10:30pm so by the time I got home I had very little energy to think about what song I was possibly going to be inspired by. So I texted my boyfriend and said I need a song, pick me one! He immediately said Roar by Katy Perry as he had juuust heard it on the radio as he was coming home from work!

I absolutely love this song and am super thrilled that I created nail art based on it! As soon as my boyfriend said Roar I watched the video and I was instantly hit with inspiration! Check out the embedded video below. It is such a happy, feel good song!



Let's get back to looking at the nail art, because well I love it! :D

My thumb is from the opening scene in the music video, it starts off graphically saying, A Motion Theory Adventure Filmed in Junglescope with ROAR in big orange letters. My index nail is another scene from the music video where Katy is scared in the dark and can see all the eyes staring out at her. My middle nail is my favourite!! It is the tiger ROARING! I'm rather proud of how he came out :D My ring nail is pink and yellow flowers with green leaves quite like the flowers on Katy's grass skirt in the second half of the video. My pinky nail is leopard print to represent the scarf she's wearing that magically turns into a fab bralet lol.

I used waaaaay too many polishes and spent waaay too long on these nails, but I mean come on? They were worth it right? I must sound so full of myself right now! I used 24 polishes and pretty much every colour on my nail was custom mixed to get the right shade that I wanted. If you have any questions about a particular colour leave a comment below and I will let you know :)

I was sure these nails were going to be a giant fail because I was tired after work coming home, but listening to Roar on youtube like 5 times for sure put me in an awesome mood!

What are your thoughts on my Katy Perry nails?! Do these seem roar appropriate to you? Yes I make bad puns when I write posts at 2am :P

Be sure to stop by The Lacquerologist to see what song inspired Emily today! Also be sure to ENTER OUR GIVEAWAY!
Check out last years inspired by a song 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 20 Watermarble

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Good Morning!

Today brings us to the most dreaded day of the challenge, the water marble. I hate this technique. I have never posted any on this blog that I have not been forced into because of a challenge. Don't get me wrong! I have tried, again and again and watched countless videos on how to properly draw a design and I fail. Every. Single Time. I went into this with high hopes! But yet again I cannot draw a design no matter how many times I try!

For this water marble I started off with OPI Skull and Glossbones an off white gray. Then I proceeded to marble with China Glaze Gothic Lolita, China Glaze Passion For Petals as well as Skull and Glossbones. I went about it the usual way, by dropping dots into a shot glass filled with water and then drawing my design in. One nail at a time.

Well I did it. I'm not sure if I like it, I always get frustrated and associate that feeling with watermarbles. At least I didn't cry this time! There have been many times where I have attempted and after hours just stopped lol. SO what are your thoughts on this water marble?! Do you like it?

Make sure you check out Emily's water marble over at The Lacquerologist!
Check out last years water marble here!

Digit-al Dozen September Spectacular: Fashion

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Afternoon my friends!

Wow! Today is the last day in the Digit-al Dozen's September Spectacular! It is a bittersweet moment for me, on one hand I am happy it has come to an end because now I can get back to posting only once a day! The past two weeks have been a little nutso :P On the other hand I am sad to see it end because everyone has been knocking it out of the park! It has been a lot of fun to recreate past themes, it goes to show that there are endless possibilities within a single theme!

Today's theme is Fashion, it is the week that we most recently did this past August. I ended up going for a simpler look with some standout accent nails!

This look was inspired by this outfit that I found on Pinterest! Here is the image of what it looks like,

I would totally rock this outfit, and since I do not own pink pants, or a fully sequined shirt with an anchor on it, I was forced to create the look on my nails! On my non-accent nails I started off with Pure Ice Flirt Alert to match the pink pants!

For my accent nails I started off with Color Club Beyond and then freehanded some anchors in in Color Club Harp On It. I chose to substitute sequins for holographic polishes because I felt that it still gave off that shine, without having to hand place glitter!

I really like my anchor nails, and maybe I will have to bring them back in some form sometime! What are your thoughts on this look?

Be sure to check out the rest of the Digit-al Dozen's Fashion inspired manicures below! Also make sure to ENTER OUR GIVEAWAY! It ends tomorrow!