The Digit-al Dozen Does Skittles: Skull Nets

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Afternoon friends!

Today we have yet another post in the Digit-al Dozen's Skittle Week! I was trolling around the internet last night looking for some inspiration when I saw this picture that Rie of Nails and Noms posted of some awesome Black Milk Clothing Skull Net Tights! The design was really interesting and I decided to take that as my inspiration and went from there!

I again stuck with my almost all butter LONDON theme when selecting what polishes to use! I started out with Cult Nails Tempest on my index, ring and pinky nail and used butter LONDON Come To Bed Red from the upcoming Illusionist Holiday Collection (swatches will be up soon), on my thumb and middle nail. From there I started out by recreating the pattern on the Black Milk Clothing Leggings on my ring nail with my smallest cut down nail art brush and butter LONDON Union Black Jack.

On my thumb I added a coat of butter LONDON Stardust, which is also from the upcoming Illusionist Holiday Collection, over Come To Bed Red. On my index nail I added large dots with a dotting tool in Union Jack Black and then painted a gradient with Come to Bed Red and sprinkled some loose red glitter on top. On my middle nail I used an assortment of black and clear rhinestones to create the pattern. On my pinky nail I did a line of black rhinestones up the middle of my nail and then painted a line using Come To Bed Red on either side and again sprinkled glitter over that! That was a lot of explaining!

I love black, white and red together and the subtle skulls make me feel slightly rocker, while still keeping it girly. What do you think about these nails?

Make sure you check out the rest of The Digit-al Dozen to see what skittles they are rocking today!

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 28 Inspired by a Flag

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Morning friends!

Wow we are so close to being done this beast of a challenge! Today's prompt is Inspired by a Flag, I feel like whoever wrote this challenge had a specific manicure in mind when they were thinking of this, so like usual I resorted to Google to see what interesting flags I could find! I ended up finding a ton of really cool flags around the world, but ended up choosing the state flag of Maryland in The United States!

I think these turned out pretty cool! Here is the flag for reference if you have never seen it before,

I decided to completely replicate the flag on my thumb and then do each of the crests on my four nails! The Maryland flag is really cool because it is the heraldic banner of George Calvert, 1st Baron Baltimore. It is the only flag in the United States to be based on English heraldry.It also seemed appropriate to do these nails since my boyfriend grew up in Balitmore!

For these nails I started out with Cult Nails Tempest on my thumb, index and ring nail. I used Cult Nails Feel Me Up as a base on my middle and pinky nails. From there I used China Glaze Adventure Red-y to freehand the crosses and Wet n Wild Black Creme to freehand the stripes and diamond pattern.

I created the above image for easy pinning if you're into that kind of thing :)

What do you think of my Maryland State flag nails?! Are any of my readers from Maryland?

Make sure you head over to The Lacquerologist to see what flag has inspired Emily today! Also if you haven't yet make sure you enter our giveaway! Only a few days left!
Check out last years inspired by a flag nails here

31DC2013: Day 26 Inspired by a Pattern

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Good Morning loves!

Today's prompt is inspired by a pattern. This is another tricky one to interpret similar to inspired by a colour, a pattern could be anything?! When I'm stuck for inspiration I hit google and found a pretty cool blog with a post on mixing and matching spring patterns! Since we all know I'm a sucker for skittles I got super excited and decided I needed to recreate these patterns into a manicure!

I'm seriously digging these nails and am super excited about all the cohesive patterns! The inspiration for the patterns can be seen below,

I think I did a pretty good job matching them no?

For this manicure I started off with Lime Crime Milky Ways on all my nails except on my ring nail, which is just China Glaze Fancy Pants. I then proceeded to freehand on the patterns using Fancy Pants, China Glaze Budding Romance, China Glaze Snap My Dragon and Sally Hansen Lightening! I had a lot of fun making these patterns, and it's a skittle, come on I'm in love!

All the work was done with my smallest cut down nail art brush, and I actually did this on both hands! But completely spaced on taking a picture of my right hand, whoops!

I think this really fits with the inspired by a pattern theme and I'm super stoked because well I love these nails. Sorry to toot my own horn, but they are awesome! :D What are your thoughts?! I can't believe there are only 5 more days left in the challenge! I can't believe we've come this far!

Be sure to stop by The Lacquerologist to see what pattern inspired Emily today! Also there are only a few days left to enter our giveaway!!
Check out last years inspired by a pattern nails here!

31DC2013: Day 25 Inspired by Fashion

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Good Morning my lovely lacquerheads!

Today's challenge prompt is all about being inspired by Fashion. In all honesty I am not a big fashionista. I love clothes, but my meager student budget does not allow me to buy incredibly gorgeous pieces that I would if I had an unlimited budget. Also the lifestyle of trekking back and forth to campus everyday does not lend itself to gorgeous dresses and heels. So I follow other fashion blogs and wish that I could afford/have somewhere to go in those beautiful clothes! Today's inspiration is from one of those blogs!

These nails are inspired by this Mara Hoffman Open Back Column Dress which unfortunately costs almost $300. Good thing a girl can dream right?! lol

These nails are loosely inspired by the dress. I was originally planning on copying the print exactly, but my nails were just too small and I was too tired after work to do all of that :P
I started off with a white base and then began freehanding on the design with my smallest nail art brush. I did it over a white base so the colours would really pop. For this manicure I used, China Glaze Igniting Love, China Glaze Budding Romance, China Glaze Sunday Funday, Sweet Color #009 along with black and white creme.

I really like these nails even if they aren't quite as crisp as I would like because I was a little on the tired side. But they look great when I hold my hand out far! What do you think about these fashion inspired nails?!

Be sure to head over to The Lacquerologist to see what Emily has done today! Also be sure to enter our giveaway!
Check out last years fashion inspired 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 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 16 Tribal

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Good Morning!

Today's challenge is Tribal, I really enjoy doing tribal nails, and have done a number of different tribal designs in the past, but I have never looked up any specific tribal art and recreated that! It has always been just a random application of colours and patterns. When I was in Alaska last month I learned a lot about the Tlingit Natives, pronounced Klinget, one of the groups of native people that still call Southeast Alaska home. At the stop of Icy Strait Point, Hoonah, Alaska we discovered much of the history of the Tlingit Natives and got to experience much of the art and totem poles that exist there. I took a number of pictures of the carvings that were on the walls and I decided to recreate one of those works today!

Here is the picture I took of the carving I recreated! The lighting isn't the best, but you get the idea. In person these were so beautiful.

For this manicure I started off with a white base using Cult Nails Tempest just to have a good surface for creating the art on. Then I drew the outlines of the fish and the wings with Wet n Wild Black Creme. Then I began to fill in the coloured areas using Born Pretty Store Sweet Color #009, the teal, Cult Nails Evil Queen, the red, and a mix of Cult Nails Feel Me Up and Joe Fresh Caramel for the yellow. All the details were done with my smallest cut down nail art brush and a small dotting tool.

I went back in with OPI A-Piers To Be Tan and filled in all the remaining white areas to mimic the wood of the carvings. I really loved the final outcome of these!

I created this combination image in case any of you want to pin my tribal manicure! I had a lot of fun in Alaska and learned a great deal about the Tlingit People. If you would like to learn more, you can check out some of the facts on this Wikipedia page!

Be sure to check out The Lacquerologist to see Emily's tribal manicure today! She has been killing this challenge so make sure you're checking out her posts!
Check out last years tribal manicure here!