31DC2013: Day 24 Inspired by a Book

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Morning friends!

Today's nails are inspired by a book! I really wanted to do Harry Potter nails, but was struggling to come up with an original way to do it. My 8 year our cousin is absolutely obsessed with Harry Potter and this past summer he went to Universal Studios and to The Wizarding World of Harry Potter! Not only did he make me eat some rather disgusting Bernie Botts Every Flavour jelly beans, but he was so proud of his new stuffed toy Hedwig! So after thinking about him I decided to do some Hedwig nails!

Full disclosure, I did these nails by looking at this photo of Hedwig that I found on Google. After I was finishing I decided to google Hedwig Nail Art to see if anyone else had done something like this before. I found almost the exact same manicure on Coewless's blog! So full credit goes to her for thinking of the idea first even though I didn't know they were similar until after I was finished lol.

I started these nails off with two coats of my absolute favourite white creme Cult Nails Tempest on all my nails. Then I started drawing the eyes with Wet n Wild Black Creme. The yellow of the eyes was done with Sally Hansen Lightening and mixing varying amounts of white and black to that to get the shading. The shading for her feathers and beak were done with black and white creme as well as Revlon Hot For Chocolate again mixed with varying amounts of white creme.

On the rest of my nails I ripped a sponge up and sponged on a mixture of Hot For Chocolate and white creme. I sponged most of the polish off onto wax paper so that the sponging was as light as possible. I also went back and added a little bit of white creme over the brown to give it a different feel. I finally went in with a mixture of Hot For Chocolate and white creme and my smallest nail art brush and added the feathers in U shapes!

I really like these and I really hope that my cousin approves! These are for you Nathaniel! :D What do you think of these Harry Potter Inspired nails?!

Remember to head over to The Lacquerologist to see what book inspired Emily today! Also be sure to ENTER OUR GIVEAWAY for a chance to win one of 2 $30 gift cards to Born Pretty Store!
Check out last years inspired by a book 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 13 Animal Print

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Good Morning loves!

Today brings us to day 13 in the 31 Day Challenge with today's prompt being Animal Print! I just did an animal themed manicure for the Digit-al Dozen September Spectacular, so I did a bit if researching to find something interesting to do for today's prompt. I found myself on National Geographic's website looking at Dangerous and Deadly Sea Creatures! There are so many amazing animals out there but I decided to go with the dangerous theme once I saw the Textile Cone Snail.

Here is the snail if you're wondering how close I got to it's print!

The textile cone snail looks innocent, but is actually one of the planet's most toxic creatures. They "harpoon" their prey with hollow teeth, through which they inject a lethal venom. Their most common victims are mollusks, though they have been known to eat their own kind!!

These nails were pretty simple to do! I started off with OPI My Vampire is Buff and then mixed OPI A-Piers To Be Tan with acetone on wax paper to thin it out. Then I applied the thin mixture in random splotches on my nails. Then I used Revlon Hot For Chocolate and my small cut down nail art brush to create the lines over the brown patches and the V's over the rest of the nails. When I was topcoating instead of floating the topcoat over my nails, I dragged it a little over the brown patches to get the same effect as the snail!

I created the above image for easy pinning so people can see that this actually is an animal print!! What do you think of these animal print nails? Do you like the snail print?

Be sure to head over to The Lacquerologist to see what Emily has done for Animal Print! Also be sure to enter our giveaway!
Check out last years animal print 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!

The Digit-al Dozen September Spectacular: Art

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Eveing Friends!

Today's Digit-al Dozen post is a little on the later side, but I am still super excited by it! Today's prompt is Art and I decided to recreate a really cute print by an artist called Amy Sia.

Here is the inspiration piece that I used!

For this look I started out with Cult Nails Tempest my favourite white creme. And then I started to create the flowers using an altered watercolour technique. I placed a drop or two of Cult Nails Feel Me Up on wax paper and then thinned that using acetone. Using a size #000 brush I used the thinned yellow to create blobs that were the bases for the flowers.

Once the yellow was done I followed the same technique to create the pink center of the flower using Essie Watermelon. Then I did the same thing again using Revlon Midnight Affair to create the darkest center of the flower. Once that was finished I used the same technique and Essie Pretty Edgy to create the leaves, and then outlined them in Midnight Affair. I finally added dots in the center with Watermelon.

I got quite a few compliments on these nails and I really enjoyed wearing them for the few hours I did :) What do you think about these Art inspired nails?!

Make sure to check out the rest of the Digit-al Dozen below!

31DC2013: Day 4 Green

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Gooooood Morning!

It is only day 4 of the 31 Day Challenge, but I am already having so much fun coming up with these. Ithink today's nails are my favourite yet early in the game.

Green is one of those colours that I really didn't like at all on my nails when Ifirst started blogging. For some reason Icould't get behind it. As I've grown and blogged and done my nails more that opinion has completely changed! Green is now one of my favourite colours to wear on my nails. Iwas brainstorming what to do and decided that since Ijust graduated from a Geography degree a 'think green' manicure was in order!

Istarted off with 2 coats of Cult Nails Tempest on all of my nails. Then Istarted to create the trunk of the tree in the middle of my middle and ring nails using Revlon Hot For Chocolate. Idid two branches coming out and then decided to get to work on my leaves. For all the leaves I just freehanded on some patterns using China Glaze Def Defying, the lightest green, China Glaze GaGa For Green the medium green and Revlon Posh the darkest green. On my index nail Iincluded the recycle symbol using Posh as my background and then freehanding the arrows inside the circle.

On my thumb I decided to write think green doing a gradient in the letters with the three greens Iwas using. Iabsolutely love the combination of greens and leaves here. Ireally don't want to take them off my nails! :D

Ilove how abstract the leaves look while still being cohesive and I'm super stoked on the think green message!

Make sure you head over to The Lacquerologist to see what Emily's green nails look like! Also make sure you enter our giveaway :)
You can check out last years green nails here!

31DC2013: Day 2 Orange

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Morning friends! Here we are in day two of the 31 Day Challenge 2013 styles and the theme is Orange! I am not usually a huge fan of orange on my nails so coming up with this design took me a bit longer than usual, but I am really loving the final result!

Basically I pulled every orange I had out of my helmer and then just started playing around with them until I had something that I liked. I started off with China Glaze Sun of a Peach from this years Summer Collection. Then using my medium length striping brush I just started striping random oranges on in no particular pattern to get a striped look. The oranges I used were, Pure Ice Can't Stop, China Glaze Orange You Hot? and Revlon Sorbet. At this point most of the finishes were similar and I wasn't loving the mix of orange shades.

Luckily I saw Hard Candy Pinch of Spice which is a fabulous glassfleck giving me the different dimensions I was craving! Then I added the flowers using black and white creme and my cut down brush. I put three black dots in the middle of the flower and then added a few strokes of Pinch of Spice just to give it a little extra pizzaz!

This was one of those manicures that just happens out of nowhere! Do you ever have manicures like that? Are you a fan of this orange look?

Make sure you head over to The Lacquerologist to see what Emily has come up with!

If you want to see last years orange nails you can check them out here!