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!

Gradients and Stamping Galore

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Morning Friends!

Yes this has to be the least creative title ever, but it was all I could come up with at the moment lol. I was browsing through pinterest and found this amazing manicure and knew that I had to recreate it. Thankfully it uses all PUEEN nail plates which I just so happen to have!

To get this look I started off with a white base, using my current go to Cult Nails Tempest. Then using a make up sponge I got the gradient going using from cuticle to tip, Wet n Wild Lavender Creme, NYC Lexington Yellow and Wet n Wild I Need a Refresh-Mint. Once I was happy with my gradient I added a coat of Seche Vite and allowed that to dry completely.

Once my gradient was dry I got out my stamping tools. I always add top coat before I stamp over a gradient because you work so hard on a gradient you don't want to screw it up!! I needed 4 PUEEN plates to stamp this skittle look. My thumb is PUEEN 05, my index and middle nails are PUEEN 11, my ring nail is PUEEN 08 and finally my pinky is PUEEN 10. All the stamping was done using Wet n Wild Black Creme.

I absolutely loved this look! And even though it was a blatent copy of someone elses work I'm still pleased as punch with how it came out :) Do you like this bright gradient and stamped look?

I'm headed out for lunch with my grandparents today to celebrate finishing my thesis and being the first grandchild to finish university! I'm also the eldest so that helps, but I'm going to enjoy our lunch regardless! I hope you are all having a lovely day as well!

Born Pretty Store Feather Water Decals

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Morning! Hope you've been having a lovely weekend :) I had a significant break in my nails and had to chop them all down to super nubbins! I still have a few posts with my longer nails that I haven't posted yet so over the next little while there may be a mix of long nails and nubbies. Todays are of the nubbin variety.

I recently received these water decals from Born Pretty Store to review. There are 11 different kinds of feathers on them, so an insane number of possibilities for manicures! For these nails I chose to use the white feathers.

I used Essence Walk On Air on all my nails except the accent, which was NYC Lexington Yellow. Before I polished my nails I cut out the decals and removed the plastic covering on all of the decals. Once my polish had dried completely I took these tweezers and picked up the decal and immersed it in water for 20-30 seconds. Then I took the decal out of the water and slid it off the paper backing onto my nail. There is a window of about 15 seconds before the decal will stick so you can move it around to make sure you like the positioning. I did this on all of my nails until I had the desired look!

Water decals are generally easy to use and can be really visually striking. I could never freehand a feather to look this good, and in almost no time! I often forget about water decals because I love freehanding so much, but I'm really glad I tried these out! What are your thoughts on these decals?

This set can be purchased here from Born Pretty Store for $4.73, considering you get 11 sets of feathers and more then enough for 2 manicures putting a decal on all 5 nails for each design, I'd say that's a bargain. Remember to use my 10% off code SA7X31 for even more savings!

Mint Floral Print

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Gooooood Morning and Happy Saturday!

You saw a sneak peak of these nails in yesterdays post, but I loved them so much that I thought they deserved a whole post to themselves. I was stumbling around the internet and I found this post and immediately knew I had to recreate it at some point.

On my non-accent nails I used Sweet Color 009 from Born Pretty Store. On my floral accent nails I started off with a white creme and then went to work creating my floral pattern.

The pink flowers were done with Pure Ice Flirt Alert and the centers were Pure Ice French Kiss. The yellow flowers were NYC Lexington Yellow and the outlines were a mixture of French Kiss and Sweet Color 009. All the leaves were done with Sweet Color 009 and the outlines were a mixture of that and French Kiss. All of this was done with my small cute down nail art brush.

I actually got s surprising number of compliments on these! When I was at physio the receptionist was convinced they were polish strips, and she ended up pulling out 4 other people and we stood around her computer and they all looked at my blog for about 15 mins. It was quite funny!

I loved these and originally only planned on wearing them for a day, and ended up wearing them for 4! I only took them off when one nail chipped and I couldn't stand looking at the chip any longer lol. What do you think of these mint floral nails?!

Hope you have a wonderful Saturday my loves!!

Gold Goddess Demeter

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Morning!

Today I have some random sponging that I did late one night that I actually ended up loving! I had been wearing piCture pOlish Demeter for a day or so and one night when I was all done studying I decided to add a little to the polish on a whim.

I took a torn off piece of sponge and started with Essie Penny Talk. Using a pair of tweezers I randomly blotched on the copper foil until I liked the look. There was still something missing, so I grabbed NYC West Village, which looks like a violet purple in the bottle, and a new piece of sponge and went to work.

Even though the violet turned out to be blue once I sponged it on I still was digging the abstract look. Although it still needed one more little thing. My gold studs from Born Pretty Store were sitting out on my dresser so I placed one at the bottom of each of my nail! Originally I had thought I would need more than one, but I liked the simple look of the single stud.

What are your thoughts on my sponged late night creation?! Is this a look that you would wear? Or should I have left Demeter alone? Hope you are all having a wonderful day loves!

The Digit-al Dozen Does Animal Week: Dyeing Poison Dart Frog

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Afternoon everyone! This morning I had my last undergraduate class ever! Yay! It was mega stressful as we had to do a 45 minute presentation and one of our group members overslept and didn't show up until we were already halfway though! It was intense, but I'm really glad that it's over :D

This week the Digit-al Dozen is doing Animal Week! Once I started looking into all sorts of different animals I got so many ideas and I'm sad this week is only 5 days long! For my first mani of the week I decided to do the Dyeing Poison Dart Frog!

I started searching for all types of different poison dart frogs looking for one that was bright and colourful to replicate on my nails. I came across this site and immediately fell in love with the contrasting colours in the Dyeing Poison Dart Frog.

How cool is it that the frogs body is yellow with a shimmery cobalt blue for its legs. This was pretty much begging to be put on my nails.

I used NYC Lexington Yellow on my accent nails and then used black creme and a dotting tool and my medium length striping brush to create the black pattern on those nails. Then I used Sally Hansen Co-Balt Blue to represent my cobalt legs and black creme and a dotting tool to create my spots.

I love accent nails so this type of manicure was right up my sleeve. There are so many amazing animals to pull inspiration from in nature. I created this super handy pinable image with the Dyeing Poison Dart Frog so you all can know what my inspiration was!

What do you all think of my Dyeing Poison Dart Frog nails? Would you ever wear something like this?

I'm super happy to be back participating in the Digit-al Dozen Week! I'm super excited to see what the rest of my buddies have come up with. Make sure you check out the links below!

Snapping Dragons before Mimosas

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Happy Saturday Everyone!

Make sure you enter the Spring Beauty Essentials Giveaway! ;)

If you are celebrating Easter this weekend I hope that you are having a wonderful chocolate filled weekend. Since it's starting to warm up there is nothing better than yellow and flowers! I love yellow polish during the spring, and florals are classic this time of year.

I started off with NYC Lexington Yellow which is quite possibly my favourite yellow for the price. I have gone through 3/4 of my bottle and will need to pick up a new bottle soon. Then I pulled out the 3 pinky reds from the Avant Garden Blooming Brights Collection and went to work on the rest of the mani.

I used China Glaze Passion for Petals and China Glaze Snap My Dragon to create the flowers on my ring nail and thumb. I used my smallest nail art brush and a quick flicking motion to create all the petals. On my middle nail I used China Glaze Manis Before Mimosas to create the gradient.

These are so fun and bright for spring. Perfect for an Easter weekend! What are on your nails this weekend? I hope you are all having a good one!

Money Smart Nail Art: Dotted V-Gap Tutorial

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Afternoon Everyone!

I have a ton of swatches to share with you, so will have more of those coming up soon but I wanted to share some Money Smart Nail Art! I heard about this nail art contest where you had to come up with a money smart look so you can feel good with a do it yourself manicure instead of going out and spending lots of money on new clothes or a hairstyle or even paying someone else to do your nails! I'm a broke student so I'm all about coming up with looks on a budget so I jumped at the chance!

I decided to create a dotted v-gap look that looks a lot more complicated than it is. Let's run through how to do this!

Supplies:

• 2 polishes of your choice (I have used NYC Lexington Yellow and Wet n Wild I Need a Refresh-Mint)
• Any colour striping tape or regular tape cut into small strips
• A small dotting tool or a pen or a pin stuck into an eraser

Steps:

Instructions:

1. Gather your supplies and choose your two colours. (I accidentally grabbed Sally Hansen Blue Me Away instead of Wet n Wild I Need a Refresh-Mint for this picture)
2. Paint a few coats of your base colour and allow to dry completely, I used a coat of Seche Vite to speed up the drying process
3. Take your tape and cut pieces and line them up with the middle of your nail
4. Take your contrasting colour and paint starting from the outside swooping up to create that curved line 
5. Remove the tape and clean up any excess polish you may have on your skin 
6. With your dotting tool and your first polish make dots along the curved line
7. With your other polish place dots on the inside and going up your nail
8. Clean up and add your favourite quick dry topcoat!

The polishes I used can be easily found at your local drugstore for a few dollars a piece and if you don't have dotting tools or striping tape it is easy to use regular tape and a pin stuck into an eraser! You could do this look in endless colour combinations :)

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial and let me know if you have any questions or what you think! If you'd like to enter into the contest here are all the details.

Hope you're having a great day!

Geometric Challenge Day 4: Curved

It's Day FOUR in the Geometric Challenge! Today's theme is curved. So essentially any curved line. SO MANY POSSIBILITIES! The nails I'm showing you are actually the second set of nails I created, because I wasn't entirely happy with my first ones, but I'm super excited about what I came up with in the end!

RAAIINBOOWWWWSSSS!! I don't ever do enough rainbow inspired nail art, but when I do I always love it to pieces. My original attempt was this same design but primarily in blues and greens. I liked it, but it was missing something. The rainbow and holographic goodness that I was craving.

I used Color Club Harp On It as my silver holo, second day in a row I'm posting about this wonderful polish! It does not come out of my helmer enough. For my rainbow I used a bunch of polishes that I shall list below. The curves were done with my medium length striping brush! The rainbow of polish used was,
China Glaze Snap My Dragon
China Glaze Escaping Reality
China Glaze Orange You Hot?
NYC Lexington Yellow
Sally Hansen Green With Envy
China Glaze Sunday Funday
China Glaze Gothic Lolita

I love this. So fun and rainbowy and curved to boot. I kind of stared at my nails forever and a day when I wore these. SO MUCH FUN!

I can't wait to see what the rest of the awesomely talented ladies in this challenge have come up with, so head over to their blogs and check it out!

Victoria of Manicurator
Emily of The Lacquerologist
Whitney of Dressed Up Nails
Lindsey of Neverland Nail Blog
Alexis of XOXO Alexis Leigh
Brittney of Precious Polish