Copy Cat Addition

Hey guys! It's been FOREVER but I'm back and happy to say these past two weeks of getting my butt kick by school have come to a close. I was so busy I barely had time to paint my nails let alone take pictures of them. I did manage to squeeze in to replications of some really gorgeous nail art I've seen in the last few day.

First up is the the Heartbreak mani done by Work/Play/Polish, which I just fell in love with. Her work is always beautiful but something about this play on a V-Day mani really blew my socks off. I opted to go with a super hot pink base and really love how these turned out. The matte finish takes this look to a whole new level!

Base: Sally Hansen Sonic Boom

L.A. Colors Art Deco Striper Black and White 

Next up was the Love and Heartbreak mani by the Manicurator. Boy talk about hot and spicy! Less is defiantly more when it came to this one. Her color combo was perfect it was a sexy manicure that would be perfect for Valentines Day with out going overboard. Since Valentines Day has passed and I really wanted to break in a new color decided to go a little bit darker. I really like it!

Base: Essie Going Incognito 

Accent: Cult Nails Fetish 

Skittlespiration

Okay so Skittlespirations isn't a word but my blog my rules right? While blog surfing I came across a fun contest that I (after much deliberation) decided to enter. Kelsie from Kelsie's Nail Files asked contestants to create a design from an image on her Pinterest Board.  Here's what I came up with and the image it was based on. 

Pointer- China Glaze Liquid Leather

Middle- Cult Nails Cruisin' Nude, Chine Glaze Liquid Leather, Born Pretty "Glequins," Essie Good as Gold

Ring- China Glaze Liquid Leather, Cult Nails Cruisin' Nude

Pinky- Cult Nails Tempest, Konad Red Stamping Polish, BM-313

So what do you guys think? I thought it turned out pretty good. Wish me luck!

P.S. I forgot to mention that the cascading glitters came from and idea I saw on The Illustrated Nail's tumbler. Her work is seriously breath taking. 

Stoneworks and My Left Hand

School's back in session and it is COLD down here in Texas! I should be getting started on all my chapter one readings, so I'll make this quick. I felt like making a more subtle textured look and ending up using some more muted tones that complement the season like browns white and grey. Using a make-up sponge I dabbed on brown and white then went over both colors in the nude I used for my base to soften it up. I also did some light branch and leave stamping in gray just to build it up.

I like the end result so much I left it for a whole day before and went back in and added some more stamping. I revisited a previous look and  added scalloped tips to all but my accent finger. Then using a dotting tool I added a border. Of course my top coat smeared it a bit but other then that I'm pleased with the result.

I also decided to switch up the base colors a bit on my right hand and come up with this combo. I don't show my right hand much but I promise it exists : )

 

Now back to work. Until next time ladies. 

Base: Cult Nails Cruisn' Nude, ULTA Snow White

Left Hand Sponging: Essie Mink Muffs, NYC Sidewalkers, ULTA Snow White 

BM-314, BM-15

Plaid?

Morning everyone. Hope everyone is having a great Saturday so far. Only four more days til Christmas, isn't that crazy. I feel like time is going by so fast these days. Anyone have any plans for New Years, or your New Years Mani? In the mean time I've had this color combination in my head for a while and finally got around to doing something with it. 

  I'm not really sure what this pattern is, some sort of plaid striping maybe? I can always count on striping tape to really come out clean and interesting. 

I'm pleased with the color combination. The silver gives these guys a festive air even though this light peach is pretty off season right now. 

The shade of orange I used in person is more on the melon side then straight orange but the lighting on these pictures don't really portray that. As an after thought I used the tiny holographic disks to add some additional details to this pretty straight forward design. What do you think? 

Base: Essie Loop Hole

Accent: Revlon Peachy

Cut Outs

I found these craft hole punches at Micheal's for super cheap and was excited to see the shapes they made where perfect nail size. By the way what's this shape called? I'm sure it's got a name it's just not coming to me right now. Anyways I used this particular shape to make a negative in some painters tape and got to work. 

 My nails are getting a bit long, I think it's time for a serious date with my nail file. Side note I asked Santa for a Cult Nails glass file I'll let you know if he come through ;) 

None of these pictures are in very good lighting but the accent color I used is a really lovely dark sparkly purple that pairs very nicely with the gold.

So all in all a very easy manicure but a tad time consuming since tape can always be a little finicky. Interestingly enough The Beauty Department posted this article today about the new Metallic markers that Sharpie had recently come out with and it just so happened that I had recently purchased those myself. Since  I had yet to use them I decided to go ahead and bust them out.  Of course, since I was using a stencil the markers didn't really get a chance to shine but they still worked out quite nice. The down side to using markers over polish is that, for me at least, the marker tended to smear when apply a top coat. This was addressed in the article but they seemed to have no trouble so maybe I'll have to try again. 

Base: Essie Butler Please & Anise Seductive

31 Day Challenge- Day 5: Blue

The challenge for today is blue and I thought this was the perfect opportunity to try out this plastic bag or cellophane wrap mani I've seen so much of. These guys came out looking a lot nicer then I thought they would which is nice, and they were a very easy to do. After painting your base coat and allowing it to dry, you will blob on a few drips of you accent color and smear it around with a piece of plastic like a sandwich baggie or cellophane. 

The base coat is Essie's Bobbing for Baubles, and the accent colors are Mint by Love and Beauty and Essie's Good as Gold. What do you guys think? Have you tried this technique before?

Here's what's coming up next: 

Paint Drips

While working at the new house today I remember a really fun post I saw a while back by Very Emily that would be so perfect for the remodeling we're doing right now. Miss Emily is a very talented girl from Belgium   who does lots of reviews, swatches and of course really spectacular nail art. Anyways the post I referring to tonight can be found here.

The colors I used are OPI My Very First Knockwurst, China Glaze First Mate and Essie Loophole. For some reason Loophole doesn't really translate well in these pictures, but it really makes the blobs pop off the base coat. 

New Meets Old Striping

I did a little shopping this past week and manged to get a few of OPI new Germany collection as well as a few clearance polishes from China Glaze, ULTA, Essie, Zoya and OPI. I'd like to think I'm pretty good about pacing myself when it come to buying new colors but when quality brands go on sale that mindset just goes out the window. To justify these purchases I decided to pick a color combo that would use colors from the clearance and new picks. 

For the base I used Essie's Loophole which to me is a dead ringer for No Place Like Chrome, with a price difference of about six bucks thanks to ULTA's sale. Next I used OPI's Schnapps Out of It! on top of striping tape to make the strip pattern. I really like this color duo because Schnapps Out of It! has a silver shimmer that is only noticeable in certain lights, it's also dark enough to really set off the silver. The other colors I manged to snag where Zoya Kendal, ULTA Heirhead, OPI Stranger Tides and China Glaze Westside Warrior.  

Good as Gold Indeed

 Happy Monday people, nothing like some fun nails to brighten up another LONG week. Essie's Good as Gold looks good with everything so I couldn't help the but pair it with this soft mauve. To me this color combo is sweet and sexy at the same time (wink lol). I couldn't decide which Bundle Monster plate to go with so I chose several and decided to make this a skittles manicure.

As I mentioned above I used Essie's Good as Gold for my accent color and the base is once again some unnamed mystery color I ordered from Alloy maybe a year ago. I used BM-311 and BM-303 for the various stamping and painters and striping tape for my pinky finger. Are you ladies gold or silver fans? 

Gold Gradient

 Good morning people, hope everyone is having a great weekend. I finally got my hands on Essie Good as Gold so here's what I've come up with.

For the base I've used Anise Is this Love? and Essie Good as Gold for the gradient. The pictures for some reason look kind of white but I assure you my tips are gold. Once the gradient was dry, I stamped using plate BM- 307 and topped it all off with Essie Matte About You. I think the matte top coat kind of brings everything together. I'm really frustrated with this manicure because Anise Is this Love? stains my nails pretty terribly so it's almost impossible for me to get a nice clean up.  Oh well, until next time people, I'm off to cook some breakfast. Is it an omelette day or some good old pancakes?? 

Vintage

Hi everyone! I took a slightly different approach for this post and went with a very popular YouTube polish pusher you may know as Cutepolish. She is the faceless voice that guides her more than 500,000 subscribers through some really spectacular nail art. The video that I chose to capture today can be found here.   

These guys are really fun to paint and look at so I'd recommend giving them a try. The colors I used  were Essie Size Matters, Last Chance by Sinful Colors, Sage by Love & Beauty, and Blush by Love & Beauty. Love & Beauty, if you're wondering, is the line of polishes sold at Forever 21, they're about $2-$3 and come in some really great colors. The down side to this brand is like everything at Forever 21, the quality is a bit questionable so make sure you give your bottles a good shake before committing just in case.

Braid Shmaid!

Unless you've been living under a rock (that doesn't get WIFI I guess) you've probably come across Rebecca Likes Nails. She's this little gem who makes really pretty stamping and skittle manis. Now your probably thinking  I'm going to do some rendition of either her stamping or skittles work and you my friend...would be wrong. ( : Okay okay sorry. A while ago she posted this nail art and I literally saw little hearts coming out of the screen! Shortly after she being the dear that she is posted this follow up post so I got to work. I didn't go as bright with the colors and maybe that was a mistake but anyways here's what I came up with. 

Ya that's a napkin...

This is a really cool technique and I had a lot of fun painting. Maybe it was my color choices or something but  I'm not too sure how I feel about these bad boys.  I used this pack of minis that I found at Urban Outfitters that claim to have a matte finish. To be honest, they don't quite reach the effect you can get with a top coat like Essie's matte about you so I went ahead and topped them off with a bit of that.  Whelp time to watch some scrubs with the bf so I'll catch you ladies soon!

Mash Up

Alright here we go again. Today I have a kind of mash up of some really cool work from the Nailasaurus! I have to be honest I love this woman. She makes everything look fantastic and easy and we all know that's not always the case. She's known for sick gradients, bitchin (lol) stud work, and general awesomeness. So I took a bit of this and a bit of that and made these.

This bad boy consists of a three color gradient, striping tape, and studs. The colors I used for the gradient are  Essie Eternal Optimist, School of Hard Rocks, and Bobbing for Baubles. Then I used China Glaze Liquid Leather to make the laser lights look. Boy trying to pose your hand for polish pictures is tricky business let me tell you! Oh well I'll just assume this a skill that will get better with time. Until next time polish fiends : )