February Nail Art Challenge - Day 3: XOXO

I am giving myself a little pat on the back right now because this is the first time that I've actually kept up with one of these challenges as well as stay on time with one of these challenges! This was a more difficult theme for me as it's a fairly simple concept and therefore only so much you can do with it. I know since it's February, everyone always wants to use pinks and reds and purples in their manis (especially when you're doing an "XOXO" theme) but I'm so burnt out on them!...Yes, I know I've only done one mani with those colors :p Maybe I'll make it through the whole month without using overtly Valentine's colors together!?! Err, not likely...anyway! I went with two of my absolute favorite colors together on this one--Turquoise and Caicos and the lovely coral Tart Deco! 

These were super simple and quick, but I think still fun and hopefully unique-ish :)

Happy Polishing! :)

LAST Christmas mani! YAY!

Although I was gone for ten days and began to dream about getting to paint my nails again, when I got home Christmas eve and started thinking about what my Christmas mani would be, I was incredibly uninspired. I still wanted something festive for Christmas time and did in fact stay with a Christmasy pallet, I think I've come to realize that while I love Christmas time, I'm really burnt out on reds, golds, and silvers. I'm excited for new colors! Yay!

I'm currently at my parent's house so I apologize for the image quality, but here is what I have been sporting the last few days! :)

Happy Polishing! :)

Sparkles and Glitter and Gold, Oh My!

Polish makes everything better. Adorably cute mini Essie Fall Collection polishes are even better. And  it just so happened that these lovlies appeared on my desk yesterday!  

Not to be too melodramatic, but I LOVE these colors!

I of course had to use them immediately and went with the dark green Stylenomics as my first color. It's such a stunningly deep green that almost looks black in certain light. I love these greyed out colors. Totally fall/winter feeling to me. 

I also wanted to try another entry into the December Nail Art Challenge I previously participated in. I didn't end up doing a plaid pattern, but the next theme up was SPARKLES!!! Yee!!! I immediately pulled out all my bottles of glitter and sparkles and got to thinking. I ended up doing some taping on my thumb, and a little freehand sparkly star on my middle finger. I wish that the green of this polish showed better and that the golds showed as gold and lovely as they are in real life! First world lacquerista problems, right here. 

(Indoor lighting)

(Sunlight)

For this look, I used the following (with my favorite base and top coat of course):

Essie Stylenomics

Essie Beyond Cozy

Sephora by OPI Only Gold for Me which I purchased with their Tinsel Town Collection

Happy Polishing :)

Snowflakes for December!

I'm going to talk about winter again because, well, it's winter! But also because I'm going to be going to Costa Rica for 10 days starting on the 13th so I will be missing half of my favorite time of year being away! I found this nail art challenge on Instagram for the month of December and thought I would give it a go! 

Day 1 is snow and since snow is made up of snowflakes, I made snowflakes! I recently purchased China Glaze's First Mate and then found this awesome wrapping paper that completely inspired me. 

I used several brushes from this brush set and I'm sort of really in love with how they turned out. I think the whole thing probably took an hour and half and once I finished the first few nails the whole process went pretty quick. Considering this is only my second time using striping brushes, I think I did alright. Prepare for too many pictures! Muhahaha!

To start, here are the polishes in question. 

From the Left:

OPI's I've Have a Herring Problem

Ulta's Cream of the Crop

Milani's White on the Spot 

China Glaze's First Mate

Essie's Snap Happy

I love China Glaze's First Mate so much so here is a swatch of just that alone. I'm so in love with it. It's an amazing navy blue with some purple undertones and it's just fabulous. 

Happy Polishing!

Essie Beyond Cozy Gradient

It's winter! And after Thanksgiving it finally feels like it! Yay! My favorite! 

Err...well it doesn't snow in my part of California, but a girl can dream, right? I am pretty envious of the those in the cold snowy weather because all I want to do is get bundled up and go play in the snow all day long!

I suppose painting my nails wintery-ish will have to suffice for now, though. So! I present, another gradient look (this time done following proper technique!). I used Ulta's Smoke Screen and Essie's Beyond Cozy for my gradient colors (with a foundation of white).

Happy Polishing.

Let sleeping nails lie? Pfft!

I am incapable of just letting things be. I like to tinker. I will change my phone background every few days because I'm bored with the current one. My blog background, style and layout will no doubt change several times in the coming months. The same happened with my nails tonight. It's a wonder I've been with the same guy for 7 years ;) 

Tonight, I was especially jonesing to paint my nails but I was still completely in love with my mani from last night. So I started browsing patterns online that I could possibly make work with what I already had going on. About 3 pages in and I came upon this one: 

Source: http://www.etsy.com/search_results.php?search_type=all&includes%5B0%5D=tags&search_query=navy+blue+pillows&page=1

I could have gone with a free hand attempt at this, but I wasn't really in the mood for the potential screwup that could occur and the fallout afterwards. So I went with taping instead. Still a pretty terrible idea! 

I ALMOST gave up on this pattern and had to get pretty innovative in order to make it happen, but here is the result. 

I even managed to get both thumbs!

Happy Polishing.

Blue ombre makes my heart happy!

I used to think I was strictly a red/pink polish kind of girl. However, Essie's Butler Please converted me to blues in two seconds flat. Lately whenever I see a blue polish I've been snapping it up and I finally have enough blues to attempt an ombre look.

Most ombre nails I see have the thumb painted white and then the chosen color gets progressively darker as you move toward the pinky. I'm not always a fan of white and in this case I felt like it would have been far too drastic a change to go from white to dark navy blue. Instead, I went with a blue to grey sort of ombre effect and I love it. I get to use Butler Please, as well ast my new Zoya Natty!

From the left:

Essie Butler Please

Kleancolor Neon Sapphire

Zoya Natty

Sally Hanse Gray by Gray

OPI I Have a Herring Problem

Electric blue with Butler Please all the way over to a shimmery/glittered out grey with I've got a Herring Problem. I wasn't sure I would like having the glitter mixed with all the cremes, but I think it adds some extra pizazz.

There are many color options for an ombre mani. I'm thinking as Thanksgiving nears I'll go with some oranges and reds for a fall look. 

Happy Polishing.

Boyfriend, boyfriend.

I was struggling a bit with what colors to go with tonight so I asked my lovely (and possibly color blind) boyfriend to choose for me. He took the job very seriously--paused the show he was watching and settled in with my case of polish to find the perfect color. He started with a florescent yellow...um, no. I had to remind him it was fall and that wouldn't fly. He finally settled on two Kleancolor polishes, Red Alert and Fuchsia Glitter. But here's the thing...these colors look pretty swell together...my questionably colorblind boyfriend who often argues with me over the actual color of his shirt...chose some nice polishes...

Source: http://gifguppy.com/movies/jurassicpark/hfsitsadinosaur.html & Jurassic Park 1993

Okay, all joking aside, I decided to slap these colors on and go for it! I decided to add some Essie Matte About You because honestly, who doesn't love a good matte?

Happy Polishing.