31 Day Nail Art Challenge - Day 12: Stripes

I can't believe we're already on day 12 of this challenge! I'm so happy that Meghan and I are sticking with this - I'm still really loving this challenge :) 

For today's stripes theme, I thought about doing something complex with striping tape and going crazy, but in the end, I settled on classic vertical stripes. I recently bought the China Glaze Avant Garden collection and I've kind of been obsessing over the colors since I got them. I used 38 strips of striping tape for this hand alone and I felt my eye start to twitch in frustration after about the 12th strip being placed on my nail! How is it that the tape suddenly acquired a magnetic attraction to my nails for this mani!? 

I don't normally like vertical stripes on myself, but I think I like how these turned out. They sort of remind me of Candy Striper stripes! The colors are subtle enough that it still feels "right" if you will. I'm so relieved that there was little to no bleeding of the colors in the stripes. My secret for fixing any bleeding under the tape is to use a top coat over your base color. This lets you use a brush and some acetone to carefully remove any misplaced nail art polish without taking up the base polish and having to restart. 

I used 7 China Glaze polishes for this look and I'll share them from the darkest/brightest pink up to the darkest blue/purple stripe. 

Base Color - Keep Calm, Paint on

Brightest/Darkest Pink - Passion for Petals

Life is Rosy

Pink-ie Promise

Tart-y For the Party

Fade into Hue

Fancy Pants

I really love these colors together and while this is a super simple look, it took me a long while to get my tape where I wanted it. How do you guys feel about major tape manis like this? Worth it or would you rather forgo the insipid task of taping this much and attempt some freehand? ;) 

Happy Polishing! :) 

An InLinkz Link-up

Gradient and some free hand stripes!

On Sunday I had a friend tell me that they would love to see pink and blue together in nail art so I decided to create a gradient using the two colors! Well, if you'll remember your kindergarden lessons of how colors work, when you blend red (or in my case pink) and blue together, you get purple! Oh Lindsey, sometimes your brain doesn't work, does it? 

Despite my gradient turning more into a pink to purple gradient, I like how these turned out. As a friend put it, they are FIERCE! ;) I added a matte top coat for good measure as well. 

I also got the inkling to create a quick tutorial (I also put together one for how I do my gradients but I am undecided on whether or not I'll post it since I feel like so many people have great gradient tutorials already. Besides, I'm crap at explaining things!). You'll need a striping brush or nail art pen (which, lets face it, is still a brush...I don't know why they call them pens -_-) and base color completely dry. I suppose these could potentially look cool if you chose to do nude nails underneath the black ;) 

 1. Create a 'V' at the end of your finger, making sure that the point of the 'V' is at the very middle of your finger. 

2. Create a smaller 'V' just inside the larger 'V'.

3. Paint a straight line down the middle of your finger and stopping once you reach the middle of your nail (the point of the 'V').

4. Add additional stripes equidistant and parallel to the first straight lines you made. 

5. Finally, add your favorite top coat (or matte top coat) to complete the look! 

 Be sure to check out the Born Pretty Store and use my coupon code for 10% off your order in addition to free shipping world wide! :)

Happy Polishing! :)

March Nail Art Challenge - Day 2: Stripes

Today marks the start of the next theme in the March Nail Art Challenge! Stripes is the theme and boy do I love me some stripes :) I was a bit impatient tonight, so rather than wait for my base color to dry, I went ahead and did my stripes free hand. My inspiration came from what I was wearing tonight, actually. I have a cute striped skirt in this navy and tan, and then I was wearing a plain what t-shirt with it. Pretty literal interpretation ;) 

I used a striper for this and about pulled my hair out in frustration when my lines weren't perfect. I used OPI's My Boyfriend Scales Walls (big surprise) as my base, Zoya's Natty is the navy and Zoya's Jacqueline is the tan/light yellow. Overall, I think it's a simple and classy look that is a bit on the nautical side. 

Stayed tuned for the 7th when I will likely tackle gradients! 

Happy Polishing :)

Candy on my fingers!

I'm super excited for how tonight's look turned out! About a month ago I bought Gloss n' Sparkle's Unicorn Spawn from the amazing people over at Llarowe and never got the chance to use it. Well, I'm kicking myself now for waiting so long! I LOVE this polish. It's so fabulous and such a fun color for spring...or any time! 

How fabulous is that!?! Fabulously fabulous, that's how much.

 I ended up creating some nail art for these to enter into a contest for a nail polish group I'm apart of with the theme being "feel good nails" or nails that make you happy. My go to feel good nail art is definitely a striping mani. I love the process of this and while it may be monotonous to some, it's incredibly therapeutic and relaxing for me. I had originally intended to do vertical stripes using China Glaze's Escaping Reality, Hanging in the Balance and Def Defying on every nail, but after doing two of them in that fashion I realize I did not like that at all. I chose to switch it up and do the stripes horizontally, and this is what I ended up with! I feel like I've got candy on my fingers!

Happy Polishing! :)

GLITTER Stripes

Part of my Valentine's Day Haul from the Boyfriend included the China Glaze Cirque du Soleil collection (I also got a BUNCH of nail art pens that I am so excited to get to using!) and I decided to use two of the polishes from that, as well as one of my recent acquisitions from my trip to Sally's Beauty. This by far one of the sparkliest manis to day but I like it so much more than I was expecting to! I used China Glaze's Water You Waiting For and Running in Circles and Orly's Bubbly Bombshell and made super simple stripes. Easy peezy, lemon squeezy!

 Don't forget to check out the GFC Collective Blog Hop and find some other awesome bloggers! 

Happy Polishing! :)

31 Day Nail Challenge - Day 4: Green

Can I just say that I'm pretty impressed with myself that I'm actually keeping up with this challenge (well, in that I'm actually doing it still...)! I was a bit stumped at first at what to do for my green manicure. I think part of it is that I really loved my stained glass nails which were GREEN and so a lot of my creativity for the time being went into those. However, I ended up coming up with something that I have fallen madly and disgustingly in love with. As I type this, I am looking every few seconds at them in the way you stare at a newfound crush that you're pretty sure you're in love with...yes, you are all invited to the wedding. Maybe that's a bit too much build up and my apologies if you all see these and think I'm crazy for loving them oh so much. BUT beauty is in the eye of the beholder and I'm not budging on my stance ;) 

          

 Happy Polishing! :)

Is it too early for a Christmas mani?

Autumn and Winter are by far my favorite time of the year. I love being able to bundle up on the couch next to the fire with my hot cocoa and a great book. Reading and nail painting are essentially tied for favorite things to do so don't make me choose! (Maybe I'll do some book reviews on here occasionally...hmm). Anyway! The past few days have finally begun to be gloomy and cold (only took to the end of November!..but that's what you get in California) and driving home after work with the sun already down and all the Christmas lights up really solidified the feeling that it is in fact winter! My favorite! 

I was feeling inspired by the time of year and landed on PRESENTS! Everyone loves to give and/or receive gifts and I've been slowly finding presents to give to friends and family so it seemed fitting. 

I used, YET AGAIN (sorry!) Sephora by OPI's Mr. Right Now because it is my all time favorite red and I am going to have to go buy more soon. My striping accents (you have no idea how many times I checked to make sure that didn't say stripping accents...) are Ulta's Concrete Evidence and a mini Sephora by OPI called Already Famous that came as part of their winter Tinsel Town Collection. 

Here's my Christmas Present-esque look all together. I ended up using striping brushes that I got off of Amazon. They can be found here. 

When I use nail brushes, I like to make sure that I'm working on a flat surface (table, desk, closed laptop with a towel over it?) and have both hands resting on the table so that I eliminate any shakiness. There are a two basic methods to ensure a straight-ish line. The first is to have the brush do the moving while your nail remains stationary. This one can be a little bit tricky if your brush hand isn't as steady. This method might work best for when your dominant hand has the brush. When you're painting your dominant hand (brush in your non-dominant hand), holding the brush stationary and moving your nail beneath the brush removes the battle of creating a straight line with your non-dominant hand. Through all of this, I make sure my hands are resting on the table to eliminate additional movement. 

 Happy Polishing :)

Outfit inspired

Someone challenged me to do a manicure inspired by one of my favorite items of clothing. For me, that happens to be an awesome skirt made by CottonOn, an Australian based clothing store that has amazing deals and excellent quality clothing. Here's a terrible picture of the pattern to give you an idea of my inspiration.

I recently purchased Essie's Butler Please and I'd like to spend a moment just remembering how stunningly amazing this polished looked on. When I put this baby on my poor neglected fingers, I about fainted from how crazy amazing it was.

An electric and "indulgent bright blue" with a creme finish that may be my favorite blue to date. 

I mean, let's be serious. That is so stunning. I may have stared obsessively at it the entire time it was gracing my nails with is presence. Alright, so electric blue isn't exactly understated in its own right, but since I matched the blue with my skirt and fell in love, I decided I couldn't part with it and went with just my thumb for the rest of my design.

I apologize for the overkill of photos, but I just love this these colors. Yes, I want to marry them. 

The Butler Please is 2 coats and Seche Vite on top. The striped thumb is (colors from left to right):

Navy--Kleancolor Neon Sapphire 

White--Milani White on the Spot

Blue--Essie Butler Please

Lavender--Kleancolor Lavenbaby

Orange--Zoya Natalie

Happy Polishing.

I am Matte About YOU

I recently made what I would consider to be the BEST decision of my life. Okay, well my nail polish life? THAT'S A PRETTY BIG DEAL! I purchased Essie's "Matte About You" and I am in love and I don't care who knows it! I've always been a big fan of the flat matte look but until recently I had no idea that anything like this existed. I generally like to go for an understated look with my nails; nothing too flashy, but still something that's got some good energy to it. As shown in my first post, I'm trying the whole taping technique out and thoroughly enjoying it. I have been using basic scotch tape, though I've seen and heard of using masking tape as well (personally, the masking tape ended up bringing up the base polish I was using). I'm starting to get the hang of it and this is what I came up with.

The main polish is OPI "I Brake for Manicures." This color is pretty, but it's definitely hard to figure out exactly WHAT color it is. Depending on the lighting, it changes from a dark brown/grey/burgundy,  to a deep grey blue. I thought I was getting a deep navy when I ordered it, so I suppose be weary of that fact before buying. All in in all, I do like this color and while at first glance it seems black, it feels like a deep coffee brown. Yes, it's all about the feels!

 Happy Polishing!