30 Day Challenge: Splatter Paint

Woohoo platter! I love splatter nail art because it is such a fun look and so easy to do, not to mention it takes just a few minutes to complete. For this design I went with a neutral base and bright colors for the splatter. I'm 99% sure I saw this color combination for splatter nails somewhere on the interwebs but I'm not positive where.

30 Day Challenge: Negative Space

Hey! So I knew what I wanted to do for today's theme for quite some time. My boyfriend is known for constantly changing his hair color. He started in September and has been through seven colors, technically ten. He started off with bleach blonde which he then turned to white and later turned to a very light gray, he then went red (which turned pink), blue (which turned purple), yellow green and a bit of blue (which inspired this manicure) and lastly teal (which has been turning green). In his second to last color change, the yellow green) he went with something even more over the top. For the first time he went to the stylist to get his hair dyed and said she could do whatever she pleased with his hair and she definitely did! Not only did she make his hair an array of colors she put a design on the back of his head! While I have gotten used to his ever-changing hair color I was not ready for his new hair cut. I was not a fan of it but I did think it would work in a nail design.

30 Day Challenge: Ruffian

Hey there! So today's mani theme is ruffian/half moons/tips and I chose to do a ruffian manicure. The only issue is I think I may have cheated again haha. I wanted to make it a bit different and do a rose ruffian so instead of having two different colors, I have a soft neutral color as my base and then roses around my cuticle. This is the first time I have ever tried roses and controlling the size proved to be quite the challenge for me. I'm not sure if these can be seen as ruffian or not but I'm going to say they are.

30 Day Challenge: Rainbow

Hey hey hey! I've got a rainbow mani for you guys today! Can I just say this actually turned out to be a lot harder than I originally planned for it to be. I was even planning on making it a bit more complicated by adding a seran wrap effect to each band of color but I did not have the patience for it once I managed to get all the colors on my nails. Since I am in love with my Sally Hansen Sugar Coat Polish in Lick-O-Rich I decided it was the perfect polish to accompany my rainbow painted nails.

30 Day Challenge: Shades of Gray

Hey! The theme today is shades of gray but my mani isn't as gray as I would have liked. I was planning on adding some more different tones of gray but I didn't have enough time so I decided to just roll with what I had and add a pop of color to my other nails. Does this still pass? Haha.

30 Day Challenge: Complementary Colors

Hey all! Today's theme for the 30 Day Challenge is complementary colors and I decided to go with yellow and purple since I found it the most challenging combination to work with and I was feeling up to it. I had a couple of designs in mind but I went with a leopard print since I felt like channeling my inner Chalkboard Nails.

30 Day Challenge: Secondary Colors

Okay I imagine some of you may be confused with this mani. The theme is secondary colors so what the hell am I doing with pink, blue, and yellow?! If you can guess why before you read the answer you are incredibly awesome! It may help to know that the colors I chose are magenta, cyan, and yellow, does that clear anything up at all? I used the secondary colors of light! I was having trouble thinking of a really cool mani with green, purple, and orange. Each design I thought up looked as if I was preparing for Halloween (which I kind of am because I love Halloween and will prepare for it 365 days a year). The only issue is apparently we were supposed to stick strictly to purple, green and orange! Oops! I don't have the time to do another manicure but hopefully this will be my only mistake haha.

30 Day Challenge: Favorite Creme

So I was a part of a challenge before (Mish Mash Challenge) and failed horribly with keeping up. I thought of taking part in the 30 Day Challenge before it started but the fact that I didn't complete the first one bothered me. I told myself I had to complete the Mish Mash Challenge first. After constant debate with myself I decided to just go for it! I have some catching up to do but I'm sure I can do it. I am still going to try and complete the Mish Mash Challenge at a later date though, am I crazy? Anyway, this challenge was created by Dani of Dani's Manis and she wrote an entire post about the challenge on her blog.

Three Coats with Top Coat 

Funky Pinstripe

Hey! I have some pretty fun nails to share with you today. I had no idea where I was going with this when I first started but I'm quite pleased with where I ended up. Gradients are extremely fun and easy and since I had only done one before, and it was only on one nail, I thought I should try it again. Blue and green seemed like the perfect combination for spring so I added that on and thought of what I could do next. My first thought was stamping but after trying and getting frustrated with my lack of skill I went with stripes, using striping tape I cut myself. I actually don't have any striping tape and am not really allowed to get anything online so I've been at a lost, until I found some at Ricky's but unfortunately it was overpriced and I'm usually broke so I rather save my money.

Geometric Tribal

Searching around Instagram for nail art lead me to so many manicures that are absolutely amazing, many of which I want to recreate. The design I have for you today is by Lisa (@Lisas_nails1). I found the design to be absolutely adorable and only tweaked some of the colors to be more spring like. I got quite a few compliments so I'm pretty proud of these. I added a matte top coat to make it more like Lisa's and while I like matte and regular top coat versions the same, I love how much easier it is to photograph with the matte finish, haha.

With Matte Top Coat: 

With Regular Top Coat: 

Purple and Blue Gradient

I hate that I haven't been able to blog lately. I broke my nail and it was so painful to even touch! Thankfully it has healed a bit and I was able to paint my nails again. I cut all my nails so that they would all be even. School has also slowed down substantially, which is exactly what I needed to get back into painting my nails.

I don't know if it is just me but this manicure seems a bit mermaid-esque, I like it and hopefully you agree. Although it has been pretty cold here in New York and is even supposed to snow tonight, I'm not going to let it stop me from enjoying spring pastels.

(Purple) Love and Beauty by Forever 21 - Lavender 

(Blue) Glitter Milani - Blue Flash 

Until next time, PEACE!

Mish Mash Challenge - Triangle

I'm not even sure what these nails remind me of. For some reason I think of really bright galaxy nails with not much detail, does that even make sense? Oddly enough the background of my nails was inspired by the krang ship on the newer version of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle TV show, which my brothers are absolutely obsessed with. I've wanted to incorporate a piece of the ship into a nail design for some time now and since I was stumped with what to put as my background for my white triangles, it worked out perfectly! I really like the way these turned out although my friends think the design is completely random, which I would have to agree with but they shouldn't expect much more from me. 

Pink Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear - Razz-berry

Purple Wet n Wild Fastdry - Buffy the Violent Slayer

White L.A. Colors Art Deco Nail Art Lacquer - White

Black L.A. Colors Art Deco Nail Art Lacquer - Black

The way I achieved my "simple galaxy" background was using the saran wrap method with the pink polish as my base then added the purple as my second color.

Wet n Wild Tropicalia Swatch

I've been swatching some polishes lately although my broken nail on my pointer finger has been driving me insane, I've decided to ignore it. This is the Wet n Wild Megalast Tropicalia and this is part of their main line. I love this color and it is an absolutely gorgeous that's perfect for summer. I have been trying to hang on to the summer days for as long as I can because once fall rolls around I love to wear darker and more neutral colors and rarely do I wear bright preppy colors but I do have my moods where I decide to go bright and cheery.

I used two coats to reach opacity with no topcoat. I have run out of my Seche Vite and my Sally Hansen Insta Dri top coat so I haven't been adding top coat to my nails. I will go on the hunt soon but I'm not sure which to get.

This is a pinky coral creme that I've had hidden in my shelf for about three or so months now and only wore it once on my toes, I loved it then and I am so happy it has finally made it's way up to my fingernails. 

It really stands out when the sun hits it but can be a bit more reddish with lower lighting, either way it looks great.

I also found that this was really easy to apply but I have mentioned before that the wide brush that this nail polish comes with has proven to be a hit or miss for me. It can be really great in some instances but a mess other times, it really depends on how careful I am when applying.

It's Always Greener On The Other Side

After my failed attempts at trying to do my music manicure for the Mish Mash Challenge I decided to just do something that wouldn't fail me, a tape manicure. I actually wasn't sure what I was going to do after I painted my base but while I was watching Big Brother I saw that one of the players, Spencer, was wearing a sweater the same color of my nails and a shirt the color of one of my polishes. I decided to use them together and since only a triangle worth of his shirt was showing I thought of taking it literal and doing a tri-accent but I've already done that, I wanted something a bit different and this happened.

Green Avon Speed Dry- Turquoise Pop

Green Yellow Avon Speed Dry- Inspire

I'm actually really bad at getting things to be the same size just by looking at it so to make sure that it was all even I used reinforcement labels and put them on my nails as if I was going to do a halfmoon manicure. Afterward, I cut a piece of tape and put it right above the highest part of the reinforcement sticker and viola!

My Inspiration:

I promise I'll get my music manicure up sometime soon and I hope that it will be the last time that I put up a post late. Since I haven't been so great about keeping up with the last two challenges I have been trying to swatch some of my polishes so that I can post them while I wait for the next theme of the challenge so please don't hate me!

Sunflowers

I was unsure of what I wanted to put on my nails, all I knew was I wanted to paint my nails. Thanks to a co-worker of mine who suggested I do flowers and another co-worker for lending me a polish she had just bought. I thought it would be a good idea to redeem myself from the disaster that was my first floral mani. My sunflower-esque nails didn't come out too shabby if I do say so myself. I do apologize for the photo, I completely forgot to take a better one.

Red Orange Essie - Come Here

Yellow Sinful Colors - Unicorn

Mint Pop Beauty - Mint Magic

My base color just so happens to match one of my many tank tops. Since it isn't mine I've been debating getting it. After I got a few compliments on the color I think I might be getting it for myself but we'll see.

Sally Hansen Extreme Wear Mint Sorbet Swatch

I bought this because of all the hype I was seeing with all the nail gurus I basically stalk. Everyone was saying how great this color is and naturally I had to get my hands on it. I was afraid it wouldn't work with my skin tone but let me say I had no reason to worry! I tried it on a couple people with different skin tones and it looked good on each one of us.

 

Two coats was all that was needed for an opaque and even manicure. I'm not sure why but I was expecting a bit of trouble with application but it was actually really easy to work with. It's a great mint color that I think everybody needs in their arsenal of nail polishes. 

I painted this color on a friend of mine and it looked even more amazing on her! I couldn't stop looking at her nails while she had this color on and she also got quite a few compliments on it. 

Sinful Colors Candy Coated Swatch {Sugar Rush Collection}

So awhile back I got five colors from the sinful colors sugar rush collection. This is candy coated, it is a really pretty lavender color but I would say it kind of looks a bit periwinkle. I think it is a great spring color and I couldn't keep my eyes off of it when I had it on my nails.

 

Coverage was pretty good, it took two coats to get the color to the opacity it is above. The formula was also very nice and was not hard to work with. 

Avon Strawberry Swatch

My cousin has gotten me a significant amount of nail polish a while back and has been very nice about helping my addiction. A lot of the polishes she as gotten/given to me are from Avon and they're all great colors. I've tried a some of them in a couple of designs before but I do want to try and swatch all of them individually. This is Strawberry by Avon and let me just say, I love it! I really like the way pinks and blues look with my skin tone and this is no exception.

It is a medium fushia, it isn't so bright that it is so in your face but it has some pop that gets your attention. The formula was really great and was completely opaque in two coats. I think it's such a gorgeous color and it has now become my go to darker pink color.

This is when the sun is streaming in from the window. The color is especially bright looking here and can definitely catch someone's attention. 

I was blocking the light with my body, casting a shadow over my nails. It looks a bit more red indoors and with low lighting. 

Heart Nails + Inspiration

While looking at my usual youtubers recent videos I saw Bethany's "Easy Easter Gift ideas for Friends & Family." It was such a great video (like most of her videos) and I couldn't stop looking at her shirt. I thought it was absolutely adorable and the colors were just great. Baby blue and baby pink isn't such a rare combination but I had completely forgotten about it. While I stared at her shirt I thought how it would make for a great simple and cute nail design for spring or just anytime.

Pink Essie - Fiji

Blue Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear - Breezy Blue

Black Wet n Wild Wild Shine - Black Creme

White (under the blue) NYC Expert Last - White Mania 

I think it's clear that my hearts are another thing to add to my list of things to practice but I think it's okay, it definitely could have came out worse.

I didn't plan on adding the black outline but I didn't think the heart stood out without it and also it helped shaped the heart a bit more. I could't help constantly trying to tweak the outline so I ended up with a thick line and a mistake so all I did was take the blue base color blue and added it over the mistakes.

Here is a not so great picture of my inspiration:

Candy Polka Dots

I saw this design somewhere on Instagram. Unfortunately there wasn't any credit given to the nail artist and no matter how hard I tried I couldn't trace it back to the original. I do have the picture I saw and if anyone knows who the nail artist is please let me know. Back to the design, I thought these were really pretty for spring and a good design to practice some dotting with a dotting tool. I think it's obvious I still need to work on it but I'm quite proud that it wasn't a total disaster.

Light Blue Essie - Mint Candy Apple

Yellow Sinful Colors - Unicorn

Pink Warpaint Beauty (Hot Topic) - Pretty in Pink 

Fuschia Avon Speed Dry - Strawberry

Navy Blue Brucci - Heavenly Julia

 Closer look at the dots:

 Here is the picture I saw on Instagram, her polka dots are much better haha. I will practice until I reach that level of amazing nail dotting talent!