Just a Quickie: Stripes and Glitter

Base Color: Barry M Dragonfruit
Stripes: Dragonfruit, Sally Hansen Celeb City, Sally Hansen White On
Glitter: loose silver glitter from the craft store

Swatch you talkin' 'bout?

A few days ago I received a package in the mail that I had been anxiously anticipating. It contained, of course, nail polish. Not just any nail polish, might I add. These polishes were my very first Barry M, A England, and Nfu-oh polishes! These polishes aren't easy to come by here in the US so this is a big deal for me. Anyway, I started doing my nails last night and had a great design in mind, starting with A England Tristam. 

Insert Purple Pun Here...

Purple shirt day, the day that started this whole thing, was today. So, I rocked a purple mani to match. 

The gradient is done with OPI Planks a Lot and OPI Purple With a Purpose. The polka dots are also Purple With a Purpose. This turned out super cute, but after the pink and blue manis I wore this week, I just didn't love them as much as they deserved. :/

Are Blue Serious?

Thursdays are blue shirt days at work and, as is the theme this week, my manicure matched! 

The water marble is done in OPI Blue My Mind and Sally Hansen White On. Over that, I have a coat of China Glaze Fairy Dust. Because I want to put it on EVERYTHING! Lastly, I used China Glaze Matte Magic and, let me tell you, this is definitely the best manicure of the week. The water marbling turned out near perfect and Fairy Dust masked any imperfections pretty well. 
 

What Do You Pink?

"On Wednesdays, we wear pink." I love that movie! So, naturally, when deciding what color shirts to wear on which days of the week, we decided on pink for Wednesdays. Going along with my shirt-nails matching theme this week, my nails were also pink.

The pink is Sally Hansen Twisted Pink. I used that as my base color and taped half of my nail off, diagonally, with Scotch tape. I stamped a chevron design in Art Club White from BM-201 and removed the tape. Then, on the unstamped half, I used China Glaze Matte Magic. Down the edge of the stamped design, I made a glittery border using Art Club Fine Silver. 

This is my favorite manicure of the week, so far. 

Green With Envy

Today was green shirt Tuesday at work so my nails were also green! Not just any green. Essie Mojito Madness which just so happens to be the exact same shade of green as my shirt!

The only polishes I used are Mojito Madness and Sally Hansen Black Out. I started with Black Out on my thumb and pinky and Mojito Madness on my index, middle, and ring fingers. I added a small black metal stud to my middle fingers and secured it with a thick coat of Seche Vite. The stripes were made using striping tape and the polka dots with a large dotting tool.

Orange You Glad?

So, we have this thing at work called purple shirt day. It's exactly what it sounds like. A bunch of us all have the exact same purple shirt and we all wear it to work on Fridays. My boss and I thought it would be fun to assign a shirt color to every day of the week. Well, I also thought it would be fun to have my manicure match my shirt every day this week. Mondays, I wear orange. Orange just so happens to be my favorite color, so I was excited to do an orange manicure!

The base color is Wet n Wild Private Viewing. I topped that with China Glaze Fairy Dust. I free-handed the tips in OPI A Roll in the Hague. Then, because I decided that I wanted the tips to sparkle, too, I added another coat of Fairy Dust.

I am thrilled with the way this turned out. I spent most of the day staring down at my nails. I was so tempted to just keep this on as long as it would last. I can't, though, because they won't match my green shirt tomorrow. :)

Movies and Manis

Friday was Movies and Manicures night again. We are smack in the middle of the 90s in our chronological Disney Classics. Some of my favorites are in this stretch. Anyway, here are the girls' nails:
 

For Heather's neon yin-yang nails, we used a base coat of Sally Hansen White On. The pink is Funky Fingers Power Play and the purple is Funky Fingers Riot.

Trisha wanted red and gold so I used Julep Myrtle for the red. The gold is Butter London The Full Monty and I accented with Wet n Wild The Gold and The Beautiful.

 

More Studs...

I love these studs! Seriously. I spend way more time than I'm proud to admit quite a bit of time thinking of ideas for studded manicures. They're so fun and with minimal effort, you get a really edgy design.

Okay, so this took a little more than minimal effort. I started with OPI It's My Year as the base color. I don't use this color nearly often enough. Every time I do, I remember that it's one of my favorites. When it was dried, I used Scotch tape and Sally Hansen White On to make the checker squares. I topcoated and placed my studs while still wet. Last, I finished with a thick coat of topcoat to make sure the studs didn't budge. 

Sweater Vests?

I got some studs from The Born Pretty Store and I've been a little obsessed with them ever since. Now, this design was intended to go in a completely different direction. I started, and then realized that I didn't have time to do what I wanted. I had already done the chevron half moons, so I threw on some studs to make it look like I meant to make this manicure. ;)

The base color is Sally Hansen Slick Slate. I taped off the chevrons and used Sally Hansen White On. After topcoating, I added green rhinestone studs and more topcoat. 

It wasn't until the next day that I realized that they look like tiny little sweater vests! I love them!

Just a Quickie: The Girls' Nails

Gradient colors: Sally Hansen White On, Essie Mojito Madness, Sally Hansen Blue Me Away
Glitter: Pure Ice Watch Me Go

 Sally Hansen Silver Sweep & Sally Hansen Black Out

Just a Quickie: Tiny Flowers

 

Base Colors: ORLY Jealous, Much? topped with Nubar 2010

Flowers: ORLY Fancy Fuchsia Julep Charlotte

Rhinestone Studs came from the Born Pretty Store

Despicable Me 2!

When Despicable Me came out, it quickly became one of my favorite movies. The minions are hilarious! And Agnes? Adorable! I LOVE THAT MOVIE! When I found out that they were making a sequel, I almost died! Then, I came across this on Pinterest! I instantly knew I had to recreate it! Well, tonight, I'm going to see Despicable Me 2 and this is what I'm wearing!

I used SO many colors for this. Most are mixes but for the yellow, I used Julep Charlie. The black details are Art Club Black and the white is Sally Hansen White On. When I finishes, I used a Sharpie pen to draw some hair!

This took me somewhere around an hour and a half. I only did one hand. I have a lot of time, but not three hours, ha ha! I couldn't be happier, though, with the way this turned out. It's definitely near the top of my favorite mani list.

Just a Quickie : The Girls' Nails

Base colors: Wet n Wild I Red a Good Book, Funky Fingers Atomic Poppy, Julep Charlie, NYC High Line Green, Sally Hansen Blue Me Away, Funky Fingers Power Play
Topped with Pure Ice Private Show

 

Base colors: Funky Fingers Highlighter, ORLY Fancy Fuchsia

Stamping: Art Club Black, BM-201 

Lisa Frank!?

I've been a bad bad blogger. I've been on vacation (tomorrow is my first day back to work) and blogging has been kinda put on the back-burner. I've been doing nail stuff, I just haven't been posting it. Sorry.

Friday, Hubby and I went to the Zoo! It was so much fun and the weather was almost perfect; just a little humid. Before we went, I wanted to do a zoo themed manicure. I bought a t-shirt just for the trip that inspired me. It's a zebra wearing shades with neon rainbow hair. (I meant to take a picture of the shirt, but totally forgot.) Here's the manicure that it inspired!

 I used a base of NYC French White Tip on all nails to make the neons pop. From thumb to pinky I used Funky Fingers Atomic Poppy, Art Club Neon Green, Funky Fingers Riot, Funky Fingers Highlighter, and Funky Fingers Aloha. Believe me, these colors are WAY brighter in person and obnoxious in direct sunlight. The stamping is all done in Art Club Black. The snake print (which is absurdly crooked) is from BM-215, the alligator print is from BM-224, the cow print is from BM-222, the leopard print is from BM-221, and the zebra print is from BM-223.

The neons with animal print reminded me so much of the Lisa Frank school supplies that all of us girls loved so much when I was in elementary/middle school! All it needed was some sparkle, so I loaded it up. I used a coat of Nubar 2010 and then China Glaze Fairy Dust. Both of these glitters are fairly subtle until you take them into natural lighting, so they were perfect for the zoo!

4th of July blunder...

So, the girls came over the other night and I did 4th of July themed manicures on all of us. They turned out super cute! The only problem is...I don't have pictures of them. I took pictures, only I forgot to put the memory card in the camera first. And, of course, we lost the cord to the camera a long time ago and never replaced it. 

Fortunately, I did another patriotic manicure on myself for Polishpedia.com and posted it there.

 

If you want to see the Polishpedia post, it's here.  

I hope you all have a super fun, super safe 4th of July!

 

Powerpuff Girls!

My boss' daughter is apparently obsessed with the Powerpuff Girls. She's a girl after my own heart, ha ha! I love the Powerpuff Girls, too! What's not to love? Adorable little super-chicks who kick some major butt! Their arch nemesis, Mojo Jojo, is pretty cute, too. Anyway, a little while back my boss told me I should do a PPG manicure because her little girl would love it. So, here we are!

Aren't they adorable? I used soooo many colors and tools for this nail art. The main colors I used are:

• Wet n Wild Private Viewing
• NYC French White Tip
• Julep Charlie
• Wet n Wild Candylicios
• NYC High Line Green
• Art Club White
• Art Club Black
• Wet n Wild Lavender Creme
• Julep Camille (glitter)

I also made a few custom colors by mixing polishes to get the shades I needed. 
I did everything free-hand using nail art brushes and dotting tools and it took me a REALLY LONG TIME. It's so worth it, though. This turned out fantastic and I think my boss' daughter will get a kick out of it.