Bright Colorful Stripes

The nail art fable: 

I was in the mood for some stripey nails to match the nice weather we've been having lately. I grabbed some nail vinyls and got to work. One nail went perfectly, and then things started going downhill. I was determined to make it work so I kept going. Things just got worse and worse and I started to get impatient. I really loved the color combination so I didn't give up. In the end, I patched things up and came out with something somewhat decent to share.

The moral of the story: Sometimes it's easier to start over, but I'm lazy.

Conversation Hearts Nails

Happy Valentine's Day! I'm a sappy romantic so I love the holiday. I love celebrating love; not just romantic love. I bought a gift for my bestie, too, because I love her to bits. 

For my Valentine's Day nails, I thought I'd recreate the most iconic V-Day candy. Conversation hearts! I can't be the only person who thinks that they're disgusting, though, right?

Christmas Movie Nails

When I decided to do this 12 days of Christmas nail art thing, I knew right away that I wanted to do one design based on a Christmas movie. The thing is, there are SOOOO many Christmas movies out there! You've got your Christmas Classics like It's a Wonderful Life, White Christmas, and A Christmas Story. There are those awesome old Christmas claymations like A Year Without Santa Clause, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, and Santa Clause is Coming to Town. But then you've got those newer movies that become instant classics.

It didn't take me long to chose a movie. Can you tell what it is? I'll give you a hint...
"Bye, Buddy! Hope you find your dad!"

Born Pretty Review

Another Born Pretty review for you guys! This is my favorite type of nail art product from their site; their stamping plates. I have yet to be disappointed with one and this one is no exception.

*I received this product in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are mine.

31DC2016 Day 27 - Inspired by Art

I have a memory from my childhood of my mother doing this art project with me and my sister. We would take strands of yarn and dip them into paint and lay them onto a piece of paper in squiggly patterns with the ends hanging off of the edge, place another piece of paper on top and then squish them into a book. Then we would pull the yarn out by the ends hanging out of the book. When all the yarn is pulled out and you peel apart the paper sheets, you're left with a really cool and unique painted piece of abstract artwork. 

I thought it would be fun to recreate this as nail art and I am crazy about how it turned out!

31DC2016 Day 25 - Inspired by Fashion

I always enjoy this prompt in the challenge. I usually choose a Betsey Johnson design to base a mani on but I wanted to do something different this time around. I chose a design from Arthur Arbesser's 2017 Spring ready-to-wear line.

31DC2016 Day 6 - Violet Nails

I love purple. I always forget how much I actually like it until I wear it again. Every shade is so pretty. I love color in general though, so I get this excited about just about all of them. 

Anyway, it's violet day so I just grabbed a couple of polishes and slapped them on. Nothing special except some pretty colors and sparkle.

31DC2016 Day 4 - Green Nails

The prompt for the fourth day is green nails and, let me just say, I had such a difficult time coming up with an idea for a design. I just could not choose anything that I liked enough to do. Eventually, I decided to just keep it simple. I chose two colors and ended up doing an easy cling wrap marble.  

Neon Gradient

Boy, oh, boy! It's hot! It's in the 90s here in Michigan and it's just so darn humid! I guess the heat wouldn't be SO bad if it wasn't for the humidity. I work at 5am and when I walked outside this morning (at 4:45) it was well over 70 degrees and steamy. Like, almost sauna steamy! Ugh! 

I, personally, HATE summer weather. I don't like heat, I don't like being uncomfortable, and I don't like sweating because of the heat. 

Summer does, however, bring out my love of neons. I'm all about bright eye shadow and bright nails! I got an urge to throw on a neon gradient mani so that's just what I did.

Just a Quickie: Glitter and Stripes

Essie Splash of Grenadine (Purple)

Essie Bikini So Teeny (Blue)

China Glaze  Prism (Glitter)

Simple Fall Stripes

The weather, here in Michigan, has been delightfully Autumnal over the last few days. It's the type of weather that makes you want to curl up with a giant mug of coffee and a soft blanket. It's also put me in the mood for darker, bolder nail polish colors. I have several colors that make me think of Fall but when I sat down to do my nails, I knew exactly which color I wanted to use.

Blobbicure

So I used to call this technique "dry spotted" because I thought it had the effect of water spotting without the mess. But I've seen tons of other bloggers call it a blobbicure. Well, I think blobbicure is WAY more fun to say. And anytime you can take two words and make a fun new one that also perfectly sums up what you're doing, that's a win in my book!

Now for those of you who are unfamiliar with the technique, it's super simple. You drip blobs of nail polish onto freshly painted nails of another color. 

Sunset, Stamping, & Studs

I have a thing about the sky. I love nature, in general, but I really love the sky. Whenever I tote my camera around you'll probably see me snapping photos of the sun, moon, clouds, anything sky related. If I see some remarkable clouds or a sunset or a sunrise, I'll probably snap some with my phone. Well, the other day hubby called me to come outside and check out the sky. There was a storm rolling in and the storm clouds were covering up a sunset sky. The clouds had turned a brilliant red color. It was stunning.

This manicure is inspired by that sunset. Well, it started that way, anyhow. I sat down intending to do a stormy sunset gradient. But I couldn't get the colors to blend the way I wanted them to. So I changed the colors. It snowballed from there but the end result is pretty great.

31dc2014 Day 19 - Galaxy

I've done several galaxy designs in the past so I really wanted to do something different this time around. So, I figured I could give pastel galaxies a try. I've seen them around the blogiverse but never tried them out for myself. What's a 31 day challenge for if not to make you try new things?

31dc2014 Day 14 - Flowers

Since I used my favorite animal as inspiration for yesterday's post, I thought it appropriate to use my favorite flower for today's. I love lilies; specifically Tiger Lilies. I also love Stargazer Lilies. But I've seen so many lily nail art designs out there, I decided to find another kind of flower. I browsed a flower glossary website for a while and, as you can imagine, there were TONS of flowers to choose from. I was looking at all of the gorgeous, intricate flowers when suddenly...

...THIS beauty jumped out at me! Instantly, I knew this was the one. It's such a simple bloom. But that, in combination with the gorgeous foliage, was what drew me in. It's called Purple Shamrock!

31dc2914 Day 13 - Animal Print

I knew from the get-go that I wanted to do something different for this day of the 31 day challenge. No zebra or leopard here. I did some research for a while but couldn't come up with an animal print to do. Then it hit me. Why not do my favorite animal? Enter the Blue Ringed Octopus.

31dc2014 Day 6 - Violet

I was at a loss for what do to for today's prompt. Hubby suggested, "...that thing where you spray alcohol in water and dip your finger in it!" Ha ha. So, water spotting it is! I thought this was an opportune time to use my newest Blurple, OPI Do You Have This Color in Stockholm.

Textured Color Block

As some may notice, I've changed the look of my blog a bit. I wanted a fresh and simpler look. I'm using this revamp as a nudge back into regular blogging. I've been pretty bad about keeping up with my blog but, to be honest, I just haven't been doing my nails as much as I used to. With work, the puppy, and personal stuff, I just haven't been able to do them on a daily basis. This, unfortunately, means that I've also been neglecting my nails a bit, too. I just wasn't caring for them like I should have so they aren't in the best shape.

Well, no more of that! Back to pretty pretty nails and blogging and babying my nails! Now, on to the manicure!

Gradient Stamping

So, I did some awesome nail art a few days ago and I was so proud of it! And then... I lost the photos! :( Terribly upsetting. It was something new and I loved it so much. I'll recreate it soon and post it for all to see. 

Meanwhile, today it crossed my mind that I haven't done any stamping in a while. I decided to slap some stamped nail art onto my digits.

Bright & Springy

I felt extra girly today. I took a little extra time on my makeup, left my hair a little curly and wore a big flower in it, and wore my flirtiest earrings (which perfectly matched the cute turquoise top I wore). So, when it came time to do my nails, I wanted something just as girly. And since it's an absolutely GORGEOUS day, I wanted something floral. As it just so happens, I picked up a pack of nail art decals the other day at the grocery store and one of the designs in it were the perfect flowers for what I had in mind.