31 Days of Manis: Day 30, Pink Wednesday Lasers

I attempted to create a "laser mani" using this tutorial by Nailside. I didn't really take my time with this, but for a rush job I say it's not too bad.

It's Pink Wednesday so I used two coats of OPI DS Signature as my base color hoping that the holo finish would give it a true laser feel. I can't wait to see this out in the sun. Once I put my tape strips down I did one coat of OPI Pink Flamenco and voila. I'll have to do this again when I can take my time and cut my tape strips more evenly.

I can't believe there's only one day left of my 31 day challenge. For the grand finale I get to recreate my favorite challenge mani. I have to look over my pics and see what I want to do. Stay tuned!

31 Days of Manis: Day 29, Inspired by the Supernatural

I couldn't think of anything other than ghosts to do for "supernatural" nails.

 

The base is SpaRitual Sacred Ground and in an attempt to make the ghosts glow in the dark I mixed Sally Hansen Whirlwind White and China Glaze Ghoulish Glow to stamp the ghost image. It sooo did not work. I "charged" the bottle and my nails under the light before turning out the lights, but I could only get the bottle to glow in the dark. I didn't have much time to keep playing around with it, but I'll revisit it at some point. If you have any tips on this feel free to leave a comment.

Well guys, there's just two days left in this challenge. Tomorrow I'll do nails inspired by a tutorial and the last day is to "recreate" my favorite challenge day. I think my challenge buddies L and Kisten resume their challenges today so go check them out too!

31 Days of Manis: Day 28, The Golden Arrowhead

I decided on a tribute to my parents' heritage for my "inspired by a flag" mani. They emigrated from Guyana in the 1970s. I was born in America but they've told me countless stories about their home country. I've never visited, but I hope to one day. Anyway here's my mani, which does absolutely no justice to the Guyana flag know as "The Golden Arrowhead."

The colors in the Guyana flag are symbolic with the green representing agriculture and forests, the white for the country's rivers and water, the gold for mineral wealth, black for endurance, and red for zeal and dynamism.

The green is Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Going Green, the white is Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Whirlwind White, the gold is American Apparel Manilla, the black is Wet n Wild Black Creme and the Red is Wet n Wild Everybody Loves Redmond.

This challenge is really winding down. Tomorrow I'll have nails inspired by the supernatural. After that I have two more manis to complete before this challenge is officially over!

31 Days of Manis: Day 27, Inspired By Artwork

My boyfriend suggested that I use Andy Warhol as the inspiration for my "artwork mani." I googled his body of work to see what I could possibly replicate and "Flowers" seemed easy enough.

 

I used Wet n Wild Black Creme as the base. For the grass stamped an image from MASH plate M64 with Barielle Polished Princess and then "scratched" on a custom mix of one part Orly Enchanted Forest and one part Ulta Sun-Sational with a dotting tool. 

I also used a dotting tool to create the flowers. The pink is Maybelline Pink Passion, the yellow is American Apparel Manilla, the orange is NYC Times Square Tangerine Creme, and the darker pink flower is a mix of Maybelline Pink Passion, NYC Times Square Tangerine Creme, and Essie Silken Cord.

I'm pretty pleased with the way it turned out. Stay tuned for "Flag Day" tomorrow.

31 Days of Manis: Day 26, Inspired By A Pattern

I wasn't exactly sure what to do for a mani inspired by a pattern so I went riffling through my Bundle Monster plates and settled on this design from plate BM-203.

The base color is two coats of China Glaze For Audrey and I stamped using China Glaze Techno Teal.

Sorry for the super quick post guys. I've got to go figure out what kind of artwork is going to inspire tomorrow's mani! 

31 Days of Manis: Day 25, Inspired By Fashion

I'm not that into designers, but when I was thinking about what to do for a mani inspired by fashion Christian Louboutin's iconic "red bottoms" came to mind. So I tried my hand at the "Louboutin Manicure" made famous by Zoe Pocock of the Charles Worthington salon in London.

I used three coats of China Glaze Lubu Heels--a superfine red glitter suspended in a black jelly base--for the top of my nails. For the underside, I used a nail art brush to apply two coats of  Essie Silken Cord. It's awesome and I'm really glad I gave this a shot! Next up, patterned nails.

31 Days of Manis: Day 24, Inspired By A Book

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! 

I wanted to do a Thanksgiving-themed mani that would also fit into today's challenge: inspired by a book.

Google to the rescue! I found this Thanksgiving e-cookbook! It's free and it has some interesting recipes, traditions, decorating ideas.

I never claimed to be good at free hand nail art so be warned. What you are about to see is a hot flippin' mess...

The base color is OPI's Ginger Bells and the sad looking turkey was made with Sally Hasen Insta-Dri Whirlwind White.

I'm going to go eat some carrot cake and hope that tomorrow's mani, which is supposed to be inspired by fashion turns out better.

31 Days of Manis: Day 23, Inspired By A Movie

It's Pink Wednesday, so of course my 'inspired by a movie' nails are dedicated to the official Pink Wednesday movie "Mean Girls!"

I was so excited to fit a Pink Wednesday mani into this challenge. The base color is Sinful Colors Beautiful Girl. The stamping on the top and bottom was done with American Apparel Hassid. The black and white "Burn Book" emblem was created with black and white nail art paints I bought from B-F Beauties Factory. For the lip stamp I used Maybelline Sultry Siren.

L and Kisten are on a break from the challenge until after the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, but  Katherine is still going strong so go check out her movie nails. Tomorrow's challenge calls for a mani inspired by a book.

31 Days of Manis: Day 22, Inspired By A Song

As soon as I saw that there was a challenge day to create a mani based on a song I knew I was going to use Prince & The New Generation "Diamonds and Pearls." I freaking love this song and I had been dying to use these pearly white gems and these clear rhinestones I bought from an eBay seller over the summer.

The song is an umptempo ballad about love, so I used American Apparel's Hassid as my base color and went to town with the rhinestones and pearls--creating a heart on my index finger, an arrow on my middle finger, Prince's symbol--yes that's what that's supposed to be--on my ring finger and a triple strand "diamond/pearl necklace" on my pinky. Not pictured is my thumb that I left plain black. This mani doesn't nearly do justice to this song, but I'm okay with it.

And for your viewing pleasure I leave you with the "Diamonds and Pearls" video. Enjoy it with me, and then go see what songs  L and  Katherine were inspired by. 

 

I'll be wracking my brain for some kind of mani inspired by a movie. 

31 Days of Manis: Day 21, Inspired By A Color

Today's post is inspired by a color, purple to be exact, but my camera and I disagree on what that looks like.

I started with one coat of Ulta Devious. But what you're seeing is way more blue than is true to life. Devious is way more purple than my camera will allow me to show you. And I love this even more because it's opaque in ONE COAT. As gorgeous as this was on its own I decided to add more purple, (because I just love it so). But again, my camera didn't capture its true violet essence...lame camera.

The "paint splatter" stamp was done with Rimmel's Climax and MASH plate M21. 

Tomorrow's challenge mani will be inspired by a song. But for now let's go see what colors  L , Kisten and  Katherine were inspired by. 

31 Days of Manis: Day 20, Water Marbled

So I'm not exactly skilled in the art of water marbling...

I can get the design to look decent in the water...

But my placement is off and it doesn't transfer well to the nail. 

And as you can see I haven't quite figured out how to prevent air bubbles. So frustrating.

I painted my nails with one coat of Orly's Frisky and used Orly's Enchanted Forest and Sally Hansen Bronze Ablaze for the marble design. 

Well let's see if  L , Kisten and  Katherine fared any better with their water marbled manis. Tomorrow is the first day of the last segment of this challenge: inspiration. We have to come up with manis inspired by a color. 

31 Days of Manis: Day 19: Sally Hansen's Galaxy

Galaxy Nails! At first I was worried about creating this look, until I realized that it was just sponging and dots. I can do that! So here's what happened.

 

 I decided to use a bunch of my Sally Hansen nail polishes to create this look.

Here's the gang:

L-R: Barracuda, Lacey Lilac, Black Diamond, Uptempo Plum, Night Lights, Lavender Cloud

And here they are all hanging out on my nails.

Well I'm ready to see what L , Kisten and  Katherine did for their galaxy manis. Tomorrow, the last day of the patterns segment of this challenge, we'll have water marbled nails. Time is flying! I feel like I was just opening my bottle of OPI's Smitten with Mittens for my Day 1 Red Nails.

31 Days of Manis: Day 18, Half Moon

Today’s challenge mani features half moons. 

I used paper reinforcements to create the shape, but I’m not so sure I have the right fingers or nail length to pull this off. At  first I used OPI’s Pepe’s Purple Passion, from the Muppet’s Collection.

 I was hoping to love this but it kept drying to this weird semi-matte finish, even after top coating it with Seche Vite. I gave up and layered OPI’s Teasy-Does It from their 2010 Burlesque collection. 

 I’m still not really feeling this style of mani on me, but the color is much better.

And on that  note, it's time to go see what L , Kisten and  Katherine did for their half moon manis. Tomorrow we'll have galaxy nails.

31 Days of Manis: Day 17 Glitter Nails with Lynnderella Change

Day 17 is all about glitter, so I went straight to my Lynnderella stash. I pulled out Change, from her Funny Money Collection. 

Lynnderella packed Change with gold, silver, pewter, copper, and bronze glitters with flecks of holographic gold into a very sparkly gold base.

I layered Change over two coats of Revlon's Carbonite.

 I gotta say despite my initial fanfare over this shade--that was supposed to be a dupe of Chanel's Graphite--I gotta say the Revlon falls flat. It doesn't have that extra blingy quality that Graphite does.

However I must say that it provides a nice base for Change. Shoutout to selkins from MakeupAlley who recommended layering Change over Carbonite. It is indeed an awesome combo!

Lynnderella's blog shop is opening again this weekend and she's having one additional shopping day at some point during Thanksgiving weekend. If you happen to miss her either time, remember Llarowe starts selling her creations in December!

Alrighty my friends, let's go see what L , Kisten and  Katherine did for their glitter manis. Tomorrow we'll have half moon manis.

31 Days of Manis: Day 16 Tribal Print

It's day 16 and I have tribal nails and I hate them. I knew this day was going to give me trouble--and I used a stamp! Oy!

Not feeling these at all :(

The best part about this mani was the base color: Nicole by OPI Kim-pletely in Love.

All that aqua shimmer you see in the bottle really does show up on the nail. That's at three coats. 

Yes I still have visible nail line.

But then I ruined it using Khloe Had A Little Lam Lam to stamp the image from Bundle Monster's plate BM-221. Don't get me wrong the color is banging and the formula was really smooth, but using it for the design completely overpowered the pink base. 

And in my effort to camouflage my poor stamping job I filled in some of the corners of my nails with the NOPI color. Uh, I'm not even sure if this counts as tribal. Oh well. There's always tomorrow---GLITTER nails day!!

Now let's head on over to see what L , Kisten and  Katherine came up with for their tribal print nails.

31 Days of Manis: Day 15: Delicate Print

It's Day 15--so that means I'm halfway through this challenge! Wooo hoo! I went way shimmery for today's delicate nails mani.

It reminds me of the trim on this set of china my mom has and only pulls out for during the holidays.

I started out with three coats of Nicole by OPI It's All About the Glam from the Kardashian Kolors collection over one coat of Nail Life "Hide Ridges" Ridge Filling Base Coat. It's All About The Glam is really sheer, but builds up nicely and it has just the right amount of white, pink and blue shimmer to keep it really soft and neutral.

  I bought it at Wal-mart over the weekend and I'm glad I caved into my lemming. Initially when I found the Kardashian Kolors collection I left this beauty behind. I couldn't get it out of my mind, and then when I started seeing all the swatches of it I knew I had to go back and grab it. I'm such a sucker for white nail polishes that don't make me look like I've been playing in White-Out. 

I stamped the image from plate 21 of the original Bundle Monster set 

using Orly's Glitz and Glamour from their 2010 Tis The Season Holiday 2010 Collection. I love this gold on me. It's a very warm yellow-toned gold and it has this foily/shimmery finish that sparkles like crazy! 

Join me as I hop on over to see what L , Kisten and  Katherine did for their delicate pattern manis. Tomorrow we venture into tribal prints.

31 Days of Manis: Day 14: Flowers feat. Wet N Wild It's All In The Cut

I can't believe two weeks of this challenge have already gone by! I guess time flies when you're having fun though. Anyway, on to the show:  my flower print mani!

Originally I wanted to recreate this Minx look but last night when I was in Walgreens I finally found Wet N Wild's Ice Baby Collection. So I threw that idea by the wayside in favor of this sparkly gem.

I did two coats of Wet N Wild It's All About the Cut. As you can see there's lavender and pink glitter in this baby, but my picture isn't showing you all of it's sparkling glory. In certain angles you can make out the rainbow glitter as well. One thing I must mention is that this glitter dries a bit gritty, so you definitely need a good top coat to smooth it out. My favorite glitter smoothing combo is using one coat of Gelous base coat followed by one to two coats of Seche Vite. I used American Apparel's Hassid to stamp the flower image from plate M26 from a Mash 25 piece set that I bought on Amazon last summer.

I'll have to do some swatches for you guys of the rest of the collection. Wet N Wild's Ice Baby Collection is from their Color Icon line and is exclusive to Walgreens. They retail for $2.99, but make sure to look in the beauty department for their Holiday Coupon Book. There's a $1 off coupon in there for Wet N Wild products $2.99 and up.

I'm off to check out what L , Kisten and  Katherine did for their flower print manis while I think up what to do for tomorrow's delicate print mani. Have a happy Monday!

31 Days of Manis: Day 13: Elephunk Skin

I went riffling through my stash looking for inspiration for animal print nails day. I came across Funky Fingers Elephunk and I instantly knew I had to do elephant skin nails. Elephants don't get love like zebras, cheetahs, and leopards do, but they're still an important part of the jungle. Anyway here's my take on it.

I used two coats of Elephunk. It's a medium gray with a hint of lilac and has this great silver shimmer running all through it.

I used Pure Ice Kiss Me Here to stamp the pattern using image plate C05 from this Beauties-Factory 10-piece set. 

 This image is tiny! I had to stamp each nail about seven billion times to cover the nail. LOL. Okay not really--it was about six times per nail.(But I'd do it all again and I will when I can wear it for more than one day!) The best part though is that even if you overlap the stamps you cannot mess this up! 

And the final look again.

I'm so in love with this, I don't want to take this off. Alright. I'm off to scour my image plates for ideas for tomorrow's flower print mani. In the meantime do check out
L , Kisten and  Katherine for their animal print manis!

31 Days of Manis: Day 12: Stripes

It's day 12! Are you ready for some stripes? Well here you go! 

I used two coats of Essie Nice is Nice from the Spring 2011 French Affair Collection as my base. It's such a nice soft lavender creme. My stripping was done with Kiss Brush-On Nail Art Paint in Soft Blue and Milani Nail Art in Purple Outline. I love the way the Purple Outline sparkles against those cremes.

This is where my freehand nail art ends, as tomorrow is Animal Print Nails Day. LOL. I'm going to go check out what L , Kisten and  Katherine did for their stripped manis and you should too! I hope you guys are having a great weekend!

31 Days of Manis: Day 11 Polka Dots

Hey guys! I can't believe I'm already in the second segment of this 31 day mani challenge. Next up: ten days of patterns. Today is Polka Dots.

I was going to be lazy and stamp a polka dot print from my Bundle Monster BM 19 image plate, but I realized that the design was too small for my nails so I went ahead and pulled out my dotting tool.

I started with two coats of American Apparel California Trooper. I didn't expect to like this shade on me, because it's beige and well as you can see I'm really brown. I thought it would be too stark against my skin tone, but it turns out it really works for me. Call me surprised.

I did the polka dots using OPI's Suzi Loves Cowboys from their spring 2011 Texas Collection. It's a nice chocolate brown creme.

Doesn't this look like chocolate chip cookie dough? Mmmmm cookie dough.

Don't forget to go see my friends:  L , Kisten and  Katherine.

Tomorrow we'll have stripes! 

31 Days of Manis: Day 10: Blued Out

It's day 10, gradient nails day. It's also the last in the color segment of this challenge. Patterns are up next.

I went with a blue theme because although I keep buying blue nail polishes I rarely reach for them and this challenge is about getting me out of my box.

I used the sponging technique and I should also mention that this was my first time doing a gradient mani.

Not too shabby eh?

Here's the "Blue Crew"

China Glaze Snow Globe, OPI What's With the Cattitude, OPI Ogre-The-Top-Blue, OPI Ski Teal We Drop.

And a close up:

Tomorrow I'll have a polka dot mani for ya, but while you wait go visit my buds  L , Kisten and  Katherine

 to see their gradient nails. 

31 Days of Manis: Day 9: Taste the Rainbow

Hey guys! It's Day 9, Rainbow nails day. I'm no good with freehand nail art, so I opted for a rainbow skittles mani using tape!

Oh look it's my rarely seen thumb!

I started with a base of one of my favorite glitters of all time OPI, Spark de Triomphe. It was a part of one of the Glam Slam! France duos OPI released with Serena Williams in May. It has a mix of large silver and gold hex glitter and smaller silver and gold square glitter. This glitter right here...this glitter right here....y'all. I even bought a backup. And I'm seriously considering getting a third.

I did two coats here and topped it off with one coat of Gelous base coat (it helps it to not "eat" my top coat and give you a smooth surface to work with) and then I added one coat of Seche Vite to speed the drying process.

I pulled out a bunch of jelly/sheer polishes and some tape and got to work!

L-R: Wet n Wild Everybody Loves Redmond, OPI Y'all Come Back Ya Hear?, Milani Lemongello, Sinful Colors Irish Green Revlon Royal, Milani Rad Purple

Index: Wet n Wild Everybody Loves Redmond & OPI Y'all Come Back Ya Hear? Middle: Milani Lemongello & Sinful Colors Irish Green. Ring: Revlon Royal & Milani Rad Purple.

I love how you still get to see the glitter underneath the colors. I painted in ROYGBIV order, using tape to get a straight line down the middle. I put the tape down the center of my nail leaving one half exposed. Then I paint with my color of choice.

I pull the tape off as soon as I'm satisfied with the color payoff, rather than waiting for it to dry. This usually gives me a cleaner line.Once that half of the nail was dry, I carefully painted the other half making sure not to overlap the straight edge from the tape.

Tip: stick the tape on your hand and lift it up a few times to take off some of the stickiness before you stick it on your nail. This will help with removal and prevent the tape from pulling up the polish underneath.

For my thumb and pinky nails I used Milani Gems and China Glaze Liquid Leather.

I love how you can see some of the gold shine through even on the Liquid Leather part of the nails.

L, Kisten and  Katherine have been knocking this challenge out of the park, so I know their Rainbow nails are fierce. Tomorrow we take on Gradient Nails.