Another Gradient

Man, I know.  I do a lot of gradients.  It's because I'm lazy, and they look good, and there's an absolutely endless amount of color combinations that you can use.  They're wonderful.  Hugs and rainbow sherbet to  the person who invented sponge gradient manis. 

For this one, I chose the boldest colors I could find at the time.  It ended up being royal blue, purple, and neon pink.  I think they look really great together- kind of cohesive- and are super bold, which is what I wanted at the time.  Awesome for summer.

Boom.  Brights.

Products Used:
Revlon Royal
China Glaze Gothic Lolita
Venique I'm a Sucker for Wedges
Zoya (as base coat) Purity

Game Day Nails!

The skins are in the playoffs so... party like it's the Superbowl!  I did some game day nails for the game this afternoon.  This was really fun!

Products Used:

China Glaze Merry Berry

Spoiled Designated Driver

Wet n Wild 449C

China Glaze Electrify

Essie As Gold As It Gets

Milani Jewel FX in Gold

LA Colors Art Deco in White

Rainbow Dot Nails

I've seen this style floating around the Internet lately, and seeing as how I can't let a rainbow pass me by, I decided to give it a shot.  I received a set of dotting tools for Christmas- yay!- so this was my first shot at using them!  Very cool!

Not too shabby!  There's a few things I would do differently next time, but overall I think it was fun and bright and cute for the end of 2012!

Products Used:

LA Girl Matte Black

Zoya America

Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Sun Kissed

Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Lightening

China Glaze Gaga for Green

Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Brisk Blue

China Glaze Gothic Lolita

My Christmas Day Nails- Snowflakes and Santas

Stamps and freehand!  I haven't done either in a long, long time.  I loved these for Christmas, and my family loved them too!  I got an entire set of dotting tools today, so expect some polka dot manis in the future!

Santas!

Bonus Phone Pic:

Products Used:

China Glaze Electric Beat

Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Silver Sweep

Essie Pure Pearlfection

BM 14

SH 17

Zoya America

Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Petal Pusher

China Glaze Dance Baby

Wet n Wild 449C

Long Time, No Blog- Winter Gradient

Wow ok so the last time I posted was in August.  I've been awful.  Terrible.  Working two jobs plus my etsy shop has really been kicking my butt, so much so that I hardly even have time to paint my nails at all, let alone do anything worth blogging about!  So I'm hoping to start managing my time a little better and to step my nail game up.  The holiday has really inspired me to get crackin- not to mention I am getting MARRIED in 5 months and really need to knock this nail biting habit by then.  So here's hoping I kick off and keep this thing going!  Starting off with yet another gradient--

Awww yea.  It's no secret that I love a good gradient.  They're super fast, super easy (minus the cleanup) and they look like you spent a ton of time on them.  I got a bunch of compliments today at job #1, so I would consider that a success.  Although they chipped after a day and a half- I blame that on super short stubby nails.  I really love these colors for winter- I wanted to do silver snowflakes or polka dots on top but I just loved them the way they were.  Maybe next time!

Products Used:

Revlon Top Speed Royal

China Glaze Electric Beat
Essie Borrowed and Blue

Summer Pastel Arrow/Chevron Manicure

I got tired of doing dots, so I decided to go with the latest trend- chevron stripes!  Except that this one doesn't repeat the pattern, so does that just make it a pointy stripe?  Or an arrow?  Can a chevron stripe be singular?

Yea I freehanded this and it's pretty obvious, huh?

Products Used:

China Glaze Peachy Keen

China Glaze Sweet Hook

Revlon Minted

Rainbow Dots!

This one was super simple but still one of my favorite looks when finished!  UNFORTUNATELY.  The color I chose to use as my base- Stone Cold from China Glaze's Capitol Colors collection- purely exists to make me SO MAD.  It is a gorgeous, gorgeous color.  It's all metallic and glimmery and gorgeous when matte and even moreso with a top coat.  But the formula is so bad!  I mentioned it briefly before. but it seriously chips within literal minutes of drying!  It doesn't seem to matter what I do- basecoat, no basecoat, top coat, no topcoat, whatever.  I look down and then realize that my nails are all chipped up and I just painted then an hour ago.  Talk about frustrating!  In order to take these photos I had to completely redo my thumb and pointer finger, got back to my computer and realized that the pinky finger was all chipped to hell also!  So I just covered up the chips and went to redo the pictures.  Bah!  China Glaze is probably my favorite brand.  But this particular color is just a pain in my side.

Anyway, wow, what a long-winded rant.  Onto the photos!

                       

Products Used:
China Glaze Stone Cold
Zoya America
Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Sun Kissed
China Glaze Sunshine Pop
China Glaze Gaga for Green
Sally Hansen Insta-Dri in Brisk Blue
China Glaze Gothic Lolita

Watercolor/Tie-Dye (Picture Heavy)

Something a little different!  I asked the fiance what colors I should use, so credit goes to him.  I think they came off super awesome- pastel colors are more like a watercolor, and though this is the exact same effect I feel like these brights make it more like tie-dye!  Either way, I'm super obsessed with the way they look, and although I did a pretty crappy job with cleanup, I think this is one of my new favorites (along with gradients). What do you think??

Products Used:

Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear White On (base)

Zoya America

China Glaze Dance Baby

Revlon Royal

5 Minute Mani: Simple Stripes (creamsicle again!)

Something about a pastel-ish orange paired with white is just so, so summery to me.  It has to be the association with Creamsicles.  Anyway, here's a super quick mani that I wore to a baseball game last night- got complimented by the girl at the counter when I went and got some nachos, so you know they're good ;)

Products Used:

China Glaze Peachy Keen

LA Colors Art Deco in White

Quick Neutral/Neon Polka Dot Mani

I figured I probably shouldn't do ANOTHER gradient even if I love them to death, so I went another direction.  I was gifted a nail dotting tool by one of my friends so I figured I'd give that a shot.  I've been using toothpicks for the past, I dunno, 26 years when I need to make dots on my nails, so I thought the dotting tool would just make it that much easier.  Lo and behold, I kinda suck at nail dotting tools.  I am sooo not used to it- but I think this is just going to be one of those practice makes perfect deals.

Products Used:
Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Wet Cement
China Glaze Sunshine Pop
China Glaze Fuchsia Fanatic

Another Gradient- Creamsicle

I loved the last one so much that I did another one!  I asked the fiance "brights or pastels?" and he said pastels, so I chose some lighter-but still summery- colors.  My dad said it looks like a creamsicle, and the waitress when we had dinner said she loved my nails and asked to see them- so I think I would call this a success!  Officially in love with the idea of gradient manicures now.

Products Used:

China Glaze Peachy Keen

Essie Borrowed & Blue