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

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

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

Tropical Brights Gradient

Every now and then I get into a super rut with my nails.  Usually when I'm super stressed out about something.  This one started with our move, and hasn't ended yet.  With moving in, unpacking, applying for jobs, having job interviews... My nails have really taken a beating.  As have my poor cuticles.  In these times of crisis, there's really only one way to get myself back on top of my game- I have to spend a long time doing something cool with my nails (here is just one example).  Normally I try to do something freehand, or water marble.  It's time consuming and (usually) looks pretty awesome, and knowing that I spent a lot of time and effort on a certain design is the ONLY thing that can override my need to nibble when I'm stressed.  So this morning I spent two hours (yup) doing my nails with a pretty sweet, tropical bright gradient mani.  It took so long because I used a white base coat first, and then redid my entire left hand because I didn't like the way it turned out.  Plus, cleanup was just awful.  But anyway, enough with the words and the sad stories- onto the pics!

I really needed these brights today- you can see the 

rain droplets in the picture!

Products Used:

Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in White Out (basecoat)

Orly Fabulous Flamingo

Zoya America

Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Sun Kissed

4th of July mani for the beach

Me and the fiance and the fam are headed to the ocean this week.  I figure this mani won't last all the way till the 4th, but I'll bring polish to do another one when it chips off.  I thought this turned out pretty cute- like a little soldier's outfit or something.  For last year's mani check out this link.

Products Used:

Zoya America

Revlon Royal

LA Colors Art Deco in White

Peachy Chevron for a Beachy Feel- 2 Weeks of China Glaze

Like I mentioned before, we are having some much needed sunny weather here in Oregon these past few days, and that has put me in the mood for some BEACH.  One of my favorite summer colors is Peachy Keen.  It just feels so happy to me.  So I knew I wanted to use it, but I wasn't sure what I wanted to do with it... when I went through my stamping plates and discovered the chevron-ish stripes on Bundle Monster plate 201.  Sold!  I grabbed one of my metallics (GREAT for stamping) and hopped to it.  I was hoping the stripes would come out more blue, but I think it looks just fine as this silvery color.

Products used:

China Glaze Peachy Keen

China Glaze Devotion

Bundle Monster plate 201

So now a few questions for you guys- what's your favorite summer shade?  And what are your thoughts on chevron stripes- just a fad, or here to stay, and do you love em or think they are overdone?  

China Glaze Peachy Keen

This has been on my wishlist for quite some time now, and I finally decided to go out and grab it... and MAN am I glad I did!  It skyrocketed right to the top 5 of my favorite colors!

Ugh, it is so gorgeous.  Definitely a fun color that I will still be able to wear to work in the fall!  I wish I didn't have to take it off, but I'm trying out colors for engagement photos tomorrow!  Yay!

Swatch: Sally Hansen Hard Lemonade

Previous to this, I only had three yellows in my collection!  I like this one- it's more pastel than some of the other yellows I've had my eye on, but it's lovely in its own way.  Typical problems I've had with most yellows- streaky, needs like 3 coats to opaque, etc.  But still!  Pretty.

Inside, with flash

Inside, no flash

Lovely, right?!  

Sally Hansen Hard as Nails in Hard Lemonade

Stars and Stripes (and Fireworks) Forever!

Happy Birthday, America!  I couldn't decide what design I wanted to do.. So I did them all!

Products used:
Sally Hansen Insta-Dri in: Lightening, Whirlwind White, Rapid Red, Brisk Blue, Silver Sweep
NYC: Black Lace Creme
L.A. Colors Art Deco: White
Base/Top Coat: Sally Hansen Double Duty
Bundle Monster Plates: BM02 and BM20

As Promised

We had one day of sunshiney warm weather here that got me SO EXCITED for summer that I had to do some white nails.  To make it look a little bit less like white-out/liquid paper, I decided to add a little bit of sparkle to it.  I think it has a really nice subtle shimmer that looks excellent in person and was difficult as all get out to actually capture with the camera.

Please please please ignore my terrible cuticles

Products used:

Sally Hansen Insta-Dri: Whirlwind White

Cover Girl Boundless Color: Crystal Mist

Polka Dots Feather Mani in Yellow

Living in Oregon is tough sometimes.  It's so dreary and rainy 9 months out of the year, and I'm pretty sure March broke a record for being particularly cold and rainy.  And April isn't off to a good start.. it was hailing today!  So I thought I needed some bright spring/summer color in my life to get me through this.  I tried my hand at a feather manicure.  It was way more difficult than I had planned, but the good news is that I learned very quickly (the second hand I did was exponentially better than the first).  So here's a few photos to share!

Left

Right

Left again

So I did my left hand first and here's what I learned: definitely trim up the feather as closely as you can to the shape of your nail before sticking it on the nail.  Putting on a layer of SV and then smushing the feather on did NOT work for me.  I ended up using Elmer's glue to glue it down and SV to really stick it.  On my left hand, I used two feathers because my first feather ended up kind of misshapen and wonky and didn't cover the whole nail (due to me struggling to get it to stick) so be sure that your feather is big enough!  My right hand surprisingly (because I was using my bad hand) came out better.  The feather looked nicer and covered most of the nail.  My only problem is that I had a difficult time trimming it up and it had some sharp edges hanging off- I used a nail file to get at those bits after applying my topcoat.

Other than that, I think it came out pretty well!  The feathers that I bought came in a multitude of colors, so I definitely will try this again sometime.

Products used:

Sally Hansen Insta-Dri in Lightening

SV topcoat

Elmer's glue

Creatology Feather Plumes from Michael's