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

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

Candy Stripes

The kids really loved this one!  It didn't come out exactly as I had planned (I was hoping for more, thinner stripes) because of the thickness of the brushes, but I still think it came out really well!  One of the kiddos smelled my nails (and probably would have tried licking them a second later) so I guess I will take that as a success!

P.S. Yup- Another gradient!

Products Used:

Zoya America

Wet n Wild 449C (note to self- unpack the rest of your nailpolishes, it has been 6 months since the move!)

Monochromatic Ombre/Gradient

Can't get enough of the gradients!  I love black and white so I figured why not do a monochromatic one?  I think it looks pretty fantastic... so much so that I might repeat this design, and I never do that.  I think this would be great to wear with a little black dress.

Products Used:

Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in White Out

Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Wet Cement

Zoya Kelly

Wet n Wild Wild Shine in Black Creme

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

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

Fire!!!

I saw this design floating around and I decided to try my shot at it... I decided to use Zoya's America (my absolute favorite red) to go along with China Glaze's Electrify.  I love how it came out, it's probably one of my most favorite designs ever.

Products Used:

Zoya America

China Glaze Electrify

Sally Hansen Nail Art Pen in Black

Harry Potter Premiere

I went to see Harry Potter last night.  The movie was awesome, and so was using it as an excuse to make some fun new things!  I painted these nails on Tuesday, which was pretty ambitious of me (believing that they'd last that long), but the good news is... they did survive!  With only a few small chips.

Once again, the design looked much much better in my mind than in actuality.  I was inspired by the last battle between Harry and Voldemort, shown here:

Here's what I ended up with:

Ignore that black splotch, it's fabric paint from the t-shirt I made

If you can't tell, it's supposed to be the two wands and their stream/spells reaching across and colliding together.  And on my thumbs I have HP in gold and silver.  

I think it turned out ok.  My friends really loved it.  I also tried a splatter background for the first time, and I think with practice that's going to be a new technique I use fairly often.  

Also thanks to my awesome fiance for taking these (and bout 40 other) photos for me, since it was impossible for me to do.  

Products used:

Zoya Kelly

Sally Hansen Insta-Dri in Pronto Purple

Sally Hansen Hard as Nails in Wet Cement

Pure Ice in Frosted Ice Celestial

LA Girl Disco Brites in Can U Dig It?

LA Colors Art Deco in Bright Green

Sally Hansen Nail Art Pens in Silver, Gold and Red

Seche Vite Topcoat