31 Day (Week) Challenge - Day 19: Galaxies

Hi everyone!

I have the next 31DC post for you and I was able to make this one because I had to do something with my nails for my trip anyways! And what a better mani to have for a cruise to Alaska! I thought that the galaxies mani could somewhat represent the northern lights as well, so it sort of goes, right?

Anyways, this is going to be a quick post because I need to head out to the airport soon! Take a look at my attempt.

To get this look:

• After applying a trusty base coat, I applied one coat of Sinful Colors Snow Me White because I don't like applying black polish directly to my nails. 
• I followed the white with two coats of Sinful Colors Black On Black.
• Then I used a sponge to sponge on blue polish (Revlon Plunge Pool), lavender polish (Revlon Enchanting), bright pink polish (Revlon Colorstay Wild Strawberry), and yellow polish (Revlon Sunshine Sparkle). After all of that, I went back and added a little bit more of the blue polish.
• I also sponged on some Orly Space Cadet because, well, it has the word "space" in it. I had to use it! Plus the multichrome glitter particles went with the whole look perfectly.
• I also added some silver glitter by applying one coat of Sally Hansen Hard As Nails Ice Queen.
• I sealed everything with a top coat.

This was super easy to create and I love how it turned out! I even did the galaxies on my big toes so I'm totally galaxy-fied!

I've seen other bloggers add white dots to this type of mani too and I tried that out on my toes (I did my toes before my fingers) and I didn't like how it looked on me. Maybe I should have tried to use a light grey instead of white? Who knows. But I like the effect the glitter brings to this look.

Well, there you have it! What do you all think of this? Let me know!! This is my very first attempt at galaxy nails. I've tried sponging in a similar way before but the mani wasn't actually a galaxy mani. So hopefully you all think my first attempt was alright!

I hope you all have an amazing couple of weeks and I'll see you all once I get back!

Weekly Challenge - Cocktail: "Shaken, Not Stirred"

Hi everyone!

Today is the last day for cocktail week! Something that I always think of when I hear the word "cocktail" is James Bond. Therefore, today's mani is inspired by 007! Two aspects of James Bond in particular served as my inspiration for this manicure:

http://scifipulse.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/Bond_gunbarrel.jpg / http://0.tqn.com/d/cocktails/1/I/5/L/-/-/94116773_9.jpg

The first is the shot (no pun intended) of James Bond through a gun barrel and the second is the Vesper Martini, which James Bond always orders "shaken, not stirred" and claims to have created.

It's a rag tag mani but I think it works together just because I believe the main aspects of Bond were captured.

To get this look:

• Thumb: I tried to create the gun barrel by using Revlon Silver Screen as the base polish and Sally Hansen Nail Art Pen Black for the swirls. I also used Sinful Colors Snow Me White to make a white hole in the middle to show the open end of the barrel (the thumb was a bit of a fail; I tried to create a gun pointing back to towards the barrel, but I couldn't figure out how to do it in that small of a space).
• Pointer: The logo of James Bond "007" has to be in a JB mani! I used Revlon Top Speed Golden as the base polish and then used Sally Hansen Nail Art Pen Black to write 007. I had to add some "bling," aka glitter, so I used Sally Hansen Gem Crush Lady Luck.
• Middle: James Bond is always in a tux or a nice suit so I had to include that! I made the tuxedo using Sinful Colors Snow Me White and Sinful Colors Black On Black.
• Ring: The Vesper Martini! This is where the cocktail part of this challenge comes in. I used Revlon Top Speed Varnished as the base polish and then created the martini using Revlon Silver Screen and Sally Hansen Nail Art Pen Black. I tried to make the glass look frosted so I did that using Essie Matte About You and then I used Sally Hansen Nail Art Pen Yellow to make the hanging lemon peel. Again, I added some glitter from Sally Hansen Gem Crush Lady Luck to have a light, blingy effect.
• Pinky: What's 007 without his women, right? I added a strapless red dress to finish off the look. Revlon Top Speed Golden was used as the base polish once again and then the dress was made using Zoya Sarah. 

**I used a small detail brush and a dotting tool to make this mani**

I'm pretty pleased with this mani! It took a long time just because there were so many different polishes that were used and there was something a lot going on on each nail. Do any of you think of 007 when you think of drinks/cocktails? It's so classic for me!

Let me know if you all like it! I hope that you do. It was a little hard for me to make the mani because my nails are super narrow. I try to keep them a little longer to compensate; I need more room so I keep them longer since my nails are not wide at all. But I try! It definitely is a challenge trying to fit everything onto a skinny little section but it's not impossible.

Hopefully you all like it and if you want to take a look at my other cocktail challenge mani from this week, you can do so here.

Take a look at the manicures the other challengers created for this week below!

Now, I'm finally off to bed! I love the warm weather but my allergies have finally kicked in and they're definitely winning this war. Allergies: 1 | Ruthvi: 0   :(

Check back tomorrow for the next 31 Day Challenge post. Good night, everyone!

31 Day (Week) Challenge - Day 12: Stripe Nails

Hi everyone!

I hope you all had a great weekend, I know I did! I definitely think today's challenge mani is one of my all time favorite manis. Originally, I had planned to just have nude nails with some black stripes over it because I couldn't think of anything special to create with stripes. But then, I found my inspiration! I stumbled upon (yes, literally using stumble upon) a home decoration website and voila! found my mani. To add a little more to my inspiration, I realized that one of the vases we have with random pieces in it would fit into the mani perfectly and I opted for the feather accent.

http://www.arthouse.com/product/opera-fun-super-stripe-black-and-pink-125

I took the pink and black stripes and decided to have a feather as my accent. Also, even though the picture with the striped wallpaper has a silver lamp, I thought gold would do a better job standing out. The great part about my mani was that it matched the outfit that I wore on Saturday! I had to go to my friend's engagement party and the outfit was white and pink so it fit perfectly. Here's what my attempt looks like:

To get this look:

• After putting on my favorite base coat, Essie 3-Way Glaze, I used Revlon Top Speed Pink Lingerie as my colored base coat. It's a lovely soft pink! 
• Then using my thinnest striping brush, I added stripes to all of my nails, except my ring fingers, with Sinful Colors Snow Me White, Sinful Colors Black On Black, and Revlon Copper Penny (shown in the picture above)
• For my accent ring finger, I used my wide, feathery striping brush and Sinful Colors Black on Black to create a feather and then finished it off with a little Revlon Copper Penny dot at the base of the feather
• I sealed the entire mani with Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Top Coat so that I can enjoy it for a couple of days!

Although I absolutely LOVE this mani, I was in a bit of a dilemma after I had finished creating it. I liked the stripes that I made on my right hand better, but I liked the feather from my left hand better. Hence, I have pictures of both hands above, hah. But I do love how the stripes turned out. I love how I was able to get them to stay thin! I also love how I was able to keep the feather looking plush and full the same way the inspiration feather really is.

I really hope you all like this mani as much as I do! And definitely let me know if you agree with me about which hand has the better stripes and feather. I'm curious to see what you all think looks better! So, as always, feel free to leave me comments in the section below! And if there is anything that you would like me to try out or want to see, please, let me know!

Can you believe it? 12 down, and only 19 more to go! These challenges are getting more exciting now!

Have a great Monday, everyone!

Tri-Polish Challenge (April #1) - Dotticure

Hey guys!!

I'm participating in my very first tri-polish challenge, hosted by Debbie Crumpet from The Crumpet!!! It's so exciting doing all of these challenges! So just like the 31-Day Challenge, this challenge has rules too.

Rules:

• Crumpet's Nail Tarts will be choosing three colors each month and you must ONLY use those three colors to create the manicures
• The colors for April are Turquoise, Orange, & Pink
• That being said, you have free use of white, black, silver, gold, and glitter toppers
• You must choose 1 polish to represent each color choice and use the same three polishes throughout the challenge
• The challenge has 4 posts each month: the Tuesday and Thursday of the 3rd and 4th week of each month 
• For April: 16, 18, 23, 25

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Here's a look at my first challenge mani!

I saw an amazing mani by Manicurator that I have been wanting to try and make. You can see her mani here. She created an amazing stained glass effect and I wanted to see if I could do something like that. It didn't turn out quite the same and I think it's because 1) she used darker polishes and 2) she used jellies. Mine are the complete opposite, light cremes. The mani still turned out pretty cool.

To add a little something extra, I added dots!

To get this look:

• As always, I started off with my favorite base coat Essie 3-Way Glaze
• The base was created by randomly dabbing China Glaze For Audrey, Sinful Colors Island Coral, and Maybelline Color Show Orange Fix
• I dabbed the different polishes several times until I was satisfied with the look
• Then I used dotting tools in various sizes to create the dots. The black dots were Sinful Colors Black On Black, the white dots were Sinful Colors Snow Me White, and the gold dots were Revlon Colorstay Fall Mood
• To top it all off, I used my trusty Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Top Coat

 *** I know the dots are not well made. My shoulders and back muscles are still pulled and I couldn't keep my hand steady for very long and ended up rushing 
**The turquoise that I am using is the closest to turquoise that I have**

I hope you all liked my attempt!! I'm looking forward to coming up with something else for this Thursday's (April 18) challenge mani!

31 Day (Week) Challenge - Day 4: Green Nails

Hey guys!

I'm so excited to show you all today's challenge mani!!

We have GREEN for this week's theme! The design that I have is probably a bit much for some of these earlier "easy" challenges, but I've been wanting to do this for a while now. Take a look!

After I started the design, I realized that I would need a lot more blues and purples to get an actual peacock look, so I'm not going to say that this is a peacock design. It's peacock inspired! I used a lot of different shades of green to get this look but it didn't take as long as I thought it would. You will definitely be seeing me trying out this design again with a wider ranger of colors!

 

To get this design, I used a tiny brush to get the smaller strokes and medium and small sized dotting tools to get the two smaller spots for the eye.

The polishes I used (in order) were:

For the base...

Zoya Edyta

L'oreal Because You're Worth It

Revlon Colorstay Fall Mood

Zoya Yara

Revlon Colorstay Spanish Moss 

 

For the eye...

Revlon Top Speed Golden

Revlon Scented Parfume Ocean Breeze

Spoiled The Parking Meteor Expired 

Oh and btw, Revlon Scented Parfume Ocean Breeze actually smells amazing! And it's such a pretty color!

I think I could have done better with this design, but I'm happy with how it turned out considering this was the first time I've tried this type of look. I will definitely be trying it again with more colors as I mentioned above! 

I think I will be trying a simple look for next week's challenge :)

My friend, My Life In Turquoise, is also doing the challenge so don't forget to check out her page as well!!

4 down, 27 more to go!!

Lines

Hey everyone! It's been a while but I'll be putting up everything I have done the last couple of months. First up is a design I made using nail art brushes. It's just something simple that can be worn to a party or a wedding!

I did this in steps so that I didn't have to open and close each polish a million times. First I made the lines using the white nail art polish, then the gold nail art polish, and lastly the silver nail art polish.

I hope you all like it!

Autumnal Blur

I did these a few days ago since it is now fall. I wanted to do something to match the colors of the leaves changing because Fall is my favorite season and the leaves are gorgeous! Especially the trees near me. There are so many around me that turn bright red. These trees start turning red at the tips of every leaf and VERY slowly move down the leaf. So right now, some of them are half red and half green, where the tips all around the tree are red and in the middle, towards the trunk are still very much green. It looks breathtaking. Enough about these trees...!

One of the things I like about Fall is sitting in the car and just staring at the trees passing by. So I tried doing something to match what that looks like.

 This was easy to do but just took a steady hand.

1) Always always apply a base coat!!
2) The base color that I used was Revlon Golden
3) Then I used an art brush to lightly swipe across my nails. But I only used each color on a few spots on my nails and sometimes even only swiped across once for certain colors. The key is to not take up too much polish on the brush so that you can see the brush stroke on the nails.
4) Here are the colors I used, in order:
- Wet n Wild Sage in the City
- Zoya Sarah
- Revlon Sunshine Sparkle
- Revlon Amber Ablaze
- Zoya Edyta
5) Then to add some sparkle, I used Jane Megawatt and wiped the polish brush on the edge of the bottle so that most of the polish was off the brush. Then I swiped over the nail in the direction I did the other colors.

What do you think of my blur of autumn colors??

Something different

I saw a picture of this on Pinterest and loved it! So I thought I would do something similar and see how it looks. Plus, I recently got surgery so this was the first thing I did due to me not being able to move or walk around. Using 4 different colors kept me occupied for a while.

This was easy to do, just took a little more time because I had to be extra careful to make sure I didn't mess up even a little bit on the middle and ring fingers.

1) I used teal on my thumb, index finger, and pinky finger.
2) I applied a lighter burgundy to my ring finger and then gold on the middle finger.
3) After the middle and ring fingers had dried thoroughly, I used a gold glitter polish on the ring finger and painted half the nail at an angle (I did not use tape for this part because the burgundy polish I used always peels off easily).
4) I used the teal and burgundy from the other nails and put different sized dots on the middle finger using a dotting tool.
5) Finish it off with a top coat!

Simple, just a little tiny bit time consuming. I hope you liked it!!

Confused Leopard

I can't stop using the matte top coat!! I'm pretty sure I'll be using it every couple of months so you all are going to get a lot of designs with me using matte. Here is the latest one.

Leopard matte!! I think this looks absolutely amazing and got tons of compliments from random people.

I started off by applying the gold to all of my nails except the ring finger. Then I put on the black on the ring finger and applied Essie's Matte About You to only the ring finger. Then I went back with an art brush and created the "spots" on all of the nails, including the one matte nail.

I really hope you all love this one as much as I do!! And let me know how it works out if you try it out!

Triangles

Once again, here are my mom's nails! I just love doing her nails because she keeps them long most of the time and I always end up cutting mine after I'm unable to type anymore.

Again, I made a design to match her outfit. The base color was a light purple with a grey tint, then I went over it with a yellowish gold, and then a black. Topped it off with a red dot!

I normally use painter's tape to make the lines straight but since her nails are so long, it was easy for me to be able to make almost straight lines without the tape. So if you try to do this but aren't able to make straight lines, use painter's tape! Or any tape that you like and prefer :)

Uneven French

My mom wanted me to do her nails but she doesn't like anything too drastic and out there. So I tried out an uneven french with some fun colors.

The base color she chose was a shiny, light greenish color that had a hint of grey sparkles in it (I don't think you can see it in the picture). For the french tip, I used a dark purple and made it at an angle and then used a dotting tool to add some gold dots along the line.

What do you think?!

And I promise, as I get to recent designs, I'll add more of a tutorial and the names of the polishes that I used.

Gold Clovers

Since my other St. Patty's day nails didn't work out, I redid them.

  The base color was Wet n Wild Sage in the City. Then I used to gold to create four leaf clovers on all of the nails. And added some dot designs using a dotting tool.

Hopefully you all like it!

Gobble Gobble!!

For thanksgiving 2011, I decided to paint a turkey! It was actually quite easy...I just forgot to clean up the sides before taking the pictures.

I started out by painting my nail a bright red. Then used a brown to paint the body. I did this my making 3 large dots and then blending them together. Then I used a dotting tool to make the eyes and mouth. I finished it off by using a nail art brush to make the gold streaks.

I couldn't figure out what to do with the other nails so I just made leaf-like things and used the same brown as the turkey's body for the base coat, and the art brush for the gold leaf outline.

Enjoy!