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 - Cocktails: Strawberry Peach Margaritas!!

Hi everyone!

I'm participating in weekly challenges by Laura. This week's theme is cocktails! What better theme could go along with the beautiful summer weather we've been having here in Chicago?

My favorite summer cocktail/drink is a frozen margarita, specifically, a strawberry, peach, or mango margarita! I chose to create a combo, strawberry and peach, frozen margarita. I got my inspiration from this picture:

www.barmano.com

Frozen margaritas usually have that frosty look to them and when they've been sitting for a little while, you can see the condensation on the glasses. That's what I tried to create with my mani: condensation on a frosty margarita glass!

To get this look:

• I started off with a base color coat of Revlon Mai Tai Ask? (perfect choice because even the name is cocktail-inspired!).
• The random gradient was created using Revlon Mai Tai Ask? and Revlon Colorstay Wild Strawberry (also perfect because I was going for a strawberry margarita and this one has strawberries in the name!).
• I then used Essie Matte About You to create the frosted look.
• A small sized dotting tool and Revlon Quick Dry Top Coat to add the condensation dots and drops.

What do you all think of my attempt?? I'm definitely in the mood for margaritas now!!

Check out the other great cocktail-inspired manis the other challengers have created below! The theme lasts until Saturday evening so I'm sure we'll be seeing more manicures throughout the week!

31 Day (Week) Challenge - Day 14: Flowers

Hello hello! I hope everyone had a great weekend! We're back today with the new challenge mani for the 31 Day Challenge! I'm starting right off the bat by saying that I was disappointed with my mani but I didn't have time to fix it or create a new one. So I'm stuck with this one for this post. Womp womp :(

My favorite flower is the white calla lily so I really wanted to do something with it. I'm just not going to say anything more than that because I really am upset with the end result.

A lot of polishes were used to create this so bare with me again!

To get this look:
 Lily

•  I started by working on the lily. I needed an undie so I used Orly Country Club Khaki. It actually ended up being the perfect base for my accent nail!
• To create the green background for the accent nail, I sponged on Sally Hansen Insta Dri Lickety-Split Lime and Revlon Colorstay Spanish Moss in random spots. 
• For the actual calla lily, I used a small detail brush and Sinful Colors Snow Me White to create the heart shaped petal. Then I used my smallest detail brush and Revlon Colorstay Bonsai to create the shadow/hole where the center piece comes out.
• I needed to add some shadows to the calla lily because it looked too fake to me so I mixed together Sinful Colors Snow Me White and Revlon Downtown to create a light blue because I don't own the right shade to use as the shadow color. I added some of that custom blue to the left side of the petal and to create the shadow from the center piece.
• I didn't have the correct shade for the center piece either. The polishes that I have are either too yellow or too orange, nothing in between. So I mixed together Revlon Sunshine Sparkle and Sally Hansen Insta Dri Snappy Sorbet to create a light orange. I used my small detail brush to create the carrot-shaped piece.
• I add some darkness/shadow under the calla lily, I used Zoya Yara and the sponge to dab a little of that polish under the petal on bottom right and left sides of the accent nail.

Other nails

• I used Zoya Pixie Dust Vespa on the other nails.  

I'm actually proud of my calla lily but it's the Pixie Dust that, I think, ruined my mani. I haven't used it before so I thought it would be a darker color and would just add some sparkle. But this was about 3 coats (1 nail was 2 coats) and the color was still a lot lighter than what the bottle shows. I do love the polish, just not with this mani. I also think I ended up crapping out on the shading because the lighting was bad in my room. It looked good in that light but ended up looking completely different in natural light and you could see the the stark difference in the shading. But what's done is done! Hopefully I'll be more happy with my next challenge mani.

** Just in case someone wants a reference to the flower, here's a picture**

http://pphotography-blog.blogspot.com/2012/01/calla-lily-flower.html

I hope you all at least like my attempt at creating the calla lily! Be sure to check out my friend's flower post at My Life In Turquoise!

Now that's 14 done, and 17 more to go!

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 10: Gradient Nails

Happy Monday everyone!

Today is such an amazing day in Chicago! The weather is finally awesome (even though the wind is trying to knock me off my feet) and it's definitely getting me out of the winter blues!

The challenge mani for today had to have some type of gradient. I have never created a gradient before so I was a bit worried as to how it would turn out or if I would even be able to make one. I saw a lot of tutorials on the best way to create a gradient and my first attempt failed miserably. I couldn't figure out why because I waited for the base color to dry completely, put the polish on the sponge, used the up and down motion, but the polish just did not want to cooperate. I then noticed that the sponges in all of the tutorials had openings, or "pores", that were quite visible and then saw that I couldn't see the "pores" in the sponge that I was using. So I ran out to Walmart and found makeup sponges that some pores in them and tried those out. They worked!!! I'm super super happy with this mani and I will be definitely be using gradients a lot more because they look awesome!

So here I have a tropical, warm weather inspired gradient mani for you all!

The light base polish that I started off with was Sinful Colors Island Coral (even the polish color is from the tropics!!). I then created the gradient using the Island Coral along with Sinful Colors Timbleberry and Sinful Colors Amethyst. The palm trees were created using a small detail brush and Sinful Colors Black On Black. I guess it was a Sinful Colors kind of day for me!

Seriously, I am so in love with this mani and so happy with my first attempt! It's also making me miss the super warm weather and beaches and everyone fun about the summer. I can't wait for it to be nice enough to go to the beach!!

I hope you all liked my attempt at the gradient! If you have any suggestions or ideas on what else I can do with a gradient, feel free to email me or leave a comment in the comments section below!

As always, be sure to check out my friend Hetal's gradient mani at My Life In Turquoise!

So that's the end of the first 3rd of the 31 Day Challenge!! 
10 down and only 21 more to go!

Have a lovely Monday, everyone!

Swirls of Blue and Purple

Hello everyone!

I tried out sponging for the first time! My mom had an event to go to and I decided to try this out to match the print on her dress. I think it turned out pretty well considering it was my first time.

All you need to create this is a makeup sponge and the polishes that you want to use.

Enjoy!

Rainbow Galaxy

I've seen a lot of tutorials on galaxy/marble nails and decided to try that out for the new year. I tried to blend the two ideas into one. Instead of making it look like the "galaxy"... I decided to just make it a blend of some bright colors.

This is an old picture again, so I don't remember exactly which color from which brand I used. But I do know that I used Sally Hansen's HD Laser. I also used gold, pink, orange, teal, and red.

This one was a bit tricky to do for me. I used a makeup sponge to dab each layer of polish. So you put on a layer of polish, let it slightly dry, and then dab the sponge on it to take some of the polish off. Do this with every layer and they should pop up due to the unevenness.

There is another way to do galaxy nails but I wanted it to look more marbley, just a blend of colors, so I did it this way. The other way to do this is by applying your base color, and then putting some polish straight onto the sponge and then dabbing each polish onto your nail. I'll do it the other way soon so everyone can see what it looks like.

I hope you liked it!