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 15: Delicate Print

Hi guys!!

Today's post might be a bit blah just because I had a hard time with this challenge. I have a stamping plate so I automatically knew that I would be using it to create today's delicate print mani. However, I had never used my stamping plate before! I thought it would be easy, but after trying it out, I realized I need a little practice with it; my print wasn't coming off the stamper cleanly.

Anyways, here's what that attempt ended up looking like:

"To get this look":

• I started off by applying Revlon Sunshine Sparkle as my base polish.
• I then used Revlon Midnight Haze and my B25 stamping plate to add the flowers, but as you can see, it didn't really work

I would have liked to spend the day practicing stamping, but as you can see from the picture above, the nails match my saree (Indian dress) that I had to wear for a wedding yesterday. I couldn't keep practicing because I had to go to the wedding in the morning and the reception in the evening! I ended up taking this all off and created a different mani.

This was my second, very quick, mani. I totally know that I'm cheating by using nail stickers, but I only had about 15 minutes left to do my nails before I had to start getting ready and leave for the day. It still satisfied the whole delicate print challenge for this day.

"To get this look":

• I used Revlon Silver Screen as my base polish.
• Then, I used some tweezers to put the CINA nail stickers on my nails after the base polish was mostly dry. I finished it all off with a top coat. 

To end result still matched my outfit and that's why I went with the colors and stickers that I used.

I am definitely going to keep practicing using a stamping plate and hopefully you'll be seeing me use them in some manicures in the future!! I love how stamping plates end up looking on manicures so I will be using them soon.

Make sure to check out my friend's post at My Life In Turquoise.

15 down, 16 more to go! We're basically half way done now!! So exciting :) Hopefully next week's challenge goes a lot better for me. 

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!

31 Day (Week) Challenge - Day 9: Rainbow Nails

Hey guys!!

I'm super excited to show you all my challenge mani for today. Originally, I was going to have one balloon on each finger but then I realized that I would have to lose one color since there are only five fingers. So I decided to have two balloons on each finger so that I could fit in that extra color.

I'm also dedicating this party inspired mani to my boyfriend's nephew because his 1st birthday just passed!!

A lot of polishes went into creating this challenge mani. I wanted to have a base color because I didn't want to have the balloons and confetti on my bare nail and I didn't want to have a white background either. So for my base polish color, I used one coat of Sally Hansen Diamond Strength Platinum because I still wanted to have a VNL. The red balloons and confetti were made using Sally Hansen Maximum Growth Perfect Cherry. All of the orange was created by Sinful Colors Courtney Orange. I used Revlong Sunshine Sparkle for the yellow but it was too light so I ended up going over it with Wet n Wild Fast Dry The Wonder Yellows. The green I used was Sinful Colors Irish Green. The blue was made using Rimmel London Marine Blue. And last but not least, the purple came from Nicole by OPI Prized Possession Purple. Now for the detail work. For the balloon strings, I used Sally Hansen Nail Art Pen Black. To make the "shine" streaks on the balloons, I used Nubar Nail Art Pen Basic White. Of course, none of this would have been possible without my handy dandy small detail brush!

Even though there were a lot of nail polishes involved in making this mani, it would super easy because of the detail brush. I worked with one color at a time so that I didn't have to keep cleaning the brush after every single use. But I'm not going to lie, as easy as this mani was, it was highly time consuming because of all of the small detail work.

This is such a fun mani and it makes me so happy every time I see it! It just reminds me of parties and all the fun that goes along with it. I really hope you all love this mani as much as I do!

Be sure to check out the challenge mani by My Life In Turquoise!

That's 9 down and 22 more to go!

Malted Easter Eggs

Hey guys!

Easter is coming up this weekend so I thought of creating a mani that was simple and easy to create! A friend actually showed me a similar mani and I thought it was really cute and perfect for Easter so I had to recreate it! Easter is all about candy and pastels so this mani is dedicated to the malted easter eggs candies that I love so much :)

I thought I would throw in a picture of my inspiration!

I used several different polishes to create this mani. My thumb was made with Revlon Colorstay Bonsai. My pointer finger was made using Revlon Top Speed Pink Lingerie. My middle finger was made using Revlon Sunshine Sparkle. My ring finger was made with Wet n Wild Wild Shine Rain Check. And last but not least, my little pinky finger was made with Sally Hansen White. Most of the malted easter egg candies I've had have had brown spots so I decided to go with brown for my mani. The brown specks were made using a small dotting tool and Revlon Totally Toffee. To get the dusty look of the malted eggs, I used Essie Matte About You top coat.

I love love love this mani! I think it's so cute and perfectly Easter! The mani is also very simple and super easy to make. All you really need to do to make this mani is find pastel/Easter colors, add some brown or colored speckles, and top it with a dusty finish! I hope you all liked this mani too and I hope that it gave some you ideas for your nails.  

For another idea, take a look at my last year's Easter mani here!

Happy Easter!

31 Day (Week) Challenge - Day 3: Yellow Nails

Week 3 is here everyone! I hope you all had a great week! I have another great look for you. At first, I couldn't think of anything to do with the color yellow. In the past, whenever I wanted to have yellow nails, I would just keep them plain so this was a tough one.

First, I was thinking of doing something with smiley faces, or emoticons, but I thought it would look too goofy on me. Yellow is a very Spring-like color so I ended up doing something related to Spring!

To get this look, I started out with my favorite base coat, and then used Revlon Sunshine Sparkle. I needed to put on two coats of this since it was a bit light and you could see my nails through the first coat.

I let it dry completely and then started to make the bees and the bee paths. I used Wet N Wild Black Creme and the thinnest stripe brush that I have. After that dried, I used Sally Hansen White to add the wings to the bees.

I really like how this turned out! I think it's cute and reminds me of Spring during this extremely cold weather we have right now. The best part about this is that I think anyone can do this! It's very easy and all you really have to do to recreate this look is make some lines and ovals.

Check out my friend's yellow nails at My Life In Turquoise!!

3 down and 28 more to go! See you all next week with my GREEN manicure!!

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??

Bunnies, Eggs, and Pastel

Bunnies, eggs, and pastel colors remind me of Easter so I thought of putting those on my nails! 

Bunny on the thumb and a chick hatching out of an egg on the ring finger. And then for the other nails I decided to try to make them look like decorated eggs.

I used an art brush and dotting tools to make the designs. Isn't it cute?! I hope you all liked it!