Tri-Polish Challenge (April #2) - Retro Arrowheads

Hey guys!

Today is day 2 of the Tri-Polish Challenge hosted by Crumpet's Nail Tarts! To refresh, the colors for April are Turquoise, Pink, and Orange.
** The "turquoise" I am using for the challenge is the closest color I have to turquoise**

I thought about doing something a bit more abstract so I ended up with funky arrowheads! Surprisingly, I ran out of tape after doing my thumb and it had taken so much time already that I decided to just freehand the rest of it, so it is a bit sloppy, but I tried very hard to keep the lines as straight as I could!! My back and shoulders are still spazzing so it was tough.

To get this look:

• After putting on my favorite base coat, I started off with the black arrow at the base of my nail and created the arrow using a small striping brush and Sinful Colors Black On Black 
• I then went and added the other black "arrows" near the middle of the nail using the same small striping brush
• Next up, I used a striping brush and China Glaze For Audrey to create the full turquoise arrows and the half arrows
• The full pink arrows and half pink arrows were made using a small striping brush and Sinful Colors Island Coral
• I made my pointer finger the accent nail, and instead of making half arrows, I just kept it as full arrows and did not add the vertical white stripe
• To finish off the look, I added the white arrows and the stripe down the nail using the striping brush and Sinful Colors Snow Me White, and then, as always, ended it all with my favorite top coat

This was hard to do after I ran out of the tape and I like how it turned out, but I think it would have been amazing if I had been able to do this look on all of the nails using the tape. No use crying over spilled polish though, right?

The overall look ended up turning out pretty cool. It has a retro/tribal look to it, don't you think?

I hope you all liked my mani and I look forward to coming up with another look for next Tuesday's Tri-Polish Challenge post!!  But before that, check back soon for my next challenge mani in the 31-Day Challenge!! Leave me comments in the comments section below to let me know how I'm doing! I love getting feedback!!

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 11: Polka Dot Nails

Hi guys!

This post probably won't be too long because I somehow sprained my back and shoulders so keeping my arms in this position is actually killing me right now :(

To start off the second third of the challenge, I chose to do a very simple pattern with a lot of dots but it didn't quite turn out the way I had imagined it, which is probably because I had planned out the design to go on long nails but I ended up cutting mine over the weekend. I'm trying squoval nails for the first time!!

The base polish is Piggy Polish The Right To Bare Feet and it's such a pretty orange/coral color! The dots were made using Sinful Colors Black On Black and a small sized dotting tool. Originally, I was going to put a bouillon bead at the base but I can't seem to find my stash, so I opted for three tiny, silver caviar beads instead.

I like how it turned out but I do wish that I had kept my nails longer. The design would have turned out much better and cleaner. With these short nails, you can't really really tell what the design with the dots is supposed to be. No matter! It'll be better next time.

  

I hope you all liked it and I'm super excited to show you all the stripes challenge mani next week! I've been waiting to try it out for a while now! 

11 down, 20 more to go!!! The half way mark is coming up!

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!

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!