31 Day Challenge - Day 16: Tribal

As I stated in a previous post, I tend to directly copy other people's manicures. I don't personally see any problem with this, so I don't think it strange, like other people do. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, y'know.

So anyway, when I saw these nails on Instagram, I thought they were really interesting and original. I wasn't super enthusiastic about doing traditional tribal print, and wanted to do something a bit different.

(I didn't have a light gray, so I used nude)

I love these! I think they turned out pretty well, for my first complicated free-hand design! (:

My mom pointed out that they're not necessarily "tribal" but I think it's close enough. It's vaguely tribal looking. 

Polishes used:

Red: Essie Olé Caliente

Black: OPI Black Onyx

Nude: OPI Don't Pretzel My Buttons

White: Orly White Out

Blue: Sephora by OPI Natural Environ-mint

Yellow: Sally Hansen Lightening

I used Revlon Colorstay Basecoat, as usual, and topped it all off with a coat of Sally Hansen Instadry Top Coat

Detail brushes from Urban Outfitters.

Thanks for reading!
xx

31 Day Challenge - Day 15: Delicate

When I see a manicure that I like, I tend to not only draw inspiration from the original photo, but copy the whole manicure entirely. So the other day, I found this wonderful girl who does Once Upon A Time inspired manicures. OUAT is one of my favorite TV shows and I plan on copying a lot of her manicures in the future. Anyway, I had just been looking for inspiration for these nails when I stumbled across her blog, and her Mary Margaret inspired nails just fit the prompt perfectly. I had been wanting to do something with nude or light pink and a sort of lacy design, so I just decided to recreate her nails, using polish instead of doilies.

This is the photo I went off of (I cropped it a bit), and a reference shot of Mary Margaret from the show.

 And this is my interpretation!

I'm currently trying to reshape my square nails into a more oval shape, which is why they look a bit weird.

The nude color is Sephora by OPI Don't Feed The Hand Models, and the white is Orly White Out, freehanded with a tiny brush.

I personally really like how it turned out! Very girly and delicate.

Thanks for reading

xx

31 Day Challenge - Day 14: Floral

So these nails were directly inspired by this picture I saw on Instagram

I don't have the original source, I'm really sorry. If you recognize these nails, please let me know whose photo it is so I can give credit! 

I was going back and forth between this and some other inspiration pictures that I got off Instagram, but I finally decided on these. 

Roses aren't as hard as they look, actually. I just mixed the flower color together with the white base color to make a lighter shade, and swirled that and the original flower color together so it looked like a rose. I think it turned out really well. 

I used the fantastic Urban Outfitters Virgin as my base color, and Essie Navigate Her for the leaves. The blue roses are Sephora by OPI Natural Environ-mint, and the pink ones are Sephora by OPI Access 24/7.

I used my new nail art brushes for this, and I was really impressed with how well they worked. My sister got them for me for Christmas, and you can still get them here.

thumb shot

After wearing these nails for a few days, I was given the American Apparel matte topcoat, and I had to try it, so I mattified these nails and it was so gorgeous. Sorry for the bad pic quality, it was taken with my new phone, but you get the gist. I love my matte topcoat. I'm going to use it on everything. 

Well, that concludes this post.

Until next time!

xx

31 Day Challenge - Day 13: Animal Print

I am not a huge fan of animal print nails, and so I interpreted this prompt quite literally.

Penguin nails!

I'm not going to write a lot, because I think these pictures speak for themselves, and also I have a lot of stuff to do today.

I'm sure I've seen a tutorial or something on these nails, but I just did them from memory, so I'm sorry that I'm not really giving credit to whoever first did these.

So I just startd with two coats of a plain black, and then just used the nail polish brush to make the white oval shape at the bottom. I used dotting tools for the eyes and my new teensy tiny nail art brush for the beak and feet. 

I think they're just so freaking adorable. I love penguins.

I especially like the ones on my index and pinkie fingers. 

Polishes used:

-1 coat Revlon Colorstay Base Coat

-2 Coats OPI Black Onyx

-Orly White for details

-Sally Hansen Sun Kissed for details

-Sally Hansen Instadry Top Coat

Hope you all have a wonderful new year!

31 Day Challenge - Day 12: Stripes / I'm A Terrible Person

Hi.

So I really wanted to do a bunch (if not two or three) of Christmassy manicures, fitting them in with the challenge prompts, but honestly, I don't paint my nails that much! I don't redo them every day like other nail polish bloggers, and I leave my polish on for almost a week.

Ugh I just feel bad because I wanted to do more holiday nails but I would've had to have Christmas nails for like the entire month of December. Which I wasn't exactly thrilled to do.

Anyway.

I'm also a terrible person because it is TWO DAYS AFTER CHRISTMAS and I took these nails off a few days ago. I JUST FORGOT TO POST THIS PLEASE DON'T HATE ME.

Not like anyone reads my blog except for Rita (hi rita!)

And then I took super shitty pictures, on top of it all, and I only have one semi-good one to show you guys.

So here are my candy cane striped nails. I like them a lot (: At first I tried freehanding the white stripes with my Orly striper, but it was just a disaster. Especially on the right hand. So I redid it using tape, and I'm super glad I did. Even though it took foreverrrrr.

Colors Used: 

-SOPI Sample Sale

-Orly Striper in White Out (I still used the striper even though I was using tape because it's nice and opaque)

Alright well. That's it. I'm going to go write my post on my animal print nails.

Hope you all had a lovely Christmas! 

xx

Light Pink and Natural

So my mom never wears nail polish on her fingers, because she's always doing stuff around the house, and washing dishes, and it would just chip on her.
However, today she agreed to let me do something on her nails, as long as it was natural and subtle.

So I pulled out my favorite baby pink and an inoffensive glitter, and gave her these very natural looking nails. She really likes them and keeps on going "ooh, I look so trendy!"

Polishes used:

Revlon Colorstay Base Coat

2 Coats SOPI Dear Diary

(on ring finger) Butter London Tart With A Heart

Sally Hansen Instadry Top Coat

Thanks for reading! 

xx

31 Day Challenge - Day 11: Polka Dots

Hello!
Christmas is getting closer and closer, and I'm getting super excited :D
I did try to think of something Christmassy to do for these nails, but the only thing I could think of was ornaments, and I didn't like that idea. Plus, I prefer polka dot nails that only use creme polishes, for some reason.

Anyway, I was looking through my dark/wintery colors and found this lovely blue-toned gray creme that I wore a lot last winter. It came in a set of mini Sephora by OPI polishes I got for Christmas last year. I used an off-white (Urban Outfitters' Virgin) for the dots, and I actually like the way it looks. It's not my favorite, and in a lot of instances, I seriously messed up the dots, but it's cute, and it looks fine from a distance.

Polishes used:

Revlon Colorstay Base Coat

Two coats SOPI Break a Legwarmer

Dots done with UO Virgin

Sally Hansen Instadry Topcoat

Thanks for reading!