Summer Fun Challenge Day 8 - Fun in the Sun

Hey all!

Today is the last day of the Summer Fun Challenge by Lindsey at Neverland Nail Blog. Special thanks and many props to her for putting this together! The rules today were basically no rules. Anything summery goes today so I recreated a summer fave of mine.

You may remember this ancient post where I swatched China Glaze Sun-Kissed and Spoiled I'm So Jaded and said it was the base for some awesomeness. Well I never found those pictures so I just recreated the mani for today's challenge. This also features my first and only (so far) indie polish!

Wee! I have Dandy Nails Colorblind² over each of the polishes and I just freehanded the diagonal stripes with the same polish brush. It turned out to be a little difficult because of the huge Spoiled brush and, even so, every nail ended up looking super thick in the end (totally thought of Linkin Park there).  I got the idea for this mani from this post from Rebecca Likes Nails. Now I that I re-look at hers, it was so clean and crisp...makes me sort of hate mine. Anyway, I seriously need Sticks 'N Stones in my life.

I hope you guys have enjoyed this challenge as much as I have! As always, remember to check the other ladies' blogs for their awesome work!

Summer Fun Challenge Day 7 - Summer Stylin'

EEP! This challenge has flown by, just one more to go!

For today we have Summer Stylin', meaning something inspired by our fave summer fashions. As always with these challenges, I *JUST* (see the asterisks? It means I'm serious) came up with a great idea that would have been soo much more in tune with the theme but, alas, it is 3am and I'm scheduling this before sleep. Maybe one day I'll create the mani in mind as an ode to one of my most used things!

Back to the nails; I was pretty stumped so I just took inspiration from the shirt I was wearing while shopping earlier in the day. I use this type of loose-fitting shirt with a little tube/bra thingy under them. It's one of the few things that don't make me want to murder the boyfriend when he hugs me and I'm overheating. It's 'fresh' is what I mean, comfortable to wear in the heat. Oh nevermind, just look at the pretty pics:

For this look I used the big fan brush that came with my brush kit. I've recently learned it has many uses for makeup, but I'm yet to discover how else to use it for nails. I just placed some drops of polish on some parchment paper, dipped the brush and painted my nails with that. If I got too much on the nail I would brush it off with one of the clean sides of the brush. I'm holding the actual shirt in the second pic there so you can see where I sort of got the idea. I definitely ran in another direction with it though.

Then, because it looked so empty, I stamped with Wet 'N Wild black creme and DRK-A.

Why two different stamps? BECAUSE I CAN. Mostly because I couldn't decide which one I wanted to stamp with, but also because I can. Who's gonna complain about two different stamps? No one right?! NO ONE?!

Sorry, I'm a little yelly. If you're interested in knowing the polishes I used or a more 'in-depth' instructions, let me know! Always happy to oblige after I've had some sleep.

Have a good Tuesday! Sidenote: the new Spider-Man movie is pretty damn good! Poor Tobey.

Summer Fun Challenge Day 6 - The Big Blue

Hey peeps!

I have been so hurried lately for some reason, I never seem to be able to do my nails before 11 or midnight so it doesn't really leave me much time for experimenting but I was determined to make this mani work! So determined in fact, that I said screw it all and kept polishing until 4:30am. The boyfriend was soo not happy with me yesterday morning. All he wanted was to get to the beach early and all I wanted (could) do was sleep. We eventually got there and had a great time.

BUT... I think it was worth it! I may have done my most successful watermarble mani yet! It is by no means perfect or up to par with some amazingness I've seen from other bloggers (I'm looking at Kelsie's recent watermarble), but it's my best so far. Mostly because I liked the colors I picked.

Since today is day 6 of Lindsey's (Neverland Nail Blog) Summer Fun Challenge and the theme is anything ocean or water related, I knew from day one I would do a watermarble. Wanna see? JK you're probably already looking at the pictures and not even reading this. It's ok, I won't blame you, I babble.

And a (super awkward) shot of my most favoritest thing ever about this mani: my thumbs! It was so completely obviously not on purpose, but I got a mirror image!

I'm getting better but my problem is I just cannot get the same image on all my nails. Just look at poor pinky sticking out like a sore thumb (badumtss!). Lol, but really. Pinky be trippin'. I did have to significantly trim down my nails too because my pointer and middle finger were all peely and stuffs so I had a sad for a while but this mani totally helped my sadness.

Sorry this was so wordy, have a great day and may your nails never break!

Summer Fun Challenge Day 5 - Are We There Yet?

Good morning!

Sorry I kinda disappeared on you for a couple of days, I know I missed a Monday fail but, aside from the exhaustion I was feeling, I also had a pretty busy weekend. I do have some exciting stuff lined up though so stay tuned for that!

Today we have day 5 from Lindsey's Summer Fun Challenge. I can't believe it's almost over, just 3 more manis to go after this one! Nevertheless, we live in the present, not the future or past. Unless you're watching a sci fi movie, then it's ok.

So, for a while, I didn't really know what to do for today. Instead, I kept remembering Kelly's (Nailpocalypse) mani about her road trip and thinking "Why can't I think of something like that?!". Then, I got to thinking what a road trip meant for me and I remembered the famous landmark here in Puerto Rico which you always see: las Tetas de Cayey! Or, in english, Cayey's boobs. In short, they're two mountains that sorta look like boobies, so that's what we call them.We're a very simple and happy people. If they look like boobies, that shall be their name.

 

I swear I wanted to post this on a Monday fails, but I didn't have time to redo it, so I apologize to your eyeballs. I first did the sky, some sponging for the clouds and I got to work on the mountains. I combined about 4 different greens and sorta applied them all haphazardly thinking that would make it look more like a mountain. It did not. Then my mountain shape got all blobby and unrecognizable. I then freehanded little border around to simulate a car window. Finally, I did the '52' on my thumb since that's the road that takes you through there. At least my numbers are acceptable, but the rest? Blegh.

Here's a pic of the mountains for reference:

Source

Sorry to be such a downer and if you want to see some better manis, check the Inlinkz collection below!

Summer Fun Challenge Day 4 - We like it Hot, Hot, Hot!

Hey all!

So I had no idea where to go with this mani. I thought of doing some type of needle marbling for a melting sunset illusion, a nighttime stars mani, but they all failed. Finally, I thought to do something with neons since they're the hot trend of the summer so, still without a plan, I got to work.

I started with a base of Essie Blanc, then applied Pop Beauty Mandarin and sponged with China Glaze Surfin' for Boys. When I was done I thought it looked 'sunsetty' so I used black acrylic paint and my new brushes and just did some palm trees. In real life, the effect is quite stunning, not because of my sad little palm tress, but because of the sharp contrast of the black on top of the neons.

Is it just me or are the edges of the palm trees glowing? They're neon I tell you!

I think my little palm trees look like dreadlocks for some reason. Makes me giggle. 

Hopefully I'll have something better for you next round, and as always, remember to see what the other ladies did! (It's most probably better than mine)

Summer Fun Challenge Day 3 - Pool Party

Hey all!

I'm back with day 3 of the Summer Fun Challenge by Lindsey at Neverland Nail Blog and it's sure to go swimmingly! Get your floaties and join us for a Pool Party. Be sure not to hold your breath!

Let's dive right in! (I promise that was the last bad pun, couldn't help myself). Today's mani was inspired by pool water (err duh) and one of my favorite bathing suits (which I am currently trying to fit back into). I did a pretty subtle gradient with Revlon Dreamer and Sally Hansen Hard as Nails Blue Me Away then I stamped with an unnamed American Eagle mini and plate DRK-A and layered Hits Hefesto over it. Because I can. For the 'pistol accent' nails I started with a base of Essie Blanc and used a couple polishes to recreate the design on the bathing suit. If you want to know any particular color let me know and I'll happily oblige!

I took a tiny bit too many pictures so you know the drill, collage first pics later!

Summer Fun Challenge Day 2 - Summer Lovin'

Hey all!

For today's Summer Lovin' challenge we were supposed to do a lovey-dovey manicure. Problem is, I'm not great at being lovey dovey (just ask my boyfriend). I had planned to do some stamping but I couldn't really come up with anything great so I scrapped it and revisited my laser tape mani idea.

I applied one coat of Milani Beach Front, applied the striping tape and did one coat of Dutch Ya Just Love OPI. I don't know what took me so long to get this particular shade! When I saw the previews for the OPI Holland collection this pretty purple was at the top of my list but, when it actually came out, it never came home with me for some reason. I finally got it though! And best of all? There was a BOGO 1/2 off on OPI polishes when I went :)

Alright enough chatting, picture time.

V (boyfriend) <3 K (me). Subtle lovey-dovey is more my style. I do admit I'm a bit proud of how the rhinestone heart came out. I also knew not to wreck it with flakies like I did last time. Props to Sarah at ChalkboardNails are in order though, I got the idea for the color combo from her Laser-Tape Manicure post.

Hope you guys enjoyed my second post for the challenge and remember to see what the other ladies have done!

Summer Fun Challenge Day 1 - Grill Master

What is this?! Me posting on a Tuesday?! ANARCHY I TELL YOU!

I'm back with another challenge, this time thanks to Lindsey at Neverland Nail Blog! This go around it's called the Summer Fun Challenge and we're kicking it off with 'Grill Master'. I still haven't decided if I'm going to post daily on the regular but, for the time being, you can expect daily weekday posts from me since we will be posting challenges Tuesdays and Thursdays and I will keep my regular posts.

I have to admit I completely forgot about this challenge until tonight when I saw the email, so I took inspiration for this mani from my dinner! I made some pan seared salmon with white rice and some vegetables. Was all that necessary? Probably not.

So I took the salmoniest color I could find (Essie's A Crewed Interest) and did some grill marks on my salmon and for my accent nails I just did the actual grill. Now that I'm typing this I'm coming up with cool and different ideas I could have done instead but I kind of like the ones I have! They're kitschy. I don't think that's an appropriate word but I've never used it before. As always with freehand stripes, mine are not perfect but, when I tried to do this with striping tape, it looked too neat. I like the more organic feel of these.

Here's what you can expect during the rest of this challenge:

And here are the lovelies participating:




I hope you guys enjoy this and have a good day!