31 Day Challenge Day 27 - Inspired by Artwork

Hello there!

Sorry I went AWOL on the challenge again, I've just been pressed for time and terribly uninspired with these last challenge prompts. I am not a very arty person. Like at all. I enjoy looking at art and, on occasion, can interpret and analyze a piece of art but I just don't have enough faith in my abilities to attempt to recreate a masterpiece on my nails.

When I saw Kimber's post for her 'Inspired by Artwork', I saw she used a nail artist as inspiration. Suddenly, I was like DUH, nail art is still artwork so I dug from my Inspiration folder and recreated THIS look from Dressed Up Nails. This girl has some seriously amazing nail art and pictures! I don't know how I've never come across her blog before but I'm so happy I did :)

For my interpretation, I started with one coat of black, applied the striping tape and added one coat of butter LONDON Wallis.

I had a really hard time choosing pics for this post because they were all blurry for some reason. I really liked the result though! It's very rare these days to have a mani come out exactly as planned. Now to come up with an idea for 'Inspired by a Flag' so I can catch up to the other ladies and finish the challenge on time...

Remember to check out all the blogs participating!

-Kimber at Kimber's Lacquer Korner
-Kat at Hooked On Polish
-Diana at Nails By Diana
-Aly at Wonderland Beauty
-Meredith at Perfectly Polished
-Nicole at The Color Republic
-Kate at The Painted Pony Nails
-Cee at Absolutely Cee
-Sam at Polished Art
-Nail Narcotics
-Nicole at Nicole Gets Nailed
-Shelby at Shelby's Swatches
-Stephanie Louise at All Things Beautiful
-Mixed Mama
-Joanna @ Sweet Polish of Mine
-Patty Greenberg
-Liz and Lisa @ Lozlosa 
-Mari at Nailista
-Miss L at Beauty by Miss L 
-Gini at Sassy Paints
-Chameleon Stampede 
-Pam at Nail-E-Glance
-Me, Myself, and Polish 
- Robin Sparkles

Manly Polish Days!

Hey all!

I'm taking part yet again (though a bit late) in the awesome Polish Days coordinated by Hannah over at Polly Polish.

Today's theme was to be MAN-icure, a nod to Movember, month in which we raise awareness to men's health issues. Since the theme was basically anything related to men in your life, I did something inspired by my boyfriend. Technically, the idea was for him to paint my nails but life happens so he couldn't. OR WOULDN'T. Point is, this is for him.

Since he couldn't do my nails personally, he did the next best thing: boss me around. His rules were: it had to be blue, he wanted something matte and he liked the holo glitter in an old post of mine. I suggested striping tape and he was all for it so I decided on a variation of THIS mani from Ms. Polly Polish herself!

I started with two coats of butter LONDON Blagger and, after doing the same stripey lattice design from Hannah's mani, I added a coat of HITS Hefesto on my ring and middle finger, and Apolo on my pinky and pointer. Obviously, pinky and pointer aren't too noticeable because I usually eff some part of it up. Then, I added the matte topcoat. But it looked hideous and lumpy so I added a shiny coat instead. Sorry babe!

He saw these and said he loved the symmetry and geometric shapes which I took as a huge compliment. If I allow myself to be mildly sappy for a moment, I have to admit I consider myself lucky to have met him. He just makes me happy and that's all I could ask for.

Hope you like this post and I will now get started on my 'Inspired by Artwork' mani for the challenge. I have a really cool idea in mind, just hope I can execute it!

Have a looksie at the other ladies taking part in Movember Polish Days!

31 Day Challenge Day 12 - Stripes

'Morning!

I'm finally posting the Stripes prompt for the 31 day challenge. Thank you guys for being understanding, we had a family issue and I spent the weekend at my aunt's house in Miami. I didn't even buy any polish while over there, so you just know I had no time to spare!

Back to nails. I saw this kind of tape mani at Manicurator (post here) and I loved the irregular sized stripes so I decided to recreate that. I have to say though, this was one of those manis where I had no idea what to do and I just sat at my polish table staring at the drawers of polish with an empty mind. Then I remembered I had wanted to wear China Glaze Turned Up Turquoise so I had my boyfriend pick a color that would work well with it. He chose Sally Hansen Grass Slipper.

I really like how these came out except for that fat tip on my pointer finger, but that was because I dinged the polish underneath and was too lazy to redo it. One tip though, make sure you have different size tape, I used striping tape for the whole thing and had to place almost 5 stripes together to make the wider spaces.

As you can see, I'm hopelessly behind and busy with school. This weekend really made a dent in my time :\. Either way, I'll try to get the animal print nails up (which should be posted today) as soon as I can.

Make sure to check the other blogs for stripes (and probably some animal print).

-Kimber at Kimber's Lacquer Korner
-Kat at Hooked On Polish
-Diana at Nails By Diana
-Aly at Wonderland Beauty
-Meredith at Perfectly Polished
-Nicole at The Color Republic
-Kate at The Painted Pony Nails
-Cee at Absolutely Cee
-Sam at Polished Art
-Nail Narcotics
-Nicole at Nicole Gets Nailed
-Shelby at Shelby's Swatches
-Stephanie Louise at All Things Beautiful
-Mixed Mama
-Joanna @ Sweet Polish of Mine
-Patty Greenberg
-Liz and Lisa @ Lozlosa 
-Mari at Nailista
-Miss L at Beauty by Miss L 
-Gini at Sassy Paints 
-Chameleon Stampede 
-Pam at Nail-E-Glance
-Me, Myself, and Polish 
- Robin Sparkles 

31 Day Challenge Day 10 - Gradients

Hey all!

Apparently, my last post was my 100th! I didn't really notice but I like the number 101 better, so let's celebrate with one of my fave manis from this challenge (so far).

This could get a little long, so I'm hiding it under the jump, MWAHAHAH! Here's a collage to whet your appetite before you click 'read more'.

31 Day Challenge Day 9 - Rainbow

Hey all! Week's almost over, thank goodness. It's been light on schoolwork this week so I may have some time to do some extra manis! Woot!

I have a confession to make...I don't love rainbows... I know, I know I'm sorry! I definitely enjoy seeing a real life rainbow but the rainbow colors itself just don't really inspire me. Maybe its because I never think I have adequate rainbow colored polishes but, a lot of the time, I find rainbows too... loud? Don't know if that's the right description...moving on.

I still managed to come up with something I liked at least! Had to use Illamasqua Load as a base again due to a lack of white polishes. Waited till that dried, added striping tape and went to town. On my pointer I kept it simple with a rhinestone design I had seen previously on Kayla Shevonne (who was inspired by another blog, you can check out both here)

I really kind of liked this! Except for the fact that, thanks to the stripes, I couldn't help but notice it looks like I have a crooked nail? Now I can't file it right and it's driving me crazy GRAEWARWE.

To get the crispest line I worked two nails at a time (I was originally going to have two accent nails) and only two colors at a time. Once both sides of the tape were painted with the corresponding color, I removed that piece. I really hope that makes sense, I'm sleepy. 

Anyway, I hope you like this and if anyone wants further tips on how I did this, let me know in the comments! Remember there's many rainbows to see today so get with the clicking:

-Kimber at Kimber's Lacquer Korner
-Kat at Hooked On Polish
-Diana at Nails By Diana
-Aly at Wonderland Beauty
-Meredith at Perfectly Polished
-Nicole at The Color Republic
-Kate at The Painted Pony Nails
-Cee at Absolutely Cee
-Sam at Polished Art
-Nail Narcotics
-Nicole at Nicole Gets Nailed
-Shelby at Shelby's Swatches
-Stephanie Louise at All Things Beautiful
-Mixed Mama
-Joanna @ Sweet Polish of Mine
-Patty Greenberg
-Liz and Lisa @ Lozlosa 
-Mari at Nailista
-Greta at How Was Your Day?
-Miss L at Beauty by Miss L 
-Gini at Sassy Paints 
-Chameleon Stampede 
-Pam at Nail-E-Glance
-Me, Myself, and Polish 
- Robin Sparkles  

Rays of Purple Glittery Light

HAAAAAAAAPPY FRIDAY!

It doesn't really feel like Friday to me since, here in P.R., we had Monday, Wednesday and today off due to holidays, so you can imagine most places opened 2 days at most. The boyfriend and I are both off from work and, while I feel bad that he's not getting paid, it's also really nice to have some time off and see each other during daylight!

Onto nailtime, I've been sitting on these pictures for a while now and just never felt like posting them for some reason. They're not bad, I just don't think they were my style or some other random insecurity reason that made me not post them until now. I'm only posting them today because I'm putting (totally wrote purring, lol) off showing my sad post-vacation nubs :(

I started with a base of Essie Licorice, applied striping tape and layered Nina Ultra Pro in Purple X-ing. Then, I added the rhinestones to the starting point for the lines for a little pizzazz and a finishing touch.

See? Not bad, just meh. I really hoped the purple would contrast more with the black but, for a subtle sparkle, it was good. I originally made these for a guest post which I'm hoping you'll see soon because it has been one of my favorite manis to date!

Have a great weekend and I'll be off babying my nubs! Or going camping and messing them up even more. We shall see.

PD: Has anyone here tried the Nailtiques Formula 2 protein base coat thing? I just bought it and don't want to regret it! My nails have been peely and misbehaved lately :(

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!

Glow in the Dark Flakie Lasers

'Ello you!

Today I'm gonna show you another little late night experiment I did. This is my first attempt at using striping tape and I'm hooked! It's so easy and loads better than pretending I can cut regular tape in a straight line so you'll definitely see more of these in the future.

For this I started with two coats of OPI I Have a Herring Problem and topped it with two coats of Blackeart Bright Night, a cool blue glow in the dark polish in A SKULL BOTTLE! I'm still deciding if I like holding bottles in the pictures or not but I of course had to show you the pretty bottle though it was a bitch to hold :D

I kind of loved the color this turned into. Application of Bright Light was the tiniest bit streaky but otherwise no problems. This is the best picture I have where I could capture the glowing in the dark effect:

It's much brighter than this, trust me, my camera just wasn't cooperating. You can check Chalkboard Nails for better pictures of this polish and the effect. After this I taped off my nails with the striping tape and added one coat of Essie Bobbing for Baubles and one coat of Finger Paints Twisted for the flakies

I liked the final result but the flakies turned out to be too distracting and you couldn't see the tape work beneath it. It also had special meaning because I added a V on my middle finger and a K on my ring finger for my boyfriend's and my initials. Yes, I'm a sap sometimes. I was going to mattify this to see if it helped but I couldn't find my matte top coat :(

What do you think? Do you have striping tape yet or no? I'm definitely looking for different color combos to use for my next tape mani so suggestions are always welcome!

EDIT: I forgot to mention that, though I couldn't get a good picture of it, the effect with the glow in the dark polish under the taping and flakies looked really cool when I went to bed. I really want to try this again and get a better picture!

Have a good day and remember: the weekend is only 2 days away!