Shiny stripes

I've seen many fellow bloggers do designs that involve both shiny and matte topcoats, and I think they always look simple but very elegant. I decided to try my hand at it, and it turned out pretty well! Unfortunately, painting these nails turned out to be a lot easier than photographing them, so I've taken a couple in hopes that between the two you can get a good idea of what it looks like. I apologize in advance for the chipping and such, I had to wait a day to take the pictures and in that time I managed to damage three different nails.

The black is from the Monster High Nail Polish set, the shiny topcoat is by Sally Hansen Salon Manicure, and the matte topcoat is by Sephora by OPI. The first picture is in natural light, and the second picture is using the lighting in my bedroom. I'm so sad that it's already starting to get damaged, hopefully I can make it last until Friday!

Day 31: Recreate your favourite challenge

When I first learned I had to do water marbles for this challenge I was dreading it. It looked complicated and messy and frustrating. Although my first attempt was less than stellar, I found it to be much easier than I was imagining and I fell in love with the look. So, for the last day of this challenge I decided to try and perfect the technique. I still need to improve a bit, but I'm really happy with how it turned out.

The white is "White Tip" by Sally Hansen Nailgrowth Miracle, and the yellow and red are both by Art Deco Nail Polish. I wanted to make them look like one of these popsicles, I think I needed to swirl the design a little bit more but other than that I'm super happy with the results!

It's weird to think that I'm done the 31 day challenge. Now I have to come up with my own inspiration, but I'm a little out of practice. Off to google I go!

Day 30: Inspired by a tutorial

For quite some time now I've been trying to find a tutorial for peacock nails that fit with what I wanted to do and my ability levels. After much searching, I finally found one from Nails by Kayla Shevonne that was exactly what I was looking for! I loved how it turned out too.

The colours are "Golden-I" by Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear, "Ocean Breeze" by Revlon, "Perfect Plum" by LA Colors, and Art Deco nail polish in blue. From a distance these looked more like stained glass than peacock feathers, but they still were absolutely gorgeous!

Day 29: Inspired by the supernatural

This was a hard one for me. I had no clue what to do, and even looking around at what other people had done didn't give me much inspiration. Then, in the eleventh hour, I found this post by Talonted that gave me an idea for what to do. Here's the result!

Black polish is from a Monster High set, white is Konad Special Nail Polish, and red is Art Deco Nail Polish. I apologize for the terrible picture, it was hard to get the red to show up.

Day 28: Inspired by a flag

I'm getting this post up a few days late for all the festivities, but the flag inspiration fell at exactly the right time for pride week! So I decided to show my support on my nails. :)

I did a layer of Sally Hansen nailgrowth Miracle in "White Tip", then used Art Deco nail art polishes to make the stripes. The only exception for that is the orange, which is "Perfect Sunset" by LA Colors. Finally, I used the white Konad Special Nail Polish to do the heart. This was a really fun and colourful manicure, I got a lot of comments on it.

I doubt it's needed, but here's the pride flag.

Day 27: Inspired by artwork

I flip-flopped a lot on what kind of art I wanted to do for this manicure. After searching around a bit, I finally found something that would work! I got a lot of compliments on this mani too.

The yellow is Sally Hansen Insta-Dri in "Lightening", the blue is Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in "Blue Me Away", and the white is Sally Hansen nailgrowth Miracle in "White Tip". Unfortunately I don't remember which red I used because I've taken too long to post it! But you can't really see it anyways, so I suppose it doesn't really matter. Last but not least, the stamping plate I used to do the dots is BM19.

Here's the picture I used as inspiration:

Day 26: Inspired by a pattern.

I really wanted to do argyle for this one, but apparently I'm not quite good enough for that yet. Instead, I ended up doing fish scales!

I love love LOVE this colour! It's "Sea Siren" by LA Colors. Sometimes it looks more blue, sometimes it looks more green, and all the time it looks gorgeous. Plus it goes on beautifully in one coat. The gold is, of course, Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in "Golden-I".

Day 25: Inspired by fashion

I am once again behind on posting my nails! I need to get back in the habit of putting these up when I do my nails, not a week later. I'll catch the blog up over the next couple days. First, my nails inspired by a very pretty pair of shoes!

White is Sally Hansen nailgrowth Miracle in "White Tip", and the pink and black are from the monster high set. This was also my first attempt at newspaper nails! I wish I had found a section with smaller print, this was a bit big for what I was doing. All in all though, I like it!

Here's the shoes I used for inspiration:

Day 24: Inspired by a book

I had a bit of trouble with the inspiration for this one. Most of the books that popped into my head couldn't be easily translated to a manicure. Eventually, though, I settled on this design.

The colours are "Perfect Sunset" and "Paradise Pink" by LA Colours, as well as the purple from the monster high nail polish set. Please excuse the bumpiness of my thumb nail, I tore my nail pretty bad so I've patched it up with a piece of a tea bag until it grows out enough I can cut it.

I used Janet Evanovich, one of my favourite authors, as inspiration. She write the Stephanie Plum series, which is some of the funniest books that I have ever read in my life. Doing a plum manicure seemed a little bit dark for summer though, so instead I adapted this cover art into a nail design:

Not my favourite book of hers, but still funny nonetheless. :)

Day 23: Inspired by a movie

There was no question as to which movie I was going to use for this challenge: V for Vendetta. I absolutely adore this movie, and I thought it would make for a good manicure too! I'm not sure it turned out as awesome as I thought it would, but I'm still pretty proud of it overall.

Here's the colours I used for each nail:

Thumb: Sally Hansen nailgrowth miracle in "White Tip", black from Monster High set.

Pointer: black from Monster High set, Art Deco nail art lacquer in red

Middle: black from Monster High set, Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in "Golden-I", Art Deco nail art lacquer in red

Ring: Sally Hansen nailgrowth miracle in "White Tip", Art Deco nail art lacquer in red, LA Colours in "Voodoo"

Pinky: black from Monster High set, Sally Hansen Insta-Dri in "Lightening", Art Deco nail art lacquer in red

Unfortunately I couldn't get the red to show up well over the black. If I did this again I would definitely draw it in white first to make the design pop more. Or maybe use acrylic paints.

Here's the poster, for those of you that haven't seen the movie!

Day 22: Inspired by a song

For this challenge, I chose to use a song by one of my favourite artists. His name is Dan Mangan, and the first song I ever heard by him was one called "Robots". The most memorable part of the song comes near the end, where he starts singing that robots need love too. From that line, I came up with this manicure!

The silver is "Queen of Everything" by Sephora by OPI, and the red on the accent nail (which unfortunately doesn't really show well in this picture) is Maybelline Express Finish in "Red Comet". It's a really nice sparkly red, but I wish I'd used a bright pink instead to give it a more obvious colour. As for the eyes on the robot, I accidentally put the polishes away and now I can't remember which ones I used. It's not a great example of the colours anyways.

If I did this manicure again, I think I wouldn't put the colours in the eyes. It looks good here, they remind me of robots from futurama, but I think they looked better with just the white.

Anyways, for anyone interested this is the song that inspired it all! The infamous line starts at 2:44.

Day 21: Inspired by a colour

I had some vague plans for this colour, but as I was rifling through my polishes I found one that my mom had bought and I had yet to try. It looked really pretty, so I changed my plans and tried this instead!

The base colour is LA Colors in "Fiery Orange", and the colour I used to do the stamp with is Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in "Golden-I". I used the Bundle Monster image plate BM21. This was a much more demure look than I usually go for, but it's a nice colour nonetheless!

Day 20: Water Marbled

I'll be honest, this was my first time doing water marbling and I was dreading it. I definitely had a few mishaps along the way and only one nail was truly done right, but it went a lot better than I expected and I definitely want to do this again!

I did a base coat first in Sally Hansen nailgrowth Miracle in "White Tip", then used that white as well as Sally Hansen Insta-Dri in "Mint Sprint" and Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in "Blue Me Away!". I love this colour combo, but using white as a base caused a few problems. I'd love to try this again with the green as a base instead.

Day 19: Galaxies

I've tried the galaxy tutorial from cutepolish before, but I didn't have the right nail polish colours. I think the second time went much better!

The white I used was Sally Hansen nailgrowth miracle in "White Tip", yellow was Sally Hansen Insta-Dri in "Lightening", pink was LA Colors in "Summertime", and blue was LA Colors in "Blue Lagoon". Oddly enough, I can't find my sparkles to tell you what they are. Hm.


Edit: found it! Apparently the brand is Tivoli, and the colour is "NP043". I confess, I got this at the dollar store back when I was first starting my nail polish collection and didn't have a lot of money to do so. It worked well though!

Day 18: Half Moon

I am almost a week behind on my posts, so over the next three days I'm going to cut the chit chat and just catch you guys up! Here was my half moon sunset-inspired nails.

Yellow is "Lightening" by Sally Hansen Insta-Dri, pink is "Exotic Pink" by LA Colors, and the purple is from the Monster High nail polishes I got from Claire's.

Day 17: Glitter

My mom is an editor for a fashion magazine, so she's always up on all the latest trends. For Christmas/my birthday, she gave me a set of "mixed metal" jewellery because it was fashionable and because it would go with so many things. It is, by far, my favourite set of jewellery. So for this day, I decided to do a tribute to the mixed metal look.

The base coat is Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in "Golden-I", and the glitter is LA Colors in "Sparkling Diamonds". It was really hard to get a picture that catches the colours really well. Here's a few pictures with the ring I was trying to match with, hopefully that will give you a better idea of what I was going for.

I'm sad that the camera really didn't capture how pretty this manicure was. This is why I usually go for much more contrasting colours for most of my manicures. I got many compliments on it in real life though,, so I guess it showed better than I thought.

Day 16: Tribal Print

This is, by far, the most labour-intensive manicure I have ever done. It took me 3.5 hours. That being said, I think it turned out fantastic and was worth every gruelling minute.

I know it's not quite the usual tribal, but I didn't want to do the usual tribal. I decided to use an Aztec calendar my boyfriend gave me as inspiration. To get the effect I wanted, I painted the whole nail with Sally Hansen nailgrowth Miracle in "White Tip", then sponged Revlon Top Speed in "Espresso" all over the nails. After that, I used a toothpick (because my brushes seem to have gone walkabout) to make the design in the brown, then added some more white to accent the design. Here's some picture of the calendar to show you the effect I was going for:

The design I was trying to copy is running through the middle again. I'm very happy with how the manicure turned out, but I will probably never do it ever again because it just took way too long.

Day 15: Delicate Print

I think I actually decided to do this nail design before I started the 31 day challenge. Thankfully my Bundle Monster stamps had a design that worked out really well for this! I present to you my delicate print nails:

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The bluish-green colour I used is "Jungle Fever" by LA Colors, and the stamp that I used is BM11. I think this is my new favourite stamp, I love the lace effect! Thankfully my regular polish worked pretty well for stamping, I thought this would make a cool accent nail but I wasn't sure it would work.

Painting the accent nail was a challenge though. I can't find my regular white nail polish, so I had to use the Konad special nail polish. That stuff really isn't made for doing all-over nails. It took me a couple tries, but in the end it turned out all right. Hopefully I can find my normal white polish soon though, I want to use it for the next design.

Day 14: Flowers

I will admit that I wasn't very inspired by flowers. I wanted to so something fun and pretty that took up the whole nail, but my skills weren't quite up to my ideas. Finally, my boyfriend suggested that I make the thumb the centre of the flower and my fingers the petals, and I thought this was brilliant. I figured a sunflower would be best for this because they have large centers and small petals. Unfortunately, my follow-through was not as good as the idea. Part of the issue is that I was rushing to do it at work and therefore couldn't spend as much time on the details that I normally would. The rest of the issue is that I was just lazy. In any case, here's how it turned out:

The effect is really meant to work with both hands put together, but I had to use one of my hands to take the picture. I photoshopped it to try and get the effect, but it really didn't work all that well. It looks better when I do it in person.

Neither of these pictures shows the effort I put in to making the thumb look like the centre of the flower:

All in all, this is not my favourite manicure I've done and I'll probably take it off tomorrow and move to the next one. The yellow is Sally Hansen Insta-Dri's "Lightening" and the brown is Revlon Top Speed's "Espresso". The orange and black are both acrylic paint.

On a positive note, I really like this brown. I bought it specifically for this manicure but I'll definitely be using it again!

Day 13: Animal Print

I love animal print. Quite often I struggle to pull it off without looking tacky and ridiculous, but I think with nails you can go as wild as you want and still look fabulous. My grad was yesterday though, so I chose to go with something slightly more subtle: zebra tips with a bit of flair!

The base is "Beige Blast" by Sally Hansen Insta-Dri, and the green sparkle is "Treasure Island" by LA Colors. I chose to add the sparkles because my faculty colour is green and I thought it would be fun to coordinate for my big day. I'm not going to list my black and whites anymore, I don't think anyone really cares which brand of polish I'm using for those.

As for the grad ceremony, it went great! The whole thing didn't take long at all, and my boyfriend, my parents, and I all went out for lunch afterwards. I am now officially done with my bachelors degree! Only 6 years in the making. :P