Recreation of a Recreation!

Today I have a recreation of something I already recreated last week lol. I loved my manicure inspired by The Lacquerologist so much I did it again. In less than a week! I really, really liked it the first time so I did it twice in a week which is unheard of for me!

This time I used two coats of Sinful Colors Opening Night and two coats of Sinful Colors Inkwell. I then did the stripes down my ring finger with Essie Good as Gold. The contrast between the teal and blackened plum wasn't as stark as it was in the previous manicure, so I'm not sure I loved this combination as much.

What do you think of this combo?

Thanks for reading!
 

Halloween Ruffian

Hello lovlies!

Today I just have a quick manicure for you. I write my last midterm today so I haven't had a ton of time to do my nails, in fact I've been wearing this manicure for 4 days now and it's just showing tip wear now, phewf! I'm so happy it's lasted this long so I can concentrate on studying.

Keeping with the Halloween theme I have a sorta-ruffian manicure. I say sort of because the bottom color continues up the sides of my nails but in a true ruffian it wouldn't.

I used two coats of Sinful Colors Citrine for the orange and one coat of Sinful Colors Black on Black for the top color. Next time I would make the black as smooth as possible with a small paintbrush, but I just didn't have time this weekend to let my perfectionism get in the way!

I'm very excited for this evening, no more studying! Which means I can squeeze in one more Halloween manicure for tomorrow :)

Thanks for reading!

OMD 31 Day Challenge - Day 21 - Stamping

Stamping!! Yay! I like stamping!! So many possibilities for one mani!

I was really inspired by my day 17 gradient. It really reminded me of the color of the sky at dusk. So I recreated the colors in another gradient using China Glaze Urban-Night and China Glaze Traffic Jam and then I used Bundle Monster 205's butterfly image to have the butterflies fluttering into the night. I didn't topcoat after the stamping because I liked the way the butterflies looked matte against the shininess of the sky.

Thanks for reading!

Don't forget to check out the other challenger's manis here

OMD 31 Day Challenge - Day 16 - Ruffian/Half Moon

Hi everyone! It's hump day of the challenge!! After today we're officially on the later half of the challenge...but the themes get more complicated :)

Today is Ruffian/Half Moon and I decided to go with a Half Moon manicure. I've never done one before and I quite like how it looks :) It won't be the last one I do!

I decided to go with a very geometric look. I started with one quick coat of Wet N Wild Black Creme and then I stamped it with Gals plate 17. Once that was dry I used page protectors and went over the top portion of my nails with Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Just in Lime! which was opaque enough to cover both the black and the white. I really like the juxtaposition of the triangles peeking through the curve.

A side note about the Gals plates, with the curved cutout at the bottom they're too small for my nails unless they're filed to their absolute shortest and even then it's a very precise operation to get the designs to fit. It's super disappointing because I really love some of the designs. Half moons seem to be a decent way to utilize some of the designs though, it's a good way to make them work. The plates are really challenging my creativity to use them...which is good in a way but sad because I just want them to work as full nail designs like they're intended. If they didn't do the little curved cutout at the bottom they would be much better :(

Thanks for reading!!

Check out the other mani's here

OMD 31 Day Challenge - Day 13 - Stars

It's Saturday! Woohoo!

Today is Day 13 - Stars of the OMD 31 Day Challenge. But before we get to that I have a polish I'd like to give a little love to. China Glaze Midtown Magic is my favorite polish I have!! I've yet to feature it here on the blog so I thought I should give it a little bit of special mention! It's a blackened burgundy base with loads of gorgeous gold shimmer in it. The shimmer changes color to bronzy-red through the base. I love this polish!! It looks black but with some awesome dimension!

Yummy! Look at that shimmer!!

Anyways for the star day of the challenge I've used two coats of Midtown Magic as my base and stamped over it using Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Silver Sweep. I love these two as a stamping combination...I've used them together several times.

On my thumb and pinky I've stamped the evenly spaced star design from Cheeky 4. On my pointer and middle finger I've used the randomly spaced and sized star design from Cheeky 5. On my ring finger I used the tiny UFO's from Cheeky 4 and a few of the individual star designs and the diamond shaped stars from Bundle Monster 311.

Thanks for reading!

Be sure to check out the other fantastic star mani's here

OMD 31 Day Challenge - Day 12 - Dots

Today is Dot day and Friday, double yay!

I've been using a LOT of dots in this challenge so far so I decided not to do another one of the same style I've already done. So today I have 3D dots! I really like the way they look like they're trying to escape off my nails!!

I started with two coats of Essie Smooth Sailing as a base. It's a gorgeous blue with a delightful shimmer! Once that was dry I used Wet N Wild Black Creme to do the dots, then I went back over them with Barielle Going to the Chapel and offset the second dots a bit to make them look 3D. I really enjoyed these nails...I'll definitely be trying this again!

Thanks for reading!

Check out all the other awesome challenge manis here

OMD 31 Day Challenge - Day 9 - Texture

Hello everyone! Today is texture day of the OMD 31 Day Challenge. I have a confession to make...I LOVE the glittery textured polishes. I just plain adore them so I was so excited for texture day!

Stay the Night Liquid Sand by OPI really reminds me of lava with the red sparkles peeking through the black base. So I decided to make the lava a bit more obvious! So today I present lava rock nails with molten lava cracks!

My pinky is two coats of Stay the Night by OPI. On my pointer, middle and ring finger I started with two thin coats of China Glaze Red Satin. I then free-handed the Liquid Sand around my nail to create the molten lava pools leaving some of the red showing. As the second coat of the Liquid Sand was drying I went into the red that was showing to add a bit of orange and yellow highlighting using Barielle Gotta Have Fate and Joe Fresh Pineapple respectively.

I really liked the way these turned out. They came out exactly as I hoped they would.

Thanks for reading everyone!

Check out the other participant's manis here

OMD 31 Day Challenge - Day 4 - Black and White

Today is black and white! I love black and white mani's, they're so sharp and eye-catching.

Unfortunately my mani today is neither sharp nor eye-catching. I attempted to do an ombre saran wrap look, but I think my color choices could use a bit of work.

All fingers started with three coats of OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls. Here's what I used on each of my fingers for the saran wrap effect:

• Thumb: Sinful Colors Tantalize
• Pointer: NYC Sidewalkers
• Middle: Maybelline Express Finish Cool Couture
• Ring: China Glaze Concrete Catwalk
• Pinky: Wet N Wild Black Creme

I'm kind of meh about this whole manicure. I feel like there's not enough difference between the shades when I used the saran wrap. I think this would be a neat look but needs better color choices than the ones I made. Maybe I'll try it again sometime with different polishes. Lots of potential, bad execution. Oh well, part of blogging is about sharing the good with the not so good right?! 

 Thanks for reading!

You can find the other participants mani's here

Yellow Rays

I looooove striping tape! I love how it makes such clean and crisp lines and easily adds interest to a manicure.

Today I have some yellow rays, made using striping tape. This mani sort of reminds me of sun rays breaking through the dark of the morning just itching to lighten up the day.

For my pointer and pinky finger I used two coats of Wet N Wild Night Prowl. On my middle and ring finger I used three coats of Joe Fresh Pineapple. If I were wearing Pineapple by itself I likely would have done one more coat, it was still sort of streaky, darn yellow polish! Since I was planning on covering it up though I stopped at three coats. It was opaque, just not perfect, but good enough for the next step! Once Pineapple was dry I arranged striping tape in a sort of ray pattern and then covered it with a quite thick coat of Night Prowl as the yellow didn't want to be covered that easily.

The purple flecks in Night Prowl were more prominent in real life than I was able to catch in photos. You can see the gorgeous purple quite clearly in the bottle.

Looking at the photos now, I should have tried a matte top coat with this mani! I love mattifying manicures, and now I want to see what this would have looked like. Oh well...maybe next time I'll remember!

Thanks for reading!