B&W Nail Art Challenge Day 3: Freehand Free for All!

When I hear "Free for all", and it's relating to nails, I hear "GLITTER". I also hear, "I have very shaky hands", so I decided to try my hand at a two-color galaxy manicure, as I figured that'd be more forgiving.  Thus, I give you a glitterbomb of black and white proportions :

Check out today's B&W Nail Art Challenge looks!

An InLinkz Link-up

B&W Nail Art Challenge Day 2: Stamping

I tend to gravitate toward my twirly whirly, fluffy and frilly stamping patterns, so today I aimed to use the harder-edged, more geometric ones off of my LeaLC B plate.  Et Voila!

Sorry for the slightly gloomy pics; it's been threatening rain all day long!
Check out today's B&W Nail Art Challenge looks!

An InLinkz Link-up

Artsy Wednesday: Re-do your first blogged Nail Art

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My first blogged nail art is here: Memorial Day Manicure.  Not too shabby for just starting out!  I decided an exact duplicate manicure would be boring, so this is more of an "Inspired By" type of thing :)

I busted out my good old Orly Stone Cold and Rock-It; these colors are so stunning I can hardly stand it!  Plus, they're one-coaters. I'll always fall in love with a one-coater.  The holo triangles and stars are Gosh Holographic Hero.

The white is Milani White on the Spot, and I just had to jazz it up a bit.  I won a  Shimmer Polish giveaway a few months ago, and that blue beauty was a perfect way to snazz up my manicure!  Shimmer Polishes are really impressive; packed with glitter, but not goopy, no taco glitters, easy application and not too topcoat hungry either.  Impressive!

Check out the other Artsy Wednesday bloggers; they all do some pretty gorgeous work!  And welcome to our newest blogger, M.A.S.P.O.O.A.S.E!

Lab Muffin

Maria's Nail Art

Valiantly Varnished

Unnaked Nails

Nail & Polish

Beauty Gnome

M.A.S.P.O.O.A.S.E

Artsy Wednesday: Creative with Crackle

I have never owned a crackle polish, until yesterday.  I never actually liked them, but the whole point of my wanting to participate with Artsy Wednesday was to try new things, right?  Right??

I ran out to Sally's to snag one of the China Glaze crackles that are practically always on clearance there, and picked up Haute Metal, a rosy metallic crackle.  I figured "creative" required more than just crackling the whole nail, so I did oblique stripes per nail, over Orly Ingenue.  Thus, a fairly pretty, candylike manicure was born!

Upon staring at my nails and trying to think of other ways I could use crackle, it occurred to me that it looked like a similar texture to a lipstick print.  I may try using this on valentines, to make little lip prints on my nails.  We'll see!

I'm really honored to be able to participate in Artsy Wednesday, and you should all DEFINITELY check out these other, very talented Artsy Wednesday participants.  

Pretty Purple Polish

Lab Muffin
Maria's Nail Art
Polished Genius
Valiantly Varnished
Unnaked Nails
Nail & Polish
Beauty Gnome
Lacquered Lunatic

Artsy Wednesday: Halloween

Ooh, ooh, witchy woman, see how high she flies. Ooh, ooh, witchy woman, she got the moon in her eye.

I'm so proud of these!  These are my real nails, by the way; I filed them to points!  I was going to cut them down anyway, so it seemed like the perfect opportunity to do something a little crazy.

I won 365 Days of Color's Boouk!  in a giveaway, and it's a fantastic addition to my witchy manicure!  The creamy base softened the lines of my gradient without obscuring the colors.  It's like a veil for your nails, so to speak.  The very charming neutral glitter also added a pretty wartiness (if such a thing can exist) that I just love!  I think neutral glitter colors are underrated; purple is fun, but copper and pale bronze are just so classy (says the woman with pointy witch fingers).

I don't know that it would have occurred to me to layer Boouk! over a darker color if I hadn't done a witchy manicure, but boy am I glad I did.  I've been having an "every other week" success rate with how much I like my Artsy Wednesday offerings, but this one has definitely broken my 50/50 streak, as I like it a lot!

I'm really honored to be able to participate in Artsy Wednesday, and you should all DEFINITELY check out these other, very talented Artsy Wednesday participants.  

Pretty Purple Polish

Lab Muffin
Maria's Nail Art
Polished Genius
Valiantly Varnished
Unnaked Nails
Nail & Polish
Beauty Gnome
Lacquered Lunatic

Artsy Wednesday: Wedding Nails

Well sportsfans, I've discovered my polish Achilles heel; french manicures.  I wanted to go all traditional with this week's theme.  I figured, since I'll probably end up having a non-traditional wedding, this'd be a great opportunity!  And it was!  I just wasn't very good at seizing the day.  

To make the best of it, I'm going to claim these are for a winter holiday wedding, held in the evening! (Because the sun hasn't been out in days and I haven't been able to fix my lightbox!)  Without further ado, hand-waving or explanations, my take on wedding nails:

And just for fun, I threw on a ring so you could get the full theme effect:

I'm really honored to be able to participate in Artsy Wednesday, and you should all DEFINITELY check out these other, very talented Artsy Wednesday participants.  

 Pretty Purple Polish

Lab Muffin
Maria's Nail Art
Polished Genius
Valiantly Varnished
Unnaked Nails
Nail & Polish
Beauty Gnome
Kaka Beauty Blog

Ruffle manicure!

I found a tutorial at Chalkboard Nails on how to create a ruffle manicure, and it looked so appealing that I couldn't wait to try it out.  I used a sewing pin with a large plastic head to make the dots, and while I wish I had put one more row near my cuticle, I'm pretty pleased with the result!

Memorial Day Manicure

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It feels a little frivolous to post a manicure on Memorial Day, but this is a blog for nail polish, so it seems fitting even if it is a little silly.  

A day set aside to honor Americans lost to war is  a pretty somber, serious and needful kind of day.  However, I feel like the atmosphere of the day has become one of enjoyment of our freedoms, spending time with friends and family, a day of gratitude.  That's how I choose to observe Memorial Day.  I'm certainly grateful for my life, and am grateful to know the people I know, live where I live, and to be able to do what I do.  Thank you, to anyone and everyone that has made this country a better place.

Who doesn't love a duochrome?

I love duochrome polishes; it's almost like an opportunity to wear more than one polish at a time. I think they tend to make a manicure more fun to look at.  Today, I'm wearing Orly's Space Cadet over Julep's Anne.  Space Cadet is a pretty sheer polish, so having an undercoat kept me from having to use 3-4 coats of polish on my nails.  I did an accent nail of Virtual Violet, a holographic purple.

Left to Right: Space Cadet, Virtual Violet, Space Cadet

In full sun, it was hard to tell that I had 2 different polishes on, but in medium light (indoors), the duochrome effect of Space Cadet really shone.  It shifts from reddish-purple to a dark chartreuse, and is pretty spectacular as a polish!

Space Cadet is somewhat hard to find; it came out in fall of 2010, and isn't part of Orly's core line.  Some Ultas have had the Cosmic FX collection in stock (I just found mine two weeks ago at the local Ulta), but otherwise, online is your best bet.  Hard Candy has a polish called Beetle that is a dupe for Space Cadet, and you can find that color at almost any WalMart, so that may be the easier route to get this fantastic color!