Artsy Wednesday: Inspired by Jewelry

This is going to be a short one; I had a heck of a time getting this manicure photographed because it was so cloudy, my cuticles are a mess because I got a better water marble on my non-swatching hand and so I photographed that, and I'm almost late for work!  At least my nails look cute :)

I was inspired by a swirly marcasite ring I got myself for my birthday around 5 years ago.  I figured it'd be perfect for a water marble, but I wanted to make sure the glitter of the ring was translated into the manicure, so I used Zoya Luna and China Glaze Tinseltown to add a little sparkle!

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
Nails by Ms. Lizard
Unnaked Nails
Nail & Polish
Beauty Gnome
Kaka Beauty Blog

Artsy Wednesday: Framed

Framed manicure! A mini-mani-inside-a-mani.  I used Julep's Sienna as my base, and painted Essence Choose Me! over it in a smaller, rectangular shape.  I then tipped my nails with Sienna again, fully framing Choose Me!

 I feel like you'd have to be really careful with the colors you'd choose for this manicure, so it doesn't look like chipped polish or like you have bloody cuticles, but this combo is so festive I might give it a shot for the winter holidays!

Sorry about the rough photos; it's been rainy all week, and my indoor lighting is pretty yellow, so good photo lighting wasn't to be found for these!

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
Nails by Ms. Lizard
Unnaked Nails
Nail & Polish
Beauty Gnome
Kaka Beauty Blog

Artsy Wednesday: Sponging

This week's Artsy Wednesday theme is Sponging.  I love a sponged manicure, because it's usually pretty darn easy, and it adds a lot to nail art without being too difficult.

That said, I did fail with my first try for Artsy Wednesday; I had visions of a beautiful gummy-bear-like jelly polish sponge gradient, and gave it my best go, but it turned out fuuuuugly.

So I went in a different direction; cave paintings!  On a recent work trip, I leafed through a few of the 3-year-old National Geographics that were scattered around our housing, and found an article on cave paintings, including the hand pantings like these:

For some reason, I thought this would turn out really cool as nail art.  And thus, this manicure was born:

I used Julep's Pippa as the base (best nude ever!), Zoya Kaufda for the orange/red (one of Zoya's most underrated polishes), and Color Club Revvvolution for the black.  I sponged the polishes over little hands cut out of painters tape, let the polish dry, and peeled off the stickers.  A little touchup here and there, and voila!

I'm pretty proud of how this turned out; it isn't pretty or glamorous, but it is pretty darn neat!

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
Nails by Ms. Lizard
Unnaked Nails
Nail & Polish
Beauty Gnome
Kaka Beauty Blog

Artsy Wednesday: Fishtail Manicure

My first Artsy Wednesday! I'm so excited! This week's theme was the fishtail manicure. This nail art has always seemed intimidating, with all its intricate stripes, but I figured I'd go at it with a gusto and try freehanding to see how it turned out. Pretty darn well!

As I said, I freehanded this one, so the edges definitely aren't perfect.  But this is the type of manicure I could see getting really, really good at with practice, and it honestly didn't take much longer than painting my nails a single color!

I wish the sun would have come out so you could see how lovely these colors are; Julep's Sienna, Alyson, and Amy.  I got them in a Julep mystery box and knew they'd be a fun, preppy combination.  

Here's a final close-up to see how neat this pattern is; some simple swipes of polish, using the brush width to your advantage, and you've got a fishtail braid pattern right on your nails!

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
Nails by Ms. Lizard
Unnaked Nails
Nail & Polish
Beauty Gnome
Kaka Beauty Blog

Skittles Kick

I've been on a real "skittles nails" kick lately, using a bunch of different colors for each manicure.  I think I just enjoy looking at all the different colors/finishes of the polish, plus a skittles manicure means I don't have to pick just one polish!

My right hand features a bunch of different golds.  From thumb to pinky: 

• LA Colors Antique Gold: a butter London Wallis dupe!  This is one of those ugly/beautiful green golds that are just neat to look at, even if they are really weird.
• Julep Sienna: possibly the best gold polish ever.  Opaque in one coat, good wear, and a really neat white gold look to it.
• Wet n' Wild The Gold and The Beautiful: a greenish leaning gold glitter, it doesn't have as much visible nail line in real life.  2 coats.
• OPI Rising Star: from the Burlesque collection, which may be OPI's prettiest collection ever.  I only have a mini, and I wish I could get my hands on the full-size set, but scouring eBay for it doesn't seem worth the time when I have all this other polish to use.
• Zoya Tiffany: this is such an unusual orangey pinkey goldey glassfleck polish.  It looks a lot like Zoya's Rica, but leans way more pink and gold, while Rica leans more orange.  2 coats got me to opacity, which is really nice for a polish with a moderately sheer formula.

 Silver on the left, to go with the gold on the right! On my left, from thumb to pinky, I've got:

• Zoya Trixie: great formula, 2 coats
• Nicole by OPI Make a Comet-Ment: A scattered silver holo, slightly thin but no visible nail line after 2 coats
• Zoya Harley: A tricky formula, I had to use 3 coats to make sure this wasn't patchy, and I'm not sure the final result is flawless, but the color is just beautiful.
• Essie Power Clutch: I just got this in a 6 polish set from Ross (for less than $18!!), and thought it'd be the worst color on me, but I think it actually looks fantastic.  I did 3 thin coats to make sure there were no bald spots, but it dried like a dream and was a great consistency.
• Color Club Magic Attraction: Another Ross find, this one has holo silver glitter and small pinkish glitter in it; I don't have a lot of silver polish, so this was what I went with in a pinch, but it has great coverage after 2 coats.  It is still a little gritty to the touch after a coat of Out the Door though, but that doesn't bother me much.

So much more fun to look at than just one color!

Happy 4th of July!! (And farewell to 1/3 of my right thumbnail!)

I love the 4th of July.  I hope you all have a wonderful day of grilling, relaxing, parades, fireworks and fun!  I'm celebrating with a pretty simple 4th manicure:

I finally busted out the FingerPaints magnetic polish, and used the China Glaze star magnet to make little stars/fireworks on my nails!  I don't have striping tape, and for some reason couldn't find any actual tape, so I used OPI's Pirouette My Whistle over Nailtiques Moscow for my thumbs.

Why did I photograph my left hand for this?  Because I broke my right thumb nail on a gate at work.  Not just broke, practically obliterated it.  Here's the damage:

You can actually see how far down the nail a layer broke off; I'm super, super lucky it wasn't worse though, as I didn't even bleed.  Here's my thumb compared to my whole nails, to show how I like to keep my nails (when they aren't polished!).  

Fingers crossed that it grows back soon.  Field work is rough!

NOTD: Flakies!

Lab Muffin recently did an excellent article breaking down why flakies look a lot better over dark colors.  I did a darker manicure yesterday, and felt the need to jazz it up to make it a little less fall-like, so I threw some flakies over Zoya's Valerie and Edyta, and came up with this gorgeous manicure!

Flakies add so much depth to a plain manicure, I just LOVE them!