Day 13 - Animal Print

After seeing the Girls In Pearls display from Sinful Colors, I immediately fell in love with all but one. I only grabbed one, but it is certain that the rest need to be obtained very soon. The one I did pick up is called Morning Star and it's almost similar to O.P.I's I Have a Herring Problem. It has more purple than Herring and has a little less obvious shimmer. My camera made the color lighter than it actually is, of course. These pics are a few swipes of Morning Star on the side of some (perhaps awesome?) leopard print. The leopard spots definitely needed more glitter, but other than that I'm pretty satisfied.

Before the addition of Morning Star

Before I grabbed Morning Star I had planned on doing this design with neons a la Algae Veronica, but I just had to try this polish immediately!

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Thanks for reading :)

Day 4 - Green

As green is my favorite color, this was destined to be a good day! The greens I chose were China Glaze- Westside Warrior, American Apparel - Army Jacket, and Sinful Colors - Innocent (dark to light)

Flash

The gold is a nail art striper by Sinful Colors called Flower Girl. I really like this striper, it gives super great coverage for a glittery type polish. 

This is my first attempt at anything of this nature. I didn't use tape, just nail art brushes. It could be a lot cleaner, but I'm definitely satisfied for my first attempt!

Thanks for reading :)

Note: Am I crazy or does this manicure totally match my blog?! ^.^

Pastel Clouds

The ever-amazing Jane at Nailside came up with this cute design awhile back. After seeing so many awesome recreations, I had to try it out myself. I used Sinful Colors Innocent and Confetti Belle of the Ball. I can't remember the white's name. -_-  I use Innocent a lot, if anyone has noticed, but I just picked up Belle of the Ball last week at CVS. I went there because I had heard there were a ton of good sales going on, but I must have heard way too late because they were cleaned out. Either way, I walked away with basically the cheapest polishes I could find in any colors I didn't have 2 of. This lovely purple is one of them. 

While it's fun and cute, I kind of regret the color combination. It didn't look very nice on my skin. Maybe light purples just don't do well for me. My light was creating some crazy glare in these pictures too. I kind of liked the effect, though. 

Thanks for reading!

Oh, what a strange (Matte) Magic!

Finally got my hands on some China Glaze Matte Magic over the holidays, and I couldn't be more impressed. Easily the smoothest thing I have ever applied. One quick, stroke, and your nails are completely matte. I experienced no streaks or clumping or oily look afterwards. In fact, even after applying cuticle butter and lotion to my nails, they retained their matte look. I'm absolutely blown away by how easy this was to work with. A pretty quick dry, too! I'd say if you're looking for a brand to go with for a matte top coat, go China Glaze (no they didn't pay me haha, I wish).

I threw that on over Innocent by Sinful Colors that I had done earlier. Despite the matte awesomeness, it was a bit boring for my tastes so I started over and added Nubar's Black Polka Dot to the mix.

This is such an amazing glitter! I was surprised by how much the little hex's stuck to the brush. It's sister, White Polka Dot, I don't feel is as heavily packed with glitter, or maybe I was just applying it wrong. Anyway, take a look!

Before Matte Magic

After Matte Magic

So. Smooth.

And what matte manicure (matte-icure?) would be complete without some glossy tips!

I am pretty much in love with this look. Next time, 3 coats instead of two with the Black Polka Dot!

Thanks for reading!

Watermelons are delicious...

...And these nails just made me wish it were in season! I had a lot of fun doing these, and I was surprised at how well they turned out. I wish I had used a dotting tool instead of a needle for the seeds. They came out a little wonky. On to the pictures!

As far as colors go, I used Sinful Colors - Timberberry (pink), Sinful Colors - Innocent (light green), and white and green stripers from the dollar store. 

Thanks for reading!

It's gradient time!

I was looking through animal print tutorials and pictures, and I kept seeing artists using really awesome gradients underneath their animal print designs. Pink, orange, and red do NOT sound like they'd go well together (to me, anyway), but apparently they combine for a really awesome and smooth gradient! First, I did a solid coat of Sinful Colors - Courtney Orange. This is a seriously beautiful orange shimmer. Check it out:

3 coats to a beautiful (quite Halloween-y) orange!

It actually matched my lotion bottle ^.^

Now on to the gradient! I don't have a very good camera, but for some reason it captured this manicure exactly how it looks in person. Maybe it's the beautiful desert sun bringing out these truly beautiful colors!

For the red I used Sinful Colors - Ruby Ruby and for the pink Sinful Colors - Timbleberry.

I am super pleased with how this turned out! That little bottle of polish I'm holding is a glitter from a 5 piece Hello Kitty set. It really isn't good quality AT ALL, but the bottle is super cute! The glitter actually washed off the next time I washed my hands. Still, what glitter remained made this an awesome manicure that I was proud to show off. Thanks for reading! 

Creepy eyeballs for Halloween and a few other ideas...

I have done a number of random Halloween manicures, but I haven't really liked many. This one, I do enjoy!

This manicure is also using that wonderful blue polish, Why Not? by Sinful Colors.

Not sure which I like best... good combination ideas?

First personal post! My first attempt at a Ruffian manicure

Hello and welcome to my blog. I am very new at this (blogging *and* nail art), so please bear with me while I get the hang of things! I have a very small polish collection and home-made dotting tools. Don't expect any expert artwork because I am the furthest from it. I do hope you enjoy it though!

First up:

This wonderful artist inspired me to try the "ruffian" look.
I used a very old Wet N Wild black polish and Sinful Colors - Why Not?

Featuring my awesome Hello Kitty air freshener!

Another angle

I'm happy with the first two fingers, but the ring and pinky finger are a little messy. Practice makes perfect, amirite?

Thanks for reading!