Week 40 of the Year of Polish Challenge: Suede Animal Print Manicure

Playing catch up on the Year of Polish Challenge while I am in the thick of fall classes. 

Today I used a few of my Avon Suede polishes to complete some Suede Animal Print nails.

I painted my nails with Avon Fuchsia Feel, Blue Royale, and Sumptuous Rose.  I then used Revlon Gold Coin to paint on leopard and zebra prints on my nails.   I like how understated yet modern the suede polishes make animal print.  I predict my winter toes will sport some Suede Leopard Print in the future, yes, I do!

Week 38 of the Year of Polish Challenge: Metallic Mani, in the style of Dots

This week's challenge was a metallic or magnetic mani.  I never really jumped on the magnetic polish bandwagon so I chose metallic.  I saw a retro 80s gold and black shirt with cool design and made it my own with Sinful Colors Black on Black and China Glaze Silver Platinum.    I love how graphic this nail art is!

DNA Themed Nails

As mentioned when I did the Periodic Life nails, I really did have a work-in-progress design of a  DNA set of themed nails.  I finally got around to painting these the other day.

I started with two coats of Midnight Queen on each base-coated nail and then free-handed most of the designs with Sinful Colors Snow Me White (not pictured).  You should always do a design base with white to help colors show correctly on top of dark colors.   I then went back in and added the colors.  On my thumb I have letter blocks spelling out "LIFE" as a kind of joke..."DNA, the building blocks of life"  from Jurassic Park.  My index finger nail has chromosomes painted in Happy Ending.  My middle finger sports a DNA double helix structure with those memorable base pairing of guanine and cytosine and adenine and thymine.  My ring finger has DNA profiling in several different blues.  My ring finger has my favorite element which makes up part of each nucleotide as a 5 carbon sugar called deoyxribose!

I wonder what other Science themed nails I can come up with??  I'm thinking Physics next!

Fun with Curves Nails

I just bought Big Daddy and wanted to use its orange goodness on my nails so I came up with this design and some complimentary colors.  I think these nails came together perfectly.

I started with base coated nails that I painted with one coat of Big Daddy.  Once dry, I then painted white lines in Snow Me White to make the curves and also filled them in with Snow Me White so that the top colors would show true.  I then filled in the top curves with Unicorn and the bottom curves with Savage.   Here's where the trial and error comes in.  I then lined the curves with more Snow Me White but then my nails looked a lot like my dog's tennis ball :(  So I pulled out my old stand by Gold Coin and used it over the top of the white.  MUCH better!  I covered these nails with a protective top coat and there you go!

Metallic Gradient Nails

I do love a bit of shiny polish plus I've be enamored with Orly's Space Cadet since I bought it a few months ago so these nails just sort of happened from playing around with metallic polishes and a small nail art brush!

 After painting two coats of Space Cadet, I painted thick Metallic Aqua lines at different points across each nail.  I used a small nail art brush to smear the Aqua lines and make them whispy.  I then added Ivanka on both sides of the Aqua lines with a nail art brush and blended them in. 

First Day of Spring means Bluebonnet Nails!

One of my fondest memories of my grandmother that recently died was when I was very young.  My grandmother would take my sister and I on walks in the fields in front of their home in Texas during the spring.  My sister and I would pick handfuls of wildflowers including Indian paintbrushes and bluebonnets.  Yes, yes, I know that bluebonnets are the state flower however, try to reason with a five year old!  We'd bring them back to the house and put all the flowers in mason jars and drinking glasses.  My grandmother was an avid gardener and always had rose bushes and ivy growing.  She loved teaching my sister and I about growing things. Anyway...I have been seeing friends and family post bluebonnet pictures on Facebook and got a little nostalgic so I decided to paint some Bluebonnet nails.  Major plus is that Spring is upon us! 

The first thing I did was to search online for some bluebonnet paintings and found Niki Gulley.  Her Texas wildflower paintings are sooo gorgeous that I modeled my wildflowers after hers!

Next, I had to test out my techniques.  When you do elaborate nails with layered backgrounds you do not want to experiment on your nails.  I practice my designs on dollar store note cards.

You get the idea.  Luckily, most of my nails art tends to turn out better than the test but these look pretty good.  One thing I knew to avoid was the "grape clusters" look when doing this on my nails.  The learning is all in the test!

Then I tried the design out on my nails. The first is with a lamp light and no flash and the second is with flash.

So how did I do these nails? Very carefully!  I started with base coated nails and did one thin coat of Metallic Yellow.  I then sponged on random spots of Snow Me White.  Next I filled in some of the white background with sponging in Unicorn and Venus.  Once the background dried, I sponged on a thin green haze at the tip of each nail in San Francisco.  Using a nail art brush I made bluebonnets with dots of Metallic Sapphire.  I then filled in the middle of each bluebonnet with small dots of Rain Check.  Using a smaller nail art brush, I made the bluebonnet tops with dashes of Snow Me White and added dots to each bonnet.  For the Indian Paintbrush, I made ovals in Thimbleberry and accented the petals with more dashes of Snow Me White.  I used more San Francisco to add stems and leaves to the paintbrushes and highlighted the leaves with the lighter green Olympia.  To protect my art, I painted over each nail with a top coat.  I have to say that these are some of my favorite nails to date.  For my Texas peeps, keep on posting the glorious spring wildflowers.  With all the rain Texas just got, there should be tons of bluebonnets and Indian paintbrushes to take in!

What do you think?

Metallic Fish Scale Nails

Since getting these Red Angel image plates, I have been wanting to use the scalloped design on my nails.  I was finally able to get around to using it and love the results. 

On top of a base coat, I painted one coat of Metallic Green and then sponged on Metallic Purple, Metallic Aqua, and Metallic Yellow.   Once dry, I used Black Creme on  RA plate 111 scale/scallop full nail image and stamped the image on each nail.

I am so in love with this image plate series and next time I might try a blue sparkly base instead since the aqua did not show up well on top of the green.  I also plan to make some Koi nails using this stamp with some oranges and whites:)  Stay tuned!

Valentine's Day Chevron Heart Nails

One more set of Valentine's Day nails!

I started with Gone Grey and painted chevron tips on each nail.  Next I drew in heart shapes in the "V" of each chevron in Snow Me White.  I filled in the white hearts with Forget Now and outlined each heart with Trixie.  Last, I topped the design with a top coat.

These are cute and not as girly frou-frou as some V-day nails I've been seeing lately.  To make them Anti-V-day Nails, you could have broken hearts!  Enjoy!

Week 7 of the Year of Polish Challenge: Abstract Valentine Red & Gold French Tip Nails

Valentine's Day is almost upon us and I produced some sexy new heart nails!  To give credit, I did get a bit of inspiration from some Valentine's Day nails from Amy Blair's blog.

These nails start with a clear coat of Pro FX Complete 3.  I then painted a diagonal line in Golden-I from the middle side of one nail to the edge of the other side of the nail.  Next I drew a arch in Ruby Slippers and crossed the diagonal gold line filling in the red lines with more Ruby Slippers.  I completed the heart shape with several small dots in Ruby Slippers to the gold like.  I then painted the gold area with Oscar to add more gold color.  Last, I freehanded small, red hearts on the right side of each nail edge and glued gold confetti hearts to the left nail edge.

I love how these nails are abstract and sparkle and follow a heart theme.

Lines and Arches Nails

Just did these without a whole lot of planning.  I merely played around with lines and arches using one of my smallest nail art brushes.

I really like the greek pattern and the wavy lines pattern.  I kind of have a crush on Space Cadet right now if you haven't noticed!  I've used it in several sets of nails lately!  Wonder what my next polish crush will be?

TTYL, ya'll!

Jordana Glitter Half Moon Manicure

 I had a nails chalk full of Blue Bash polish and thought I could add something to it. 

 For these nails I started with two coats of Space Cadet and three coats of Blue Bash on each nail.  Next, I applied a page hole reinforcer to each nail and applied two coats of Sequins.  Last, I used Metallic Yellow to carefully trace the half-moon shape. 

Loving the dueling glitters in these nails!

Betsey Johnson Inspired Roses Nails

I love Betsey Johnson, as seen by Betsey Johnson Leopard and Roses Nails and Betsey Johnson State Fair Print Nails!  Her prints are so bright and cool.  Betsey frequently does rose prints with a velvet burnout feel and that is what these nails are inspired by.

First, I painted my nails with two coats of Cream Pink over a base coat. 

Next, I did random uneven splotches of Planks A Lot with a nail art brush leaving room for the other color of roses.

I, then did more random, uneven splotches of Why Not with a nail art brush in the leftover room on each nail.

I used Metallic Purple and Metallic Aqua polishes to accent the blue and purple roses.  I then used Limestone and Metallic Green to make leaves. 

I topped my nails off with the very important, protective top coat from Pro FX Complete 3. 

I love pattern nails but I'm going to start changing them up so that every nail, while contributing to the pattern theme, is different from the other.  These nails are super cute and bright and have my favorite colors in them.   I'm loving how they turned out!

Lily Pad Nails

These nails were a bit of process that started out the night I did the Starry Night Nails.

I wasn't really thrilled with the test but I was hoping that the nails would turn out better than the test run.

To do these nails, I started off with prepped, base coated nails.  Next I placed dots of Austin-tatious Turquoise, Tokyo Pearl, and Why Not on each nail and used a toothpick to swirl the colors. Next, I used Metallic Green to freehand different sized lily pads and used Limestone to draw in accent lines around the lily pad.  Next, I used Snow Me White to freehand lotus flowers.  Next, I used Cream Pink to add some pink color to the lotus and placed some iridescent glitter over each flower.  Last, I topped them off with some ProFX Complete 3 topcoat.

Overall, these nails turned out more artistic than I planned and the only thing missing is come koi fish...ohhh, ideas!

Pink & Gun Metal Heart Nails

I did these nails just playing around with some pink and grey polishes.  Of course, Valentine's Day isn't far from my mind but after five years of wedded bliss, the honeymoon is over, I'm on a strict diet, and I dislike the wastefulness of cut flowers.  My husband is sweet throughout the year so one day doesn't make or break our romance!

These nails aren't great BUT in my defense, they were painted with my left hand (yes, I'm nuts like that) AND despite how messy they are I really love the Insta-Dri Gone Grey with the Wet N Wild Sparked Glitter. I think for Valentine's Day proper, I will wear just the Gone Grey with the Sparked Top Coat.  So pretty!  So yes...had my right hand not been full of lovely Julep polishes that formed some very sweet Peace Nails, this nail art would've been much better.  But, oh well! I still like 'em!

Asymmetrical Purple French Tip Nails

Just playing around tonight and came up with these ultra sparkly nails!

To get these I started out with clean, base coated nails.  I used a striper nail art brush to make a diagonal line in Planks A Lot from the top curve of one part of the nail to the lower side of the other nail. Once all lines were drawn I went back in with a nail polish brush and filled in the sections in Planks a Lot.  Next I used a striper brush to outline the top line in Gold Coin and started the diagonal line of the other gold section.  I then used a regular polish brush and filled in the rest of the gold section with Gold Coin, resulting in the nails above.

To add some sparkle, I used several coats of Spark-tacular top coat to the end gold section of each nail. I had the Twinkly Love confetti polish laying around and thought a small heart would be cute amidst the glitter so I added one to each nail.  Last, I used my Pro FX Complete 3 as a top coat.  I am in love with these right now and I'm thinking I should've gone bigger with the glitter!

Last day of my first Giveaway! CLOSED

People, I will be doing the drawing tonight at 10pm so hurry up and comment on my Polish Giveaway post for six Kleancolor Metallic polishes.  For extra entries you can be my blog follower, Twitter follower (NailsActually), and Facebook follower (Nails Actually Nail Art) for a total of four possible entries! I have done tons of nails with the same brand and colors, most recently my Abalone Shell Nails!

THIS GIVEAWAY IS CLOSED!

 

These polish are very pigmented so you get full coverage in one to two thin coats.  You know you want them!  Plus, they are free!

Good luck, polish fiends!

Pink Floral Nails

There are several chairs where I work that have this very interesting floral pattern with a teal grey base color, grey stalks, pink and red flowers, and tiny dark green leaves. I have always liked them so I snapped a photo of the fabric.  You can see it below.

I thought the pattern would make some very pretty nails so I tried it out tonight and was surprised to get such good results!

To start, I thought very hard about using a turquoise, mint, or teal base for these to more closely match the color scheme but then I tested one of my new polishes, Punk, which is a metallic sage-like green and I love it even more!  I painted all nails with two coats of Punk after putting on a clear, base coat.  I then used a nail art brush dipped in Recycle to make random stems.

The above picture is take with a flash to show color and the picture below in lamp light to show detail.

Using the same nail art brush, I made dots at the tops of some stems on each nail leaving room for more dots in Extravagant and Innocent.  Last I used stripes of Sinful Colors San Francisco (a dark green) and Happy Ending (a grass green) to draw in leaf details on other stems and to fill in blank spots on each nail.    I'm not sure what kind of flowers these actually are but they sure look sweet and I bet they smell good too!

Oh, and shoot me a comment on these if you know a flower that looks like this or if you like these nails!