Pride Month = Pride Nails, A Year of Polish Challenge

I did these nails specifically for Kyoti's Nails June LGBT Pride Nail Art Contest.  I have several very dear friends that are LGBT so this cause is dear to my heart!

I painted my base coated nails with the standard ROYGB rainbow hues.  My inspiration for these nails beyond the contest and my love of my gay peoples is a mixture of some posters and a t-shirt I've seen:)  The message, though, is clear...Love is Love, pure and simple.  I look forward to a day where my friends have the same rights their fellow Americans do and I am confident that it will happen in my lifetime!

Rainbow Glitter Shimmer Nails

I think that these nails take the most polishes used so far prize.  I used 15 polishes of varied brands, types, and colors.

My idea was to do a design with creme colors, shimmery colors, and glitter colors all complimentary of the same shade.  I love how these turned out and plan do something similar soon with half moons or polka dots:)  Even thought these nails required a lot of polish they took very little time to do. 

I simply painted each base coated nail with a creme color, then did a diagonal swipe down each nail with their complimentary shimmery color.  Along that diagonal line I used a nail art brush to place a thin like of complimentary glitter polish.   These are bright, fun, and easy to spice up your nails!  Even just the creme and shimmer polishes along look great!  Try it out and let me see what you come up with:)

Rainbow Brite Nails: Week 18 of the Year of Polish Challenge

This week's Year of Polish Challenge theme was Cartoon Nails.  I admittedly dragged my feet a bit because I was lacking inspiration.  Then I thought about my favorite cartoons growing up and Rainbow Brite was just about it for me in the mid 80s...that and Carebears!  Those shows were little girl, so-cute-you'd-just-die crack shows.  So I found a reference picture on Google with Rainbow Brite, her sidekick Twink, and her horse Starlite.  The picture I used is here.

Now keep in mind that these nail are totally free-hand so forgive my little mistakes.  Overall, you can't miss the theme of these nails...Gah, I'm giddy to show you and I'm going to cry when this mani starts to chip!

So these took a lot of different polishes but who am I kidding, I have at two polishes of every shade or close to it.  I can't really explain how I did the design except to say that I practiced on note cards.  I did start off with Midnight Blue coat on my base coated thumb nail and White On on the rest of my nails.  The pinky nail was done with a gradient sponge that had stripes of Mon Cherry, Sunny Side Up, Let's Meet, Happy Ending, and Midnight Blue applied to the nail twice and then covered with Sally Girl Iridescent Glitter.  For the cartoon characters I colored everything in and then outlined what I could in Ebony Loves Chris.  The flesh color is Julep's Penelope.

Anyway, if there are questions I haven't answered, feel free to ask me them in the comments section!  Oh, and tell me what you think:)

Last but not least, I have some Indie glitter polishes that I have bought specifically to giveaway once I meet 100 GFC followers.  I only need a few more people to follow and I will have at least two winners for my 100 follower giveaway.  So...please share my blog with a friend or two and let them know about the giveaway that will be coming up.  The two bottles of polish I've bought for the giveaway are from Victoriana on Etsy and they are both extra beautiful!!!  I'll post a teaser pic soon!

A Rainbow of Julep Polishes

I put all my Julep polishes together today and took a picture.

Sooooo pretty!!!

And...five more Julep polishes soon to be added :0)

Week 11 of the Year of Polish Challenge: Saint Patrick's Day Nails Two Ways

I love the trend of a different design on every nail and used all of my nail canvas for this week's Saint Patrick's Day Challenge.  The first set of nails below is generally free-handed with french tip designs on the thumb and pinkie nails.  The rainbow design is accomplished using a watercolor technique.  I also used some glitter nail art balls for the "gold."

 

 On these nails, almost everything is free-handed except for the background of the middle finger which was stamped from a design on Bundle Monster plate 214.  The rainbow effect was made with quick dabs of polish.  I painted my ring finger nail with Metallic Yellow and while still wet I dipped the nail into the gold steel nail art balls. 

 

I really like the 3d effect that using the steel nail art balls make as gold coins in the pot of gold and as my accent nail on the other set of nails.  I am very happy with my early and cute Saint Pat's Day nails!

Rainbow Drip Nails

I get a lot of my inspiration from art and graphics on the web.  Not long ago I came across the following free image from flashcoo.com:

I thought nails like these would be interesting and tried them out last night.

To get these nails, I started with base coated nails and applied two coats of Sinful Colors Tokyo Pearl on each nail.  Next, using the standard ROY G BIV color sequence, I drew drip patterns and drips of red and orange on my thumb nail, orange and yellow on my index finger nail, yellow and green on my middle finger nail, green and blue on my ring finger nail, and blue and dark purple on pinkie finger nail.  I made sure to overlap the lines and drips.

Overall, I am very pleased with these nails and I think they would be perfect for Pride week or just some girly color.  Pastels in a non-ROYGBIV sequence would also be great!