31 Day Nail Art Challenge! Day 13: Animal Print

Aaaaaaand we're back to the nail art challenge posts! Woo. I just had to finish a lab for my Experimental Psychology class, so I am absolutely ready to just relax and blog a little. And I'm particularly excited about this design, because it is beyond precious!! SHRIMP NAAAAAIIIIILLLLLSSSSSSSS GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO~

(These first three pictures are my friend Lindsay's nails! She asked for a shrimp with dilated eyes on one finger, and one with eyelashes on the other!)

(I really liked the dilated-eye shrimp, so I made all of mine on my ring fingers have giant eyes like they're afraid or in awe of something.)

Aaaaaah, so many pictures! It always baffles me how I can not have enough pictures of some designs, but then I check my memory card and suddenly I have so many pictures of this design. So many. But at least they're all different! So, as you can see in the last picture, my inspiration and base color was OPI Cajun Shrimp (yes I have used this polish in the previous two posts too but I love it and can you blame me?) The shrimp are painted completely with acrylic paint (white, pink, red, and black) and a teeny tiny brush. So, this counts as animal print, right? Because these little shrimp were so cute and happy. I didn't want to do a traditional animal print (there's nothing wrong with that, I just don't typically wear animal print, so I went with this instead), and I think shrimp are a bunch of cutie patootie sea-bugs. Of course, shrimp are bluish grey when they're alive underwater, but that wasn't good for the aesthetic, so I suppose that makes these cooked shrimp? That's horrifying to think about, but oh well! They were cute anyway! So I hope you like them as much as I did.

Thanks for reading, have a great day, and happy painting! :)

Pastel Nautical Nails

Heeeeey guuuuuurl, how you doin'?

Okay, sorry. I had a moment. Anyway, who loves nautical nails?? (Hint: IT'S ME, IT'S TOTALLY ME)

(I apologize for the three pictures that look exactly alike, I apparently didn't get any better pictures before I took this design off)

Okay, so these aren't exactly pastel. But I didn't know what else to call them, so I took inspiration from the lovely, dusty, pastel teal that is OPI Gargantuan Green Grape. So for my thumb and ring finger, my base color was OPI Cajun Shrimp, with white acrylic paint stripes on them. On my middle finger, I painted Essie Good As Gold and then put e.l.f. Golden Goddess over that. Then for my index and pinky fingers, my base color was OPI Gargantuan Green Grape with stamped anchors from Cheeky plate 36 with Essie Good As Gold on them. 

These were absolutely precious, and they were a really nice break from the 31 Day Nail Art Challenge. Like I said in my previous post, my best friend left for a study abroad trip in Japan, and I felt like I needed some retail therapy - So I picked up my three base colors up there. Of course, I had to use them immediately, haha. I love nautical nail designs more than any other design, so it was a natural pick when I was looking for something easy and comforting to paint on my nails. I painted my sister's nails and then mine, all while she was reading scary stories to me. It was a pretty good way to spend a few hours! I'll be getting back to the Challenge in my next post, but until then... Thanks for reading, have a great day, and happy painting! :)

Gold Leaf-esque Nails

Alright, who's ready for a break from the 31 day nail art challenge?? I certainly am! My sister and I read scary stories to each other two weekends ago while I painted her nails and mine. My best friend left for Japan that weekend on a study abroad trip, and I really really didn't want to paint animal print on my nails, I just wanted something comforting and lovely. But my nails will be in the next post. This post is about what I painted on my sister's nails!

(This one was just for fun - look at how much shorter my nails are than hers! And this is right before I cut my nails because they were getting a little too long for my tastes! AND my sister is six years younger than me! What I'm getting at here is that it's weird.)

*Ahem* Anyway... She couldn't decide what she wanted (which is pretty unusual, because she almost always has something extremely complex and time-consuming in mine), so she picked a color that she liked and I kind of went with it. The base color is China Glaze Custom Kicks, which is just the perfect polish. Literally, it has no flaws. It's opaque in one coat, and it's got just enough gold shimmer in it to make it buttery. I love it. And Em did too! Then I stamped over it with Essie Good As Gold and the weird splotchy stamp from Pueen plate 45 (you could also achieve this effect with gold leaf, or with a gold topcoat. 

We almost left it like that, because Em loved the combination so much. But I said, "Nay! We shall add moooore!!" And so I stamped the little flower from Mash plate 29 with a gradient of Wet n' Wild Black Creme and OPI Cajun Shrimp on the accent nails. They were AWESOME. They received lots of compliments and Em loved them. We were really sad to see them go, because Em is in marching band and they're not allowed to have polish on. So before football season, she would only let me paint her nails once every 2 to 3 weeks (because seriously she could make her polish last that long without chipping and I just don't understand because I can barely get it to last for 2 days), but now that she has to remove all polish on Thursday night, I get to paint her nails every week! Yippeeeeeee! So expect to see a lot more of her nails on here in the next several months! 

Well, this post has been long enough, I think I'll leave you be. Thanks for reading, have a great day, and happy painting! :)

31 Day Nail Art Challenge! Day 12: Stripes

Hi there! How's it going? I feel like being a little lax today with this post... So, stripes. Stripes, stripes, stripes. I love stripes! I usually like to hand-paint them with a striper brush, but I was using a polish that dries matte for the stripes, so I had to do it with tape instead. And if you've seen my other posts about tape manicures, you probably know that I am not a fan of them. They are always extremely messy and take FOREVER. Seriously, they take sooo long. I just don't think the payoff is worth the effort, most of the time. But this is a challenge, and I couldn't hand paint them, so tape it was! Here's what I came up with:

My base color was Essie Turquoise and Caicos. The stripes are China Glaze Stone Cold, which I just realized I've used for a chevron tape-mani once before, haha. Woops! I completely forgot about that, but I can't help it... Stone Cold is just wonderful for tape-manis, because it's so opaque and awesome. It goes great with every color, too. I hope this is different enough from the other one, haha. Anyway, I didn't really have any specific patterns for the stripes, I just made them different on every nail. It was cute. I do think if I had the chance, I'd go back and use a lighter base color. Turquoise and Caicos is pretty light, but I think I would need something brighter, like Funky Fingers Mrs. Mint. But either way, it was nice. So I hope you like it! And let me know if you try it.

Thanks for reading, have a great day, and happy painting! :)

31 Day Nail Art Challenge! Day 11: Polka Dots

Heeeeey! So... polka dots! That's what this design was all about. I had actually been planning this design for months, I just never got around to doing it and then I forgot about it. But when I saw that one of the days was polka dots, I remembered! So here they are:

Let me just say, and I know I say this a lot, but I LOVED these. They were both bright and dark and just overall they were really cute. And the good thing about them is that they look great on both long and short nails! My sister said the colors reminded her of sunsets. Since both of my base colors are really sheer, I just started the gradient without a solid color base. So the two colors are China Glaze Thataway and Sinful Colors Let's Talk. Then, of course, came the polka dots. I used a large dotting tool (maybe a medium one? I'm not really sure - but it was big enough to make those sized polka dots) and Sally Hansen Black Out for the dots. I almost put white dots, but I think it would have made it more springy than I wanted. So black dots happened! I hope you like it. Let me know if you try it out!

Thanks for reading, have a great day, and happy painting! :)

31 Day Nail Art Challenge! Day 10: Gradient Nails

Hi there! And now I'm back to getting caught up on those posts. I'm almost caught up, and I plan on getting them all done and caught up to what I have on my nails right now (which is Day 13: Animal Print!), so wish me luck! :)

Anyway, here's what I have for my gradient nails:

I know, I know. They're boring and completely uninspired. See, I was feeling especially lazy the day I painted these and I just didn't want to deal with making a really complicated gradient (particularly after my previous manicure with the rainbow gradient) that I would have to clean up, so this is what came of my laziness. I guess these are a lot like Effie Trinket's nails from Hunger Games? I wasn't going for a Hunger Games design, but I do love the color combination. My base color is Essie Big Spender, which is just the most lovely strawberry fuschia. I was actually pretty disappointed that I had to make a gradient out of it, because it's so wonderful on its own. But gradient it was! I sponged on Ulta High Roller. It's really simple! I promise my other designs won't be as simple and over-used as this. Especially the next day, which is Polka Dots (spoiler: I also did a gradient for that one).

So I hope you like it! Let me know what you think. Thanks for reading, have a great day, and happy painting! :)

31 Day Nail Art Challenge! Day 9: Rainbow Nails

Hi there! ARE YOU READY FOR SOME RAINBOWS?? BECAUSE I AM. LOOK AT THESE BEAUTIES:

Wooooo, aren't those fantastic and wonderful? They were so fantastically bright and busy and I JUST LOVED THEM SO MUCH. So I started off with a base coat of Sally Hansen White On, and then carefully sponged on (because my nails are tiny and I used 6 colors) a gradient of, in order of the rainbow, China Glaze Surfin' For Boys, Orange You Hot?, Sun-Kissed, I'm With The Lifeguard, Towel Boy Toy, and Beach Cruise-r. Then over that, I painted one coat of Sonnetarium Samurai Princess, which just gave it the most spectacular finish. I wish I could think of ways to describe them more, but honestly, they speak for themselves. I think I'll paint these on my nails again someday soon, because they were so incredible. So I hope you like them as much as I do!

Thanks for reading, have a great day, and happy painting! :)

31 Day Nail Art Challenge! Day 8: Metallic Nails

Hi there! I actually have something super important to do for one of my classes right now, but I wanted to take a quick break and post something really quick, so this is going to be very short, sweet, and to the point! Here are my metallic nails for day 8...

These would have been really awesome, except the polish I used is not ideal for wearing on its own. I wore four coats of OPI Pros & Bronze - it was waaay too thick for my liking. But it was super pretty and extremely eye-catching. I stamped the little lace image from Pueen plate 28 with Wet n' Wild Black Creme on my ring finger and thumb as an accent. I think this polish would look really fantastic on someone with a tan, rather than my pale skin. Although, since Pros & Bronze is actually more of a rose gold than a yellow gold, it still went well with the pink tones in my fingers. So it was nice! Next time I would layer it though, because four coats made it so thick. Anyway, thanks for reading, have a great day, and happy painting! :)