31 Day Nail Art Challenge! Day 23: Inspired by a Movie

Heeeey! So for this challenge, I’m actually using the nails I wore when I went to see Thor: The Dark World. That’s inspired by a movie, right? J So this design, in my opinion, is not the most original Thor nails. And it’s not necessarily designed for Thor: The Dark World either. They’re just Thor and Loki nails, because I enjoy them both more than you would believe. So let’s get into it!

On my left hand I painted Loki because he’s my favorite. Don’t get me wrong, I like Thor a lot, but Loki’s such a good character and I am absolutely fascinated by his amorality. So on my thumb (not pictured here, but you can see it later on in the post) and ring finger, I painted two coats of Essie Good as Gold. On my index, middle, and pinky fingers, I painted three thin coats of Sinful Colors San Francisco. It’s such a lovely color, but so, so sheer. Then on my thumb, I painted “Loki” with San Francisco. On my ring finger, I painted a coat of a fine gold glitter (a random striper polish), but I think this design would look much better with some chunky gold glitter. I don’t have any. L And just because I wanted to keep the design simple, I painted Loki’s helmet on my middle finger with Good as Gold and some black paint with a tiny baby paintbrush. It’s adorable. And then I moved on to Thor!

On my right hand, I wanted to match my Thor nails to the style I painted Loki with, so on my thumb (again, not pictured, but you'll see it I promise), I painted two coats of Wet n' Wild Burgundy Frost. Then on my index, middle, and pinky fingers, I painted two coats of Wet n' Wild Denim Chrome. And on my ring finger, I painted two coats of Sally Hansen Celeb City and one coat of Essie Set in Stones. And for the designs - on my thumb I painted "Thor" with Celeb City and on my middle finger, I painted Mjölnir (or you could say Mew-Mew like Darcy in the movie) with Celeb City, Burgundy Frost and some black paint. 

And here's what they look like together!

There's those pesky thumbs!

So I hope you like them! I actually wore these to the movie premier, but I never posted them. But they fit the challenge perfectly, so hope was not lost and I finally got to show them to you. So let me know what you think, I'd love to hear from you!

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

31 Day Nail Art Challenge! Day 22: Inspired by a Song

Hey all! I have an idea for a new series of nail art that I want to do (and I’m excited to get started on it) but I realized that I really need to finish posting all of the 31 Day Nail Art Challenges before I can start on a new thing. So it’s going to happen, I’m in the last stretch!!

So for today, I have the “Inspired by a Song” challenge – I chose “Cough Syrup” by Young the Giant. I dunno, I guess I just wanted to have a good cry while I painted my nails. But I also thought it was descriptive and I liked the design I came up with for it.

I knew I was going to paint some more detailed designs, so I wanted a neutral background. I painted two coats of Orly Déjà Vu on all of my nails, and then I used acrylic paints for all of the art, just because it was easier to shade with craft paint than with nail polish. On my thumb, I painted a drum for the line “A wet world aches for a beat of a drum.” On my index, I painted a spoon of cough syrup for the line “One more spoon of cough syrup now.” On my middle finger, I painted the words “Losing my mind” for that very same line, haha. I used different shades of a pinkish-purple to make it look like a gradient, even though there was no actual blending involved. On my ring finger, I painted a zombie and a realistic heart for the line “These zombies in the park, they’re looking for my heart.” And finally on my pinky, I painted a “Splash of the sun,” which unfortunately looks like a sad sunny side up egg. I intended for it to look like a splatter spot sun, but it’s the thought that counts. J

So that’s it! I hope you like it! Thanks for reading, have a great day, and happy painting! J

31 Day Nail Art Challenge! Day 21: Inspired by a Color

Hellllooooooo~~ How's it going? :) So, if you're familiar with this challenge, you know that this prompt is notoroious for being ambiguous. What does it mean to be inspired by a color?? It could be any color, so what's challenging about it? Well, it was challenging. Because you know me... I automatically went to the turquoise polishes. But then I thought... No. This is a challenge, I can't go to my go-to polishes. So I went with a different color, one I don't wear very often. Inspired by the color of the glitter polish I used:

Periwinkle! It's so pretty. I painted two coats of China Glaze Secret Peri-wink-le on all of my nails and then painted one coat of Essie Stroke of Brilliance on my thumb and ring finger for a glittery accent. Simple! So I hope you like it. :D

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

31 Day Nail Art Challenge! Day 20: Water Marble

Yes, I'm still doing this challenge. I'm so over it, haha. But I'm going to finish it! Anyway, I thought this day's challenge was going to be the most difficult for me, and I was right. I am AWFUL at water marbling. Just awful. It never works out, and I just end up wasting a lot of polish. But I did eventually get the polishes I chose to work, and I actually have two designs for you! My sister also wanted a water marble, and it was just a pain in the butt. At least it was pretty!

My sisters nails - I started with a base color of Sally Hansen Lava, and then I water marbled with Lava and Sally Hansen Pacific Blue.

Pardon the little cut on my cuticle in this picture, I got a little happy with the cuticle nippers! And also pardon the old water mark - these pictures were taken and edited like three months ago, haha. 

On my thumb and ring finger, I painted one coat of Fresh Paint Nebula, and then I covered it with a coat of Sinful Colors Scene Stealer. Wearing a glitter accent is a nifty little trick to avoid having to water marble on those two fingers, haha. And on my index, middle, and pinky fingers, I started with a base coat of China Glaze Pink-ie Promise. Then I marbled with Pink-ie Promise, China Glaze Life is Rosy, and Fresh Paint Nebula. Unfortunately for me, Nebula didn't marble as well on my nails as it did in my test swatches. So... It looks kind of wonky. But I liked it! My water marble had character. So I hope you like it! Let me know what you think of it. 

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

31 Day Nail Art Challenge! Day 19: Galaxies

Hello everyone, welcome all! The month of Halloween is now over and I am getting back into that 31 day nail art challenge! Starting the posts back up with one of my favorite designs... galaxies!

Just to make it easy on myself, because I have explained how to do a galaxy mani before, I'm just going to list the polishes I used under each picture. And I have three different color schemes for you because a lot of people wanted them. So I hope you like them! :)

My nails - Wet n' Wild Denim Chrome, China Glaze Dandy Lyin' Around, CoverGirl Blue You, Sinful Colors Let's Meet, China Glaze Strawberry Fields, China Glaze Towel Boy Toy, a nameless Bon Bon polish, and Sonnetarium Snowfall.

My sister's nails - Love & Beauty Emerald, Sinful Colors Snow Me White, L'Oréal Notting Hill Blues, Sinful Colors Let's Meet, China Glaze Ahoy!, and Sonnetarium Snowfall.

My friend Lindsay's nails - Wet n' Wild Denim Chrome, Sinful Colors Snow Me White, China Glaze Towel Boy Toy, NYC Charming Rose, a nameless Bon Bon polish, and Sonnetarium Snowfall.

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

31 Day Nail Art Challenge! Day 18: Half Moons

Hello there! I'm going to keep it short and sweet today - It's half moon time!

I started with a base coat of Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Petal Pusher (what a mouthful) and then did two coats of Orly Déjà Vu. Looking back on it, it might have worked better if I did two coats of Petal Pusher and one coat of Déjà Vu. But oh well. Then I thinned out China Glaze First Mate and free-handed the half moons with my teeny tiny paint brush. It was not as difficult as I thought it would be, but it would probably be easier if I had used a guide or a hole protector. Regardless, the blue shimmer in Déjà Vu went really well with First Mate. So I hope you like them! It's not anything crazy, just something simple for this challenge. Thanks for reading, have a great day, and happy painting. :)

31 Day Nail Art Challenge! Day 17: Glitter

Waaaaaasssuuuuup? So for this challenge, I've got a really fun design for you! :) One that both satisfies the glitter challenge, and is perfect for Halloween!

That's right... Googly eyes!! My glitter was the inspiration: Salon Perfect Kaboom. I tried getting a good close-up of the glitter, but my camera just isn't made for that, unfortunately. But I think you can tell in a few of them that the polish is actually just blue and yellow glitter. But the two of them together and the density of the glitter makes it look green overall! It's pretty awesome! I started with a base color of OPI Can't Find My Czechbook, and then two coats of Kaboom. I thought it looked kind of creature-ish, so I pulled out some googly eyes and made cute little monster nails. My friend actually said they looked more like dinosaurs, but that works too! These probably would have been hilarious with little mouths, but I was going for something easy that really focused on the glitter. If you're wondering about wearing googly eyes on your nails, I literally just pushed mine down into the wet glitter, and then I put top coat over it to seal them in. I thought they would come off immediately, because they stuck up off my nail pretty far, but they were practically cemented on my nails, haha. I couldn't pull them off if I tried. At least, not without hurting myself. I don't suggest using Seche Vite as a top coat to seal 3D pieces on to your nails, because that never worked for me. I used Out The Door to seal mine in. But it's up to you. :) And to remove the glitters (I thought it was going to be awful because they were cemented to my nails) but I just used the glitter-foil-removal method, and they came off beautifully! Actually, I think the acetone melted the plastic eyes, haha. 

The eyes really gave my nails character, so let me know if you decide to try it out! Thanks for reading, have a great day, and happy painting! :)

31 Day Nail Art Challenge! Day 16: Tribal Print

Oooooh boy, I'm going to make some enemies today (but hopefully not because I know you're all wonderful, understanding people).

So, I'll just get right into the reason I didn't exactly follow the rules for this day. "Tribal" print is cultural appropriation, which is not good at all. Basically, since I am a white privileged woman (part of a dominate culture), it isn't right for me to decorate myself (my nails) with something that is from a minority culture that isn't my own, especially since the whole appeal to tribal print (the fact that it's called tribal print itself is offensive) is just that it is exotic and looks cool. This is problematic because a whole culture and its art and beliefs should not be reduced to some nail art. Not by me, at least. It's a popular trend, but I won't do it. I'm not going to exploit images from cultures that I don't belong to - images that hold meaning in these cultures, but not to me. I won't misrepresent a culture, I won't claim it as a fashion statement, and I'm not going to pretend that I'm part of something that I know I'm not part of. I know that there are people out there that are genuinely part of whichever culture they're representing in "tribal" nail art, and that's fine. Those are the people that should be doing this kind of nail art. Not me. I don't want you to misunderstand what I'm saying, because I'm absolutely supportive of assimilation of different cultures (the USA is the melting pot of the world afterall, and that's awesome) and learning about new cultures, but this isn't the same thing. This is saying "Hey, I think that design looks cool, so I'm going to paint it on my nails, even though I know minimal information about said design and your culture." I'm going to leave it at that. I hope this makes sense. If it doesn't, I hope you'll find more information in the cultural appropriation link (it's just Wikipedia, but I feel that it's pretty accurate) above, and if you have any questions for me, please ask them. I also hope this didn't sound antagonistic, because that's not what I'm about at all. My aim isn't to say anyone is a bad person for doing tribal print nails. I'm just explaining and educating why I won't do it, so I hope you can understand that. And if this happens to influence your opinions about tribal print in the process, then it's a win/win situation. And thanks for reading all of this, if you did. :)

That being said, I didn't do absolutely nothing for this day. Because it is a challenge, and even though I disagree with the premise, I'm not going to skip it. Instead, I picked a cool stamp from Pueen plate 49:

At first I thought the stamp was similar to Gaelic designs, but it's really not. I started with a base color of China Glaze For Audrey, and then two coats of a nameless Bon Bon polish that I've literally had since I was a kid. It's so old, haha. But it still works, and it's pretty! I stamped with Sinful Colors Calypso, which probably wasn't the best polish to use. It had a weird effect where it was darker on some nails than others? You can see it's much darker on my index finger in some of the pictures. *shrug*

Anyway, thanks so much for sticking around after my little mini-rant, haha. It's important to me, so I hope it wasn't too off-putting. Thanks for reading, have a great day, and happy painting! :)

31 Day Nail Art Challenge! Day 15: Delicate Print

Heeeeyooooooooo!~ Okay, who’s up for some LIGHTNING??

Cool, huh? I wasn’t really sure what to do for Delicate Print, because I assumed it meant lace or writing or something like that. But then I decided that it could be anything that was fragile and bright, so why not lightning? My base color was Love & Beauty Light Blue (three coats), and the lightning was white acrylic paint and a teeeeeeny tiny brush. The base color I used had silver glitter in it, so it made the lightning glow. Gosh, they were so pretty. And very simple! :D

So I hope you like them as much as I did. Thanks for reading, have a great day, and happy painting! :)

31 Day Nail Art Challenge! Day 14: Flowers + Update

UPDATE

Hey there! How is everyone doing? So, I’ve got some news. Today is October 1^st, and I LOVE OCTOBER. LOVE IT. HAPPY OCTOBER 1^ST EVERYONE. And since the entire month for me is Halloween and my birthday, that’s what I’m doing this month! So I’m taking a break from the 31 Day Nail Art Challenge until after October is over. Now, this isn’t to say that I absolutely won’t do any of the challenges, because I might have time to fit in one or two. But I have a huge list of designs and polishes I want to wear this month, so I’m going to focus on those instead. The being said, I have like… 8 Challenge Days that I've done but haven’t posted. SO! I’ll be posting all of those today, no exceptions. I’m not just saying it this time, because I also have my first Halloween-ish design that I have to get up today. It’s going to happen. I hope you’re all as excited as I am! :) So let’s get to it!

Here are my flower nails:

I have to be honest, these didn't turn out like I expected. They are based on the Lily of the Valley flower, which are beautiful and fluffy-looking, but my painting just doesn't do them justice. The base color is China Glaze Tart-y for the Party, and the flowers themselves are done with acrylic paints. I think I may have liked them better if I had made all of my nails like my thumb, because the blooms I painted on my thumb look random and more like the actual plant. Either way, these were cute. They would be perfect for spring!

So I hope you like them! Let me know what you think, I'd love to hear from you. Thanks for reading, have a great day (and a happy October 1st), and happy painting!