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

Polish Me Silly "Freckles" Swatch

Heeeeeeeey, look at me go! After not updating at all for two months, I'm starting to get back into it. Mostly because I have a million pictures piled up on my hard drive that I need to sort through and edit, so by default I'm having to blog as well. But at least I enjoy it. :)

So today I have an awesome swatch for you - Polish Me Silly (formerly known as Lush Lacquer) Freckles! My friend Payton got me this indie polish for my birthday (waaaay back in October - see how behind I am?) and I practically wore it the second she gave it to me. So even though these pictures were taken a while ago when it was fall, the colors are better for winter and spring. Just like with my other swatch/review thingies, I'll show you the swatch first and then talk about the formula afterwards.

This is one coat of Freckles over three coats of OPI Gargantuan Green Grape - And yes, that's GGG. It's just the blue version, not the green version. I might do a comparison of that someday, because there are definitely two versions of GGG. 

Alrighty, on to the formula and my thoughts about Freckles. First of all, Freckles has tons of small neon blue, green, pink, purple, orange, and highlighter yellow glitters packed into it. And the formula is awesome! It's not too thick, and it has great glitter payoff. I think this polish is really unique as far as the glitter goes - I know plenty of indie brands have some form of neon glitters, but this is my first time experiencing one, and it was interesting to find that the glitters are actually transparent and ultra-thin, just like neon nail polish. They're made of a different material than regular glitters. I liked them a lot! The only problem with these glitters is that you really can't put them over a dark color, because then they'll be dull and a few different shades of swamp. So I tested Freckles over a few bright colors, and I found that it works best over white, very light blue, pastel green, light purple, and bubblegum pink (I specifically used Gargantuan Green Grape, OPI You're Such a Budapest, Fresh Paint Honey Dew, and OPI Chic From Ears to Tail). You only need one coat for a perfect spread of rainbow freckles on your nails! I give this a 10/10 would wear again and again and again.

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

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!

Pipe Dream Polish "Pink Elephants and Lemonade" Swatch

Hello all! I've got an indie polish swatch for you today to start off the new year! :) I put several indie polishes (and a ton of other mainstream polishes too) on my Christmas list this year, and I got several of them, so I'll have swatches of all of them sometime in the next few weeks! But for today, I'm sharing one of the polishes I was most excited to wear - Pipe Dream Polish Pink Elephants and Lemonade.

According to the description at Pipe Dream Polish's store, Pink Elephants and Lemonade is "made up of medium and small hot pink and deep yellow matte glitters in a dusty turquoise crelly base." That is definitely an accurate description, because the base isn't really jelly - it's actually pretty opaque. But not so opaque that you can't see the glitters from the first coat if you do more than one coat. So I'll show you my swatches first and then I'll talk about the formula and my thoughts afterwards:

(two coats, indoors)

(two coats, indoors)

(two coats, flash)

Alrighty! So, I'm absolutely in love with this polish for tons of reasons. First things first: The colors! It isn't a secret by now that I love turquoise, and there's just something about turquoise and yellow and pink glitters... It spoke to me on a personal level. It's a unique blend, in my opinion. And let's not forget the name - Pink Elephants and Lemonade. It just reminds me of that song from Dumbo. "Pink Elephants on Parade," anyone? Anyway, the pink and yellow glitters are matte and they're surprisingly subtle. It just gives such a nice polka-dotty look to the polish. I would give this a 10/10 on color, because it's just so darn cute.

The formula... is awesome! No fishing required for those beautiful glitters! And the base is opaque enough that you don't need underwear or more than two coats. I think you could even get away with one coat, if you like that sheer jelly-look. You would have to paint it veeerrry carefully for one coat, though. It is a little streaky to begin with, but two coats evens it out perfectly. Some other awesome things about this formula are that it is super fast-drying and it's chip-resistant! Now, I don't actually know if it's either of those things, but from my experience with it, it dried so freaking fast. It was like Seche Vite fast. This isn't always a good thing, because a few times when I went back over a spot I had already painted it tended to drag a little bit - but like I said, a second coat evens it all out and leaves a gorgeous finish. It's also chip-resistant for me. I say that instead of "long-lasting" because I only just painted it on two nights ago, so I can't actually know that yet. But polish doesn't last long on my nails at all, and this hasn't chipped yet! I don't even have tip wear, which is just insane to me. I'm so impressed. So it's definitely an awesome formula. It was a little bit thick at first; I did add a little thinner to help move things along, but not much - just enough to make it buttery.

So overall, I love this polish. LOVE IT. It was a great price ($8 on their Etsy store, although it is on sale currently on their bigcartel store for $7), even though I didn't buy mine (I got it for Christmas from my wonderful mom :D). I'm not being compensated at all for this review/swatchfest, I just wanted to share it with you all. This indie polish holds a special place in my heart already, and I have a feeling I'm going to wear it a lot in the spring when it gets really rainy here in Georgia. It kind of reminds me of April rain showers, actually. It's dusty and muted, but the pink and yellow glitters look like flowers. So I hope you all enjoyed this looong review, and let me know what you think! I do have eight more indies to show you, so if there's anything specific that you would like me to talk about when I'm reviewing, let me know. I also have the three custom polishes I made for my friends and my sister - but I have to swatch those and fix up the pictures before I talk about them. Did you notice I changed my water-mark? That's something I want to work on this year - better quality pictures! 

Anyway, thanks for reading, have an amazing day, and happy painting! :)

I'm a liar! And two New Year's Eve designs for you...

Hello all! Yes, I am a liar. I said I would have a lot of holiday designs and I was going to be posting regularly again and whatnot, and it just didn't happen. Technically I did have several holiday designs, but I just never posted them. I'm still trying to decide if I want to post them or just wait until next year. It's been a hectic month. You know? Sometimes things just suck and it was one of those times for me, so I hope you're not too upset. I'm sorry that I'm failing, haha. But I hope that these two mani's make up for it! These would be great for a New Year's Eve party! :)

This is a super simple manicure - just black and silver textured polish! It's super chic and would be perfect for celebrating the new year. Here I've used two coats of OPI It's Frosty Outside on my thumb and ring finger, and three coats of OPI Emotions on my index, middle, and pinky fingers. 

And here's a slightly more complex design for those of you who like a little more out of your mani's - I'm wearing this design right now for my party/get-together tonight. (I apologize for the picture, I ended up taking the picture on my iPhone because I got fed up with the bad quality my camera was giving me.) On my thumb, middle, and pinky fingers I did two coats of Wet n' Wild Black Creme with a gold round stud on each. Then on my index, I painted two coats of OPI Louvre Me Louvre Me Not, which is one of my all time favorite OPIs. Such a great polish. And on my ring finger, I did two coats of Essie Good As Gold, with a coat of "So This Is Love" over it. "So This Is Love" is one of the custom polishes I made for my friends as their Christmas presents this year, so don't worry, there will be a full post about that polish coming up soon! Since you won't have that polish, a good substitute would be Orly Ridiculously Regal. And of course, you can always use gold polish and a dotter tool instead of studs.

Alrighty then! I hope you enjoyed the designs! And if I don't post again between now and 2014, I just want to say thank you so much for reading and sticking with me while I struggle through blogging, haha. I'm going to try a ton of new things in the new year, new things that I hope will allow me to post regularly and keep blogging fun instead of making it seem like a chore to me. I never wanted it to get that way, so hopefully the new things I'm going to try will spice it up and keep the nail art good for all of you as well. And I hope you all have an amazing New Year's Eve, and have an amazing time bringing in the new year. Thanks for reading, have a fantastic day, and happy painting! :)