Spring Blooms

A design by nailsbycally on Instagram was the influence for today's manicure.

For this manicure I used Zoya Emilia and OPI My Vampire is Buff (accent) as my base colors.  For the rose on my accent nail I used Essie Lady Like, OPI My Very First Knockwurst, and Zoya Purity.  The leaves are simply Zoya Hunter.  

Snowmageddon

Is your hometown currently suffering from this arctic blast?  Are you buried under an atypical amount of snow?  I was last week, and what better way to celebrate than with snowflake nails.

For this manicure I used OPI Can't Find My Czechbook as my base, topped with Essie Shine of the Times and Essie Matte About You top coat.  I then next stamped the snowflake image from MoYou London's Festive Collection plate 03 using Mundo de Unas 1 White.

Pumpkin Everything!

Fall is here and it's time for pumpkin everything.  Pumpkin nails to celebrate the start of the season of pumpkin spice lattes, pumpkin pie, pumpkin chili, and pumpkin roasts.  For this manicure I followed a tutorial from Petite Peinture.

Polishes used: OPI My Vampire is Buff, Zoya Jancyn, Essie Tart Deco, Zoya Jace, and OPI Love.Angel.Music.Baby.

Essie Shake Your $$ Maker

Is it summer yet?  I'll even settle for it being spring, I'm ready for this winter to be over.  Today I broke out a neon from Essie's 2013 DJ Play that Song collection: Shake Your $$ Maker.  This bright, bright green is terrible to photograph, so I apologize in advance for this color discrepancy.

Shown here is four coats of Essie Shake Your $$ Maker.  This polish is thin and it really needed a white undercoat (oops) to keep the visible nail line from showing.

Essie Chinchilly

I love this color for fall. A lovely, grey purple.  I love this polish so much, it's one that I'm giving away as part of the Midwestern Beauty Bloggers Fall Giveaway (a giveaway you should enter if you haven't already).

On my tips is three coats of Essie Chinchilly.  The formula is very nice, applies in a mostly even manner, and wears beautifully.  I went four days with no tip wear.

Put a Bird on it

When I see birds on things, I can't help but think of this episode of Portlandia.


Using this episode as inspiration, that's exactly what I did with this manicure: put a bird on it, spruce it up, and make it pretty.

For this manicure I used two coats of Essie Naughty Nautical stamped with MoYou plate Kitty Collection II using Konad Special polish in Black. Naughty Nautical has a good formula, very unlike most of the Essies I have in my collection so I was very pleased with it.

Happy Birthday

Happy birthday to me!  For my birthday manicure, I copied this manicure from Paulina's Passion.

I started with a three-coat base of Bourjois Bleu Model.  Across the lower third of my nail I painted two coats of Zoya Sweet, a bubble-gum pink.  The pink accent stripes were added using Orly Flirty and a dotting tool.  For the white frosting I used Wet n Wild Wild Shine French White Crème and the cherry was made with China Glaze Salsa.  To create the sprinkles I used OPI What's With the Cattitude?, China Glaze Sweet Hook, Ruby Wing Gypsy, and Essie Tart Deco.

Green and White

For this post I was inspired by a manicure from The Nailasaurus.  What I really enjoyed about this manicure was the brilliance of using non-stamped accent nails (ring finger and thumb) so I had just to stamp six nails instead of ten.  That was a fantastic time saver, looked cute, and I think I'll be doing this for a lot more manicures moving forward.

For my base I used three coats of Essie Navigate Her.  I then stamped the zig-zag design from Bundle Monster plate BM-201 using Konad Special Polish in White.  On my accent nail I used All That Glitters Spotty Dottie Light.

Essie Big Spender

I had the good fortune to find a bin of clearance polish at a Walgreens while I was on vacation in March and picked this pretty polish up.  This polish is Essie Big Spender, from Essie's Fall 2008 Collection.  It's a gorgeous berry color with hints of red and purple.

To achieve this look I used three coats of Essie Big Spender. Very pretty!

Minty Hearts

Good morning!  Today I'd like to kick off a short little series of Valentine's Day manicures.  To start I have a simple heart stamped design in red and mint.  I was inspired for this design by a red cardigan I wore with a mint bubble necklace.

I've used three coats of Essie Turquoise & Caicos for my base then stamped Zoya Sooki on top using Bundle Monster plate BM-317.  This was incredibly cute to wear and I got a lot of compliments on it!

Essie Lady Like

This week I had to stop by my company's headquarters to pick up the latest healthy initiative: an activity tracker called FitBit.  I love the FitBit so far, it gives me great data about my activity level throughout the day in the form of many graphs.  Pure heaven.  Anytime I have an event where I need to go to my company's headquarters I try to dress extra conservatively.  To accomplish this I have a slew of beautiful wear to work polishes that I carefully select what to wear from. Ah, just kidding.  I'll use anything as an excuse to wear a beautiful nude polish.

This is two coats of Essie Lady Like.  I've had this polish since it debuted in Essie's Fall 2011 collection.  It's a nice simple pink with a tinge of grey.  Since I've had it for so long I was surprised that I'd hadn't photographed it before now.  It's beautiful and very subdued, a great polish for wearing on a conservative work day.  

I have a lot of . . .

I have a lot of pale green nail polish colors!  I was looking for a to color match my nail polish the back of a Dominion card but off the top of my head couldn't picture what nail polish colors went with the card.  I went through my stash and pulled out all the bottles that I thought would match...China Glaze For Audrey, Essie Turquoise & Caicos, Wet n Wild Megalast I Need a Refresh-Mint, Zoya Belvin, and Zoya Wednesday.  In the bottles they all looked quite similar.  Not having narrowed down my selection by all that much, I swatched each of the five colors onto a nail wheel.

1) China Glaze For Audrey  

2) Essie Turquoise & Caicos  

3) Wet n Wild Megalast I Need a Refresh-Mint  

4) Zoya Belvin  

5) Zoya Wednesday

Things were looking a bit better.  Turquoise & Caicos was more seafoam green, Belvin and Wednesday were darker, with Belvin being more of an olive color.  It was still a toss up between For Audrey and I Need a Refresh-Mint however.  So I swatched them next to each other!  

Pointer and Ring: Wet n Wild Megalast I Need a Refresh-Mint; Middle and Pinkie: China Glaze For Audrey

Boyfriend's verdict:  "They all look the same. Why did you get two of the same colors?" Oh boyfriend...  


My verdict: I think For Audrey is a little darker and more green, while I Need a Refresh-Mint is lighter and more blue.  The colors are definitely very close to each other.  Because the differences are so subtle I'm going to call the dupes of each other.  Feel free to debate!  

Butterflies

Another quick stamping manicure to keep my nails from being naked.

I used two coats of Essie Bangle Jangle as my base then stamped butterflies on top using Zoya Rory and plate DRK-A.  The final effect was very subtle was a distance, and actually rather subtle up close.  I could tell that my nails had a bit of a shimmer but couldn't really make out the shapes.  I'd rate this manicure as a solid "meh," but it was effective at keeping my nails from being naked so it gets points there.  I took it off when I got home from work.

How long would you keep on a "meh" manicure?

Week 15: Easter Day Manicure

The challenge for Week 15 of the 52 Week Challenge was to create an Easter Day manicure.  So far I've done chickens, sheep, and a pastel water marble.  I felt like that left me with two choices for today: eggs or bunnies.  To add diversity I decided to go with eggs, and I'm rather wishing I'd done bunnies because maybe that would have been easier!  Also, do you know what sound bunnies make?

The polishes I used were (in order of which they appear): Essie A Crewed Interest, Zoya Areej, Zoya Snow White, Essie Turquoise & Caicaos, Zoya Breezi, Orly Lucky Ducky, Essie Bangle Jangle, China Glaze Electric Beat,  and Sally Hansen Mellow Yellow.

It's come to my attention that I'm missing participants in my "other challenge participants" list.  If I'm missing you, please let me know by commenting and leave a link to your blog.  I'll add you to the list!  Conversely, if I've got your name listed and you're no longer participating, please let me know.

Be sure to check out what others have done for this challenge by visiting their blogs:

LizMarie at I'm Simply Complex • Jenna at I'm Still Thinking... • Caitlin at Addicted 2 Nails • Sarah at PrncessSarah02 • Charlotte at Charlotte's Nails :) • Shally at Polished & Not Quite Put Together • Rachel-Karina at Polished Criminails • Liz at Nothing But Nail Polish • Fun With My Nail Polish • Operation: Nail It! • Lauriestrodes Fun With Nails • Square Polish • Only Always Soccermom  • Hurr Did, Nails Did • Olivia Writes • The Dragon Lady • Kaki at Glitter Obsession • Isa at IsaBella's World • Gypsy at Gypsy's Glitter • Jackie at MeMa's Mani's  • Lissa at Lissa's Nail Blog  •  Marie at Polish, Polish, Polish...  • ChiChi at... •  Esra at Oje Sihirbazi (Wizard of Polish) •  Nails, Actually • Treselaine at Tres Chic Nails • Carol at Nails by Carol

Pastel Water Marble

Going hand in hand with adorable baby animals for spring is an excessive use of pastel colors!  I love water marbling and wish I was better at it, so this was the perfect opportunity to try out some new polishes I acquired and get more practice.  I think it turned out really awesome.

The colors I used were OPI Did You 'Ear About Van Gogh?, Essie Turquoise & Caicos, and Essie Bangle Jangle.  I never want to take the chance that a polish I'm using will be so thin on my nail that the color won't be opaque so I always paint my nail with a base of white polish.  For this water marble I painted my nails with a single, super thin and streaky coat of Zoya Snow White.  I also love a little glitter, so I topped everything with a thin coat of China Glaze Fairy Dust.

Day 22: Inspired by a SONG

Welcome to the next installment of the Longest 31 Day Challenge Ever!  Bet you haven't seen one of these challenge posts in a while!  Today I bring you Day 22: Inspired by a SONG.  Looking to catch up?  Check out my previous manicures here.  I've been completely stumped by this day's challenge and that's a bit of why it has taken me so long to get this challenge post up.  After a wicked session of brainstorming and YouTube searching, I finally settled on the Meow Mix jingle.




For my nails I attempted to recreate the face of the cat from Meow Mix packaging.

For my base I used three coats of Zoya Jancyn and for the accent stripes I used Zoya Tamsen.  For the cat's face I used Zoya Yara, Essie Jamaica Me Crazy, and Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Black Out.

Spring Flowers

My mom was in town visiting recently she volunteered her nails for me to play with.  She wanted bright colors and I thought of bright flowers would be perfect.

I used a base of OPI Did You 'Ear About Van Gogh?, then dots to create flowers of Essie Jamaica Me Crazy, OPI Are We There Yet?, and China Glaze Strawberry Fields.  I added a dot of Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Mellow Yellow to the center of each flower and little dots of China Glaze Cha Cha Cha to create petals.  My mom wanted more sparkles so I topped everything with two coats of Wet n Wild Wild Shine Kaleidoscope.

Glittering Flowers

Happy Pink Wednesday!  For this manicure I used two new-to-me nail polishes and it was my first time using rhinestones on my nails.  Many firsts here :)

I'd ordered the M.A.S.H. twelve color rhinestone wheel in January but hadn't really found an application to use the rhinestones.  Suffice to say, I'm going to try and incorporate rhinestones into a lot more manicures - I love how this looks!

This is three coats of Essie A Crewed Interest stamped with Sally Hansen Insta-Dri in Presto Pink using Bundle Monster plate BM-224.  I'm not really pleased with the formula on A Crewed Interest: it just doesn't cover well.  It's opaque, but incredibly streaky.  I probably should have done a fourth coat of it because there were still patchy areas, but since I was stamping I just went with the three.  Formula issue aside, I LOVE wearing this.  I love that the colors have high contrast (for being in the same color group) and I love the sparkle of the rhinestones.

To adhere the rhinestones I'd added a drop of Presto Pink where I wanted to place the gem and then used a tweezers to lower the rhinestone into place.  I added a thick layer of Seche Vite to keep everything together and so far it's holding up great!

Week 7: Valentines Day Manicure

Happy almost-Valentines Day!  Welcome to week seven of the 52 Week Challenge, Valentines Day.  I did Sweetheart Candy Nails and I'm loving how fun these look.

For this manicure I used Finger Paints Chrysanthe-Mum's The Word (pinkie), Zoya Kristen (ring finger), Sally Hansen Nailgrowth Miracle Loyal Lavender (middle), Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Mellow Yellow (pointer), Zoya Maya (thumb), Zoya Tamsen (text), and Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Whirlwind White (heart). I used Nail Art Diva plate From the Heart 1 for the text and M.A.S.H. plate m46 for the heart.  The first time I did this I smudged all the text when I applied Essie's Matte About You top coat so that it looked like the text was dripping blood.  The second time I did this I applied a top coat of Seche Vite before my coat of Essie Matte About You.

Be sure to check out what others have done for this challenge by visiting their blogs:

LizMarie at I'm Simply Complex • Jenna at I'm Still Thinking... • Caitlin at Addicted 2 Nails • Sarah at PrncessSarah02 • Charlotte at Charlotte's Nails :) • Shally at Polished & Not Quite Put Together • Rachel-Karina at Polished Criminails • Liz at Nothing But Nail Polish • Fun With My Nail Polish • Operation: Nail It! • Lauriestrodes Fun With Nails • Square Polish • Only Always Soccermom  • Hurr Did, Nails Did • Olivia Writes • The Dragon Lady • Kaki at Glitter Obsession • Isa at IsaBella's World • Gypsy at Gypsy's Glitter • Jackie at MeMa's Mani's  • Lissa at Lissa's Nail Blog

School of Hard Rocks

Just a quick post here; this polish choice is sort of ironic for me.  For the last couple of weeks I've been studying for sort of a placement exam for PhD programs.  It's an eight hour exam spread over two days...today is day two.  The exam sucks, a lot.  For this occasion I'm rocking a part of Essie's Winter 2011 Collection, School of Hard Rocks, a deep dusty green-teal.

I really like this color.  It's definitely suitable for today.

Just realized this is my 100th post!  I never thought I'd come so far!  Bummer that I'm too anxiety ridden to do much besides this though. :(