10 Day/Week...OK MONTH! Challenge - Ombre Nails

Whoa this is the first time I have ever done ombre nails...unless you count my entry in Nailed It's Two Bottle Challenge. I don't count that one because I used a single color plus white to create it. This one involved a lengthy selection of different colors, which I spent way too much time on. Anyway, I had to think a long time before deciding on a color family for this, and I finally settled on blues. Here's what I came up with.

On my pinky, I used Sinful Colors Cinderella, my ring finger is Sally Hansen Blue Me Away!, my middle finger is Zoya Tallulah, my index finger is L.A. Colors Wired, and my thumb is Color Club First Looks.

 

I can't believe I am finally done with this challenge. And under 10 months too! I started it in May last year, and knew I couldn't complete it in 10 days, so I decided on 10 weeks. A few of the manicures were so hard to get inspired for that I put them off for far too long and next thing I knew it became a monthly thing. Heehee - this is how things go in the rest of my life too, so I don't know why I'm surprised by this. Well, anyhow, guess its time to find a new challenge to join. Maybe there will be one over spring break. For now, I will just bring you random manis until then. :)

Thanks for looking!

10 Day/Week...OK MONTH! Challenge - Favorite Color Combination

So, I don't know if I could ever pick a favorite color combination, but I took a look at some things I had pinned on Pinterest for inspiration, and found this little gem I had nearly forgotten about. It is from Raggio di Luna Nails, and I really loved it when I first pinned it, and I still do. I decided to recreate it in some of my favorite colors, so...here it is!

I used Julep Nina as my base, then added Zoya Pippa, Essie Meet Me At Sunset and Julep Mandy for the accents. I added my stripes and dots using my favorite black striper from Orly called Jet Black. Quick little aside about this Orly striper - they add some oily substance to it that makes it AMAZING for nail art. If you don't have any Orly stripers, get one. You will see what I mean. It's awesome.

Here's a pic before I added the dots. Just like the original artist, I couldn't decide what I like better...but I'm leaning toward the version with the dots. :)

Thanks for looking...maybe I'll finish this challenge before ten months, huh? We'll see.

10 Day/Week...OK MONTH! Challenge - Favorite Movie or Inspired By A Movie

I had to think long and hard about this one. I'm not really sure if I have a favorite movie...but if I do, it is old, romantic, and involves one of the Hepburns. :) I just couldn't get inspired to do a manicure out of the African Queen, so I decided to use a favorite of my sister's instead. She came to the rescue with a few suggestions, but the one that stood out to me most was Alice in Wonderland. What a great movie to inspire some fabulous nail art! So here you go - my Alice in Wonderland nail art.

I started off my thumb nail with two coats of Loreal After Hours, then carefully drew in the eyes and mouth for my Cheshire Cat. For my index finger, I used one coat of Sinful Colors Unicorn, and then added in the purple and drew in the face to create my singing pansy. This is my least favorite one. It looks more like an angry monster, but ah well, I can't be perfect all the time. :) On my middle finger, I used two coats of Misa What A Wonderful Day then added detail to create the caterpillar. On my ring finger, I started off with two coats of Pure Ice Superstar!, then drew in the details to make a card, in this case the ace of hearts. And last, but not least, the doorknob. I started with two coats of Pure Ice Vintage then added detail to create the doorknob's face. I  used a ton of different colors for this, so I'm not going to list them all out, but if anyone wants to know, just ask in comments below, and I will get back to you within a day or so. :)

All in all, I totally love this manicure and am hereby dedicating it to my lovely sister, who gave me the idea. Thanks, Kate!! That's all for now, thanks for stopping by to look at today's nail art!

10 Day/Week...OK MONTH! Challenge - Favorite Freehand Nail Art Design

Oh man, I'm starting to worry I won't finish this in ten months now. What a disaster! I just get so distracted with other things and don't want to follow what this challenge tells me to do. :) But, I was actually really excited to do this one because it was inspired by one of the first bloggers I ever read religiously - Little Nails! I am so impressed by her skills with a striper. Her lines are so straight, its insane. I had to wait for my hand to stay steady for me, but I think it worked out.

She did this awesome little mani a while back featuring chevrons, framed nails, and hearts. Oh my! It looked great, so I practiced my striping and chevron-making skills, so that I could pay my homage to it. I used different colors because I like to pick colors that I have never had the chance to use yet. So here it is!

I used Spoiled Black Mamba for my base color, and then added my frames with Zoya Dannii. After that, I made my chevrons and hearts using L.A. Colors Atomic, which I really love. It is a fabulous teal. :) Here is Spoiled Black Mamba by itself.

So what do you think? Mine isn't as perfect as hers, but I'm sure with more practice I will get there. Thanks for looking!

10 Day/Week...OK MONTH! Challenge - Favorite Celebrity Manicure

So, I don't really follow celebrities...at all. I don't care about their stupid lives, and I don't think it should be anyone's business anyway. Leave them alone people. They are regular human beings, not gods and goddesses. They poop too. Ok, enough of that. My point is, I wouldn't know a celebrity manicure if it was on a hand that slapped me in the face. That meant I had to search the internet for 'celebrity manicures' and that was really, really boring. But, I finally wound up finding one that I had actually pinned on pinterest months ago without realizing that it belonged to a celebrity. And, happily, its a celebrity that I have actually heard of - Zooey Deschanel. Here is my version of her cute mani.

I like how this turned out. I chose slightly different colors, only because I wanted to use some polishes that I haven't gotten to use yet. The base is China Glaze Exotic Encounters. I won this in a giveaway along with the entire Safari Collection, and was so excited to start using these colors. Thanks again Kayla Shevonne!!! The stripes are done in Zoya Wednesday, Pure Ice Wild Thing, and China Glaze I'm Not Lion (also from my winnings - yay!!!). Here's China Glaze Exotic Encounters all by itself. This is serioulsly one of my new favorite colors. It is GORGEOUS!

Thanks for looking. The next requirement of this challenge is Favorite Freehand Nail Art Design, so I will begin pondering that one, and try to have it done for next week.

10 Day/Week...OK MONTH! Challenge - Blue Nails

Oh, here's something I can do easily. I love blue nail polish. I decided to dip into my stash of polish that I haven't tried yet. Happily there was some blue in there. Here is what I came up with.

It's a simple stamping mani using Wet n Wild 315A (it's old and doesn't have a name) as the base color, and the stamping was done using Julep Melanie and stamping plate Mash-49. Here is Wet n Wild 315A by itself.

It's a pretty deep sparkly blue. Application is great even after all these years. I've probably had this polish for about 13 years, no joke. My coworker Josh says I need to do a starry manicure with this color. I couldn't agree more. I think this will be my base for a galaxy manicure in the near future. :) Thanks for looking!

10 Day/Week...OK MONTH! Challenge - Animal Print

I will start off by saying that I refuse to wear animal print. I have never, ever had an article of clothing that was animal print, except for maybe socks (and those were a gift). It's just not my thing. So, I procrastinated on this one. I have several Mash and Konad plates that contain animal prints, but I just wasn't feeling it. So, I decided to take a different approach to animal print. Here is what I came up with.

PAW PRINTS!!

This is NYC Fuchsia Shock Creme with Sally Hansen Blue Me Away!, Sally Hansen Nail Art pen in Purple Violet, and Sinful Colors Unicorn for the paw prints. Here is a picture of NYC Fuchsia Shock Creme by itself.

And keeping with the theme, here's are some pics of my beloved pets. :) Beware: PICTURE SPAM!

As always, thank you so much for looking! What do you think about these nails?

10 Day/Week Challenge - Inspired by a Book...Cover

For this mani, I spent a long time thinking about some of the books I've read over the past few years that I really enjoyed, and tried to come up with some nail art ideas. As I was looking at my copy of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, I was inspired by the cover. I think the design turned out to be pretty cool. I painted my nails yellow first with Spoiled Did I Dye It Too Blond? and then stamped over it very randomly with Color Club Twiggie. For this I used Mash-43 and Mash-49. That doesn't really matter so much as I only took bits and pieces from the stamps with the thin lines and actually tried not to use the whole image. After that I did the same thing using just Mash-49 with Spoiled Jail Bait. I think it turned out pretty cool. Take a look!

With the flash

Without the flash

 Here is an image of the book I used as my inspiration.

Overall, I am pretty happy with this one. The colors matched the book cover pretty well, and I had fun doing it. Thanks for looking!

10 Day/Week Challenge - Rainbow Nails

Day 2 of the 10 Day/Week Challenge is Rainbow Nails! Of course I had to do skittles, since I have not actually tried it before. I fell in love with it instantly. I wanted my colors to be super bright, so I had to get a bit creative with my rainbow. Since I did not have shimmery, neon, glassfleck-y colors that went with my rainbow theme, I created the look with layers. After I had my rainbow skittles, I decided that some stamping was needed. Here's how it turned out.

For the pinky, I used a neon pink from Spoiled called Tip Your Waitress, then added NYC Classic Coral Creme (a pretty pink shimmer) over top. For my ring finger, I used a neon orange from Spoiled called Jail Bait, and then added Spoiled Vitamin C over top to add some shimmer. For my middle finger, I did a coat of NYC Tribeca Silver, then a coat of Spoiled neon green called Permission To Proceed, THEN a coat of Zoya Snowsicle on top. My pointer is similar to the middle finger, except, I used a pretty blue shimmer polish I got from Bath and Body Works years ago for the middle layer. If it did have a name on it at some point, it doesn't any more, so I'm not sure what to call it. My thumb was done the same way as my middle and pointer fingers, except I used a purple polish from Spoiled called Checkin' Into Rehab for my middle layer. I like the way these turned out, and couldn't stop staring at them, especially when I was out in the sunlight. :)

After that, I stamped over them with Konad Special Polish in White with these little clouds from Konad plate m79.

What do you think about my take on Rainbow Nails?