40 Great Nail Art Ideas - Love

Hey everyone. Today's mani is a bit of a fail in my opinion, but I'm showing it anyway because it's all I've got. I wanted to make some decals, so started looking for lovey sort of images to stamp with. I loved this image of an elderly couple walking together from one of my CICI&SISI plates, and then found a cute heart pattern to go with it.

I really struggled with the colors, and found myself wishing I had not gone for pink and purple afterward, but ah well. They do look pretty together. I used Zoya Lola and Isa. The next bad choice I made, was when I added the hearts on the nail with the elderly couple. They came from CICI&SISI plate 05, and the heart design is from PUEEN43. I should have just put them on there and nothing else. They kind of get lost in the background. I was basically just a mess when I did these haha.

Here is what Zoya Lola looks like on it's own. It's a lovely hot pink with blue shimmer. I did two coats here and one coat of Seche Vite.

Thank you so much for looking. Make sure you take a peek at the nails every one else did. There is bound to be a ton of Valentine's Day inspiration! I'll be back next Friday with a proper Valentine's Day mani.

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40 Great Nail Art Ideas - Hobbies

Yahoooo! Today is the day we kick off the newest Nail Tarts challenge. I'm super excited about this one, because this time, I am actually helping to run the challenge! This one will be lasting a full year, just like the last one. We will be posting nail art ideas following a specific theme every week. We'll be sharing on pinterest, IG, facebook, and of course through our blogs what everyone does for each prompt to share *at least* 40 great nail art ideas with the world. :) Today's prompt is hobbies. And wouldn't you know, I got stuck on the very first prompt haha. I have two hobbies at the moment: (you know it changes month to month haha) nail art and video games. You all know I love nails (duh!) and I bet a lot of you have noticed my sick obsession with certain video games and my beloved xbox. So, I finally decided to show my love for BOTH of these and did this rainbow stamping mani as an ode to my two favorite hobbies.

I started off with some polishes I have just been DYING to wear since I bough them. These are from Polish Addict Nail Color's July box - United 4 Pride. These were released just after marriage equality for all couples was upheld by the supreme court. I had to get something to commemorate the historic occasion and polish was the perfect thing.

I stamped over top of these using Konad Special White and several different images from different plates. The hearts all come from Pueen: plates PUEEN43 and PUEEN41. The I heart nails image and the video game image are both from Bundle Monster: plates BM-401 and BM-415.

Side bar: I have a friend who is gay and when this was announced we were together and it was just the most momentous thing I can remember happening in a very long time. Someone asked him that day if we was going to go home and party and he replied "no, I'm going to go home and get MARRIED." I just about died. My heart melted. I mean, my husband is the most important man in the world to me (beside my dad lol), and if I did not have the right to marry him, and then after years and years of being together and never being able to make it a legal relationship, we finally got that right, I think my heart would explode. So, yeah, I got a little teary for him and his partner. It is special.

Anyway, when this particular collection of polish came out, I knew I needed it. And when they are all dried out and my kids ask why I have these old rainbow glitter polishes, I can tell them I was there when gay couples got the right to marry. It is right up there in history with women and minorities gaining the right to vote. It is huge. Look at these beauties.

 

The colors used in this manicure are Polish Addict LGBT (pink), 6/26/15 (purple), Love Is Love (blue), Love Wins (green), and United 4 Pride (yellow).

Well, I'm super excited about this new challenge, and can't wait to see all of the other girls manicures for this first theme. Make sure you stop and look at what everyone else did!

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Ornate Coral Nail Art

Hi everyone. My stamping group on facebook had a complex challenge for this half of the month, and I tried my best to achieve a result that fulfilled the challenge. We were to incorporate coral, stamping, ornate, and use some different nail art technique. That sure was a lot of prompts! But, I persevered, and came up with this.

I started off with Wet n Wild Warm Filter for my base, and them stamped the design using OPI Cha-Ching Cherry and PUEEN44. After that I used my Loki's Nail Vinyls to create the half moon shape and filled it in with Cha-Ching Cherry. The next part was the part I hated the most: placing those tiny caviar beads on my nails. It was painstakingly fine work. My hand kept cramping up! But I fought through the pain (lol) because this was important to me.

Oh my, you can tell I'm tired. Anyway, here is what Wet n Wild Warm Filter looks like on it's own. This was two coats. It was pretty opaque, but needed two coats to avoid any thin spots.

I'm off to bed, but I'll be back in a few days with my mani for this week's 52 Week Pick n Mix. Have a great evening!

I'm Thinking of a Baby Chick

Hi everyone! Today I am taking my Earth Day mani for the stamping group that I joined in a bit of a different direction. Earth Day is also my little sister's birthday, and I did a manicure in her honor because she is the sweetest, funniest, most amazing sister in the whole world. :) It's funny, when we were kids, I didn't always think so, but I was not mature enough to see . As we have grown older, and I see what a beautiful, smart, talented, compassionate, and thoughtful woman she has become, I realize I'm the luckiest sister on the planet. My sister is my best friend.

You may be wondering why the odd title. My sister will know the minute she sees it, but I'll explain it to the rest of you because it's totally cute (sorry, Kate). When we were little, and going on long car trips, we would play all sorts of games to keep entertained. My parents played this guessing game with us called "I'm Thinking of an Animal". It would start with one of us saying "I'm Thinking of an Animal", and then we each took turns asking yes or no questions (does it have fur?, is it cold-blooded?, etc.). It's similar to the game a lot of people call "Yes and No", but ours was specifically animals, so there was no animal, vegetable, mineral guesses. Anyway, My sister was very little (maybe 4 years old) and was really great at guessing, but when she decided she wanted to have us guess her animal, she said "I'm thinking of a baby chick". So, of course, my dad asked "Is it a baby chick?" and she was all surprised that he guessed it. It was really cute, and she was just a bit too little to grasp the concept of the game at first, but realized her mistake after the fact. She was super smart even then. AND she went on to give us a pretty good challenge a few times on that car trip after that! This manicure is to honor her baby chick. I used PUEEN47 for the chick image. The gradient was done using Sally Hansen Mellow Yellow and Lemon Zest, and the background stamp is from PUEEN46.

Kate, I wish you a very happy birthday, and I love you so much! Thank you everyone for looking. Have a beautiful day!
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52 Week Pick n Mix Challenge - Music + Not Worn Enough

Good morning. Well, I had wanted to post this manicure last night, but unfortunately, I fell asleep. So, you are getting it a day late, but I am rested, so that is good. With this mani, I wasn't sure what I wanted to do at first. I was trying to think of a band's cover art to do, or something like that, but every time I started thinking about it, I wouldn't be able to come up with anything. Music makes me think of my sister, so I kept circling back to her. The girl literally lives for music. She loves it. It is her passion. So, I decided to go another direction and just let her inspire my musical nails. Now, when I think of my sister, I think of natural beauty. She gravitates toward neutral and earthy colors, and seriously is just effortlessly beautiful. So, I was digging through my messy drawer of untrieds and came across China Glaze Lug Your Designer Baggage. It is an neutral brown base with gold flakies, and instantly made me think of my sister (color-wise I mean, the name is basically the exact opposite of my sister haha). I came up with the rest pretty quickly.

So after painting my nails with CGLYDB, I found a few stamping plates from the sets I received at Christmas, and added some musical stamps using PUEEN47 and Bundle Monster plate BM-411 with Wet n Wild Wet Cement.

Here is CGLYDB by itself. It's a brown crelly with loads of little gold flakies that builds up to opacity quickly in just two coats. This is a color that I bought just because it looks interesting and different, and I really don't wear brown  much unless it fits my nail art, so I figured this color would fit well with the "not worn enough" prompt.

Thank you so much for stopping by on this lovely Easter Sunday. Have a great day everyone!

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Butterfly Manicure for Spring

Good morning! The theme this week in our stamping group is Spring, and, although I know the good weather is right around the corner, the persistent cold around here has been keeping me down. Well, this mani may have just pulled me right out of it because it makes me happy just to look at it! I did some simple stamping in green and then created some butterfly stamping decals to place over top. I really love how these came out!

I started off with two coats of Julep Francis, then stamped this vine pattern using Bundle Monster plate BM-406 and NYC High Line Green. Here is what it looked like before I added my butterflies.

After that, I created decals using PUEEN39 (and removed all of the flowers). I colored in each butterfly using Sally Hansen Purple Craze, Barielle Joytini, and Wet n Wild Dream Poppy. I added white to the back of each one to make the colors brighter. Once they were dry, I placed them on each nail at different angles, then added topcoat.

Hooray for Spring! I'm so excited to finally feel WARM again! Here is a quick swatch of Julep Francis all by itself. I'm slowly working my way through a lot of my untried colors, but it is taking a while. :)

Thank you so much for stopping by to read! Please make sure you take a peek at what everyone else did for their spring manis!

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