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!

An InLinkz Link-up

Rainbow Honey: the Final Battle Swatches & Review

I had received this gorgeous little trio of polishes from Rainbow Honey this past November, and had so much going on, I had not gotten a chance to swatch them. After the craziness of the holidays, I ended up almost forgetting about them completely. But then, as I was going through my drawers of polish for the Golden Oldie Thursday and Neverending Pile challenges, I re-discovered them. I feel just awful for not showing them off here, sooner. Especially since I received them from Rainbow Honey for no cost. I am going to do them some justice here and now though, because they are just beautiful, and I know you all will love them.

They came in this adorable little box and had a pamphlet to go with them showing off all the colors in the collection and explaining what they were meant to represent. As an avid video game player, when these babies arrived in the mail, I knew exactly what they were - I played almost all of the Final Fantasy games, except for the ones that they did not make for Xbox360, as I stopped playing the Sony consoles after our PS2 died. I am such a sucker for pretty packaging.

These polishes did not disappoint. I loved all of them. I received Soldier, Tidal Wave, and Ultimate Weapon. These brought me back to my PSone days where I played Final Fantasy Tactics for probably two years and never got sick of it. :P Here is what Soldier looked like. It is a dark gunmetal silver mix of different sized glitters. I painted it here over top of O.P.I. My Boyfriend Scales Walls. It went on in two thin coats, and I had no problem with the formula at all.

Next, we have Ultimate Weapon. It is a dark purple shimmer and was so sparkly in the sun. This polish was awesome, and went on very smooth. I believe this was three thin coats.

Last, and defintely not least, is Tidal Wave. This was my favorite out of the bunch. I love teal, and glitter, so I basically was head over heals for it. :) I wanted it to be opaque enough to not show a line at my finger tip, since it is a jelly, so I did three coats for this one as well. The formula on this one was great, too. I LOVE it and have to ration it out slowly, so I don't run out. :P

Thank you so much for stopping by today. I hope you enjoyed my belated review of this Rainbow Honey trio. :)

Summer Challenge Day 1 - Bees

Theodora from Red Hair and Black Nail Polish and Kaki from GlitterObsession  put together a Summer Challenge for the month of July! They came up with some fun ideas and it's an every-other- day nail art challenge. I'm pretty excited as this is going to be the first nail art challenge I do where I have a deadline. I'm not very good at those when it comes to nail art (I'm sure you have noticed my Copy Cat Sat's are Copy Cat Sun's a lot of the time), so we'll see what happens. :)

Day 1 (July 1st) is Bees. Here is my take on Bee Nails.

So what do you think? I didn't even know where to start on this one, but I always like to use new polishes that I haven't tried yet. This time I started with Sally Hansen Pixel Pretty for my base - it was one of my only untried blues, so I felt the need to use it.  After that, I painted on my flowers and bees with a small paint brush and my new dotting tools. I used so many colors for this, I'll just list them out:

• Sally Hansen Pixel Pretty
• Pure Ice Super Star!
• Sally Hansen Lite
• Spoiled I Only Eat Salads
• NYC Taxi Yellow Creme
• NYC Uptown
• NYC High Line Green
• Spoiled Pretty In Punk
• Julep Brooke
• Priti NYC Red Ace Rose
• Salon Perfect Tangy Tangerine
• COS BAR (no name purple)
• Pure Ice Black Rage

Here is a photo of Sally Hansen's Pixel Pretty all by itself.

As always, thank you so much for looking! A full outline of the challenge can be found here. Please be sure to check out the other participants in this challenge!

1. Theodora from Red Hair and Black Nail Polish
2. Kaki from GlitterObsession
3. Cuti-CLUE-les
4. Whimsical Glam
5. Sue from Creative Nail Design by Sue
6. Sangy from Lipgloss Affairs
7. Taya from Taya
8. Kelly from Adventures in Nail Art
9. Diana from Nails by Diana
10. Alexis Leigh from -XOXO Alexis Leigh
11. Namira from Namira Rahman
12. Chiro from Nail of This Week
13. IsaBella at IsaBella's World
14. Beautilicious Blogger
15. Nikki from Little Green Heart
16. Peace Love and Polish

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?