Where in the World Challenge: Japan

#21 Japan: I was actually more excited about this than I thought I would be, for today's theme I chose Harajuku style to draw my inspiration from. Now this manicure is highly unpractical, but it was really fun to just escape the world of "grown ups" for about 30min & just go crazy with glitter,hearts, flowers, bows, pearls, sugar & spice & everything nice! Don't ask what polishes I used, I couldn't tell you, but I used a white base & some blue, pink & purple glitters, then started piling on the little pearls, bows, hearts & flowers to make this mega girlie manicure:

Brush stroke feather technique

Once again I have found inspiration from this site Pshiiit, the site is in french but the universal language of art in undeniable, the 'force' is truly strong with this one! Using a flat brush you can mimic the look of the very popular feather nail art you see all over the place, & the best part...no birds are harmed in the creation of this art.

I used Zoya Neely as my base, China Glaze QT to make the pink feather brush strokes & white paint for the dots.

indoor light

edited with a film in picassa

White to blue fade

After a few failed attempts at a manicure I could be proud of I finally settled on this simple sponge fade manicure. I used OPI my boyfriend scales walls, which has become my favorite white because it's not quite white & has just a smidgen of gray to it which I find romantic. I then sponged on some OPI Catch me in your Net, and there you have it, simple & lovely...finally!

A couple of bad days...

...in which I tried a few manicures & wasn't happy with any of them. They were ok, but I just wasn't feeling it & took them off right after I finished. But I figured I'd go ahead & post a couple of them up here anyways just to let y'all now, I too have bad days where I'm just not feeling inspired or my mani's just aren't' living up to my standards of what I would like them to be.

My first mani was inspired by ChalkboardNails, I used a few polishes & in the future I will attempt this design again taking more time & layering better, but here is my result:

The second mani was inspired by Pshiiit, a lovely idea, but it didn't turn out how I wanted. I will not give up & I will try both of these again.

Where in the World Challenge: Colombia

#20 Colombia: There are 2 things that stand out to me about Colombia: for one, they have the legend of El Dorado & secondly they are know for being responsible for more than 60% of the World's Emeralds. Why do I love this? Well, I'm born in the month of May so emerald is my birthstone & El Dorado? well, who doesn't love a legend about a city of gold, what an awesome treasure hunt that would be!

So I thought a combination of gold & emerald would make a beautiful mani, what do you think?

I used OPI's Goldeneye & Nubar Greener to get this very simple but very gorgeous color combo look:

Where in the World Challenge: Korea

#19 Korea: so today might not be my best, had quite a bit going on this weekend & so for the first time in this challenge I will refer to the country flag. Now even though the Korean flag is somewhat simple, the message is quite lovely, I found this picture for reference:

Star Trek nails

Took the day off to stand in line again, this time for the new Star Trek. Yes, I am a Trekker from way back, used to watch Captain Kirk with my Dad all the time & have really been enjoying the new re-boot.

Obviously I gotta do the nails: On my left hand is the uniforms with badges for the Captain, Science dept., Engineer & Medical, on my thumb a silhouette of the Starship Enterprise. On my right hand, I just did a basic galaxy pattern. Enjoy!

Mother's day simple dotted mani

For Mothers day I didn't have much time, what with all the cooking & cleaning in preparation for spending a lovely day with my mother-in-law, so I just did a very simple mani. I wanted something pink, because pink always reminds me of mothers, it's soft & makes me smile. I used OPI On her Majesty's secret service as my base & then placed some random dotted gradients in pink.

Inspired by TJ Maxx commercial

I don't know if y'all have seen this commercial, it's really cute, the girl says "is it wrong to buy an entire outfit to match your mani-pedi?" Well, us ladies in the nail art world would say "Hells no, that's normal!" am I right?

So anyways, I decided I really wanted to do this mani cause the colors are so pretty together & now I want to go get everything she bought @ TJ Maxx. (disclaimer: I do not work for TJ Maxx, I was simply inspired & am doing this for fun!)

Inspiration

I used Sephora by OPI Too Too Teal from the Betsey Johnson colleciton as my base, I used OPI liquid sand JINX for my angled french tip & a silver acrylic paint for the finishing touches.

Taken in direct mid-day sunlight

Polish Days May: Number 5

#5 has many meanings for me so I had to join in on this month's Polish Days. May is the 5th month, it's also my birthday month, the month & year I was born (May 1977) Star Wars came out & Mother's day is in May, having lost my Mom I hold that holiday very near & dear to my heart.

But for today I just decided to go ahead & throw up some flags to celebrate my birthday month!

IRONMAN 3

"I've got 2 tickets to IRONMAN, took off work to stand in line..." Yup, we're going to stand in line @ 2pm today, so excited & of course I have my nails ready:

Inspiration