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!

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:

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.

Where in the World Challenge: Ukraine

#18 Ukraine: More Googling was required for this one, another country I have never been to & needed inspirational help. I found the traditional clothing to be very pretty & full of potential so I chose to go with that.

Inspiration

I used OPI My boyfriend scales walls as my base & the rest is acrylic paint.

Mini Cadbury Eggs

I saw a post on 10BlankCanvasas & loved it, she featured her take on mini Cadbury Eggs. I was planning on doing the exact same effect but found myself terribly short on time, so I chose a faster route & cheated a little with some large glitter polish over my pastels. Although it's definitely shinier than Cadbury Eggs actually are, the result was still quite lovely & I'm glad I can share just how simple it is to recreate something that looks both professional & authentic.

I used various polishes for my nails & alternated: China Glaze Lemon Fizz, Zoya Blu, OPI Rumple's Wiggin', Zoya Neely & China Glaze Something Sweet. The glitter polish I used to top it off is from Sinful Colors Jewelry Heist, it's different size glitter in it, I just swiped one thin coat so the glitter looked spread out. Thankfully they turned out just how I wanted & resulted in many compliments. 

St. Patrick 2013

Just a short blog, with a St. Patty's day nail design. I got the idea of the lines from string/line art I used to do as a kid where you take a board & hammer nails into it & you pair up the nails by tying string creating a shape, or you draw dots on paper & pare them up using a ruler. They have earrings made like this now & I always think they look so pretty.

Anyways, I used Nubar Reclaim as my base on all but the ring fingers, for them I used OPI my Boyfriend scales walls. I then made some alternating green & orange lines (to reflect the Irish flag) & a very simple 4 leaf clover.

Hope y'all had fun over the weekend, I leave you now with an Irish Prayer:

May God grant you always

A sunbeam to warm you, 

A moonbeam to charm you.

A sheltering angel

So nothing can harm you...

Laughter to cheer you, 

Faithful friends near you, 

And whenever you pray,

Heaven to hear you.

Bon Voyage, goin' on a CRUISE!

All my bags are packed, I'm leaving today...we are going on a valentines week cruise to Rotan, Belize & Cozumel. So excited!

I'm actually supposed to be walking out the door, so this post will be short. I did a simple nautical theme mani, used OPI my boyfriend scales walls & acrylic paint for the detail.

Delicate Feathers

Feeling in a very feminine & delicate mood today, I thought I'd wear some nude tones. I usually go for darker colors, but today, everything pointed to try something soft & airy. The day is beautiful & sunny, with a crisp breeze. I'm having a great hair day, so good that the gusty winds are making me feel like I'm in a photo shoot. I'm wearing my favorite dress pants that compliment my booty & my prescription sunglasses just came in & look fabulous! So I picked out a lovely nude from Sephora by OPI called Dear Diary & then painted some random white feathers on each of my nails to give them a little something extra. I hope y'all are enjoying your day as well, until next time!

Simple Monday Elegance

My good friend bought me the Betsey Johnson mini set from Sephora by OPI for Christmas & I had yet to use any of the polishes, so I grabbed one to test out today called Too Too Turq. It's a lovely muted turquoise with some subtle shimmer to it, I paired it with a simple swipe of OPI Goldeneye down the center for a touch of elegance.

Bright Light

Bright Light

Soft Light

Nail Art Contest by Kelsie

This is my entry for Kelsie's nail art contest she's hosting in honor of her 1 year blogiversary, yay!

As per her rules, I picked a picture from her pinterest board called Nail Inspiration. Here's the one I picked:

I used OPI My Boyfriend scales Walls & China Glaze QT, then used acrylic paints for the detail. 

Here is my interpretation:

Christmas Holly, inspired by Nailside:

I saw this lovely idea from Nailside & had to give it a go. It also gave me an excuse to go pick up OPI's Goldeneye from the James Bond collection that I'd been wanting since it came out :)

I used Goldeneye on all my nails except the ring finger, for that I used OPI Jade is the new Black as my base color & made the little "clouds" with OPI Live and let Die. Acrylic paint was used for the accented holly berries.

This is probably my last Christmas design & I'm very happy with it. I want to wish you all a very MERRY CHRISTMAS and a HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Christmas Movie/Nail night

It's been so long since I held one of these & what better time than Christmas! It was so much fun, I enjoyed every minute as I got to see each lady light up when their nails were done & that was my little bit of Christmas Cheer!

The Movie of choice:

Who doesn't love this movie? It's full of fun & love, the kind of movie that makes you feel warm & fuzzy & touches you at your core. (It also inspires you to try out your British accent all night, heehee!)

The following are pictures of everybody's nails, in no particular order. 

Polishes used were:

Sally Hansen "Sent me to Green Heaven"

Sally Hansen "Celeb City Silver"

Zoya "Sara"

Zoya "Blair"

Butter London "Fishwife"

Orly "Royal Navy"

Nicole by OPI "Follow me on Glitter"

Designs were created using acrylic paints & a fine nail art brush. Some pictures didn't come out as I had hoped, it was late at night & the lighting was bad, so I'm sorry. You will notice that the last pictures look much better, these were retakes the next day at the office & I could only do that with the ladies I work with. I also got creative with my snowmen, lol, so don't laugh. Overall you get the feeling of Christmas Joy!

Leslie's abstract c'mas tree

Tara's blue Christmas snow

Melissa's presents

Linda's snowflakes

My Christmas Tree

Corinne's snowflakes

Yesenia's Holly & Snowflakes.

Where in the World Challenge: Denmark

#7 Denmark: Hmmm, what can I do for Denmark....GOOGLE "what is Denmark famous for?" oh goodie, Hans Christian Andersen FAIRY TALES, this is going to be FUN, now I just have to pick one.

Well it was a tough choice, but I went with Little Mermaid because I just love that story, both  the original & the Disney version. And the colors I get to use are stunning:-), hehe! One of the other girls picked the same story as well, you can see her design here.

For my Little Mermaid I decided to do just one accent nail to look like a mermaid tail. I used OPI Catch me in your Net for my base color on all my nails, it's a beautiful teal glitter polish that looks a lot more green in person. I then outlined my tail pattern with black acrylic paint on my accent nail & filled in using various blues & greens.

Indoor bright light

Outdoor Sunlight

I took another pic inside with bright light but at an angle
so you can see the green tone to this polish, it also looks better
with the white background too, I think.

Christmas Candle inspired by Robin Moses

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas! Our Christmas tree is up, our wreaths are up & everywhere you go you can see little bits of Christmas popping up everywhere. So, what does this mean to a nail artist? OMG, lets sketch Christmas nail art patterns all over every piece of paper you can find, right? Naturally!

I've got tons of pictures for inspiration & one of those is a pretty candle that Robin Moses did a while back. Since I already had been wearing this dark green color, OPI Live & let Die, for a few days I figured it would be the perfect background for my candle! I used acrylic paints, a thin detail brush & a sponge. After creating the candles I thought the rest of my nails could use a lift, since it had already been about 3-4 days since first applying my base color, so I added one coat of Essie's luxeffects in Shine of the Times that I absolutely adore & it worked like a charm! So here's the first of many MERRY CHRISTMAS designs.

Fall colors to be thankful for!

Just a simple post with a simple combination of fall colors that make me smile, so I put them in a row. Starting with W7 Metallic Saturn, then OPI Every Month is Oktoberfest & finishing off with W7 Metallic Saturn. I took lots of pictures because it was kinda hard to capture the colors just right, so you will see some  indoor lighting, outdoor & direct sunlight. These colors are very rich & make my fingers look expensive, hehe :-)...ENJOY!!!

Indoor

Outside, some sun

Outside indirect sun

Direct sun

Add caption