Bronze and Blue Arrow

I'm a big fan of the clean lines of tape manicures, but usually I'm too impatient to wait for things to dry. But I had a lot of time on my hands when I decided to do this one.

I started with a base of the lightest color, the bronze-y orange gold NARS Kismet. I let that dry, then used two pieces of tape to make a downward arrow shape. The next layer was Milani One Coat Glitter in Blue Flash. I let that dry and used two more pieces of tape to layer on a coat of China Glaze Harvest Moon.

Top coat is key for a manicure like this -- it smooths everything out really well.

I really wish I had the patience to do these more often. They always come out so pretty!

Pink Lemonade Lightning

Sorry it's been so long since my last post! I recently moved back to Pittsburgh for the semester, and I guess I just let time get away from me.

Anyway, today's manicure features some lightning.

I started with a white base so the neon would really pop. I've been on the hunt for a new white polish, and I tried Essie Blanc. I did not like it. It was too thin and runny! But it did the job after three careful coats. Then I used China Glaze Hang-Ten Toes for all of my fingers except the ring finger. On that one, I used China Glaze Sun-Kissed.

For the accent nail, I let the yellow dry, then I used tape and Hang-Ten Toes to make the lightning bolt. On the rest of my fingers, I used Elevation Polish in Huangshan which is a very unique yellow glitter.

It's filled with iridescent hexes and matte neon yellow hexes and circles.

The mix of colors reminds me of pink lemonade. I think this mani came out pretty cute!

American Flag Nails

Happy 4th of July to everyone in the USA! In honor of this most patriotic holiday, I have some appropriately festive nail art.

My inspiration for today's nail was the American flag! To break it down, I'll start with my red-and-white striped nails. I started with a base of ORLY Au Champagne, a shimmery white. I used three coats to even everything out. I let that dry completely, then I used some striping tape and a thick coat of Milani One Coat Glitter in Red Sparkle. One thing I have to note is that I have two versions of Red Sparkle - one with gold glitter and one without. The latter is older than the gold glitter version, and it's the version I used here. I added a coat of Seche Vite to smooth things out.

Now for the star nails, I started with a base of ORLY Stone Cold, a beautiful shimmery blue. I let that dry, then I used Konad Special Polish in White and a Bundle Monster plate to stamp the star designs onto my nails. My stamping skills (while improving) are not the best, so I fixed any mistakes using White and a nail art brush. I let that dry, then I added a coat of Seche Vite.

I'm really excited that these came out so well! The stamping isn't 100% perfect, but you can only see the imperfections from close up.

Everyone at my internship loved my nails. Now we're having a good ol' American barbecue to celebrate Independence Day! Hopefully swimming doesn't ruin my nail art.

I hope you all have a great 4th of July!

Nautical Skittles + Anchor Tutorial

I've been such a bad blogger lately! Sorry about that - I've been really busy with friends and my internship. I have a tutorial to make up for it :)

Nautical skittles! I really wanted to try out vertical lines, and it made me think of a nautical theme so I did an anchor accent as well. Here's the tutorial for how to freehand an anchor:

It's pretty straightforward, really.

For my thumb and middle finger, I used a base of China Glaze Sea Spray then topped it with two coats of Candeo Colors Divebomb. For my index finger and pink, I started with a base of OPI Goldeneye. I let that dry completely, then I used striping tape and China Glaze First Mate to create the vertical stripes.

For the anchor nail, I started with a base of China Glaze Turned Up Turquoise and used a makeup sponge to add a gradient of Goldeneye. I freehanded the anchor using First Mate and a striping brush. All of my nails are sealed with Seche Vite for smoothness and shininess :)

I really love how these turned out! Vertical stripes really appeal to me, and I think my accent nail is especially cute.

Neon Glitter Stripes

Are you ever just really pleased with the way a nail design comes out? That's how I felt about today's manicure.

I started with a base of China Glaze Purple Panic, a purple-pink neon. I let that dry completely. I wanted to have really crisp lines, so I used tape to cover the top third of my nail and painted the bottom two thirds with China Glaze Concrete Catwalk, a dark gray creme. I let that dry completely, then I used tape to block off the top and bottom thirds of my nail, leaving only the middle strip exposed. I painted that over with Barry M Silver Multi Glitter, a fine silver glitter with hints of pink.

I think this design came out so well! The colors play really well together. I love the contrast of the gray and neon as well as the way the pink glitters compliment the purple.

I didn't want to take this design off! Tape really can do wonders for clean lines if you have the patience for it.

Harry Potter Nail Art: Revisited (Plus Hogwarts Crest Tutorial)

Sorry for the lack of posts lately! I've had a really busy week. On Monday and Tuesday I was in London, then Wednesday was my 21st birthday! Thursday was a bit of a recovery day, haha. But anyway, I'm really excited about the nail art I have to show you today.

On Tuesday, my friends and I went to the Warner Brothers Harry Potter Studio Tour! I am a HUGE Harry Potter fan, so I knew I had to do some nail art for the occasion.

This post is pretty picture heavy, so you can see the rest (and the tutorial) after the jump!

Throwback Thursday: Neon Tape Decals

Happy Throwback Thursday! Today I have a really cool mani I did a looong time ago. It took a lot of time and patience, but I really like how it came out. It involves tape decals.

Tape decals are created by painting nail polish onto a piece of clear tape, letting it dry, and then cutting the tape into shapes or stripes. Then you just stick them on your nail! You have to add topcoat to seal them on, but honestly it's really pretty easy, just a little time consuming.

For a base color I used my favorite silver, Sephora by OPI in Queen of Everything. I can't remember what colors I used for the decals - a bunch of China Glaze and Sinful Color neons, I believe.

I should try another tape decal mani sometime soon!

Throwback Thursday: Explosion Accent Nail

Welcome back to Throwback Thursday! Today I have a really cool accent nail that I really need to try again: the explosion.

I think this manicure is really fun! I always get really frustrated when I used tape though...I'm always messing up the base color because I'm too impatient to let it dry all the way. Oh well. For the accent, I cut out triangles of tape and carefully layered them over the base color. I painted the black and let that dry, and then I inched those same tape triangles up a bit and painted over the black with the silver. Seal with a top coat and voila!

I used China Glaze in Turned Up Turquoise for most of my nails. The accent nail is China Glaze in Purple Panic, black is Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Black Out and Milani 3D Holographic in HD for the silver.

HARE Holiday Hoopla: Christmas Trees

Merry (belated) Christmas to all of my readers who celebrate! I'm so sad that Christmas is over already, but I'm still going to my grandparents' house on Sunday for some more holiday celebrations :) My Christmas was actually rather quiet, but still nice.

I have some holiday nails to show to you today, featuring one of HARE's limited edition holiday polishes. I did these the Saturday before Christmas; I had hoped that they would last until Tuesday, but they wound up chipping the very next day! No bueno.

Even though I only wound up wearing them for two days, I love how these nails came out! I started out with a base of China Glaze Holly-Day, a forest green creme that covered in one coat. Then I added just one coat of HARE's Holiday Hoopla, a limited edition holiday polish and their first glitter topcoat.

Holiday Hoopla is a mix of red, pink, and gold glitters in a clear base. There are various sizes of hexes and squares, and some nice shimmer in there as well. As usual for HARE, it's a very complex, dense glitter. It's really lovely; I think the edition of pink really helps make this a unique holiday glitter.

For the accent nail, I started with two coats of OPI Goldeneye. I waited for that to dry, then I used tape to section off a triangle section. I painted the triangle first with Holly-Day, then a coat of Lynnderella New Year's Eve Eve for "ornaments". Then I added a silver star-shaped rhinestone that I got from the Born Pretty online store to top the tree. And voila: Christmas trees! I think the tree is super cute.

I really loved how these nails came out! Christmas nails are so fun. I'm excited about this new HARE polish as well, since it's their first glitter topper. Holiday Hoopla is limited edition, but it's still available on Llarowe at the time of writing! Get it while you can.

Happy holidays, everyone :)

Nude and Maroon

Hello all! Today I have some nail art for you. I really love the way this came out.

I started with two coats of Kalahari Kiss by China Glaze, a nude beige creme. After that dried, I taped off the top half of my nails and painted on a coat of Purr-fect Plum, also by China Glaze. Then I took a dotting tool and made some Purr-fect Plum dots on the nude half of the nail. Simple but very pretty.

I really like this design...I'm sure I'll be repeating it!

Day 9: Rainbow

Hello, readers. To all of you on the East Coast that have been affected by Hurricane Sandy, my heart truly goes out to you. Since I'm in Pittsburgh for school, we haven't been hit very hard. But my family and loved ones are in New Jersey without power, and they're in a state of emergency. Thankfully, they are all safe. The pictures I've seen of the devastation break my heart. I hope everyone affected is able to recover from this tragedy quickly.

On a brighter note, I have some nail art for Day 9's rainbow theme.

To achieve this look, I started with some glittery polishes, which I've listed below.

Thumb: Milani One Coat Glitter in Red Sparkle

Index finger: Milani One Coat Glitter in Gold Glitz

Middle finger: Milani One Coat Glitter in Purple Gleam

Ring finger: Milani One Coat Glitter in Blue Flash

Pinky: Milani One Coat Glitter in Silver Dazzle

Then I used striping tape to make the designs. I painted over each nail with Sephora by OPI's Never Enough Shoes, a black creme with lots of rainbow sparkle. I topped this mani with a coat of Seche Vite.

I think these are the last pictures from my old camera! But my new camera has come in, so posts will continue regularly.

Please keep those affected by Hurricane Sandy in your thoughts.

Day 4: Green

The theme of Day 4 is green. I picked up a new green that was on sale at Sephora recently, so I decided to try it out! It's called Designer Fig Leaf, and it's from Sephora by OPI. I actually had my eye on this color for a while, so I was pretty excited to find it on sale.

I decided to do another tape mani. I taped off my nails diagonally and used Zoya Julieanne for the purple half. Julieanne is such a fabulous purple with lots of interesting shimmer. Overall, I liked this mani. And I just love when my lines are so clean!

I was too lazy to set up my lightbox for pictures this time...oops!

The next theme in the challenge is blue. Look for that in a few days :)

Patchwork

My first week of classes is complete! I have so much reading and homework to do already :( But at least my nails are cute. Today, I have a patchwork mani for you.

I made this mani by starting out with a base of Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Violet Voltage, a lavender. I was really impressed; it covered really well in one coat! There was slight VNL, but I stuck with one coat since I knew I'd be covering the tips anyway. I let that dry and used tape to section off the nail before adding a coat of Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Golden-I, a really pretty antique gold. I let that dry before sectioning off my nails with tape once more. Then I added a coat of Sexy Divide by Essie, a deep purple. I topped it all off with a coat of Seche Vite.

Unfortunately, I had a little bit of shrinkage from the Seche, which you can see in this close up picture :(

I'm pleased with how this came out though! It's quite pretty. I wish I had the patience to do tape manis more often.