Day 2: Orange

Today I have Day 2 of the 31 Day Challenge! The theme is orange.

I'd been wanting to try a half moon mani for a while. As you may or may not know, you can create this look using paper reinforcement stickers.

The process is simple enough. The color you want to use for the half moons will be your base color. I used Stone Cold by ORLY. Let that dry, then place the paper reinforcement stickers at the top of your nails so they're covering a half moon shape. Then paint another color over it! I used Burst of Mango Creme by Sephora, a darkened orange creme. I also add a coat of Fresh Squeezed by Nicole by OPI to add some shimmer to the orange. It's like a modified tape mani.

I really like colorblocks of contrasting colors!

It's a little messy, but not too bad for my first try.

The next challenge theme is yellow! Look for that in a few days.

Day 1: Red

Welcome to Day 1 of the 31 Day Challenge! The theme of the first post is: red.

Okay, just before I came back to school, I realized that I owned about two red nail polishes. I, the girl with hundreds of bottles of polish, owned but a few lonely reds. And only one of them was a creme. The other was some sparkly number by ORLY. I picked up a few new reds before I left, and today's theme was a great way to put them to use! And since I now had several red cremes, I decided to do a gradient.

Sadly, the gradient is a little more subtle than I would have liked. I think my colors were just a bit too similar. I used three reds and a makeup sponge to achieve the gradient effect. From lightest to darkest, I used Energetic Red by Sinful Colors, Hey Sailor by China Glaze, and City Siren by China Glaze.

I then decided that a plain ol' gradient was too boring for me. To try out another one of my new indies, I added just one coat of Carbon Copy by Windestine. Carbon Copy is a clear base loaded with tiny matte black glitter. It has great glitter density! Here's a bottle shot if you're interested. It pretty much just looks like a black polish in the bottle since it's quite dense!

I think you can see the gradient a little better here...I'm so good at glitter gradients, but achieving a good color gradient is an art! Oh well; practice makes perfect.

Day 2's theme is orange...you'll see that in a few days.

31 Day Challenge 2012

You may have seen that lots of other nail art blogs are doing the 31 Day Challenge as seen on Chalkboard Nails. I've decided to start doing it too, but at my own pace! It's really impressive and awesome that so many bloggers are doing all 31 in just a month, but I really don't have the time. I'm a full time college student; I barely have time for sleep let alone daily nail art! I'll do my best to do a challenge every few days.

Tomorrow, I'll start with red nails! I'm excited :)

Different Dimensions: Light It Up Blue (For Autism)

I have another indie polish for you today. It's by Different Dimensions, and it's called Light It Up Blue (For Autism).

Light It Up Blue is a sheer blue base with tiny silver holographic and blue hex glitters. There are also some large matte white hexes in there too. But the best part about this polish? It glows in the dark!

The base of this polish is quite sheer, so I started with a base of White on White by China Glaze. Then I added three coats of Light It Up Blue.

I wish I would have stuck to two coats, because between a base color, three coats, and a top coat, I've got a lot of polish on my nails. But I just didn't feel like the blue was even in two coats.

Regardless, the polish is very pretty. The white hex glitters came out readily, and the glitter distributed evenly. The holographic sparkle is also very nice! These pictures are in the shade since the sun didn't want to come out today, but you can still see the rainbow sparkle.

Taking pictures of glow in the dark nails is hard! I charged these by holding them up to a light for about 45 seconds. The glow lasted for a few minutes in the dark. And they glow blue! Before Light It Up Blue, I only had polishes that glow green.

I think it looks extra interesting because of the glitter. 

You can purchase Different Dimensions polishes from her Etsy shop. Two of her polishes, Light It Up Blue and Puzzle Pieces, were inspired by Autism Speaks and World Autism Day. 50% of the cost of those polishes will be donated to Autism Speaks.

Press!

Hey everyone! Today I have a different post for you. My friend Lauren from high school wrote a great article on nail art featuring yours truly and a few other old high school classmates.

Check out the article here!

It's a great read, especially if you're just looking to get into nail art and don't know where to start.