Electric Zebra - Day 13 - Animal Print

I started day 13 off thinking I was going to take the term "animal print" in a different direction.  I had wanted to do animal (foot) prints in an attempt to do something not many people might think to do.  I started off with the bright pink base, I was planning on using it if I did the foot prints but then I decided to try zebra stripes on one nail in this teal and I immediately changed my mind!

This is one of those combos that just won't photograph well.  The pink is very neon and it just freaks my camera out and the stripes are actually a bit darker then they appear here.  I kinda gave up trying to take an accurate picture.  Maybe I'll try again later and re-post, I just wanted to make sure I didn't skip a day again.  I want to get my thumb into a picture anyway!

Here I used Claire's - Hot Stuff and Sally Girl - Surf's Up.  I thinned some of the Sally Girl so it would flow more easily and free-handed the stripes.

Need a striping brush?  If you have one from a striping bottle polish that is getting old and clumpy, clean it up with some polish thinner and remover.  Polish thinner always works better than remover for me when I'm cleaning my brushes.

Notebook Nails - Day 12 - Stripes!

At first I was like  "Stripes?  I can't cut tape evenly,  my stripes are going to look terrible.  I have this striping brush but It's only in silver and it's getting low and clumpy.  I really need to buy a striping brush"  and then I was like  "Wait!  I can just clean up the brush from my striper bottle and use that. DUH!"  Crisis averted!  How did I not think of this sooner?!  My stripes still aren't exactly perfect but even the perfectionist side of me is happy with them.  It would have taken so many re-dos and too much time to make this flawless.

I've been wanting to do this for a while so I'm glad I realized it could fit the category.  So, without further ado I bring you...NOTEBOOK NAILS!

Tom + Chandra.  Chandi is a nickname.

I thinned out the teal and pink to give it a more transparent look.  Without the thinner it's just too dark and bold to get the right feel.

I didn't have the time or energy to do my right hand the same way.  I just went ahead and painted that side solid teal and I am totally diggin' it!   I'm going to try to take a picture of both hands.  I'll have to edit this if I get a good shot because I think it looks pretty frickin' neat.

UPDATE! Hahaha, saying "UPDATE!" reminds me of "Unsolved Mysteries"!  I got a decent picture of my other solid teal hand!

Minnie Mouse - Day 11 - Polka Dots!

I love love love polka dots on anything.  I especially like them on my nails!  Today's Mani was inspired by a classic beauty...MINNIE MOUSE!

Here I used NYC - Big Apple Red, NYC - French White & Claire's - Black Hole. 

I submitted this picture for the challenge.

I added the little bow accent later.

I submitted the first picture without the bow accent for the challenge. I like the little accents but I thought it had a cleaner look without it.  In the full size picture you can see a little flaw.  It's not noticeable when you're just looking at the nails in person, but since I'm such a perfectionist, it was really buggin' me in the picture!  What do you think?  Which way do you like it more?

A Quick Intermission

I just discovered this blog!  I was just blog hopping and I came across it.  This gal here is into nail polish, vintage clothing & other items, sci-fi, make-up, jewelry, she makes glass beads and overall, she just seems super fun.  One of those people where you check out their blog and you totally wanna meet them!  Oh and she's a short lady like myself...actually she's shorter then I am!  I'm 5'1 and this gal is 4'11!

ANYWAY, she's having a freakin' amazing giveaway so go check her page out! Vintage Musings Of A Modern Pin-Up's Giveaway

Don't just check the giveaway out either, check out her super cute outfits.  I love the look!

And now, back to our scheduled blogging.

Blue & Silver - Day 10 - Gradient

I have to say that I had never done a gradient mani before.  Well, I guess I have done glitter gradients but those are way easy.  Colored gradients are not my strong point.  That being said, I was rather happy with the way this one turned out.  I wish you could see the glitter in the picture better but hey, what can ya do?  I actually had 2 different ideas for this one, one being a glitter gradient in case the other one didn't work out. I did the glitter gradient first and took a picture so I'll show you both!

First up is the one I actually submitted.  For this one I used Finger Paints - Easel Come, Easel Go!, NYC - Empire State Blue and Claire's - Bright Skies. 

Here is the other idea.  This one is Hello Kitty - Night Sparkle, Claire's - Gold Glitter Topcoat  & Color Club - Take The Stage.

I wish you could see the gold shimmer in the Hello Kitty polish better.  It's so pretty and those bottles are so adorable!  Even my boyfriend thought it was cute...not sure if he would want me to mention that but he isn't reading this!  My fellow polish club member (there's only 2 members) Taylor Tunno   got this one for me and I love it.  I never want to wear it because it looks so cool in the bottle!

Challenge Catch-Up - Day 6 - Day 9

Okay, time to catch up with the 31 Day Nail Challenge!  I've been doing my nails and posting them to Painting Outside The Lines' FB page but I haven't been posting them here.  Sorry, just been a little busy and I was doing my nails super late!

Anyway, I'm going to catch up in one post now.

 Day 6 - Violet Nails

I couldn't stop thinking "Fish heads, fish heads.  Roly poly fish heads.  Fish heads, fish heads.  Eat them up, YUM!"  Remember that song?  Great, now it's stuck in my head again!

This was Spoiled - 2 Weeks Sober as the base and a thinned white to paint on the fishies!

Day 7 - Black & White Nails

I love splatter painting but it's sooo messy.

NYC - French White & Claire's - Black Hole

Day 8 - Metallic Nails

Finger Paints - Easel Come, Easel Go! Accent nail is silver craft glitter over the base color. 

Day 9 - Rainbow Nails

Okay, now the colors in rainbow order are:

NYC - Big Apple Red
Sally Hansen - Sun Kissed
Hard Candy- Splendid
Icing - Unnamed Green
Folk Acrylic Paint - True Blue
Spoiled - 2 Weeks Sober
NYC - French White as my base
 
I thinned all the colors (except the acrylic paint) so they wouldn't dry up too fast while dotting.

So that's it, hopefully I find time to post the rest of the days as they come and not have to do another catch-up! 

Dandelion - Day 5 - Blue Nails!

After I had already done this, I thought "Damn, I should have saved this design for the "delicate print" day.  Oh well, it was already done and I wasn't about to do another blue mani at 1am.

When I first saw someone do this dandelion mani I completely fell in love.  I was totally smitten!  I kept putting it off, until now of course!  I have to say, I'm completely infatuated with my own nails.  I just keep staring at them.  I love how dainty it looks.

I used Claire's - Secret Garden as the base here.  I mixed a little green and black to get the stem color right and then thinned some white polish for the flower part.

I should have been more careful when I applied my top coat of Seche because it shrunk the polish up in some weird spots.  I was just getting careless because it was super late when I finished up.

Jelly Sandwich - Day 4 - Green Nails!

Jelly Sandwich time!  I love this green, unfortunately I can't tell you what it's called.  I got it in a Christmas pack of 3 minis from Icing.  In natural light it almost glows,  it totally reminds me of Slimer from "Ghostbusters".  I just used the green polish and sandwiched some Sally Girl silver glitter between the layers.  I need more jellies and glitter,  I love jelly sandwiches!

My co-worker's comment was "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles!"  I think that fits pretty well!

Ruffles - Day 3 - Yellow Nails

I'm totally diggin' yellow polish lately so I was quite happy to do this one!

I used Hard Candy - Splendid and I drew the design on with a Sharpie.  Sharpies aren't really the best thing to do nail art with, sometimes you can get a top coat on just fine and sometimes it doesn't work out.  This was one of the times it didn't work out.  It looks fine in the picture because I didn't put top coat on it.  Which also meant that I couldn't really wear it very long without the design rubbing off and possibly getting all over my face if I had an itch!

Now that I think about it, I think the Sharpie would have worked out better if I hadn't applied a first layer of top coat before I drew the design on.  Oh well, I'll experiment with that idea later.

Here is Day 3 - Yellow

Oh, the dots were done with polish and a dotting tool btw.

Tape Mani - Day 2 - Orange Nails

Oh how I wish I had a better camera!  I loved the way this mani looked in person but it just didn't want to photograph very well.  The mattified polish came out looking fuzzy.  Oh well, I'll post it anyway since its part of the challenge!

I did a simple tape mani with the serrated edge of the tape dispenser.  I used Wet&Wild - Blazed and NYC -Fuchsia Shock then mattified it with Hard Candy - Matte-ly In Love.

Tomorrow is YELLOW!  I'm totally into yellow nail polish right now!

Shasta Inspired - Day 1 - Red Nails!

Red Nails, sounds simple enough right?  Of course it does...but what else, what else could I do with red?  Only EVERYTHING! All kinds of things popped into my head; Minnie & Mickey theme, flowers, a simple black design...hearts?!  I couldn't decide and it was driving me crazy.  Then I went to grab a drink and BAM!  Inspired by a bottle of Shasta Cola.  Not sure about posting a picture of a companies product here so if you want to see what inspired me, just Google "Shasta Cola".

For this one I used NYC - Big Apple Red (base), Revlon - Raven Red (dots) & a silver striper from Claire's for the star.  Topped with Seche.  Gotta love that shine!

31 Day Nail Challenge

So, I am doing a 31 Day Nail Challenge!  I've seen this before and always wanted to try to see what I could come up with but didn't want to do it alone.  I was super excited to see that PaintingOutsideTheLines was going to be hosting the challenge on her Facebook page! It actually started yesterday so this post is a tad late but I was enjoying some time with my boyfriend watching "Supernatural" and I never got around to it! 

Here is the Challenge list! 

MANIMANIA!

Okay so the title sounds like this post should be more exciting, like I will be showing all kinds of swatches, nail art and good stuff.  However, there can be only one mani pic here!  I should have posted this Sunday night but...I've been totally slacking on my blog!  (Work and video games REALLY get in the way!)

Some of you might be into wrestling, some of you might think it's dumb and some of you probably never gave it a thought!  I, on the other hand do indeed enjoy some pro-wrestling!  I mean, I get to watch some pretty sexy half naked men...what's not to like?  It's like a non-girly soap opera!

Anyway, Sunday was Wrestlemania for those of you who have no interest in the subject.  I decided to do a pretty simple mani to celebrate and honor the dead man (Undertaker) because he was going to have an epic match with Triple H.  I won't ramble on about what happened, unless you ask me to.  I'll just show you the goods!

Purple and black are classic Undertaker colors and that is his symbol!

This pic is pretty much the same but I added it anyway!

I used Spoiled-2 Weeks Sober and drew the symbol on with one of those really fine tipped Sharpies.  Then I topped it off with Seche but decided to mattify it with  Hard Candy Matte-ly In Love.  A shiny top coat didn't see appropriate for this mani!

Yes, I'm a big nerd to watches wrestling!