Back To School Part 3

Part 3 of my back to school inspired nails are Bring an Apple For Teacher...

Colors used:

nude- OPI's My Vampire Is Buff

red- Julep's Delaunay

brown- Zoya's Dea

green- Sinful Colors's 

I used a dotting tool for my thumb and pinkie fingers.  The apples were hand drawn with a paint brush.   I know they tell you not to pick favorites, but this one may be my favorite so far in this theme.  

Back To School Part 2

Part two of my back to school inspired nails....Don't forget your pencils!!

Sadly, I was a bit too anxious to photograph this manicure.  I smudged the Seche Vite on my thumb...yup, I was moving that fast with the camera!!  I think the smudge adds character.

Back To School Part 1

It is that time of the year again where all the little darlings are heading back to school...and the adult darlings too!  As the kids get ready to go back, and my teacher friends are prepping their classrooms, I started some back to school manis this week.  The first one is...

Chalkboard Nails!!

I started with a base of Julep's Laura and a Sally Hansen Nail Art Pen.  I had to wrack my brain to remember items I used to see on a chalkboard as a kid as it has been more than a hot minute since I was in school.  :)  This was topped off with Essie's Matte About You top coat.  

China Glaze Party Foul

I love texture nail polish...concrete texture, sugar coats, fuzzy coats, pixie dust...I am in!  I was out picking up new nail files over the weekend last week when I stumbled into China Glaze's flocked collection.  LOVE IT!  I think the hardest part for me was trying to decide which pretty bottle was going to be coming home with my new nail files.  I settled on Party Foul, mainly because of the flecks of peach color in it.  

I did add top coat to it as I was afraid it was going to fleck off as I am incredibly hard  on my hands.  

PS-  I think this nail polish is lucky as it is the polish I had on when I found my wedding dress.  :)

You Purple Stud!

I went on a purchasing binge last month and made an impulse purchase of what I thought were a pot of glequins.  Interestingly enough, when I arrived home I realized they were actually studs.  No matter!  I love the color and have never played with a 3D object on my nail before.  So what the heck, let's give these a whirl!!

Colors used:

Gray- OPI's Nein! Nein! Nein! OK Fine!

Purple- OPI's Palermo Purple

Glitter- OPI's Polka.Com

I used a non-quick dry clear coat to serve as my base for placing the studs.  Although, I may have used too much on my thumbs because the studs started to drift off center a bit.  I cemented them on with more clear coat.

My middle finger is an adventure in glitter gradients again.  :)

I actually enjoyed the look of these studs.  I thought I may be fussing with them throughout the day, but that was not the case.  They stayed put and never popped off for the week that I had this on my nails.

Partly Cloudy

Two weeks ago, a friend and her awesome daughter were coming down to Florida to visit family.  I haven't seen them in a few years, sadly.  I was super excited when the fates aligned and I was actually able to go to see them while they were in town.  I packed up my car with car snacks, made a super long playlist full with jams to sing along with, and got ready to drive the almost 5 hours to get there.  But first, I needed to do up the nails!!

Colors used:  The blue is OPI's Can't Find My Czechbook, gold is Zoya's Pixie Dust in Solange, and the white is Essie's Blanc.  the clouds are hand drawn.

A little mermaid.

I have been trying to improve my glitter gradient skills.  This last one that I am posting today is from a few weeks ago.  I do confess that I have been in full on wedding planning mode this month and have been neglecting this part of my life.  Well...NO MORE!  :)  i have a few posts to share with you of what I have been up to this month.  I want to start with this glitter gradient.

This look was inspired by a video that I saw on YouTube. HERE It is by PackAPunchPolish.  I had all the colors she used, so I thought, "what the heck!  Let's try it!"  

I started with a base coat of China Glaze's Unpredictable.  The three glitters on top are from Sinful Colors: Call U Later, Nail Junkie, and Super Star.  

I really like the was this one looked outside.  Sadly, I couldn't get the camera to pick up half of the iridescence and sparkle that this mani had.  Trust me, it sparkled!  

Weekly Challenge Continues...Glitter Gradient Part 2

Okay, so let's talk about glitter and my ability to spread it across my nails...I have set myself up with a skills challenge of the week and this one is for improving my skills with glitter gradients.  I have not been good at this seemingly easy skill  I tend to have it get all blobby on the nail.  With my last post [and my first] in this challenge, I think I got off to a great start.

If you remember....

I got this....

or....

maybe...

I don't.

I thought I would continue the process and reverse it up a bit.  Seemed like a good idea.  I started with OPI's Pamploma Purple and my glitter was Julep's Vivien.  Both polishes I like independently.  This should be an easy marriage of deep purple cream and multi textured gold glitter...it wasn't.  I have my suspicions that I did two bad things in combination to lead to this semi-disaster.  :)  I think I started with glitter that was too thick on the brush and then I couldn't pull it own the nail with much success because I was already all blobby.  

This was a great learning experience.  I can't wait to try to try again!!