The hit parade.

I wanted to update everyone further on what I have been up to nail wise during my quiet time away from the blog...so here are some highlights....

  

Playing around with the one stoke technique...they almost look like flowers....

And a simple purple gradient....

One of my FAVORITES...

Simple pink glitter gradient....

There was this craptastic Valentine's Day caviar and glitter mani.

Another TOP FAVORITE based on a pair of earrings that I purchased.

Summer neon with glitter....all China Glaze and fun.

A mod matter color block... 

Flip Flop Fantasy with stripes and dots....

Now I look to the future to see what I can learn, perfect, and just admire because it is pretty!!

Pretty In Pink

I think one of the manicures that originally attracted me to the world that is nail art is the jelly sandwich using glitter.  Sadly, this never really worked out for me.  I had this polish, but the effect was never right.  I had this jelly polish from Zoya, but it never seemed to work out.  Then, I saw this with dots and others with flowers, I wish I could remember where.  Either in Pinterest or blogs.  I thought, "I bet this will work out better.  I just know it."  sure enough, I think the first attempt at the effect came out pretty well.  I like the floating below the surface look of the dots.  I would have liked to try it with larger dots, but with two nails that keep breaking [angry face], I thought the larger dots would be too overwhelming on the shorted nails.  If anyone has any suggestions as to how to get these two little nails grow up big and strong likes their neighbors, I would love to hear it.  

Color used:  

Zoya Paloma

Step 1.

    - Paint a light coat with your base color.  

Step 2.

   - Using white polish or paint, place a few dots on each nail.

Step 3....and 4.

    - Layer another thin layer of your color.  Then place more dots.

Repeat.  Continue your color layers until you have the depth of dots and depth of color that you want. Finish with a top coat and you are done!!

Days 3 & 4 of my July 4th Manicure Bonanza!

It has been a pretty busy weekend here in my household between summer cleaning and organizing, to family and friend visits, and the ever present wedding plans, that I did not make time to post my holiday nails until now.  So without any further adieu, here is day 3 and day 4 of my July 4th Super Birthday Mani Extravaganza.....or, 7 days of holiday nails until July 4th.  

Day 3:  Fireworks Gradient

Sticking with my red, white, and blue color scheme, Day 3 features a couple colors we have already used, and one I am very excited to announce.  The red is Julep's Delaunay and the blue is Butter London's Blagger.  Saturday my July Julep Maven box came in the mail....which will be posted tomorrow...and I did add on their special glitter polish to my box.  It is the third polish in this picture and it is called Fireworks.  This polish is packed to the brim with glitter.  The glitter is both multi-dimensional large and small hex glitter in red, white, and blue.  You gets lots of glitter per swipe of the brush and I just love it!

I decided on basic red and blue bases to let the glitter take center stage.  I pulled the glitter down from the tip so that it looks a bit like a shower of sparkles and added the loose stars to the blue nails.  

Day 4:  Deconstructed Stars and Stripes Tape Mani

For today's manicure, I used the above colors:  Sinful Color's Under 18, Essie's Blanc, and Julep's Eloise.

I wanted to produce at least one tape manicure in this series, and this is it!  I started with the blue as a base and the moved to utilizing the tape to divide my nail in half for the coats of red.  But I needed more pizazz then to then tape it off again for the white.  Solution?  Dots of course!!  I think it gives it a hint of both whimsy and sophistication.  Not sure if one can be both, but I am running with it!

7 Days of 4th of July Nails

B Day is coming.....B Day is COMING!  I am officially hitting the middle of my dirty 30's on July 4th. Seeing that our nation is going to be celebrating 237 years of independence and I will be celebrating my 35th, it seemed like a great idea to do a week of manis to celebrate!  Each day I will be posting a new manicure that has a 4th of July theme to it.  

Day 1....Hint of patriotic pride....

Our first day is a dottie manicure.  

Colors used for this mani are Julep's Delaunay, Essie's Blanc, and Butter London's Blagger....Not pictured China Glaze's Fairy Dust.

It felt a tad bit early for me to start with a collage of stars and stripes.  So I started with 3 coats of the white with dots and finished it off with a bit of sparkle.  This little guy is a fun summer manicure that is perfect for the season without hitting you over the head with pride.  

Stay tuned for more!

Work It! Wednesday with Blue Ombré Reversi.

It is mani cam time on the red carpet!  This week's carpet worthy manicure is my blue ombré manicure with reverse blue ombré dots. 

Polishes used: Zoya's Blu, Julep's Claire, Zoya Pixie Dust in Liberty, Essie's Mesmerized, Deborah Lippmann's My Prerogative.

I can't help it...I LOVE how this manicure came out.  I think this combines my three favorite nail items all on one hand: texture nail polish, blue polishes, and dots.  This is topped off with Seche Vite top coat with the exception of my middle finger, which I did not polish.

WORK IT!

NOTD: Blue Ombre Dots

Today feels like a great for dots!  Dots, dots, dots, DOTS!!  I get a bit crazy about dots.  As you can see, I have my blue Jawbone Up on, so blue dots seemed like the next logical thing to do in my planning stage.  I wear the Up almost 24/7...good thing I like blue!

For this manicure I started with a base coat of OPI's BerlinThere Done That from their Germany Collection.  I love this nude color.  It may be one of my favorite nude nail polishes out there.  Nude can be tricky for me with fair skin tones, but this one gives me nude without me looking even more pale or nuclear charged.

From left to right: Color Club Insta-This, Zoya Breezi, Zoya Wednesday, Julep Claire, and Zoya Kristen.

Wednesday came out looking more green than blue, but that is the nature of this color.    And yes, I did give my pinkie finger a start with Julep's Eloise, but I found that in person that and the Color Club colors were similar.  So I abandoned it.  If my nails were longer, I would enjoy adding more blue to the spectrum.

Easter Nail Art

Yesterday I was wasting time on Pinterest, which is a daily occurrence for me.  While looking at wedding inspirations and new ways for me to tie a ponytail, I found this great link to a cute rug.  The New Preppy Zig-Zag Rug.

Cute!  If I had a room I could put this rug into, I would.  

Like many, I dig chevrons and dots.  Both are versatile and add a bit of whimsy to a great color manicure.  I have been thinking about Easter nail art and wasn't sure I really wanted to go over the top in the design category...Then I saw the rug link and realized this is kinda perfect for me.  I love geometric, dots, and color. VOILÀ! 

Thank you Pinterest for once again filling up some do-nothing time at work and providing me nail inspiration at the same time.  :)

Nail polish used from left to right: Julep Claire, Zoya Perrie, Zoya Cassi, NYC Midtown Mimosa, and my thumb is Butter Jaffa.

Happy Friday everyone!!!