26 Great Nail Art Ideas - Halloween in the Wrong Colors

Ok, I am so late with this that I'm not even going to bother with any kind of intro...

For this look I dabbed all kinds of colors (listed below) onto a makeup sponge and applied to my nails.

What I Used:

* Sephora by OPI - Seeing Pink Elephants

* China Glaze - Friends Forever, Right?

* China Glaze - New Birth

* China Glaze - Spring In My Step

* Bonita - some purple color that has no name on the bottle

* Sephora by OPI - Natural Environ-mint

*Stamping polishes - MDU - Tutti, Neon Blue, Neon Green

*Stamps: BM-S205, Mash-38

I also added a few little pearls to each spider's back on the accent nail.  Not that it is obvious, but the pearls are the color of the opposite spider.  It was a super cute mani for Halloween.  

Thanks for stopping by - even if we are well into November now.  

40 Great Nail Art Ideas - Red

Red!!!  I love red and I really need to use it more often.  The big drawback for me is how hard it is to clean up after it.  My prompt for this week was "watercolor".  It is hard to think of a primary color as a watercolor, but I did my research and decided to go with the Nimbus technique as per Sammy at The Nailasaurus.

I chose 3 shades of red to use over a white base color.  A cute little Valentine's day heart stamp was the perfect touch to this one.

I have done this technique before with this look.  It is a very easy technique but kind of hard to know when to stop.  I tend to over-think things...  Anyway, using acetone to thin out the polish, I just started dabbing away with a cotton swab.

The other tricky part to this technique is that the cotton swabs tend to leave fibers in the look!  I tried really hard to keep those at bay with a good amount of success.  I used Pueen 41 for this cute heart image.  After a layer of Seche Vite, it turned out to be a sweet little Valentine to myself.

I hope you all had a happy Valentine's day too!

40 Great Nail Art Ideas - Aqua or Turquoise

Hi everyone!  I am so glad to be back with a new nail art post for you.  My nail room is about 85% complete now so I actually have a small space dedicated to my nails.  :)  I do want to apologize for the look of my blog.  I am not sure what is happening, but my background image will no longer load and I can't for the life of me figure out why.  So, I guess this means it is time for some kind of re-vamp of the design.  I'll get to thinking about that.

In the meantime, here is my entry for the New Crumpets Nail Tarts 40 Great Nail Art Ideas prompt for this week: Aqua or Turquoise.  I have waterspotting as my technique this week.

This is my first time attempting this technique.  Watermarbling is such a nemesis of mine, that this scared me!  Here is what I used for this look:

I started with 3 thin coats of Teal The Tide Turns.  This is a textured polish so it is kind of hard to build up to a solid opacity.  Without adding a top coat, I started the water spotting process.  To do this, I added some distilled, room temperature water from a jug I have had for well over a year to a paper cup.  I added 2 drops of the black to the cup and then sprayed 1 spray of hairspray to get it to separate.

As you can see, each nail is different.  It is really hard to control the spray from the bottle so, you get what you get.  LOL  I think it came out cool! I finished this off with a coat of Seche Vite to smooth that finish out and give it some shine.

This was SO MUCH EASIER than watermarbling (for me!).  Since the results can be just random and have no pattern, I found it to be much more satisfying to the perfectionist in me.

Thanks for stopping by!!

40 Great Nail Art Ideas - Christmas

Well, it is all about timing for this look.  I was not sure where to go for this challenge, but along came my inspiration on Instagram!  Copycat Claws does some amazing things and her festive Bundle Monster stamping review was perfect to get the ball rolling for me.  Please see her original post here.  Thanks Serene!  Since I already had the tools this is what I did:

For this look, I started with my usual base coat followed by one coat of Snow White.  I started to follow Serene's lead with the dry brush method, but that wasn't working too well for me and I didn't have the patience for it.  So, using the polishes below:

I used my Uber Mat to put the green, red, gold and white colors as concentrated dots in an empty nail guide.  Once the dots were down, I used my stamper to smoosh them together.  I let the polish dry a little on the stamper before putting it on my nails.  This method gives a more random color scheme which I needed because dry brushing the colors on individually was too hard for my organized brain.  Once that was dry, it was time to stamp.  I used BM-S217 and randomly selected images to place on my nails.  I wanted them all to be different and that is so easy to do with this type of plate!  I also used the metal template stamping guides from Bundle Monster to help isolate the images before applying them to my nails.  They are super helpful!

Once the stamps were dry, I added some Seche Vite for shine and protection.  I got this done just in time for a holiday party at work.  They were a hit.  :)

Happy Holidays to you and your family!  Thanks for stopping by.

40 Great Nail Art Ideas - Black & White

I'm so late in getting this done this week, but it is done and I pretty much love it!  My prompt this week was stripes:

This is so simple but I really love how it turned out.  I am always leery of the striping tape...

I used my usual base coat to protect and strengthen my nails and added 2 coats of Spirit to each nail.  Once that was dry, I topped it off with a layer of Seche Vite to harden the polish so I didn't smudge anything with the tape when creating the stripes.

I used a piece of masking tape for the larger portion.  I always try to remove some of the stickiness from that tape to help make sure there is no evidence of the taping.  I used the thin striping tape for the other lines.  Working on one nail at a time, I only needed one coat of Smoke & Ashes.  What a beautiful black with some green shimmer in it!  I removed the tape while the polish was still wet to aid in getting crisp lines.

I might be late in posting for this week, but I hope you like it as much as I do.  Thanks for stopping by.  :)

40 Great Nail Art Ideas - Orange, Purple and Green

Orange, purple & green are totally classic Halloween colors - and I love them together.  For this week's 40 Great Nail Art Ideas prompt, I have "stamped".   Here is a look at what I did:

Picking the colors for this was pretty easy.  I just wanted bright, distinct colors.

Do you know how many Halloween themed stamps there are?  It is really challenging to pick them out!  Since I just received the new Bundle Monster Seasonal plates, I chose to use some of the jack-o-lantern faces on plate BM-S204.

I also wanted to try to make decals.  I don't have an Uber Mat (yet) so I chose to try to use a silicone baking sheet.  It worked fairly well, but there is staining.  LOL!  So, all of the designs you see in the polish I hand created on the mat.  I was so in love with the ring finger, I just couldn't bring myself to stamp over it.

I had to have a kitty cat stamp!  I just got a new kitty so she needed to be represented somehow.  :)

Happy Halloween!  Thanks for stopping by.

Plenty of Purple

Have I ever mentioned how much I am drawn to purple?  I simply love the versatility of it.  My nail polish collection is drowning in pink and purple!  How is it that there are so many different shades?  I have combined a bunch of purples for this mani!

I'm not even sure why I turned to purple for this look.  I guess I just wanted to show it some love.  You know I love a gradient look too!  Had I not been circling the nail art forums so many years ago, I wouldn't have known the beauty.  I love this community so much and everything it teaches me.  :)

I started with my usual base coat to protect my nails and then started with 2 coats of In A Lily Bit.  Once that was completely dry, I started the gradient.  I use a make-up sponge for my technique.  I put a stripe of each color on the sponge and lightly add it to each nail.  Once each layer is dry, I go back over it until I am happy with the color.

I can't even begin to express how much I love Winterberry!  It has the deepest color with such a hint of shimmer.  A lot of people like to do gradients with only 2 colors, which are absolutely stunning.  I, somehow, typically gravitate towards three colors.  For my accent nail, I applied 2 coats of Stevie to my ring finger.  In my opinion, Zoya makes the best textured polishes.  They can be worn with a top coat (which is my preference).

Once the polish is dry, I put a layer of Seche Vite on to even out the color and to prepare for stamping.  I used BM-711 for this image.  I love the fine lines and MDU Copper was a perfect accent.  Another layer of Seche Vite finished this pretty manicure off.

I also, for the first time ever, stamped my big toe while I did a matching pedicure.  It is the first time I have been able to bend that far over since having 2 major back surgeries two years ago.  That was fun!  Not to fret, I won't ever post a picture of my feet on here.  Thanks for stopping by!

Blue Hibiscus

This has been one of my favorites so far this spring!  I chose a Blue-Teal gradient with stamping for a Spring pick-me-up mani.

I started with a white base over my typical base coat.  Then, using a make-up sponge, I added several layers of the colors below to get the desired look.

I used the China Glaze at the very end to get a little bit of shimmer over the Color Club to be on the same level as the Sinful Shine.  Once the color saturation was where I wanted it, I used Pueen 72 and my wonderful MDU stamping polish to add some hibiscus images.  I wanted to vary it up so I added them in all different locations on my nails.

I loved this so much that I wore the heck out of it!

Happy Spring!!

Cotton Candy

Have you ever seen those bags of cotton candy where, when you open it, there are several colors all smooshed together?  That is what this looks like to me.

I wanted to brave the watermarble technique again but this time I wanted to try something different.  I had seen a tutorial where you can pull the design off of the water and use it like a decal rather than dipping your fingers in the water.  Well, that was a total and complete failure.  I want to chalk it up to the polishes I used rather than my own issues...  I couldn't give up after the hours of trying to make this work so I did it the traditional way.

I used the white as a base layer of polish, then applied liquid latex around my nails and on my fingers to make the process less awful.  LOL!  Well, there is one thing I learned about the latex: don't let your fingers stick together!  It was really comical to see me trying to pull my fingers apart with bright blue webbing from the latex.

There were other disasters during this process as well.  There was a clump of latex that somehow got caught in the Seche Vite on my pinkie nail so that is why there is a divot.  I also found some fuzzy something or other while putting top coat on the other hand and when I pulled it out, it smeared everything.  It can't be great every time and it was a funny story to tell my friends.  I mean 5 hours of a manicure should have something awesome come out of it!

All in all, I like it.  I hope you do too.

Dots and Christmas Trees

Dots, dots and more dots!  Dotticures are awesome!  They look so simple to do and maybe they are for other people. I tend to over think things like strategically placing each dot and what size to make each dot and what color to choose for each dot and making sure that they are nicely spaced and that I change up the colors and sizes of the dots on each nail.  Yeah, I have issues...  It's Christmas season and I love my tree this year so I put one on my nails to make me smile when I am not sitting in my living room admiring the awesome tree my husband picked out (on his own).

OK, so my tree turned into something a little misshapen, but it is still my tree.  :)

Once again, I used a white undie over my base coat to make Minted really pop.  This polish is rather thin and it took 3 coats to get full coverage.  I put a layer of Seche Vite on top of that to harden up the polish to prepare for all of those dots!

I used a little bit of Sinful Colors Snow me White for dots too.  I used a gold star embellishment to top my tree.  I have so many of those things and I should use them more often!  The red was a perfect Christmas red!

Above is a photo of my other hand, which I normally don't photograph because it is hard to push the shutter button on my camera with my left hand and there is no place to attach a remote shutter button.  Anyway, this is also usually my practice hand.  It is rare that the practice hand looks better than the photo hand...but, this tree is much more shapely.  :)