Pinspiration Challenge Day 6: Floral

I wanted to give myself a bit more of a challenge today by trying something new. I have done a lot of floral designs, but almost always use a dotter for those, so I wanted to try something freehand. I found this great design, but unfortunately I couldn't track down the original artist. If you happen to know where it is from originally, I would love to know. But here is the original pin:

And here was my first attempt at this rose technique:

They're fun. Messy, but not too shabby for my first attempt I suppose.

Happy Painting!

Pinspiration Challenge Day 3: Geometric

I'm excited about this one, you guys! My nails turned out really well for today's challenge!

It was hard not to just do my own thing for this on since I love color blocking, but I found a cool pin to take inspiration from here. This is by a French blogger, it seems: La Paillette Frondeuse. Here's the original pin:

And here is my interpretation:

I added some more stripes and changed the colors to match my wardrobe this weekend. I love them! I'll be sad to take them off.

Happy Painting!

30 Day Challenge: Inspired By Art

I LOVED this challenge! It was so fun to paint paint again, and I found beautiful inspiration in this painting by Pol Ledent:

About 2 hours and a ton of polishes later, here was the result of my inspiration:

I used some sponging and a paint brush technique to replicate the style, and tried to break up different parts of the painting onto each nail.

I'm quite happy with the result. I think it was a pretty great interpretation, but I'm a bit biased. I did a lot of mixing of my polishes in order to get the right smoky colors, which is part of the reason this took so long. Also, I just really had fun painting like this, so I took my time to try to get everything as close to the original as I could. I really wish you could see these in person, as they look so awesome!

Thankfully I already did tomorrow's challenge earlier today, so I can keep these guys on over the weekend.

Alright, ready to see the ridiculous amount of polishes I used for this one?

Polishes used:

NYC In a Minute Sidewalkers

Essie Blue Rhapsody

China Glaze Bahemian Escape

Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Blue Me Away

China Glaze First Mate

NYC French White Tip

China Glaze Kalahari Kiss

China Glaze Lemon Fizz

China Glaze Sun Worshipper

NYC Times Square Tangerine

China Glaze Peachy Keen

Sinful Colors Easy Going

Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Cherry Red

China Glaze Street Chic

Bon Bons Black

My Golden Yellow Nail Art Pen

Seche Vite (top coat)

Happy Painting!

30 Day Challenge: Inspired by a Pattern

I've always enjoyed brick walls. I'm often doodling them or have them as the background on my laptop, so I figured this would be a great day to paint my nails like bricks.

It's a little hard to see, but I went in and sponged over the red with a deep reddish brown color to give it some more texture, which looks really cool in person.

Wobbly lines aside, I think this is a pretty fun design. I would definitely do more with the sponging next time.

Happy Painting!

30 Day Challenge: Inspired By Fashion

You guys, I was really looking forward to this challenge and feel like I bombed. I tried using sharpies over a base coat of polish because I thought I could get straighter lines and more details and it kind of backfired. On the plus side, that means that I'm getting better at painting straight lines. Silver linings, people, silver linings.

I dig the graphics and colors in this dress, and thought it could translate well as a nail design.

Yeah, not the greatest. Project Runway is on tonight, and all I'll be thinking is how disappointed Tim Gunn would be in these nails. It's okay though, he'd be disappointed in a very supportive way, because he's awesome like that.

...they look better from a distance, I guess.

Happy Painting!

30 Day Challenge: Delicate (Fall Dots)

I found my camera! So hopefully the pictures will be better from now on (I can see a small difference, at least). I originally had a different idea for today's challenge, but then I saw a cute little dot graphic and thought it would be fun to try to recreate with fall colors.

I was definitely a bit sloppy around my cuticles, but to be fair, I was really into the Packers game while trying to do this. Sometimes the commercial breaks aren't long enough.

I actually have smaller nails considering the length of my fingers, so it's difficult to appreciate just how tiny (or delicate) these dots are in these pictures. Trust me, this was some of my steadiest work.

See, aren't these pictures better? Ah, the wonders of macro. And I finally  remembered to add a watermark to my pictures. Now I feel like a legit blogger. Another friend told me after seeing these that I should start doing nail art as a side business, so I'm really starting to consider that option. We shall see!

Both of my roommates want me to paint their nails, so hopefully I can convince them to try the challenges coming up. Especially glitter, because I can't stand glitter.

Polishes used:

Sinful Colors Snow Me White

Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Cherry Red

Pure Ice Magic

Pure Ice Hot Tamale

China Glaze Street Chic

Seche Vite Top Coat

Happy Painting!

30 Day Challenge Day 1: Red (Cherry Print)

Time to start the 30 day challenge (scroll down to see the upcoming challenges)! Because I just don't have the time to do a new design every day, plus I feel like it's sad to take off a design so quickly, I will be doing a new design every week.

I saw this tutorial on pinterest a while back and knew I had to try it. I love cherry print. Always have. I have blankets, pillows, shirts, swim suits, and more in cherry print. I don't know why, it just makes me happy. Anyway, I think it turned out relatively well. It didn't take too long, either. 

Picture time!

Check back next week for the Day 2 challenge