Color Blocked Neon Stripes

    Hey guys, what's up? Today I have some neon color blocked nails to share. Is color blocking still in? Probably not, but oh well, I'll still rock it.

    For these nails I started with a base coat of white. I used two coats of Essie Blanc. Then, with a striper brush, I used some black acrylic paint to do the black stripes on all of my nails. After I did the black stripes I went in and added the gray stripes to all of my nails using Zoya Dove and China Glaze Recycle. I let all of that dry for about a minute and I added my neon stripes using Sinful Colors Neon Melon.

   I wasn't really going for a pattern here, I just went with what I thought looked nice and tried not to put two of the same color next to each other. Next time I do this I'll probably add more, skinnier, black stripes.

   Like always, I finished this off with one coat of Seche Vite.

Daft Nails!

   Do you guys like Daft Punk? I do, and If you're like me and you've been waiting for this album for 7 years you're probably excited too.  I did these nails because their new album, Random Access Memories, came out today. I've been listening to the leak for about a week and I think it's pretty awesome!

  
   For these nails I started with two coats of a regular black, I used Essence Black is Back, on each finger.  For the logo on my thumb, I used white acrylic paint. The glitters on my index and middle fingers are Thomas and Guy-Manuel from Daring Digits Daft Punk set that I don't think is available anymore. Thomas (on my index finger) is a silver shimmer with silver hexagons, large red squares, and small black and red squares. Guy-Manuel is a gold base with multicolored square glitters and gold hexagons.
 
  

  The glitter on my ring and index fingers is just some loose black glitter that I poured over a coat of wet black polish. I used that because I think it looks like those really cool YSL sequin suits that they're wearing now.

 I used two coats of top coat on these just to be sure that everything was nice and smooth.

Stormy Stars

 
  Hey guys! Here's another one of the Zoya nail colors that I got with my 3 free. This one is Storm and this came out with the Ornate Collection. This color is a black with tiny holo glitter specks throughout it. This one has less holo than Aurora, and I was slightly disappointed about that, but it's still really pretty.

  I also added some Kleancolor Silver Star on my accent nail. I fished the stars out and placed them with an orange wood stick. Then, I finished this with one coat of Seche Vite.

More Leather More Studs

   So I know I've posted a look with this Nails Inc Leather effect polish and studs recently, but I really love it and I had to use it again. I know that textures are really big this spring and I can totally see why. They dry fast and give you and awesome edgy look with no need for any top coat. That was actually why I used this again, I was feeling lazy and this nail polish gives an awesome effect with minimal effort.

  I did change the studs up from last time. The arrangement this time was just copied off of one of the fingers on the box. I also think the pictures I took look better than last time. It's really hard to take a decent picture of this nail polish.

Baroque Print

  I have been seeing tons of beautiful baroque print nails all over the place, so I was inspired to try my own! To start off, I searched "baroque print" in google search and tried to emulate some of the designs I liked. I didn't really try to do any exact copied of the patterns, I wanted to incorporate a lot of the ornate swirls and things that I liked in the designs I looked at.
 

  The nail colors I used for this were Ciaté Twilight and Ciaté Ladylike Luxe. Twilight is a black nail polish with teeny tiny gold glitter flecks throughout it. Ladylike Luxe is a gold foil that, for some reason, came out looking slightly green in my pictures. I can tell you that it doesn't have that weird green tinge in real life. 

  I used a thin striper brush to do these designs. I messed up quite a few times, and I actually redid the bottom half of the design on my ring finger. Good thing I used black so it was easy to fix any mistakes! I'm really in love with the design on my index finger and I'll probably do something with a design similar to that in the future!

Sassy and Classy Red Leopard half moons

  Hey guys! Here are some nails I did that other day that I'm slightly obsessed with: Red Leopard Half Moon nails! 

  To do this, I started with two coats of Ciaté Cookies and Cream and let that dry. Then I outlined where I wanted my half moons to be with a small brush dipped in Butter London Pillar Box Red and then filled in the rest of my nail with that color. On my ring finger I just filled in the opposite side of the moon. I don't have any of those white paper reinforcements, so I just draw my half moons.
 

 
  Then, I took a dark brown, I used Kleancolor Cappuccino, and just made some random spots over the parts of my nail with Cookies and Cream showing. I did that on each nail, and then with a small brush and black acrylic paint, I outlined each brown spot with either a "C" shape or a bracket type shape. I then added some small black spots in the empty spaces. Finish off with top coat and you're done!

Nails Inc. Bling It On - Rebel Leather Effect Nail Kit

   Hey guys I'm back! I hope everyone had an awesome and happy new year! It feels like I've been away for so long, I'm sorry I haven't posted in a while, I was enjoying the holidays and to be honest I didn't do anything very special to my nails. For my first post of the new year I have something very special... Leather Nails!

  About a month ago I'd heard about Nails Inc releasing this Leather Effect nail polish in the UK and how It'd sold out in minutes. When I saw a few swatches of it I knew exactly why, this polish looks just like leather and it's awesome.

   So, last week when I was browsing Sephora.com I saw that Nails Inc had a new kit that included the leather nail polish, Bling It On - Rebel. Luckily, I had a gift card, so I snatched this up! I know that this sort of thing isn't everyone's cup of tea, but personally, I love love love this. I love all things leather and studs, so this is perfect for me.

   Here it is! This s two coats of Nails Inc Leather Effect. I did this over two coats of base coat and no top coat because that would ruin the leathery look. This nail polish goes on shiny and dried (very fast) to a textured finish. This isn't completely rough, I'd describe it as feeling like a rock or smooth cement maybe. 

  Speaking of texture, I've noticed that texture is going to be a pretty big trend with polish companies in 2013

Here's one of the skull studs on my thumbnail.

Here are some pics of the kit, This kit includes (from the sephora site)

- 0.33 oz Leather Effect Nail Polish
- 4 Skull Embellishments
- 10 Studs
- 50 Swarovski Elements Crystals
- 0.1 oz Nail Glue
- 2 Cuticle Sticks

This was $25 on sephora.com so it is a little pricey for a polish and studs. I probably wouldn't have purchased this if I didn't have a gift card, and although I really like the crystals and skull and studs in this, I wish they would just let you purchase the polish by itself.

The Howling Wolf and The Moon aka My favorite Halloween nails ever

     Hi guys! I am super excited to share this because I am really proud of how this turned out. I got the idea a couple of days ago to do some sort of wolf themed Halloween nail art, but I wanted it to have a cool wolf silhouette over the moon. If you couldn't tell, all of my nails are supposed to look like the moon and my ring finger is the howling wolf.

    To do this I did two coats of an off-white nail color and let that dry almost completely. Then I got two gray colors, a darker and a lighter, and I painted some of that onto a piece of balled up saran wrap and then alternated between dabbing the dark and light grays onto my nails. I tried to concentrate the gray into some spots. If you look at a picture of the moon, you will see why I did that.

    Then, I did one coat of Serum No. 5 DayGlow to get a yellowish hue and the glow in the dark effect.

   The wolf silhouette was done using black acrylic paint and a detail brush. It wasn't easy, I had to do this twice... -.-'

    The first picture was taken using the normal settings I use with my camera, Macro and Flash
    The second was using a night setting, with macro in semi dark with no flash
    The last picture was taken in complete darkness using the same night setting.

The colors I used for these nails:

A franken off-white made with Essie Blanc and CND Marshmallow Rose

The two gray colors are China Glaze Recycle and Zoya Dove

The Glow in the dark color is DayGlow from Serum No. 5

and acrylic paint was used for the wolf

Them Bones

      This is Them Bones from Pretty and Polished, It's a black jelly with white hexagon and bar gliter made to look like bones in the ground. The moment I saw the swatch of this I knew I had to have it! I am so glad I got it because this polish is awesome and totally my style.

    This is three coats, but I'm sure it would look just as good over one coat of a regular black.

   

This was really hard to photograph, but here is a close up

Lightning!

   
   I did some lightning and now Bohemian Rhapsody is stuck in my head... I think it looks cool and it was probably the easiest nail art that I've ever done ever. Literally just some crazy lines and then a little sponging around them. This is using Serum No 5 Stormy Weather over Essence Black is Back and then the lightning was done using a white striper.

Eye See You

    
     So last week Zoya was having this Back To School BOGO type sale for existing accounts. The sale was Buy one get one, but if you got six you got free shipping, so of course I got six! This nude is one of the colors that I bought. It's called Avery and oh my gosh it's the most perfect nude I've ever owned ever! I am so glad I got this color because I almost didn't buy it!

     I am so surprised at Avery. Most of the nude colors I have are not opaque in one coat like this is, or they are too dark or too yellow for my skin tone. This color is almost a perfect match to me skin tone (the flash in the picture made the color look slightly more dark than in real life.) It's also nearly opaque with one coat and it dries super fast.

     I obviously really loved this nail polish, but I didn't want just plain nude nails, so I added an eyeball! The eye color is Illamasqua Nomad and the black I used is Essence Black is Black. The White, as always, is Essie Blanc. I used a medium striper brush and dotting tools to draw the eye.

I know this isn't a back to school mani, but Happy Back to School for anyone going back! Good Luck!

Girl's Gotta Eat

     Here is another Serum No.5 nail polish that I purchased. Girl's Gotta Eat is a beautiful glitter nail polish that consists of mostly gold glitter along with silver/platinum colored hex glitter. It's also in a gold shimmer base and I can tell you that this nail polish is amazing. I honestly don't think I've seen anything like it. I love the name too "Girl's Gotta Eat" isn't that a quote from Dark Knight Rises? I'm pretty sure Catwoman says that. That makes me like it even more than I already did.

     Anyway, I did a glitter gradient type thing with this over Essence Black is Black and my ring finger is three coats of Girl's Gotta Eat over Essence Gold Rush.

Funflower

The yellow is Sinful colors Pull Over

The browns I used were Kleancolor Capuccino and Mocha

Black and silver Batmani

NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA BatMANI

      I'm sure everyone has heard that The Dark Knight Rises is coming out on Friday. It's one of the most anticipated films of 2012 and I'm super excited to see it! Naturally, I had to do some nails in celebration of this movie coming out.

      Here is my Batmani! I tried this yesterday with black and silver and I wasn't to happy with how it turned out, So today I tried again with yellow instead of silver to give a more vintage batman feel and I love it so much more than yesterday.

For this I used

Kleancolor - Neon Yellow

Essence - Black is Back

medium striper brush

Studded

       Hey guys! I have been eying those tiny square studs for quite some time now. I finally caved and bought some and I'm so happy that I did.

      Studs are a huge trend right now on everything from shorts, shirts, and even nails! I made a pretty big purchase from dollarnailart.com about two weeks ago and made sure to buy some square studs along with a ton of other stuff. I'll definitely be making a post about all of the goodies I got very soon.

      Along with the studs, I also got some gold leaf/nugget foily stuff.

    
     To do these nails, I polished all of my nails black. I used Essence Black is Back. I took some of the gold nugget stuff and crumpled it up using an orange wood stick and the end of a nail brush. It's super delicate and light so it was really easy to rip apart, but you have to be careful not to breath or blow in the wrong direction because it could go flying everywhere. I learned that the hard way.

       I did a thin coat of a clear polish that I had and, with a stick, I picked up some of the gold nugget and just pressed it onto my nail where I wanted it. I wanted it to be like a gradient, so I tried to concentrate the gold more near the tip.
      
      Then, I just put the studs where I wanted them, added a coat of top coat and I was done.

Eyes and Crosses

      These nails are inspired by a Disco Nails post from a while back. If you've never checked out Disco Nails, I suggest you should here. Some pretty awesome stuff but I bet you've already heard of Disco before ever seeing my blog. Anyway, I've done some Illuminati/ All seeing eye stuff before. I think it looks pretty cool but that's just me I guess.

     For these nails I used Sinful Colors Neon Melon and plain black nail tape that I got on ebay.

Ikat

Halloween 2011