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!

My Christmas Nails!

   Hey everyone! This will obviously be my last post for the Christmas nail season. I really hope everyone has a awesome Christmas holiday, and here's some very festive red with gold leaf!

 The red I used for this one was Ciaté Dangerous Affair aka my new favorite red. This read is slightly darker in real life, the flash caused it to look lighter. The gold leaf was from a regular sheet of fake gold leaf. I ripped it up and pressed it onto the wet nail polish with my fingers. Then I finished with one coat of Seche Vite.

Merry Christmas everyone! Love Zoe

Green and Gold Ruffian

So here's the first ruffian mani I've ever done. I really like how this looks, but next time I wont put the top color so close to my cuticle. I tried this one with all shiny top coat first and didn't like it. I think it looks so much better with the green matte and the gold shiny.

 The colors I used for this look were OPI Goldeneye and Kleancolor Military Green.

The Forest Spirit

  Yeah, I really like animal head silhouettes on my nails. The title for this one was inspired by the movie Princess Mononoke.

  I think deer are really pretty and it's the holiday season, so that's what originally inspired me to do this. I did this with regular black acrylic paint and a small detail brush.

  The gold is Goldeneye from the OPI Skyfall collection. It's a very yellow gold that is made out of flakes. I have no other nail colors that have flakes like this, so it was really weird to me, but it went on smooth and this was two coats.

Gold Leaf Half Moon

  Hey guys! Here is a mani that I am so excited to share, my Gold Leaf Half Moon nails. This started out with my trying to do something completely different and then this being the end result. That seems to happen to me a lot, but that's ok in this case, because I LOVE this! I feel like this would be perfect for a fancy holiday party or something.

   The red color I'm using here is Dangerous Affair from Ciate. It's a very deep, dark, red wine color. The bottom picture shows the color more true to real life. I really love the formula on this, and most of the other Ciate colors that I've tried, it goes on really nice and the color is always perfectly even in two coats. It dries really fast too.

  The gold leaf is just regular faux gold leaf. I'm sure you could find it at a regular craft store. I put it on by putting a thin layer of clear polish over the red and picking up some shredded gold leaf with an orange wood stick and then placing it where I wanted it. If I messed up a little, I just took the red and covered what I didn't want to show. I finished it off with a coat of Seche Vite.

Dry Marble Inspired by Mr.Candiipants

   These nails were inspired by Mr.Candiipants' Dry Marble nail tutorial. I really loved them when she first posted the picture, and then she posted the tutorial so I was like "Hey, why not?"

   This was actually pretty easy and I think it looks O.K. for being my first try. Next time I'll definitely remember to use a base color that doesn't dry really fast because this would look a lot better if I'd done that. Also, my top coat kinda smeared it... but it's cool.

Kinda reminds me of cheesecake...

   Anyway, The colors I used were OPI Lincoln Park After Dark and the gold is ULTA High Roller

Golden Glitter Gradient

   Hey guys! I really apologize about my lack of posts. It's been a rough week with all these storms and the unfortunate passing of one of my pets. I really wanted to update, but to be honest I needed a break. But, now I'm back and everything is good!

  This is the first time I've ever done a gradient starting at the cuticle and I really like it. You can expect to see these on me a lot more often because I think they are really easy and classy looking. No tools needed, just start with a base color and then a thin coat of glitter halfway up the nail. That's it. Done.

  For this I used Zoya Avery and the glitter is Julep Oscar. 

Fall Trends: Metallic

     I'm sure that if you're like me and read magazines and pay attention to trends you would have sen how huge the metallic trend is this year. This design was inspired by a pair of shoes that I saw in a magazine that had a gold metallic toe.

     I didn't want to do a metallic tip on my nails, so I did a fat gold stripe down the middle. This is really just the most simple nail art there is. The green is an Essie color that I got from Ross it doesn't have a name (Just did a quick search and found out that this color is called Sew Psyched), unfortunately, and the gold is ULTA brand called High Roller. I did this design by doing two coats of the green and letting it dry for a few minutes and taking the gold and just doing a stripe down the middle of all of my nails.

   

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.

Studs

     This is two coats of CND Marshmallow Rose over one coat of Essie Blanc with a coat of CND Copper Shimmer on top of all of that with some gold square studs from dollarnailart.com

Open Seas

       Time for another gold leaf gradient! This time I used one of my new Sinful Colors polishes, Open Seas. It's a really pretty sea foam green color. I also used some Essie Gold as it Gets on my ring finger with the gradient.

Studs & Caicos

This is Essie Turquoise & Caicos with some gold stud accents.

Gold leaf Gradient

 

       

      This is Essence What Do You Think and a gold leaf accent.

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.

Sexy Serpent

I've wanted to try doing some snakeskin nails for a while now, but I honestly never imagined they would come out this good on the first try. I was just going to play around with some lace from some old clothes and I thought that I'd just end up taking it off. Now I really wish I would've taken pictures so I could post a tutorial. 

       For this I used

• Essie Blanc
• Essie Sew Psyched
• Essie As Gold As It Gets
• Essence Nude It!
• Essence High Spirits
• Essence Black is Black
• Essence Gold Rush
• Kleancolor Cappuccino
• Fresh Paint Oatmeal
• China Glaze Luxe and Lush

 I tried to stay with more earthy nudes and greens and brown shades.

What You Need

• A small piece of Mesh/Lace      
• A Sponge
• Small brush

 

Here's how I did it

1. I started with one thick coat of white on all of my nails and let it dry completely.
2. Take the lace and lay it on the nail. Try not to move it while dabbing the colors.
3. With some tweezers and a small chunk of makeup sponge and started dabbing the lightest nude color I am using.
4. With a brown or darker nude color I tried to make some lines or diamonds with a small brush that resembled patterns on a snake.
5. Now I took the greens I had and randomly dabbed them in the more empty spaces. 
6. Just before I took off the lace, I took a tiny amount of black on my brush and went over the parts with the brown to make them stick out more.
7. Now, slowly pull the lace upwards. It might stick just a little bit but that's okay, I just slightly pushed it back down with my finger.
8. I took a sheer champagne color and dabbed a small amount around the nail not covering it all the way. This is optional.
9. I then took As Gold As It Gets and did a coat of that and then a coat of Luxe and Lush. It gives it a scaly and almost wet look.
10. Two coats of top coat and you're done!

Peacock

Old Gold