The Nail Challenge Collaborative Presents - Skittles - Week 4

I'm getting this final look just in the nick of time with 1 day to spare in May. I had been wanting to do this mani since Skittles was announced as the theme for the month.



Source: http://929thebull.com/skittles-trades-green-apple-flavor-for-lime-and-totally-screws-up-the-original-rainbow/


(P.S. I like the article that the image is from - not that I liked Lime but why'd they go changing it to green apple on us)

Literal Skittle Nails! Skittles are one of my favorite candies and I love all flavors of them, my all time most favorite are the tropical skittles that come in the sky blue bag. They don't sell them at all stores, so when I see them I always grab a pack for myself :-P

Polishes Used:
-Orly - White Tips
-Essie - Fishnet Stockings
-Zoya - Pippa
-Zoya - Josie
-Sinful Colors - Hazard
-Wet 'n Wild - Disturbia
-Konad - White
-Hard Candy - Matte-ly In Love

I thought that these nails came out fun and doubled checked with my husband before posting them to see if they were recognizable or not, he said they were so I thought that was good. I don't LOVE the "S"'s that I did, I am never good with curved lines / letting with my current nail art brush, but I think the idea is conveyed.

What do you think about this mani? What about the candy?

Check out what the other ladies did for their fourth and final Skittle Manis!

An InLinkz Link-up

Twinsie Tuesday: Winter to Spring Transition Polish

It's now Spring and the Twinsies are getting into the spirit with today's theme, Winter to Spring Transition Polish. I *think* this prompt was probably originally meant to be shades you can wear in winter and spring, but I put my own twist on it, and did some winter to spring nail art instead!

Polishes Used:
-OPI - My Boyfriend Scales Walls
-OPI - Alpine Snow
-China Glaze - Gothic Lolita
-Wet 'n Wild - On A Trip
-Hard Candy - Matte-ly in Love
-Acrylic Paints - Green, Purple, Yellow, Orange, White

When I think of Winter to Spring I always think of Crocus'. I am always seeing these pretty purple flowers pop up in my yard through the snow and always think, "no, not yet, this is Pittsburgh, it's going to snow again", but they always seem to be OK. lol. I wanted the perfect purple accent color, so I mixed up Gothic Lolita and On A Trip and got the look I wanted (after I mixed them I realized I could have probably used KB Shimmer - The Grape Beyond, although that has the subtle blue shimmer, which I wasn't looking for).

So like I said, probably not what was meant by the theme, but I don't care, I LOVE this look!

Let's see how the other Twinsie's interpreted this look and what their favorite transition polishes are:

Alaina at The Little Canvas

Amanda at Amandalandish

Amber at Nails Like Lace

Anna at Going to the Showing

Anne at Grape Fizz Nails

Casey at CaseyLane Loves Polish

Chelsea at Nailed Blog

ChiChi at I'm Just Me...ChiChi

Elizabeth at Did My Nails

Erin at Paint Those Piggies

Heather at Peace, Love, & Polish

Kelly at Tuxarina

Lakeisha at Refined and Polished

Maribeth at Obsessive Cosmetic Hoarders Unite

Marisa at Polish Obsession

Rachel at Top Coat It

Róisín at Cuti-CLUE-les

Stephanie at A Little Polish

Tiffany at Polished To Precision

Traci at DrinkCitra

 

 

The Nail Challenge Collaborative Presents - Inspired By A Tutorial - Week 2

Today I will be sharing with you my second mani for the January NCC theme of "Inspired by a Tutorial". One of my favorite nail artists is MrCandiiPants, she has videos that make the nail art really easy to understand. I have done a couple looks inspired by here in the past (see here and here).

The look that I will be completing today was based off of her Striped Gradient Nail Art Tutorial (which you can see here).

Polishes Used:
-OPI - Alpine Snow
-Essence - You Belong To Me
-MiniLuxe - Jade
-Wet 'n Wild - I need a Refresh-Mint
-MiniLuxe - Lucky
-Sinful Colors - Savage
-Essence - Walk On The Wild Side
-Out The Door

I first started with Alpine Snow as a base and for the different colors I simply used the polishes and mixed them together when needed to create smoother transition. After I did this look I realized that I did it opposite from the tutorial (she had the darkest color at the bottom and mine is reversed). I really liked the look of this though and it almost reminds me of an abstract beach painting (does anyone else see it? haha)

I will definitely be trying this technique again, however next time I may try it vertically instead of horizontal, because for some reason I seem to have crisper lines when I do vertical ones.

Check out the other tutorial inspired manis below!

The Nail Challenge Collaborative Presents - Halloween Month - Week 4

Happy Halloween! I knew today would be the perfect day to post my last Challenge mani for the NCC October theme of Halloween. For this mani, I re-created a look from a JauntyJuli tutorial. Halloween Cupcake Nails!

Onto the nails!

Polishes Used:
-Sinful Colors - Hazard
-Essence - Black is Back
-Wet 'n Wild - On A Trip
-Sation - Of Corset I'll Call You
-NYC - Love Letters
-Acrylic Paints

I tried to follow the tutorial but after I was done I realized some steps I didn't do it in order and forgot the scar on Frankenstein. hehe. It is still a super cute mani in my opinion.

I hope you all have a fun Halloween and don't get too much sugar overload (I'm hoping that we get a lot of trick or treaters so we don't have too much left over candy!)

Check out all the other lovely mani's created by the NCC ladies below!

Falling for Nail Art Challenge: Halloween

Halloween is getting close! I don't know if you celebrate or not, but we enjoy trick or treat night when we can see all the kids dressed up in Halloween costumes. Since Halloween is tomorrow that is when our neighborhood is doing trick or treat.

Today's theme in the Falling for Nail Art Challenge is, you guessed it, Halloween!

 

Polishes Used:
-Wet 'n Wild - Sunny Side Up
-Pahlish - Singing In The Garden
-Pahlish - Mind Like A Diamond
-MASH - Black
-Bundle Monster Plate - BM-H08
-Barielle - Topcoat

Seeing as this is almost the last Halloween themed mani of the year I decided to go traditional black and orange. I was going to do a sponged base with purple and green on top of the orange but when I sponged on the Pahlish, only the glitters transferred, and I really liked the look of the green and purple shimmer/glitter so I kept on going. Sort of a random, dirty, halloweeny look. Next I used one of my Holiday Plates from Bundle Monster to add the zombie arms and black cat.

Here's a closer look at the cat image (really liked it):

What do you think? Does this look nice and Halloween-ish to you? Make sure to check out what everyone else did for their Halloween looks!

Falling For Nail Art Challenge: Sweet Treats

I was excited to see this theme come up in the lineup for the Falling for Nail Art Challenge. Sweet Treats didn't seem so "fall" themed to me so I was able to spice things up and use some bright colored polishes. It was a nice interruption from the vampy, darker colors of fall.

Polishes Used:
-China Glaze - Bottom's Up
-Konad - White
-Konad - Blue
-Wet 'n Wild - On a Trip
-Bundle Monster Plate - BM306

I tried to capture the neon-ness of this mani and did better than I had in the past. I wanted to use colors that sort of reminded me of cotton candy and seemed very sweet and I think that I achieved that with this mix. I randomly splotched on the white, blue and purple onto my plate which is why each nail is a little different.

I have to admit that I love the look of this mani but probably not as much as I like actual sweet treats (I am a junk food junky with a focus on sweets lol). What do you think of this look? Does it looks sweet and delicious to you too?

Abstract Floral

Yesterday when I was reading through all the blogs that I follow, I saw this post on Little Nails and fell in love. She was participating in Day 30 of the 31DC and was inspired by a tutorial. So of course I took a look at the tutorial that she was inspired by, and it was that of MrCandiipants on YouTube.

Anyway, I knew I had to try this look for myself and loved the color pallet that Little Nails used so I went with something similar. I don't normally look at YouTube for tutorials, but I may just have to start, however, once I watched this tutorial, I of course had to watch more and more and ended up showering like an hour and a half later than I had planned on. hahah.

Here's my mani:

Polished Used (I used a lot lol):
-OPI - Nail Envy
-OPI - My Vampire is Buff
-OPI - I Think in Pink
-OPI - Kiss Me on my Tulips
-Wet 'n Wild - Through the Grapevine
-Zoya - Pippa
-LA Colors - Gold Glitter
-Sinful Colors - Last Chance
-Sally Hansen - Parrot
-Out The Door

You should definitely take a chance to look at the tutorial for this but basically I just used my striper brush and added dots of all colors to represent flowers. I really love how these turned out; and since they are abstract, there is really no right or wrong. I actually did my right hand as well (which I don't always do with nail art) and it doesn't look too bad; yay for abstract art when you're not ambidextrous.

Do you watch YouTube tutorials? Have you done mani's inspired by MrCandiipants?

Saturday Stamping in Pink!

OK so I know Sundays are for stamping but I have been doing it a lot lately so today I will be showing you the mani I actually wore to work yesterday.

Anyways, onto the mani!

Polishes Used:
-OPI - Nail Envy
-OPI - Alpine Snow
-Wet 'n Wild - Through the Grapevine
-OPI - Kiss Me on my Tulips
-Pueen plate - pueen18

I am not sure what this image plate is supposed to be but my mani reminds me of a pretty pink and white damask type design. I actually used the darker pink (Through the Grapevine) which is more purple leaning for the area towards my cuticles with the brighter pink (Kiss me on my Tulips) for the tips. Neither are stamping polishes so both were a little sheerer than some of my stamping polishes but I still think this is a very pretty and fun design. Of course, the camera had a hard time differentiating between the pinks.

What do you think of this design? Have you tried stamping yet? If not, you must try, I'm obsessed with it this week!

Konad Plate m95 Review

*Products in this post were provided by the manufacturer for my honest review*

Happy Sunday!

I was recently contacted by Joy at Nail Polish Canada to review one of the new Konad stamping plates. I chose to review the m95 plate.

Here is the plate from the Nail Polish Canada site:

http://www.nailpolishcanada.com/products/image-plate-m95-full-nail-hearts-lattice-owl-by-konad-ships-free-no-min.html

I really like all of the images on the plate, but I was really drawn to the geometric line pattern so I used that image for my mani!

Polishes Used:
-OPI - Nail Envy
-Wet 'n Wild - On a Trip
-Konad Polish - Green
-Konad Plate - m95

As with all of my Konad plates, this stamped flawlessly. I was most concerned with the thin lines and little details and as you can see, the image transferred perfectly! I tested out all of the images and they worked really well as well. I will be using those images in upcoming mani's soon so keep an eye out.

Overall I am 100% pleased with the plate and would recommend this one to anyone looking to add something to their collection. It can be purchased here through Nail Polish Canada.

Also, Nail Polish Canada is having a giveaway to win a set of the 5 new Konad plates, you can check that out here!

*Products in this post were provided by the manufacturer for my honest review*

Joyful Noise Cosmetics - Rainbow Fish, Whisper Down Delainie & Garden Party

Today I have three glitter toppers from Joyful Noise Cosmetics to share with you; Rainbow Fish, Whisper Down Delainie & Garden Party.

First up, Rainbow Fish:

Laura describes this shade as "Rainbow Fish is one of my new favorites- a color explosion of satin matte hex glitters swimming in a fine holographic shimmer base! Named after a favorite children's book of mine (at least, that's what I called it when I was a kid!) you can't miss this beauty! At any event, wear this and you are sure to shine!!"

This is really a lovely topper to any color polish, I wore it over Almost Famous, topped with Hard Candy Matte-ly In Love, but it would also looks awesome over white, black, any primary or secondary color and you have an awesome combo. I love the look of glitter toppers mattified. 

Next up we have Whisper Down Delainie:

Laura describes this topper as "An array of pink, teal, and green holographic glitters in small and medium sizes, it is named for Miss Delainie of Dee's Polish www.deespolish.com/ Delainie donated to my Indiegogo Campaign back in January, and chose the "Name a Product After Me" perk! I have to tell you, I'm pretty tickled with this name!!"

I am wearing one coat of WDD over Wet 'n Wild  Through The Grapevine, topped with Poshe. I love all the colored glitters in this polish and think it's very fun that Delanie got to name this polish. I was able to snag all of these polishes from Joyful Noise Cosmetics during Laura's Indiegogo campaign as well!

Last but not least, we have Garden Party:

Laura describes Garden Party as "Fine neon green, and square neon pink glitters, punctuated with black holographic hexes!"

I am wearing one coat of Garden Party over Revlon Emerald and topped with Poshe. Neon glitters are very on trend right now and I can't seem to get enough. I used this over a darker polish but it would also look good over a lighter green, such as my go to Sally Hansen - Parrot.

What do you think of these toppers? They are all currently available on the Joyful Noise Cosmetics Etsy Site; and don't forget to LIKE the Joyful Noise Cosmetics Facebook Page to get the latest information on restocks.