#31DC2015 Day 26- Inspired by a Pattern

Alternate post title: Leah discovers that it is Very Difficult to do hand poses with a mug

So I've actually kind of known what I wanted to do for this day since last year. About a day after the Pattern challenge last year, I walked into my work kitchen and facepalmed because we have these adorable mugs with hearts on them that would be PERFECT for this kind of thing.

I actually sent pictures of this mani sans mug to the R&D group chat at my work, challenging them to try and figure out where they recognize the pattern from. I don't think any of these guys had ever gotten excited over nail art before, but they have now! (followed by a lot of ppl casually commenting "why don't you do this for a living???")

And in case you're wondering, yes, I did have to steal this mug and bring it home with me in order to make sure I matched the colors well. No one noticed. I did bring it back I promise!

Here is the mug by itself (sitting, rather incriminatingly, in front of one of my nail polish shelves)

And here are the three least awkward attempts at me posting with said mug:

Polishes used:
Color club- French tip (white base)
Golden Rose Color Expert- 43 (light blue)
Ga-de- Blue Blood (navy blue)
Ga-de Candy Apple (red)
Laka- 85 (grey)
Chic- Crazy in Love (green)

An InLinkz Link-up

#31DC2015 Day 22- Inspired by a song

Is it weird that I sincerely, without a trace of irony, love the song Manah Manah? Yeah? Well I don't care. Here, have Manamana nails.

Polishes used: Color Club French Tip (everything else is acrylic paint)

An InLinkz Link-up

#31DC2015 Day 15- Delicate Print

For this topic I decided to recreate the nails I did for my brother's wedding about a month and a half ago. I was a little busy at the time, so I only snapped one or two photos of it, and nothing really good enough to put on my blog. So here it is again, properly photographed!

Polishes Used:

Color Club- French Tip

The rest is magic marker! I can't imagine that I'm the first person to figure this out, but I didn't follow any kind of tutorial or inspo to come up with this, I did think of it on my own. Here's how to do what I did:

1. Paint your nail with a light colored base (I used white)
2. Add a matte topcoat (the marker needs something to grip)
3. Scribble all over your nails with magic marker- try to cover as much of the surface as possible
4. Dip a q-tip in alcohol and gently dab it onto the nail. The marker will immediately begin to dissolve and marbelize. Be careful not to use too much alcohol, because then the marker will just come off completely
5. Repeat steps 3 and 4 as many times as necessary to achieve the desired effect
6. Once the marker is dry, add a glossy top coat

I used a range of teal to purple magic markers (the ones pictured plus one dark indigo and one dark green) to achieve this exact look. The gold squares are from the DecoPopShop on Etsy

An InLinkz Link-up

#31DC2015 Day 13- Animal Print

Animal print has been and always will be a challenge for me, because I hate everything associated with leopard print or zebra/tiger stripes. So I can't go with anything related to that. Still, I think in the last two years I came up with pretty creative ways to get around that, and I'm pretty satisfied with how I did it this time too- fish! This is a jelly sandwich stamping mani, so I started with a shimmery green base, stamped over it with an ocean-y sort of print, then went over it with a dark blue jelly and put fish on top. I topped the whole thing off with some more jelly and then some iridescent flakies.

Polishes used:
Orly- Meet Me Under The Mistletoe (green shimmer base)
Color Club- French tip (white stamping)
Glitter Bunny- Jelliefish (blue jelly sandwich)
Indigo Bananas- Bonanza! (flakie topper)

An InLinkz Link-up

#31DC2015 Day 12- Stripes (+ swatch!)

So yeah... this is definitely a holo streak. We're on day five straight where holo is a main component in my manis. What can I say, I have a type! I regret nothing. I also have a particular attachment to this color combo- I love the teal/fuchsia/orange look, or variations on it.

The base for this polish was ILNP Mega, and this is my first time wearing it, so I decided to snap a few photos of it by itself before I put the stripes on top. I'm going to say something blasphemous, and I'm terribly, terribly sorry! But I'm not that impressed by this polish! It took four coats to reach opacity, and while the holo does look really lovely, it wasn't as strong as I expected. I've always thought of ILNP as the benchmark brand for indies, but Mega was kind of a disappointment for me. It was fine, but it didn't wow me like I was hoping for it to.

That said, the formula is fine, if thin, it dried reasonably quickly and to a completely smooth finish with no patches or streaks. Even though I used four coats, I was able to put the striping tape over it after about fifteen minutes (with the help of some fast dry topcoat but still) and it didn't dent.

Polishes used:
ILNP- Mega (holo base)
Color Club- Mrs. Robinson (fuchsia stripes)
Ga-De- Orange Poppy (orange stripes)
China Glaze- Custom Kicks (teal stripes)
LeChat- Black Magic (black stripes)

An InLinkz Link-up

#31DC2015 Day 10- Gradient

The nail polish gods have smiled down upon me today. I wanted to see if I could still get a linear holo effect if I did a sponge gradient with holo polishes, and it worked!! In fact, it kind of looks even more holo than it did pre-gradient. I wonder why that is?

Polishes used:
Color Club- Cosmic Fate (orange holo)
Color Club- Miss Bliss (pink holo)
Color Club- Eternal Beauty (violet holo)
Essence- Glorious Aquarius (old formula) (glitter accent)

An InLinkz Link-up

#31DC2015 Day 9- Rainbow

I'm actually kind of out of ideas on rainbows, honestly. I was gonna do the zig zag thing on all of my nails (holo is also rainbow, so double rainbow power!) but I messed up the other two, so I made it the accent. I really need vinyls, I think. This would have been much better if I'd done it with those instead of trying it with liquid latex! I still don't consider this a nail fail, because the end result is perfectly serviceable, but it's barely rainbow. Next time, I promise!

Polishes used:
LeChat- Black Magic (black cream)
ILNP- My Private Rainbow (holo topcoat over black)
Color Club- Harp On It (silver holo)
Chic- Must Have (red)
Chic- 49 (orange)
Ga-de- Mellow Yellow (yellow)
Laka- 108 (green)
Bourjois- In The Navy (blue)
Chic-Purple Rain (purple)

An InLinkz Link-up

#31DC2015 Day 7- Black & White

I can't believe I've never never done houndstooth nail art before, it came out so good! It also looked really crisp and clean in person, I'm definitely doing this again. It does look a teeny bit smudged in the photos, but in person it looked great. I'm really happy with this one. This is actually white stamped over black, but since the nature of houndstooth is that both colors have exactly the same area, you can't really tell. Also, since I don't know when to leave well enough alone, I topped this with a subtle holo topcoat :D

Polishes used:

LeChat- Black Magic (black)

Color Club- French Tip (white)

ILNP- My Private Rainbow (holo topcoat)
Stamping plate: BP L-006

An InLinkz Link-up

#31DC2015 Day 6- Violet

Ah well... we all gotta have nail fails sometimes. This idea seemed pretty cool in my head but upon execution... no. Just no. I might try to get this design right one day, revenge and all that, but this is not a good nail art (although I'd like to acknowledge that three years ago I'd consider this a success. Progress!)

Well... when you have to do a whole new nail art every day for a month, you're gonna have some fails. And because of the rapid pace, you gotta post what you have!

Polishes used:
Color Club- Disco Dress (darker purple cream)
Golden Rose Color Expert- 66 (light purple lines)
Chic- Dark Purple (glitter)

An InLinkz Link-up

#31DC2015 Day 3- Yellow

So for this mani I basically lined up a bunch of my favorite yellows and dotted them on randomly. I couldn't decide whether to wear this glossy or matte, so I did both. What do you think?

Colors used:
Color Club- Disco's not Dead (base)
Golden Rose Color Expert- 69
Chic- 292
Color Club- Psychedelic Scene
Ga-de- Mellow Yellow
Ga-de- Curry Delight

An InLinkz Link-up

#31DC2015 Day 2- Orange

I used one of the polishes from my own indie brand in this mani, and a lot of my friends claimed it's gold, not orange. (I don't keep a copy of every single of my polishes for myself, but when I do keep one it's usually because it's holo). Please help! Is this legitimately orange? Or is it gold? Have I failed today's challenge?

Polishes used:
Fedoraharp Lacquer- Pepper Potts (orange holo)
Color Club- Cherubic (accent triangles)

An InLinkz Link-up

Gradient/Geometric nails and a Youtube video!

It's been a while! I really should stop making excuses, I should just own up to the fact that I'm an infrequent blogger and be done with it. I have no plans of abandoning this blog, but I also recognize that my life is pretty full right now, so while I might sometimes post multiple times per week, I might also sometimes not even post once a week. Maybe in the future I'll have a little more control over my free time, but for now I'm just going to update when I can. I'll try not to go more than two weeks with no posts though!

Also, I'm somewhat more active on Instagram, since it's a more spontaneous sort of medium, so check me out there! (@fedoraharp)

Recently I got a few new plates from MoYou London, and as with all MoYou plates, I absolutely LOVE them. For this manicure I used the Holy Shapes collection plate #1. And since I love the pairing of vibrant gradients with sharp clean geometric lines, I decided to do that kind of mani.

Colors used:
Golden Rose Color Riche 16 (blue)
China Glaze Custom Kicks (teal)
Color Club Disco Dress (purple)
Ga-de Burgundy Velvet (fuchsia)
Konad black stamping polish

You know, I have a HUGE nail polish collection, but I constantly gravitate towards these polishes in gradients. I should really branch out more XD Not that I don't love this color combo, or these polishes (clearly I have the opposite problem), but I feel like I'm probably not using my collection as effectively as I should.

I almost forgot! I recently published a cute (albeit somewhat pointless) little Youtube video, just a few of my recent pouring videos stuck together one after another set to calming music. Still, I like them better with the music. For some reason I find these things really hypnotic, don't you?

NOTD: Grey and yellow

I've been trying to expand my color pallete lately, and although I've done grey nails before, I've never specifically combined grey and yellow before. I'm surprised it took me so long, it turns out they go together beautifully to create a soft delicate look! Add in a dash of springy green and I found a lovely spring manicure. I know it's not spring, but what is time to a nail artist.

Polishes used:
Color Club - Pretty in Platinum (grey base)
OPI - Make Light Of The Situation (shimmer over the grey)
Ga-De - Curry Delight (yellow)
Aliquid Lacquer - Hidden City (green)

NOTD: Holo stamping over brown

You know, I didn't used to be a fan of brown nails (is that gramattically correct? I can't think of a better way to phrase it but it feels off for some reason). But then I discovered the world of brown shimmer. Take, for example, Mud Slide by Superficially colorful- a gorgeous, rich, earthy brown that I love having on my fingertips as often as possible. For this mani I stamped over it with some holos and added some rhinestones, to complete the jewel-like effect I get from this color.

Colors used:
Superficially Colorful- Mud Slide (brown)
Color Club Halo Hues- Cherubic (stamping)
Color Club Halo Hues- Cosmic Fate (accent dots)
Rhinestones from Ebay

NOTD: Purple gradient x2

I'm baaaaaaack!

I've been gone for ages. Between Passover, the convention, and moving to a new apartment, I've been super MIA from this blog. I've been on Instagram and Facebook a little, but I slacked off there too. I've been making tons of new nail polishes though, and I'll share them here over time!

Recently I made two different nail arts on a similar purple gradient base. They're not identical, but because of their similarity I decided to put them both in one post.

This one is from shortly before I moved:

For this one I used a Golden Rose Color Expert lavender (which I have since broken so I can't remember the name), and Color Club Disco Dress in the gradient. I can't remember what I stamped with, but the colors I used to fill in the squares are Color Club Eternal Beauty (purple holo) and Cherubic (beige holo)

This one is from just recently:

For this mani I used OPI You're Such a Budapest and Golden Rose Color Expert 59. The music decals and the treble clef accent are both from the Born Pretty Store (if you go and buy them use my discount code to get 10% off! It's in the sidebar, check it out)

NOTD: New year's mani

I did a pretty simple mani for NYE, since I'm not really a big celebrator of these kinds of things. Still, I really liked the way it looked- plain grey shimmer with some iridescent glitter and star rhinestones with matte topcoat. The topcoat is a little cracked if you look closely, because I applied an extra coat for photos (whoops!)

Polishes used:

Color Club Pretty in Platinum

Golden Rose 3D Glaze 02

NOTD: Holo color blocking

Hi all! Recently I purchased a whole bunch of holo polishes from Color Club, and I decided to make a mani using a whole bunch of them! I don't remember the names of each polish I used (and right now they're kind of scattered all over the place so I can't go look), but each one is a Color Club polish except for the beige base, which is from Golden Rose.