This notd was unabashedly inspired by this mani from @lovelylittlelacquers on Instagram. It's not quite a 1:1 copy, but it's close enough that I should credit her for the inspo. I just fell in love with the color combo and marble pattern and had to try it out for myself!
This almost ended really sadly, because the first day I wore this it was terribly dusty outside, to the point where the lighting was too orange to get good photos. There's only so much you can salvage with color correction! (see my floral mani from 31DC2015 for another tragic example). The second day was still dusty, but it cleared up a bit in the afternoon, which is good because by day 3 I usually have enough tipwear that I don't feel comfortable blogging about it. I'd have made an exception for this mani but I'm glad I didn't have to!
Polishes used:
Perfect Chic Sinful Tops collection: Dark Purple (glitter accents)
Ga-de- Whitest White
Ga-de- Sicilian Orange
Ga-de- Endless Plum
The artwork I chose for today's challenge is that of adult coloring books, which have been all the rage lately. And having finally purchased one for myself, I definitely see why! They're gorgeous to look at when they're not filled in, and they're so gratifying to look at when you finish a piece, because you feel like you contributed to the beauty of the artwork.
For this nail art I stamped with plain black over white with BP-L002 from the Born Pretty Store, a suitably "doodle-y" looking plate, and then I filled in random bits with acrylic paint. I based it on a specific drawing from the coloring book I'm currently working on, which is sadly not Secret Garden (maybe once I fill this one I'll buy Secret Garden?). But I'm actually really happy with the art in this book, so I'm good :D
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:
Paint your nail with a light colored base (I used white)
Add a matte topcoat (the marker needs something to grip)
Scribble all over your nails with magic marker- try to cover as much of the surface as possible
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
Repeat steps 3 and 4 as many times as necessary to achieve the desired effect
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
Aaaahhhh I am so proud of this one. I haven't worked with acrylic paints in a while (all my old ones dried up) so I was expecting my first attempt at art in such a long time to be a hot mess. But it actually came out pretty nice! I also got a kit that didn't have purple, so I had to mix the purple to match the gradient base myself, and I think I matched them pretty well.
Polishes Used:
Chic- Show biz (off white in gradient)
Golden Rose Color Expert- 66 (lavender in 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)
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)
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?
I haven't done a full manicure of just freehand painting (no stamps, tricks, striping tape, or any techniques) in a while, so it was time to do one! And since it's been crazy hot lately, it needed to be in bright, summery colors. I went into these nails with absolutely no plan in mind and I'm actually pretty pleased with how they turned out! I could have done better cleanup, but honestly the end result is so pretty that I didn't even mind my questionable cuticles. I kept this on for nearly a week, which for me is about a thousand years in nail polish time.
I also took pictures of my right hand, which is unusual! Obviously I couldn't draw anything nearly this precise with my non-dominant hand, so instead I used the same set of colors to do a striping tape thing with some spiraly things from eBay.
Polishes used:
Ga-de Purple Paradise
Ga-de Mint Green
Ga-de Peach Sorbet
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)
I recently picked up a bunch of polishes from Superficially Colorful, and among them were several thermal polishes. Her thermals are really great, the color shift is always super dramatic and they are great to apply and have fantastic opacity. So what's better than a thermal polish? Three of them, gradient-ified!
Warm
Cold
I also took a video of the transition, which is pretty dramatic:
Sadly, I don't remember the name of the blue polish (I lent it to a friend so I can't check) but the middle polish is Giggly and the red polish is Enthralled. They're all a little bit more vivid when worn on their own (since it's sponged on it's a little more sheer), but I love them this way too!
Today I'm showcasing another one of the ILNP polishes I bought a while back, Black Orchid. It's a gorgeous blackened fuchsia jelly with a linear holo sparkle. I added a few simple dotted flowers along my accent nail, with little caviar beads in the middle of each one. I wasn't able to capture the holo very well, so I added three photos here- shade, flash, and sunlight. The holo is a little stronger in person, but either way this polish is gorgeous. It dries to a deep jewel toned finish with a crazy amount of sparkle!
A while back a friend of mine brought me some polish from the USA, and among the polishes she brought was Sally Hansen Grape Shifter. It's a gorgeous glitterbomb composed mostly of fuschia hexes, bright teal shimmer, and larger silver holo hexes. To showcase the glitter, I decided to create a matching water marble. Water marble accents are the best, because you get the cool effect but since you're just doing a few fingers it takes far less time!
I put two coats of Grape Shifter over a fuchsia base (the same fuchsia that I used in the marble, but I can't remember what it was), but I think it would be fully opaque in three coats. It already was very nearly opaque here!
It's kind of a pity I ended up posting these on a catchup day, because I think these might be the best galaxy nails I've ever done. Ah well, next time I'll try harder to post on time!
Day 20- Water Marble
You know, the very first nail art I ever did was a water marble. I must have had beginner's luck, because at the time I thought it was really easy! Now I can still manage it, but there are a lot more tears involved.
Day 21- Inspired by a color
I'm fairly predictable when it comes to colors- usually it's either some iteration of teal or purple. But to be a little more specific, this design is inspired by matte purple! (uh... ignore that my previous purple post was also matte shhhhh)
Day 22- Inspired by a song
This was inspired by the song Fireflies by Owl City. I dunno what it is about that song- I am so so so in love with it. It makes the world feel like magic.
Happy weekend! I have wanted to improve my glitter placement skills for a long time- I still have room for improvement, but I actually really like how these came out! Fun fact- most of the glitter here is stuff I will be using in a big upcoming project, stay tuned!
Here's what other people have done for today's challenge:
