31 Day Challenge, Day 4 (Green Nails)

I'm kind of sticking with the abstract theme (until I can come up with better ideas, that is.)  Pretty basic today, just polka dots and stripes.  Still playing around with the set of nail art brushes I bought to figure out which ones work best for smaller details and such.

And here we go!

I started with 2 coats of Revlon Snow Bunny (LOVE this stuff!), then added stripes and dots with Sinful Colors Happy Ending, Nicole by OPI Nicole's Nickel, and Sinful Colors Innocent.  Topped it off with 2 coats of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly.

31 Day Challenge, Day 3 (Yellow Nails)

Finally caught up!  Day 3, here we go.

I've been wanting to try a sandwich mani for awhile, so this worked out pretty well.  Started out with 1 coat of OPI Need Sunglasses? and then added 1 coat of China Glaze Electrify.  Polished it off with another coat of Need Sunglasses? and here we are!  (See what I did there?  POLISHED it off?  I crack myself up.)

Hopefully I'll be getting a new lens for my camera soon so I'll have some better closeups.

31 Day Challenge, Day 2 (Orange Nails)

Catching up on the challenge - here's day 2!

I started with 2 coats of Sinful Colors Cloud 9 (odd name for an orange polish, no?), then stamped the design using Essie Blanc.  Not the best stamping job, but this was kind of a challenging stamp.  The gold accent is SpaRitual Conduit - love this color!

I'm pretty happy with this one....just wishing the stamp had come out better.  :/

I'm baaaaack!

My apologies to those of you who read my blog - I have been AWOL for far too long.  This means this will be a long post.....I must catch up!  Here we go:

The company I work for (RE/MAX Results) had a booth at the Minnesota State Fair this year.  I decided to go and help out a bit before I stuffed my face full of fried food.  :)  I figured this would be a nice occasion to try something a bit more....complex.  Best way I can think to describe it.  I wanted to try to recreate the RE/MAX Results logo.  This involved 5 different polishes and quite a bit of work.  First, I painted all of my nails with 2 coats of Essie Blanc.  Then I decided that I would need to mix my own light blue - I did this using Essie Blanc and Sinful Colors Aquamarine.  I used this to add a gradient to all my nails.  THEN I got out the reinforcer stickers (you know, the ones that look like donuts that you use to reinforce paper that has been 3-hole-punched?) and placed them on each nail, then painted the tips white to create the "swoosh."  Using a small brush (I just got a new set of nail art brushes and I LOVE them!) I added some Revlon Snow Bunny to the tips - this was the closest I could get to the grey-ish part of the swoosh.  Final touch: I used my small brush again to paint 2 Rs on my thumb.  One red for RE/MAX, one blue for Results.



I follow a few different nail blogs and I've been seeing a lot of them doing 31-day challenges.  I've decided to give it a shot as well - this will be especially difficult for me because I just moved in to a new apartment and most of my belongings are still in boxes, but hey.  I think I can make this work.  I found this particular one on Chalkboard Nails.



Since I don't have internet in my new place yet (thanks for that, CenturyLink....how long does it take to just switch my service over to the new place, which is only 4 blocks away?), I wasn't able to post on the first day of the challenge.  But I'm hoping that's okay.  Here are my red nails for day 1!

Not the greatest photo, I know...but it's the best I can do for now.  The effect on this is pretty subtle - I thought it would be a bit more obvious, but that's life for you.  Here you see 2 coats of OPI Mrs. O'Leary's BBQ, then some SpaRitual Epicurean on the tips.  I'm still playing around with gradients...I think I'm getting a little bit better at them. 

Stay tuned for day 2 - I should be posting my orange and yellow nails later on today.  :)