Monthly Archives: September 2014

Day 20: Water Marble (31dc2014)

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Water marble – dun dun dun!  I’ve only ever water marbled once before this and it was a huge mess with so-so results.  I was totally dreading today and fearing that I would be the moron of the nail art community.  It actually went no-so-terribly.  It’s not great,  but it could be worse:

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It’s far from perfect, not a very complicated design, and yes, I did use dots to cover up the spots that weren’t so great.  I actually didn’t have a terrible time doing this and it actually makes me want to maybe try it again sometime after this whole challenge is over.  I guess that’s the best I could have hoped for.

By the way, I know my posts this month are super short and often lacking detail, so if you have questions or want more info, please feel free to ask and I will happy answer when I have a little time.  My focus has just been getting my nails posted each and every day, even if it’s short.  I’m still attempting to have a life this month outside of this challenge!

Tomorrow is the first day of the “inspired by” portion of the challenge.  Tomorrow’s them is Inspired By a Color.  I think I’m feeling purple…

Day 19: Galaxies (31dc2014)

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Galaxy nails are so cool looking!  Super easy, too.  This is nail art for people who are terrible at art.  Here are mine:

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The first pick is in natural light, the second is in artificial.  Natural light sure makes my cuticles look prettier.  Anyway, I think galaxy nails are perfect for winter months with the deep, rich colors.

So this is day number 19.  Only 12 more days to go!  This challenge is fun, but some days (like yesterday) it’s really tough to find the time to do my nails.  Other day I feel absolutely no inspiration.  And then there are days like tomorrow that just scare the poo out of me.

Tomorrow is water marble.  I’ve only water marbled once, and the results were mediocre at best.  Plus I got so much polish on my kitchen table.  I’m mentally prepared to be the laughing stock of the nail art community tomorrow.  I’ll see you tomorrow with some hopefully-not-terrible nails.

By the way, if there are any of my nail designs over the past 19 days that you’d like to see a tutorial on, please comment below or on my facebook page.   Thanks for reading!

Day 18: Half Moons (31dc2014)

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I really loved the blue jelly polish that I used yesterday for my glitter mani, so I thought I’d use it again today.  I know that’s sort of lame.  I own hundreds of polishes and I use the same one twice in a row.   Here are the results:

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I love how the glitter polish shines through the jelly and I LOVE this shade of blue.  It’s late and I’ve had a long day, so I’m keeping this short and sweet.  See you tomorrow with some galaxy nails.

Day 17: Glitter (31dc2014)

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I’m no stranger to glitter.  I’m a sucker for sparkly things in general.  I figured that Day 17 would be a great opportunity to sport some over-the-top sparkle on my nails, but when the time came to paint my nails, I was in a jelly sandwich sort of mood.  I was itching to use Broadway Nails – Space Flight, a deep blue jelly polish.

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The glitter is gold and I did a gradient with the heavier glitter near my cuticles.   Like most sparkly manicures, this one looks better in person than on film.  This is a really simple manicure, but I sort of needed a break.  This challenge is definitely fun, but it’s also a little draining!  I’m going to make it, though!  I’ll see you tomorrow with some half-moons!

Day 16: Geometric (31dc2014)

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For today’s design, I opted for some overlapping triangles.   Seemed pretty geometric to me!

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To make the little triangles, I panted a few coats of polish onto a baggie, let it dry, peeled the polish off, and cut it into little triangles.   If you’d like me to do an actual tutorial on this technique, please let me know.  I don’t LOVE love these nails, but I’m pretty happy with how they turned out.  See you tomorrow with some glitter nails!

Day 15: Delicate Print (31dc2014)

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For delicate print it was hard for me to think of anything but lace, so I just went with that.  Here’s what I came up with:

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I’m not the first person to ever come up with an eyelet type design for nail art.  I’ve seen similar designs on Pinterest and Instagram, but I’m not sure who out there should officially get credit for coming up with this technique.  I’m happy with how these turned out!  I think this is a cute springtime look.

By the way, after this 31 day challenge is all over, I’d be happy to do some tutorials on any of the designs I did during the challenge, so please let me know if there’s a particular look that you’d like to learn how to do!  See you tomorrow with some geometric nails!

Day 14: Flowers (31dc2014)

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Flowers.  Everybody does flowers on their nails.  How do you come up with some thing original when EVERYBODY does flowers on their nails?  I really was itching to do something different and unique.  I have these pretty things growing out side my house and I have a polish to match:

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I figured I could so some swirly lines on my nails along with some cool shading and I would have something that looked like my front yard flowers.  It seemed like a great idea in my head, but it was a major fail.  Really, I tried pretty much every technique I could think of.  I tried the one stroke technique.  Total fail.  (I don’t know how those people on youtube do it.)  I tried using wavy cut stickers to make a wavy line.  Another fail.  I tried shading with acrylic paint.  Fail.  I tried shading with nail polish.  Fail.  I finally just decided that I would do something simple that looked like a flower petal on my nail and I came up with this awful look:

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Ugh, terrible, I know.  (Oh, and keep in mind that I was really feeling under the weather, so my head was sort of fuzzy this whole time. )  I went to bed with these ugly nails and hated them even more when I woke up this morning.  Before heading off to church, I took the polish off and painted my nails black with the intention of adding some flowers after we got back from church.  That’s right, I went to church with plain-black-gothic-death-looking nails.

This story does have a happy ending, though.  After we got home from church, I added some flowers and my nails ended up looking like this:

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I’m happy with these!  I’m sad to take them off.  I’ll see you tomorrow with some delicate print nails.

 

Day 13: Animal Print (31dc2014)

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These suckers are sort of obnoxious, but I kind of love them!

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For animal print day, I was originally going to do cow nails.  Then for some reason, Lisa Frank came to mind.  Remember Lisa Frank?  Her stationary was super popular in my my early teen years – late 80s and early 90s.   Her stuff is kind of weird and creepy when I look at it now, but it suckered me in when I was 12.

I actually messed up on these nails.  I was going to do zebra stripes on my pinky, but I accidentally put some leopard spots on that nail and just decided to go with it.  I’m kind a glad I did!

Here’s the sad thing: I woke up this morning with a pretty good head cold, so I think I’m sticking around home today to protect the world from my germs.  I’m a little sad that I won’t get to take these nails out in public.  I’ll definitely need to do these nails again sometime.

Tomorrow is flowers.  I’m having trouble coming up with a good idea, so suggestions are welcome!  See you tomorrow!

 

 

 

Day 12: Stripes (31dc2014)

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It’s stripes day!  Originally, I felt completely uninspired.  My ideas were so bad that I contemplated painting my nails like Fruit Stripe gum.  I finally decided I would do something with my striping tape, but it was being unwieldy and getting on my nerves.   I finally just decided I would do some free hand stripes with Funky Fingers – Sand & Stilettos, a pretty thick holographic glitter polish.  Here’s my end result:

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I started by painting the stripes on my right hand, so by the time I painted my left hand, I had gotten the hang of making nice, thin stripes.  It really was not very hard at all.  I’d love to try this look again over black or really dark blue or purple polish sometime.

This is one of those polishes that’s awesomeness just can’t quite be captured in a picture.  The blurry shot shows off the sparkle a little better.  These nails look SO FUN in person !  I’m really digging them and I’m going to be sad when it comes time to take these off.

Thanks for all of the love and support, likes and comments!  See you tomorrow!

 

Day 11: Polka Dots (31dc2014)

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I like to do apple nails in September.  I mean, here in PA, fresh local apples are all over the place.  For the next 6 weeks, you could pretty much go to an apple festival every weekend around here.  Apple cider and dumplings are starting to show up all over the place.  I was feeling a little like I had missed my opportunity to do apple nails this month since I didn’t do them on red or green day.

Then I started to think hard about what I wanted to do for polka dot day, and I really was having trouble coming up with something that seemed original.  Then it hit me: I can make apples out of polka dots!

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The base is my frankenpolish, and the rest is just acrylic craft paint.  As far as craft paint goes, I don’t own a ton of colors.  I have a little set of neon paints, but apart from that I just have the basics: primary colors and black and white.  I really like just taking a little blob of red, blue, yellow, black, and white on a plate and mixing them to make whatever colors I need.  That’s exactly what I did for this mani and also for my Fairy Godmother mani.

Thanks for reading and following along with me this month!  And thank you to all of my new followers both here and on instagram!  You make me feel warm and fuzzy!  See you tomorrow with some stripy nails!