Camo Nails for Shayna

My good friend Shayna is visiting her sister this week as she finishes up Basic Training. 

To celebrate, I did some camouflage nails for her and a fake set for her sister. We chose a tan theme, instead of army green. 

I used 4 OPI colors for this. The base is Did You Ear About Van Gogh?  The brown spots are A-Taupe the Space Needle and they're outlined with Get in the Expresso Lane. The lightest spots are My Vampire is Buff. 

These were super fun to do and I love them!

Center of the Tribe

So this design was originally meant for a tutorial, but after trying to recreate the steps I did on paper, I realized it wasn't as simple as I'd hoped. It took a lot of retracing steps to make the lines look nice, and even still, it was a bit of a pain in the ass, so rather than a tutorial, here's some tribal eye candy instead! (Don't worry, another tribal look is on its way!)

I used four colors for this. Ali from Zoya, Sand Tropez from Essie, and two stripers from Color Madric in black and white.

China Glaze Color Blocking

Inspiration for a manicure can come from the strangest places. You'll never guess where I was inspired for tonight's.

It was actually a commercial that briefly showed a girl riding a bus. Her bus seat had a pattern similar to this:

The colors were close too. I recently organized all my polishes, so I knew I had colors that would perfectly to recreate the bus seat I had seen. Most are from China Glaze, including Exotic Encounters, Igniting Love, Ride the Waves and Desert Sun. The only non-China Glaze is Black Onyx, an OPI.

Now that you know the manicure was based off of a bus seat, you can't seem to get that image out of your head can you? Sorry about that.

Where's the most random place you've seeked out inspiration?

Gingham

Here's some Fall gingham nails, inspired by this pin. This is not to be mistaken for Gangnam.

Don't confuse those two. Your Google results will be very different if you search for one but meant the other.

I did this with two colors: Strumming My Nails (Sation) and Desert Sun (China Glaze).

It's really amazing what you can do with just two bottles of polish.

Oh...gee...speaking of two bottles...have you entered or thought about my nail art competition yet?

EDIT: 10/12/12

Now you can create this look yourself. Check out the tutorial below.

Click to Enlarge

 

Weakness for Waves

Here's a cute little cutout, done freehand, over a beach-themed gradient featuring the beauties of Little Horse on the Prairie, Blue Sky's the Limit and Prairie Fairy (Sation). My boyfriend Andy actually helped me pick out the colors for this one, grabbing inspiration from the trip to the local reservoir we were going to make an hour later. With only an hour to do the manicure and photograph it, I only had time to really do art on one nail, but it's a fun design that's really in-your-face, considering the finger I chose to use it on. The silky black used for the sandy backdrop is Black Onyx (OPI).

Encounter Exotic Stripes

I've got some spiffy nail art tonight, using two colors from the China Glaze On Safari collection.

I used two colors I was really excited about when press releases first popped up on blogs last year, Desert Sun and Exotic Encounters. They definitely belong in the same collection, so I thought they probably belonged in the same nail art piece. The uneven stripes were drawn freehand with Black (Color Madric).

Unfortunately, my top coat is getting a little thick so I dented a few spots as I was setting up my camera and lights. Lesson learned there: get everything out that you will need beforehand! I hadn't even thought that I'd need to do camera set ups first, but it makes sense.

Kalahari Cactus

Before I danced my butt off Saturday night at Global Dance, I danced my butt off at my front door when the mailman knocked with two fantastic packages. One contained the entire On Safari collection from China Glaze. I'd snagged that on Amazon a while ago, and waited like a kid on Christmas morning every single day for it to arrive. Saturday was truly a beautiful day.

One of the colors I was looking forward to most was Kalahari Kiss. While I was trying to come up with ideas for the nail art, I knew I wanted to use that color first. It wasn't until I reread the color's name that I decided on the art. It also helps that it has been annoyingly warm hot sweltering around here lately. Cacti!

I'm a huge fan of the black outlines lately (can you tell?), so I outlined my little cactus blobs in Just In Lime! (Sally Hansen Insta-Dri) with Black (Color Madric) again. Cute right?

The China Glaze On Safari collection is unreal. I love every color and am super surprised by that. I never thought I'd buy up a whole collection of vampy colors and neutrals, but I regret nothing!

Chevrons for Chloe

I got to do another lady's hands today! Special occasions always call for a special treatment, and my good friend Chloe wanted her treatment for the eve of her birthday to be a manicure done by yours truly. Ever eager to paint on canvases that aren't my own, I gladly accepted!

She wanted something to the tone of Marina's tribal nails, using three of her favorite colors. If you know her, you already know what those three colors are: coral, teal, and gold. As I was sketching up an idea, we both liked the way chevrons sans-tribal print looked that we decided to do that as the trigger pistol accent. Have a look!

The nude base is Did You Ear About Van Gogh? (OPI), the peach is Peachy Keen (China Glaze), the greenish teal is Jade (Avon), the gold for the tips is A Show at the Palladium (Wet n' Wild Chrome), and the gold chunky glitter for the base of the three nails is Set the Stage (Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear). We loved it!

Nugget's V-Gap

Have you met Nugget? She's pretty great. She's just over a year old, full of life, and I think she may have an extra pair or two of vocal chords. She'll remind you if you've forgotten about dinner, and will do just about anything to get to food. She's a tiny thing, weighing in at 7.4 lbs., but I guarentee you, you've never met a cat like her. I love her.

When I got my order of Avon polishes from my friend Tammy this morning, I was surprised.

I swear I didn't choose these shades intentionally, but how good do they all look with one another? I wanted to use the brown polishes tonight, and after looking at them, I noticed that they looked like Nugget! So I give you, my Nugget V-Gap!

I used four colors for this guy. I started with Beige Blast (Sally Hansen Insta-Dri), Nomadic Nude (Color Club), Vintage Boutique (Avon), and Forbidden Fudge (Avon). It's all freehand, and I used the brushes that came in the bottles. I absolutely adore this, and so does Nugget.

Pop Tart Nail Art

I've got another Etsy find for you tonight, this time from Lacquer Convention. This polish is called Pop Tart. I bet you'll never guess where I got my inspiration from for the design. It's tricky and it really requires some serious thought, so for all of you who are going to wake up in the morning and see this post, you better rub the sleep out of your eyes and de-fog your brains to understand the concept behind this.

Lies! Filthy lies! It's pretty damn obvious what the inspiration was...the polish's name! I decided to literally make my nails into Pop Tarts using Pop Tart. The base is Sand Tropez (Essie).

I apologize for another diet-busting, munchy-enducing manicure, but a girl's gotta get her fix somewhere!

Leopard Pistol Accent

 
I've been wanting to recreate this manicure since I first saw it at Marta's blog, ChitChatNails. Her manicure used different fingers for the leopard accent, as you can see here. I wanted to do my first two fingers as the accent nails, and I decided to start calling this type of pointer/thumb accent combo a pistol accent. Pretend like you're shooting a handgun. Which two fingers did you use? See...pistol accent!

The bright red I used is another score from the ridiculously cheap beauty supply store a reader pointed out to me near Boulder. It's Tasmanian Devil Made Me Do It (OPI). It's soooo bright and I'm thrilled it's part of my collection. I have one other red that comes close, but it's not bright with that orange-red feel.

The base for the accent nails is Farah (Zoya). I used the m57 Konad stamp rather than freehanding the leopard spots. They're filled in with Load (Illamasqua) and stamped with Black Creme (Wet n' Wild). I literally can't stop looking at my hands.

Thanks for the inspiration Marta!!!

Minty Cookie Nails

Are you dieting? Are sweets tempting you to no end? Do you find yourself standing in the sweets aisle at the grocery store just to absorb the joy the sweets once brought you? If you answered yes to any of these questions, then this manicure is for you.

These tempting talons feature Mint Chocolate Chip from F4 Polish. If that ice cream colored mint pastel doesn't get your stomach growling, then feast your eyes on Sand Tropez (Essie) and Nomadic Nude (Color Club), decadently topped with lovely chips of Get in the Expresso Lane (OPI). Are you drooling yet?

Please wear responsibly. Nail biting is highly likely under such delicious nail art circumstances.

Boho Birdie

Quick reminder to vote for my submission one last time! Today's the last day.

Today's manicure drove me nuts. I should've left the gradient alone. Personally, I think the stamp ruined it. But it also may have been a case of the it-looked-better-in-real-lifesies. I hate it when I catch those.

The gradient was created with two Color Club colors: New Bohemian and Earthy Angel. Turns out, Earthy Angel is not a good color for my skin tone. Probably will just stick that one in the pile with other accents-only polishes.

I sponged to get the gradient effect, then stamped the feather from the Bundle Monster BM-15 plate with Konad Special Brown polish.

Damn...it looked so much better in my head. As soon as these pictures were done being taken, I cleaned it all off.

Pull Over Farah

I would absolutely love it if you took a second to vote for my submission to the Bundle Monster nail art contest! Thank you!

Onto the aaaaaaart (said in a deep, low, drawling voice, swirling a glass of wine or brandy, nose straight up in the air).

I wanted to use my dotting tools again. I love those guys.

The colors I used were Farah (Zoya), Cote D'Azur (Icing), and Pull Over (Sinful Colors). Ok, odd coincidence. As I typed that, an ambulance drove by outside somewhere, and the sirens echoed right into the windows. Cosmic voices from the nailiverse have spoken!

If you're around a Claire's, or a Claire's Club, or an Icing store, I recommend stopping in. While the formulas on the polishes are a bit lackluster, the colors actually are quite eye-catching. Plus, they're pretty cheap, and it's fun to relive your little girlhood with the goodies they have there. I went for the sole purpose of picking up Candy Shop, but wound up with four bottles of colors I was really quite excited about. It's worth the trip!

Nude on Black

If I were to rate this manicure on a patience level from one to ten, ten being the highest amount of patience, it'd score a ten...easily. The results speak for themselves though and I'm happy to say I like the gradient results I scored!

Getting a good gradient is hard, and this one isn't nearly as nice as some I've seen. You have to get the edges, blend it well, and get a good effect. If you screw up, it's kind of hard to fix it. You just have to keep blending, little by little. Again, mine isn't perfect, but I'm mostly happy with it.

Another piece of patience crucial to the success of this manicure is the taping. Luckily, I didn't need to cut strips of tape to be the correct width. I ordered some 1/16" striping tape, originally designed for use in model cars or trains. There's 36 feet of the stuff too, so I didn't feel bad about using extra to run the length of my nails. (It's one of the instances I'm glad I have shorter nails though.)

The base (which I teased some Instagram followers with earlier) is Black on Black (Sinful Colors), and the gradient neutral color is Nomadic Nude (Color Club). Both are super cheap polishes, but both are beyond lovely and deserve their own solo debuts. I adore them paired with one another as well though. The colors remind me of Nugget's colors a bit actually.

As vicious as this looks, Nugget's as gentle as cats come.

Geometry was Never My Best Subject

But at least it translates onto nails!

This was done using my MASH brushes, Planks a Lot (OPI), Grape Pop (China Glaze), Happy Go Lucky (China Glaze), and Sand Tropez (Essie). Not much else to say about it.