Monochromatic offset floral nail art! Plus bonus swatch and GLITTER

Hey lovers! Long time no see, amirite? I apologize for my unannounced and untimely absence. SHAME ON ME. I got so busy last week between Thanksgiving and my birthday last Sunday that I didn't have any time to do nail art! WAHHH. But I'm back now. Here I am, and here is some nail art!

Yesterday my brother suggested to me that I do a sort of monochromatic floral pattern in black on gray with offset white outlines. It sounded pretty cool and I was already wearing this amazing gray base color - Essence Grey-t to Be Here - so I went for it!

I'm pretty happy with how these turned out. My brother said he envisioned slightly skinnier white outlines, as did I, but I'd have to get a really tiny detailing brush to make my lines much thinner. I definitely want to try something like this again after I get an EVEN TINIER brush than the one I currently use all the time to see if it turns out more like we'd imagined it.

There was really no inspiration for these nails other than my brother's suggestion. I doodled a few little flowery things real quick before I started painting and then I just kind of went for it without planning what any of my nails would look like before I actually started them. SO SPONTANEOUS! I painted on all the black shapes first and then went back and added on the white outlines, all using my same trusty mid-length striper brush I always use.

Here are a couple SUPER BONUS SWATCHES of Grey-t to Be Here, which I wore for a day on its own before adding the flowers. This polish is absolutely gorgeous, applies wonderfully and is opaque in 2 easy coats. The brush looks a little messed up and paddle-like, a bit like the Spoiled by Wet n' Wild brushes, but like those brushes it was actually awesome for my nails. I had to do almost no clean-up, which I LOVE of course (being lazy and impatient as I am).

I love this polish because it's a chameleon - in some lights it looks true gray and in others it takes on a blueish-gray, pinkish-gray or purplish-gray tone. Polishes like that are so interesting to me. Though it looks like a true gray in the bottle, it (of course) leaned a little blue most of the time on my weird skin.

And like, can we talk about DAT SHIMMER. I drooled a little the first time I picked the bottle up and that pretty lil shimmer winked at me. HNG.

And finally, here is ONE MORE SUPER BONUS PHOTO of my right hand, which is blinged out because I can never have too much glitter in my life. This is one coat of an unnamed Color Club that I believe is Color Club Jingle Jangle, part of a set I picked up at Ross last week. It's a pretty mix of tiny purple and blue glitters with I think some silver thrown in. Then, on top of that (because I couldn't help myself), I did a gradient using Finger Paints Santa's Magic, an amazing polish filled with multi-sized silver holographic glitters. You guys have to see this one in real life... the amount of rainbows almost melted my brain.

Sorry for that awkward hand pose. You'd think that being right handed would make my right hand good at doing all the things I want it to, but it just doesn't understand how to pose for photos. Maybe one day.

Okay, that's all I have for you guys today! I missed you all and I'm super glad to be back (FINALLY). Did y'all have a good Thanksgiving (if you celebrate it)? What did you do? Mine was great! I ate all of the food and saw all of the family and friends and then did all of the partying for my birthday. I love the holidays!

Swatch/NOTD: OPI Every Month is Oktoberfest

Hey everyone! I got home super late from work last night (ARRGGHHH TRAFFIC) and I didn't have time or energy to do anything fun with my nails, so I'm bringing you some pictures of what I wore yesterday... OPI Every Month is Oktoberfest!

I have been wanting this polish for a long time now and every time I saw swatches of it it made me want it even more. I went to Ulta in search of it a few weeks ago but they were having the sale on OPI polishes where you got a free top or base coat when you bought 2, so the entire Germany collection was wiped out. I was so bummed! But I finally snagged it this past Sunday when I went polish shopping with  my sisters and I'm so glad I did.

The first two pictures are outdoors in natural light and you can see that it brings out a lot of the red shimmer in the polish. I was so surprised by how red this polish looked in the bottle because it looked so purple in all the photos I'd seen. My sister and I were like uhh... is this really... the right polish? I DON'T UNDERSTAND. But I think the red shimmer is much more apparent in the bottle which is what gives it that red look.

The previous picture and next picture are with flash, which brings out the amazing purple/blue shimmer and the deep purple base color more. I LOVE the way it looks in these pictures. It was cloudy all day yesterday but if we had had some sunshine I imagine this is what it would have looked like in the sun.

Do you guys own this polish? Were you as surprised as I was when you saw it in the bottle for the first time? It didn't look at all like I was expecting but I'm so glad I still bought it because it's SO PRETTY.

China Glaze Man Hunt and Finger Paints Asylum

Hey lovers! It's Monday, but it's a holiday week Monday, which isn't so bad at all, right? Today I'm going to show you the layering combo I wore all weekend the weekend before last while I was camping!

This is China Glaze Man Hunt from the On Safari collection (OF COURSE) topped with Finger Paints Asylum from the LE flakie collection that FP put out earlier this year. Asylum was the last flakie I needed in order to complete my collection, and I got it from a blog sale held by one of the wonderful ladies in my polish Facebook group. I was so excited to find it!

Man Hunt is an absolutely GORGEOUS blue. Pictures really do it no justice. I did 2 easy coats of it and almost couldn't bring myself to put anything else on top of it, but I already had the flakie combo in my brain so I had to take this one all the way. I'm glad I did because I looove this combo!

Asylum is a mixture of blue and red flakies that flash green, orange and yellow. I liked how the blue flakies were subtle and only came out in certain lights. You can see them pretty well in most of these pictures because the light was catching them just right! I basically spent my entire camping weekend drooling over my own fingernails. What is nature. I don't need that.

That's all I have for y'all today! Do you like flakies as much as I do? What do you think about this combo? What did you do over the weekend? Let me know in dat comment section!

I have been SO busy lately and this week will be incredibly busy as well because I'm getting ready for a BIG family Thanksgiving, my birthday party this weekend, AND a few very exciting nail art project things that I'll be showing you guys really soon! I will try to keep up regular posting, though, even if it's just swatches for a day or two. I shan't abandon you, my loves!

Black & white geometric nails with pops of color!

Hey y'all! I have some nails to show you today that I am super proud of.

These nails were inspired by this image that I found here when I Googled "geometric pattern" a couple weeks ago. I really liked it so I saved it to my inspo folder and finally put it to use last night!

Originally I was going to stick exactly to the design and do all my nails with a white background and black lines, but right before I started on them I thought it would be cool if I reversed the color scheme on my accent nails. I'm really glad I did because I like the way it looks a lot!

These were done completely freehand using only my little mid-length striper brush. I started by painting the base color of all my nails. Then I painted the black lines on all the white nails in a semi-random pattern based off the image. I did the same with the white lines on the black nails. Then, one color at a time, I painted the small colored shapes on the white nails. I went around a couple of the shapes after I painted them with a little more white polish to make them look crisp and neat. Then I did the same thing on the black nails, and voila! All done.

I used a bunch of different colors on these (more than I want to list) so if you want to know what any color is just let me know! I picked out five colors I wanted to use - pink, purple, blue, green, and gray - and then picked a dark version of each color for the white nails and a light version of each color for the black nails. I really like the effect that using different shades of each color created! I also like that I have enough nail polish that I didn't have to mix white with any of my dark shades to get a lighter shade, but let's not talk about that right now.

These were a little nerve-wracking in terms of how careful I had to be in freehanding all the lines and especially all the tiny shapes, but they actually didn't take very long, considering. I probably spent a couple hours on both hands including base color, cleanup and top coat. I took a couple breaks in there too of course haha.

Oh yeah! I did both hands! I am REALLY proud of how well my right hand turned out. Up close you can definitely see more mistakes than on my left hand but even from this distance it's almost impossible to tell them apart. I also reversed the accent nails on my right hand, which as I'm sure you guys all know by now is something I love to do.

That's all for today! What do y'all think of these? I actually like them enough that I might wear them for more than a day (SHOCK) so I'll probably be back tomorrow with a flakie layering combo that I did last weekend to show you guys!

Baby's first leopard print nails (with all China Glaze on Safari colors, of course!)

Hey lovelies! Today I have my first-ever leopard print manicure to show you guys!

I've seen a few leopard-print manicures involving glitter and I knew that if I ever tried this style there would definitely be glitter involved. Last night I was editing some papers for a friend, so I didn't have time to do an intricate manicure, but I really wanted to paint my nails with some sort of art... so I went for the glittery leopard!

I've never done leopard print on my nails because I've never liked leopard print, but it turns out that my dislike of it does NOT extend to my nails. I can't stop staring at them! They're so sparkly and the print is so visually interesting, especially on all 10 nails. And they were SO EASY AND FAST. Why didn't any of you guys TELL ME ANY OF THIS? WHY.

These started with a base of China Glaze I Herd That. Then I used a large dotting tool to make dots with China Glaze Exotic Encounters. Finally I used a small dotting tool to do the brown outlines and random other brown spots. I topped it all off with two coats of Seche Vite because this glitter was HUNGRY.

Just looook at how shinyyy and sparklyyyy!

What do y'all think of these? I know leopard print has been done to death but I've never experienced wearing it on my nails before so it's still new to me! I also looove this color combo (of course) and like, anything this sparkly and shiny will always make me happy, so there's that.

Fall floral nail art!

Hi everybunny! I missed you guys yesterday, sorry I didn't post anything - I was camping all weekend and camping and nail painting just don't mix haha! But I'm BACK today with some delicate fall floral nails to show you guys.

These nails are based off this image from Shutterstock:

I have a whole lightbox on Shutterstock full of nail inspo photos (I've mentioned that before) and last week I was going through it and came across this image. I really wanted to do it and I even got all the colors out and ready but once I got my base coat on I decided it'd be too time-consuming. I do this a lot because I'm lazy and awful. So instead I painted those vine nails I showed y'all last Thursday. I thought the vines would be faster/easier but these actually took me less time than those did! SERVES ME RIGHT.

The base color for these is China Glaze Kalahari Kiss, which is definitely my favorite neutral right now. It's less skin-toned and more khaki which I think makes it a great neutral for fall. Although my weird skin makes it look pretty skin toned. Seriously WHAT IS WRONG WITH MY SKIN.

The orange is China Glaze Desert Sun, the green is Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Green with Envy, the brown is OPI Wooden Shoe Like to Know, and the turquoise is China Glaze For Audrey. I didn't have a pinkish red that was washed-out looking enough to satisfy me for matching it to the original inspiration image, so to make that color I mixed China Glaze Heli-yum with some Kalahari Kiss. I would like to note that this is the second time I've used KK as a mix-in and it's the ONLY polish I've ever done that with. No idea why.

I painted these using a few different tools. Of course for most of the line work I used my mid-length striper brush. For most of the dots I used small dotting tools, but I also made a couple of them with the end of my brush (because why get out a different tool when you can be lazy and just keep using the same one?). For the really fine lines (like the ones on the paisley-looking things on my pointer finger) I busted out my cut-down long striping brush, which is very skinny but surprisingly easy to work with.

I started on the thumb nail with Desert Sun and sort of just went along on each nail with one color at a time, pulling different pieces from the image for each nail. I really like how all the nails are cohesive and use the same color palette but they don't all look the same. This is probably my favorite way to do floral patterns! I also love using an image for inspiration because it takes all the work (and TEARS) out of trying to pick colors.

What do y'all think of these nails? I wasn't sure at first if I liked them but once I topcoated and looked at them for a while I fell in love with them. I'm also really proud of the fact that I'm getting a lot better at super delicate line work with a brush. No nail art pens for this girl!!!

I am soo into florals lately so you'll probably be seeing a lot of those from me in the near future. Conversely, I will be tired of them as soon as I take this mani off and go immediately back to geometric prints. Or maybe I'll go CRAZY and combine the two!!! LOOK OUT GUYS, YOU NEVER KNOW WHAT I MIGHT DO NEXT.

Floral cluster nail art with China Glaze Fast Track!

Happy Friday, everyone! Today I have some simple and cutesy little floral nails to show you guys!

I was in my office gazing at my polish racks trying to decide what colors I wanted to use last night when China Glaze Fast Track caught my eye. Suddenly I really wanted to use it with a purple for some reason, so I grabbed Fast Track (the base color) and Zoya Malia. I wasn't sure what I was going to do at first so I just painted my nails with Fast Track and contemplated it for a while.

I thought about doing a geometric pattern but I got home late AGAIN last night so it was pretty late when I started painting my nails and I wanted something a little easier. I've been really wanting to do florals all the time lately so I was like, okay, what if I just do little floral clusters kind of gradient-ing down my nails. BUT OH GOD I NEED ANOTHER COLOR FOR THAT.

Luckily another color I wanted to use popped in my mind right away - this dusty, beautiful pink that is Essie Marathin. I wanted another dusty-toned color since Malia has dusty undertones and I think that Marathin was the perfect compliment. I used my second smallest dotting tool and dotted on some purple flowers, then pink flowers filling the gaps, then a couple more purple flowers, and finally all the flower centers.

The centers of the flowers are Revlon Emerald. After I finished all of them I thought it might look better to use a kind of dusty pastel-ish green as the centers, so I tried one nail using OPI Thanks a Windmillion. I ended up liking the contrast of the strong jewel-toned green centers with the lighter and dustier flower colors better, so I redid them with Emerald. Luckily dots are easy and fast!

What do y'all think of these? The color combination is highly unusual for me as of late but for some reason these colors just jumped out at me last night so I decided to go with it! At first I was like, no guys, I'm not going to use you, you are NOT FALL COLORS. But they looked so pretty and sad sitting there in front of me that I relented. The flowers were super easy and fast and fun to do which makes me happy too because I think they're pretty cute.

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

Scratch Nail Wraps Kickstarter!

Hey loves! I did some new nails last night which I will be posting shortly but I just wanted to make a quick post letting you guys know about a cool startup company called Scratch. They’re doing nail wraps and the designs posted on their Kickstarter page look AWESOME. I’ve never tried nail wraps before but even I want to try these - the designs are bold and geometric and right up my alley and they’re a lot cooler-looking than most of the other nail wraps/decals I’ve seen. Plus, look at that ADORABLE VIDEO.

Anyway, I don’t know a ton about this company other than what I’ve learned from the video and the Kickstarter page, but I wanted to help get the word out about them in case y’all want to take a look because I love the idea of making cool nails more readily available to everyone that wants them! NAIL ART 4EVER.

The return of the China Glaze On Safari nail art series with vine nail art!

Hey lovers! I'm back up in that nail art game and back on my China Glaze On Safari obsession! I painted these vines on my nails last night and even though they took WAY LONGER than I thought they would I love how they came out.

When I sat down to paint my nails I had a completely different design in mind and had already picked colors for it and everything, but then I realized that it was already pretty late and I was sleepy (story of my life) and so I hunted around for something simpler and less time-consuming to do. I found this image on Shutterstock and decided that the design in the bottom left corner would be perfect.

Of course as soon as I found the design I was like HEY YOU KNOW WHAT COLORS WOULD BE PERFECT FOR THIS??!??!!? ON SAFARI COLORS!!!!! and I got really stoked about that. The base color is China Glaze Prey Tell, which is basically the only color I want to use when my nails are really short (I had to chop them all off again a couple days ago because I broke a couple). I love dark colors on short nails SO MUCH.

The green is China Glaze Exotic Encounters and the khaki is China Glaze Kalahari Kiss. For the plum color I mixed China Glaze Purr-fect Plum with a little bit of Kalahari Kiss to lighten it up because it wasn't showing up well enough against the base color on its own. I love the color that resulted from mixing those two. I also like that the color scheme sort of looks like a jewel-toned Rasta color scheme, too. Total accident!

To do these nails I just freehanded all the vines and leaves with my mid-length striper brush, AS USUAL. I did the yellow vines first, then the green vines, and finally the plum vines. I painted a curved stripe for the vine and then did the leaves one at a time by forming the shapes and filling them in. If I had to do them over again I think I would try to make the leaves a little smaller, but it was pretty time-consuming just to do them this small and also neatly so I'm not mad about it or anything.

My right hand got the traditional glitter gradient treatment that it frequently gets when my left hand takes more time than I anticipate. The gradient is done with China Glaze I Herd That, and I just dabbled it on with the polish brush because I couldn't be bothered with using a sponge. I honestly like these almost as much as I like the vines. They are SO SPARKLY and SO SHINY in the sun that I almost threw up when I first stepped outside this morning. The colors are just perfect together to me for a gradient, too.

What do y'all think of these? Are you happy that my On Safari obsession has returned? I AM! WEEEE!!!

China Glaze Agro with Luxe & Lush accent nail

Hi friends! Happy Wednesday! I have another swatchy post for you guys today. I'm sorry I haven't posted any nail art in a few days - my brother and best friend just moved home from California and I haven't seen them in 6 months so I've been spending all my free time with them since they got home! I'll be getting back in the nail game ASAP though :)

This is China Glaze Agro with a pointer finger accent of China Glaze Luxe & Lush, both from the Hunger Games collection!

I got these on clearance a couple months ago and I hadn't used Agro yet, and whenever I paint my nails just a plain color I always try to use an untried, so I pulled it out the the other night when I got started on my nails too late to want to do anything fancy with them. It looked so pretty in the bottle but the first coat was really brushstrokey and I was worried that it would look crappy once I finished.

Luckily, two coats evened everything out really nicely! I did have to be careful with my painting so I wouldn't get brush strokes, but it wasn't too bad. This color is so pretty on the nails - there's like a golden flash sometimes that doesn't show up in the bottle at all. It's really growing on me!

I thought about doing an accent nail or two in Luxe & Lush but decided against it. Then I accidentally managed to smudge my pointer finger AFTER I'D ALREADY TOPCOATED so rather than re-doing it I just piled on some flakies! The accent nail is two thick coats of Luxe & Lush. I love the way it looks when it's thick like this... like crushed shells.

That's all I have for y'all today! What do you think of this combo? I wasn't sure about it at first but I ended up really loving it!

Purple ombre nails with BLACK GLITTER!

Hey everyone! I have been busy the last few days and as a result haven't had the time to paint my nails nearly as much as I want to. Since I haven't done any nail art in a few days I thought I'd pull this purple ombre mani from the vault to show you guys!

I did these nails quite some time ago (as you can tell since they're long and round instead of stubby and square haha). I remember being too tired the night I did them to do any nail art but not wanting to just wear one color  They were super simple but I really liked wearing them! The only thing that bothered me was that my ring finger was a more red-toned purple than the rest, but it wasn't nearly as obvious in real life as it is in these pictures.

The colors I used, from lightest to darkest, are:
China Glaze Light as Air
OPI Planks a Lot
Essie Play Date
Sephora by OPI Domestic Goddess
OPI Funky Dunkey

The black and gold glitter on top (which I LOVE) is Fergie by Wet n' Wild Tonight's Gonna Be a Good Night.

What do y'all think of these? I think they're a nice compromise between arting all over my nails and only painting them one color. I looove black glitter too AT ALL TIMES and I think it kinda ties the colors together nicely!