Summer Challenge Day 10: Tropical Drinks

Well here I am with Day 10 and this one is very close to my heart - tropical drinks, haha! Probably the hardest part was narrowing down my favorites ;] Eventually I decided I wanted to keep this one simple but fun, so I decided on four of my favorite summer drinks and a tiny umbrella :} Here are my inspirations:

And here is the mani I created!

(Obviously I had not finished cleaning up some of the top coat chunks left around the nail, especially the ring finger - but this was the best I could do in a rush last night!) And please ignore the cut on my index finger, it looks worse than it is haha!
 From left to right: Blue lagoon - blue curacao and lemonade with a splash of sprite. Unfortunately it seems no bartenders here in Dayton have ever heard of this one, so when I have one it has to be homemade. It is sooo great and fruity tasting! Tequila sunrise - my absolute favorite drink! It's tequila, orange juice and grenadine, and when the grenadine sinks to the bottom, it creates a "sunrise" looking blend of colors. So I did a gradient using Sinful Colors Let's Meet, Hazard, and Thimbleberry. The blend turned out way better than I expected! Classic margarita - always a good old favorite! I used Sally Hansen Limestone and topped it off with a coat of Sinful Call You Later. And last, a strawberry daiquiri! The color was hard to get right on this one, I did some experimenting to get this shade. I used a coat of Sally Hansen Unbreakable Heart, then Pure Ice Tease over that, and then Petites Comet over that! Hope you like :D

Kelly

Summer Challenge Day 8: Beach

So, I had lots of ideas for this mani, but I ultimately decided to go a little more abstract and try something new for me - glitter! Not that I'm new to glitter in general, but I have never sprinkled actual glitter onto wet polish. I thought it would be a cool texture for sand, though, so I gave it a shot!

And just for a different view, here's one with flash and a better view of the glitter I used:

The glitter is actually micro glitter I got from Walmart! It came in a pack of 5 colors and it's actually pretty good to use for frankening :] The polishes I used were (from top to bottom) Revlon Dreamer, Essie Trophy Wife, and LA Colors in a tan shade. I stuck the sand to the wet tan polish. My only complaint about this mani is part of what makes it cool is the texture of the sand, so you can't use topcoat - meaning it got messed up in about five minutes. Oh well! Hope everyone had a great weekend :]

Kelly

Here's what I've been doing lately..

So, like I mentioned before I haven't updated in forever because the tutorial I made and my last few hauls are on my boyfriend's camera. But I have some updates on the rest of what I've been doing lately! I finished school the first week of May and finished my practicum the week after. So I didn't have a whole lot of time to do anything super creative with my nails. I've been doing a lot of gradients 1)to practice new techniques and 2)because they're quick and easy and I like them! So here are a few I've done in the past couple weeks!

Here's a pink and gold gradient I did before my last day of work because the weather was beautiful and I felt like doing something sunny! The colors are Wet n Wild Fast Dry - How I Met Your Magenta and Revlon - Copper Penny. For my accent nail I just added a couple coats of Sally Hansen's Diamond Strength in Multi-Faceted - which I LOVE! It's a chunky black, blue and silver glitter. Anyway, for this gradient, I did a few (I think 3) coats of the Wet n Wild, then I started at the tip and painted layers of the Revlon, painting gradually more and more of the nail each time and staggering it a bit so it wasn't straight across. This would have been easier if the Revlon wasn't so opaque - it was definitely a 1-coater which I didn't know at the time.

Another angle. I really loved this mani!

This is a mani I did last week when I was getting ready to come back home to Pennsylvania to work for a couple of weeks. Again I felt summer and wanted something super bright. For this gradient, I tried a tutorial that I found at thenailasaurus.com. The picture really doesn't do it justice because of the flash - the graduation was much more subtle and cool looking than it appears to be here. I got a lot of compliments on this mani, and I liked this sponging technique better than the one I tried in my FA at gradients. I switched up my accent nail because I got a few more bumps than normal on my pointer fingers for some reason! I added a couple coats of this pretty confetti-ish glitter I got from Icing, the name is escaping me right now. The colors here are Sinful Colors - Tangerine (something or other) and Sally Hansen X-treme Colors in Pacific Blue.

And lastly, like I said I came home and since I don't have a lot of money for presents, I told my mom she could pick any mani she wanted and I would do her nails for her. She picked "tie-dye" which I begrudgingly agreed to even though as I've said before water marbling and I are not best friends. She wanted bright colors, which turned out kind of pastel over a white basecoat but she was happy. Here it is!

Mother's day mani :] It came out better than I hoped it would but I still think my swirling technique still needs work! Anyway, that's basically what I've been up to lately, more updates soon when I get my pictures off the camera. Hope everyone's summers are starting out wonderful! Mine has been full of work but I am thinking of the paycheck...  ;]



Kelly

FA at Gradient + Leopard Toes

Good morning! I mentioned in an earlier post that I tried out the gradient technique a few nights ago and would post a picture post-cleanup. Well, here it is!

Overall, I'm really happy with how it turned out, especially for my first try! It was really tough to get the sponge into the spaces right around my cuticles, so the white basecoat I used shows through in some spots, but other than that I like it. I used NYC Pink Promenade for the first color, then Sinful Colors Mama-San, and ended with Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Gunmetal. The picture was taken the day after, once I had cleaned up all the excess polish from my fingers. Definitely something I want to try more in the future.

Also thought I'd share my current toenail design. I like it a lot but I hate my feet/toes so I really struggled to get a picture I felt was acceptable. For the colors on this design, I was mostly inspired by this tank top I have that has leopard print in these colors.

That's all for now, I love this gradient manicure so I want to try to keep it on as long as I can but I'm planning on trying some new designs on acrylics this week (if I have time)!