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Category: 31 Inspired Days of Nail Art

Of Life and Lacquer > 31 Inspired Days of Nail Art

31 Inspired Days of Nail Art – Day 11 : Half Moon Nails

Posted on 10 October, 2012 by Cynthia

A few days ago I broke two nails while I was cleaning and washing dishes. I got so irritated that I cut my nails off. I went chop crazy and cut my nails super short again…yes, painfully short. I know I said I wouldn’t do that again, but I couldn’t help myself. I had initially decided to use fake nails for this manicure and just polish them myself. However, they just looked so odd to me that I ended up prying them off and doing my own tiny little nails. I started out with 2 coats of essence Black is Black.

This really is my favorite black because it’s dark, shiny and super opaque. It reminds me of my favorite patent leather mary janes.

I then used Butter London Wallis for the half moons. I seriously never thought I would like this color as much as I do. I picked it up during the Coterie sale where I got 3 Butter London polishes plus a top coat for only $11!!! Talk about a great deal.

And lastly I applied some gold glitter stars before the final touch: a matte top coat. I had seen someone mattify Wallis and I was instantly in love so I had to try it myself.

I am satisfied with these nails despite how tiny my nails are. I can’t wait for them to grow a little so I can square them again. What do you think of this manicure? Don’t forget to check out the other manicures created by my fellow challenge participants. Thanks for stopping by and talk to you soon.

P.S. Sorry I’m a little rushed but I’m hangry (hungry + angry) and my brother is rushing me since we are going to my favorite mexi-food place. Ahhhh…tacos, carne asada, 7 mares, ceviche…I’m drooling.

31 Inspired Days of Nail Art – Day 10 : Gradient Nails

Posted on 7 October, 2012 by Cynthia

Gradient Nails: you are my mortal enemy. It doesn’t matter how many tutorials I watch or how many tips people give me, I just can’t get this technique down. I’ve used a bout a million different type of sponges, and I’ve never been able to achieve the beautiful results I’ve seen on other blogs. I was fearing this challenge day because I hadn’t attempted a gradient mani in a long time so I wasn’t looking forward to yet another nail fail.

I started out with two coats of Serenity.

I love Serenity! This polish is one of their new Rubber Brights so it dries to a satin/rubber finish.

And here is my gradient……………………………..

I don’t hate this, but I don’t like it either. I don’t know what happened when I tried to photograph this, but my camera took a million dumps on me and did not want to photograph Muse. What the heck, Sony Cyber-Shot?! These were the best pictures of maybe 50…yes, 50! So anyway, I used Muse on my gradient tip which doesn’t really look like a gradient but whatever. At least I tried, and if you think it’s ugly, tweet me a picture of your gradient so I can mock it too. 😛 The next challenge revolves around half-moons which is pretty hard to mess up so at least I won’t worry about it.

Anywho, don’t forget to check out all of the other submissions for gradient nails below. Let us know what you think.

31 Inspired Days of Nail Art – Day 7 : Rainbow Nails

Posted on 28 September, 2012 by Cynthia

I’m back today since my break from the last few challenge posts. I couldn’t really come up with anything too creative so I did this simple look. It looks a little sloppy but I think it came out ok considering I rushed through it. I ended up using all Wet N Wild polishes for this rainbow design.

The polishcolors I used are: Red Red, Straight A Jesse, Pin ‘Em Slater, Nerd Alert Screech, Bijou Blue, On A Trip and Eggplant Frost.

I used French White Creme as my base:

This white actually surprised me because it wasn’t super streaky and it was opaque with two coats.

I then used some circle stickers as a guide to help with the first row of dots. I’m sure that most people wouldn’t need a guide for a simple arc but I am challenged in anything having to do with nail art…if you can call this nail art.

I want to thank all the lovely ladies who stop by my blog to read and comment. I haven’t been following up on comments and emails much because we’ve had some devastating losses in my family lately so I haven’t been much in the mood to do any kind of nail stuff. I am trying to get back into things so I can have some sort of distraction so thank you for all the kind words of those who have been so supportive lately. Love you all!

Make sure that you check out everyone’s submissions below and let us know what you think.

31 Inspired Days of Nail Art – Day 4: Green

Posted on 19 September, 201219 September, 2012 by Cynthia

I really need to start planning out these challenge looks better because I always find myself scrambling the day of. Even when I think I have an idea I want to execute, it just blows up in my face. Every. Single. Time. Last night I had mentioned to Nicole from Polish Me, Please that I wanted to use my new bottle of Illamasqua Nurture which is one of the new Rubber Finish polishes. However, once I put it on, it was way too bright for my liking. I guess I just wanted a darker color to work with so instead I rummaged through my stash and decided to go with a color I hadn’t used yet: essence Walk On The Wild Side.

Walk On The Wild Side is simply gorgeous: it’s a dark olive/forest green with green-gold flakies throughout. I applied two coats and it was absolutely perfect. I have to admit that I thought the polish was pretty when I was indoors, but as soon as I went outside to photograph it in direct sunlight, I was in love. In fact, it’s so pretty that I didn’t really want to do anything else to it. I always find a way to ruin a pretty polish. I think I have come to the conclusion that simplicity is my thing. While I admire beautiful nail art, I just don’t think I can do it. So one of the main reasons why I was so excited in participating in this challenge is because it forces me to push my comfort zone.

Yesterday when I was at my nail places, I bought a few containers of hex glitters so I decided to use them today.

I can see now that the line if kind of crooked but whatever! At least I tried! I didn’t mean for my nails to look Christmas-y but I guess that’s’ kind of normal when you use green and gold.

Don’t forget to check out everyone’s submissions below! The lovely ladies also participating in this challenge are:

Jessica from Once Upon A Polish

Nicole from Polish Me, Please!

Ave from Polish Pixelle

Alaina from The Little Canvas

Thanks for stopping by and until next time when the challenge will revolve around the color blue.

31 Inspired Days of Nail Art – Day 3 : Yellow

Posted on 16 September, 2012 by Cynthia

I apologize in advance for what I am about to show you. I actually think my nails look hideous which sucks because I was really looking forward to using this yellow polish. I’d like to say that I do like the yellow polish on its own, but the stamp just looks…barf-worthy. My third submission for the 31 Inspired Days of Nail Art is a big fat fail. Here we go….

This is Nails Inc. Carnaby Street:

It’s no secret that I love Nails Inc. because they have the best creme formula on the planet as far as I’m concerned. Unfortunately, Carnaby Street fell prey to the usual trapping of yellow polish: it was patchy and kind of annoying to work with. It took 3 coats for me to be able to cover up all the bald spots which is unheard of in my Nails Inc. experience. I should have left well enough alone, but noooooooooooooooo. I had to stamp over this…

I used a design from Cheeky plate CH 48. While the design isn’t ugly, per se, the color combo just looks UGLY. Please join me in hating this final look.

I’m late to posting this because I went nuts and removed this immediately: that’s how much I hated it. I guess I can’t always have a nail win.

Don’t forget to check out the looks created by the other ladies participating in the challenge. I’m sure their submissions will be much more interesting–can’t be as ugly as mine…that’s for sure!

Thanks for stopping by and until next time!

31 Inspired Days Of Nail Art – Day 2: Orange

Posted on 13 September, 2012 by Cynthia

Are you ready for Day 2 of the 31 Inspired Days of Nail Art Challenge?!?!?! I am and today I have something that came out kind of awesomely strange. I’ve been seriously loving Bourjois Grenadine Tonic that the lovely Julie sent to me a while ago and I never miss a chance to use it. I absolutely adore how it’s unlike anything I have ever used. It’s like an orange high gloss polish that easily builds up to a vibrant orange with some red to boot. I guess you could call it tomato orange. I’ve used this polish for a NOTD before and you can see my results here.

Let me wow you with my orange jello nails!

This is three coats of the lovely Grenadine Tonic.

This is my first use of the Cheeky plates that I received today. I used plate CH51 for this design and I think the design is pretty cute. I know Vienna would love this since she loves stars so much. 😉 I applied one coat of Grenadine Tonic after I stamped the design using Konad special white polish.

So overall, I kind of really like this whole look. It reminds me of Jello (and you know there’s always room for J-E-L-L-O!) in a weird way. Now, if you’re a Jello hater, move along. Let me know what you think of my Day 2 creation. I’m usually pretty hard on myself when it comes to creativity and execution, but like I said earlier, I’m really diggin’ this. Can you dig it?

Don’t forget to check out the blogs of the other ladies participating in the 31 Inspired Days of Nail Art Challenge! Our next challenge will involve yellow which is my color obsession du jour. It will give me an excuse to finally use the crazy Nails Inc. yellow that I purchased a while ago. Woo hoo!

Thanks for stopping by and until next time!

31 Inspired Days of Nail Art – Day 1: Red

Posted on 10 September, 201212 September, 2012 by Cynthia

I have never participated in any kind of nail art challenge mostly because my nail art is beyond pitiful. You may think I’m being hard on myself, but I actually cringe every time I attempt any kind of nail art. I always find a way to mess the look up no matter how simple it may seem. As you can imagine, this is a huge step for me but I joined up with some lovely ladies for my first ever 31 day-type challenge. Ohmygodimsorryifmynailarthurtsyoureyes.

We will be posting every 3 days which I am super happy about because I wouldn’t be able to handle the challenge if we had to post every day. The other ladies participating in this challenge are: Jessica from Once Upon A Polish, Nicole from Polish Me, Please!, Alaina from The Little Canvas and Ave from Polish Pixelle.

The first post as you can see from the graphic above is centered around “Red” so this is what I decided to do:

This is Zoya Posh from the MatteVelvet Collection for Fall 2009. This is such a rich and pigmented color that I surprisingly haven’t worn in eons. That will surely change because I am so freaking ready for Fall.

This is Posh with a coat of Seche Vite. Ok, this is absolutely amazing in my book. I am dying at how beautiful this looks.

I am normally not a stud/rhinestone person (like a rhinestone cowboy!), but I decided to do this just because I have tons of these studs. I am still not sure that I really like this so you’ll have to let me know what you think.

I have a bunch of polish stuff to share with you but I’ll leave it for tomorrow’s post. 🙂 So what do you think about my Day 1 look? Stay cool and talk to you later!