Day 16: Tribal Print

I had a hard time coming up with a design for this challenge. Here are two attempts at a tribal design.

The above design was created using a grey base color and some cheap-o water decals I got at Dollar Tree. It wasn't really "tribal" enough for me, so here's what I tried next:

This design is more "tribally," but I still didn't like it. Anyway, the inspiration is from a YouTube video by an overly chipper young woman.

Day 15: Delicate Print

I am not a delicate person. These nails are not delicate, either. However, this is as close as I could get at the time. 

The color is really shitty in both of these photos, and I can't remember which polish I used.  My bad.

Day 11: Polka Dot Nails - Confetti: Belle of the Ball, Color Club: New Bohemian, NYC: French White Tip

I kept trying to think of what to do for my polka dot nails. Pink with black dots? Red with white dots? Hmm... Then I looked down at my feet:

DUH. These socks are amazing. They keep my feet warm and cozy without making my feet feel too hot or sweaty. Luckily, I had just received an eBay haul with the perfect purple color for the base: "Belle of the Ball" by Confetti. I used a dotting tool to apply "New Bohemian" by Color Club for the blueish-teal dots on all my nails, then added white dots to my ring fingers and thumbs for accents. 

Hey, look! That's my right hand! Here's another view of "Belle of the Ball" on its own, back in my left non-dominant hand:

And here's the finished product with the cute little polka dots:

I should have added a few more white dots on my ring finger. Oh, well. Here's another view of the dottiness:

The color is a bit better in this shot. Overall, I was very pleased with how well the polishes matched my socks. The colors were almost exact matches! And I received several compliments on the cuteness of these nails -- including from the cashier at a store I visited today! My friend Noura told the woman that I have a nail blog, and the cashier asked for the web address! I hope she (and you!) become an official follower using Google Friend Connect. I've got some new goodies I'm keeping for a 50 followers giveaway. Now I just need 50 followers! ;)

Day 10: Gradient - Color Club "Shabby Drab" and "Rad Nomad"

My inspiration for this gradient manicure is an ornamental cabbage that my parents have. It looked like this back at Thanksgiving:

Now that it's January, though, the purple has faded deeper into the green, so the plant is almost totally purple even though there is still a hint of green. When I tried to recreate this gradient on my nails, though, I couldn't get the shading right. Here's what the first attempt looked like:

This photo was taken at dusk with a flash, but you can still see how pretty the purple leaves of the cabbage look. I started with a layer of Color Club's "Rad Nomad," a dark lavender from the Back to Boho collection, and then sponged on some OPI "Green-wich Village" at the base of my nails. I then sponged on some Color Club "Shabby Drab," a lighter lavender from the Back to Boho collection, and then more of the "Rad Nomad" at the tips. I wasn't happy with how the gradient looked, so I stippled on some no-name glitter mixture from that Pretty Woman set I got for Christmas. 

I re-did this design a couple of days later, but I think it looks worse than my first attempt:

I left off the green and the glitter and tried to fade the lighter "Shabby Drab" base into the darker "Rad Nomad" on the tips. Maybe I should have used different colors because I still don't like the end result.

What do you think? I had a hard time getting my gradient to "gradiate." Do you have this problem, too?

Day 9: Rainbow - Nyan Cat!

Since y'all don't know me in real life, you probably aren't aware that there are two things I really enjoy: random internet stuff and kitty cats. So when I happened upon Nyan Cat, it was a match made in heaven!

I knew I had to do a Nyan Cat design for the first rainbow challenge, but I had no idea it would be as difficult as it was. The final manicure ended up being a hot mess, which was a shame because I really wanted to wear this for a few days. Instead, the stupid thing ended up peeling off my nails the very next day.

Here's what I did. First, I used my Sally Hansen Nail Art Pen in white to dot out the areas for the rainbow to make sure I had enough room for all the colors. I also drew in an area for the cat, but instead of drawing him like Cute Polish or Professional DQ and others have, I turned the kitty on its head. ;)

Unfortunately, I kept messing up the Pop Tart so I ended up removing the outline. I moved on to the rainbows. I used the following colors:

• Red ~ OPI: Color So Hot It Berns
• Orange ~ Wet n Wild: Everybody Loves Redmond
• Yellow ~ Fake OPI I got from an eBay seller
• Green ~ Another fake OPI I got from that same crappy eBay seller
• Blue ~ L.A. Colors Color Craze: Static Electricity
• Purple ~ Ulta Mini no-name from a Halloween 2010 mini collection
• I added two coats of Wet n Wild: Hallucinate for some sparkle.

I wish I would have had some acrylic paints instead of nail polish because the colors went on too thickly and messily. I got so mad working on this design that I had to take a smoke break! But then I thought, "Holy crap, my nails are still wet so how am I going to light a cigarette? My hands will explode!" Grrrr. Anyway, that's what my rainbow mess looked like. I should have used a different orange since the two colors look too similar, making the yellow and green too bright; the whole thing looks more Rasta than rainbow.

What a mess. Like I said, the whole thing made me mad. After I (messily) painted in the rainbow, I mixed up some colors for the Pop Tart and for the cat. Here's what the final version looked like:

I used my Kiss Nail Art Pen in black to outline Nyan Cat. I used dots instead of solid lines to give it the 8-bit appearance of the original online graphic.

Anyway, what do you think? I love the way the cat looks, and I'm ok with the Pop Tart, but the overall effect is just blech. Blech, blech, blech, blech, BLECH. Working on this design reminded me why I prefer nail art stickers and stamping to freehand designs. I suck at it. 

Day 6: Violet - Maybelline Express Finish: Purple Passion

Day 6 celebrates the awesomeness that is purple, so I present to you Maybelline Express Finish's Purple Passion, a very old polish that I've had in my stash a long time.

Yes, it really is that shiny in person! This is three coats with no top coat. Actually, this is the second day of this manicure; day one was just two coats, but since my Purple Passion is old, it's "express" isn't what it's cracked up to be. I had a few dents here and there where I had hit my nails against things. So, on day two, I painted on another coat and took these pictures. ;)

And since it's almost Christmas, I decided to try a few different festive designs. I'm only showing you the two candy cane stripes since of the 10 things I tried, these are the only two that are worth sharing:

The white stripes were made using LA Colors Nail Art striping polish, and the purple stripes were made using Kiss's lavender striping polish. I like the way the purple-on-purple stripes look, but you can see how messed up the nails are, so I just removed all this pretty purple and moved on to the next day's challenge.

Sigh.