Born Pretty Store Flower Rhinestone Charms

Press Sample

Born Pretty Store sent me some fun nail decorations and tools. Today I am sharing the first one, these flower rhinestone charms! They are a cute, and a really easy way to add a little something extra to otherwise plain nails. I started with Essie Sexy Divide, which I recently picked up from Ulta and KBShimmer Gull, Get Real! from the new Summer 2016 collection.

Black and Red Collaboration When Colours Collide

I just a have a quick post to share with you today. I was able to participate in a group collaboration with the theme of black and red.  I've been wanting to do a black and red gradient for a while, so I thought this was the perfect opportunity. 

Essie French Tips

For some reason, recently I had a hankering for a matte/metallic combo. I wasn't sure if I ever shared Essie Wrap Me Up which was part of the Cashmere Mattes collection, so I decided to use that and paired it with Essie Penny Talk. Penny Talk is a really shiny metallic polish. I wanted to do a think french manicure, so I did it free hand and left the finish as is and didn't use a top coat.

OPI Midnight in Moscow and Essie Hors D'oeuvres

I was lucky enough to find two polishes on sale that I have been wanting to try for some time. They are Essie Hors D'oeuvres and OPI Midnight in Moscow. I thought MIM was one of those hard to find polishes that people had only heard about but have never seen, but I got mine for half price at Sally's Beauty, so that was lucky. I thought these two colors together created a fun and sort of glitzy fall or winter look. MIM is a really vampy dark burgundy that is lightened nicely by Hors D'oeuvres. 

Work Wear Wednesday: Wisps

Happy Work Wear Wednesday! This week's design is pretty much the same as Sunday's design, but with a few key changes. I of course made the colors more work appropriate, but I also added a matte top coat. Are you surprised? I have almost run out of matte top coat, that is how much I use that stuff! I really enjoyed Sunday's design and wanted to try it again with a different style.

 

The Polished Bookworms: Nail Art Inspired by Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty

In addition to my love of nail polish, I love reading. Many of you know this about me. I recently joined a book club which combines the two called The Polished Bookworms! The book for January was Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty. The plot took many unexpected turns, and was definitely a drama. One of the things I really appreciated about the book was that she covered some darker issues that some people may not want to think about at all. I appreciated that most. The group will be doing nail art at the end of each month that is inspired by the book we have read. Here are mine:

Nail Art: #31DC2014 Day 22 Inspired by a Song

This challenge was extremely difficult for me! I love music and listen to it every day, but I have a difficult time putting music into visuals. I remember feelings I get when I hear songs, but not images. I didn't want to recreate scenes from music videos either, because that felt like cheating. Finally, after scouring youtube for ideas and rediscovering music I haven't listened to in ages (Chuck Berry!) I came across Sweater Weather by The Neighbourhood. I have embedded the video at the bottom of the page, just so you can listen to it! I don't know why I love it so much, but it just makes me happy in the way that cinnamon perks up my coffee. When the song was new, it was one of those I had to listen to over and over again. So I did a loose interpretation of sweater weather nails. I used Essie Rock the Boat and Color Club Abyss as well as Maybelline Bold Gold as an accent. I used matte top coat, again.

Nail Art: #31DC2014 Day 14 Flowers

For today's nail art challenge, I did a mani swap with a friend on instagram! Her username is @beautyintact, so be sure to go follow her! The challenge for today is flowers. A mani swap is where you take a design from someone else and copy it, they do the same with you. It was my first one and I thought it was really fun!

Nail Art: #31DC2014 Day 5 Blue

Today I have a fun blue look to share with you for #31DC2014! The prompt for Day 5 is blue, which happens to be my favorite nail polish color! I decided to use all Essie polishes for this look. I started with a gradient of Rock the Boat and Avenue Maintain. Over that I laid out what seemed like miles of striping tape and then painted Aruba Blue over that. I top coated and added some rhinestones over the pointer and pinky fingers. 

Nail Art: #31DC2014 Day 4 Green

For the #31DC2014 daily nail challenge, Day 4's challenge is the color green! I love greens, especially deep forest greens. My all time favorite polish is St. George from A England, so today I paired it with another favorie Essie First Timer. I thought the contrast between the two would work really well. St. George is a holographic deep forest/emerald green and First Timer is a minty creme with no shimmer. I started with a base of First Timer and used the dry brush technique to brush St. George all along the outer perimeter of the nails inward. 

Nail Art: Patriotic Roses

I have an exciting mani to share today! Patriotic Roses! I recently went to a meet up with other nail polish lovers in my area and we talked about doing "Portland/Fourth of July" themed nails. Since Portland is the Rose City I combined that with the fourth of July colors and created this. I used my nail vinyls for the first time, which was really exciting! I used so many polishes here:

1. Essie- Aruba Blue

2. Sinful Colors- Snow Me White

3. Essie- First Timer

4. Color Club- Wild Cactus

5. OPI-Quarter of a Cent-Cherry

6. Ruffian- Ruffian Red

7. Nika K- Red

8. Essie- Head Mistress

Phew, seriously that was a ton of polish! I also used a red acrylic, because I realized part way through that all of my reds are very similar in tone. Oh well, here is the final look:

Nail Art: #Hepicksmypolish June Edition Dotticure

Third month in a row, I have decided to participate in #hepicksmypolish! You can read up on the challenge in my past posts, but you have a "he" in your life pick out polishes for a nail design for you to do and you have to use them. My husband has been kind to me in the past, but this time, he chose a more difficult combination. He chose Sinful Colors In the Spotlight, Color Club Sunrise Canyon and Essie Fiji. This is what I came up with:

Tutorial: Lace

Remember this lace look from earlier this month? I had a few readers request a tutorial, so I have a quick pictorial tutorial to share today!

Nail Art: Simple Lace French Tip

I have easy lace nails to share with you today! I started with a base color of Essie Chinchilly and added Island Girl (teal from this post, still don't know the name) and created a nice bright/neutral mani. The only tool I used was a dotting tool. 

Nail Art: Galaxy Nails for #hepicksmypolish!

I came across a challenge called #hepicksmypolish, and I knew immediately I wanted to participate! The premise of the challenge is to have your husband/boyfriend/whoever pick out your polish for you. He picks three colors which you have to use and no others except base/top/glitter coats. My husband picked out China Glaze Black Diamond, OPI Vant to Bite My Neck and Essie First Timer. It seemed like a somewhat odd assortment until I realized that he picked them based off of our wedding colors! They aren't exactly our wedding colors, but he did pretty good picking them out.

Nail Art: Teal and Gold Ruffian

Hello! I had a work conference all weekend and I wasn't able to post! Today I have to share the manicure I wore for the conference this weekend. It is a little grown out, but I hope you can forgive me. I have a gold base with a teal layer over. I used Lancome (my first-swatches later) Ginger Swing and Essie Go Overboard.

Swatch and Review of Essie: Playa Del Platinum

I have an older polish up for review today. It is Essie: Playa Del Platinum. I got it on clearance at Ulta quite a while ago, and am only just now getting around to trying it out. It is one of those neutral colors that I am not sure will work with my skin color, but for some reason buy anyway. I would describe it as a milky taupe with a hint of color I can't quite put my finger on. In some lights that hint of color looks like it is green leaning, but my husband thinks it is blue leaning. Either way, I can't figure it out! Take a look:

Nail Art: Rose Gold Lace

I hope you all are staying warm in this winter weather! I don't know where all of you are from, but in Oregon we have had a recent bout of winter snow. There isn't much snow on the ground, but it has turned to ice, which makes conditions dangerous. Anyway, I'm freezing my butt off! To take my mind off the cold I decided to do some nail stamping! I told you in my last post that I couldn't wait to add some nail art to this color, I obviously couldn't wait that long!

This is turning out to be one of my favorite stamps! This is a Konad plate M57. Love it so much! I think this looks so pretty! It is just a simple design that looks complicated but the only complicated part is keeping the stamp straight. I think this looks really girly without looking overtly girly and frilly. I really don't like frilly and am not a huge fan of pink, but rose gold and black are definitely my style! Thanks for reading, I hope you like this!

Swatch and Review of Essie Penny Talk

Today I have Essie Penny Talk! I have been wanting this polish for a long time! I haven't seen a lot of rose gold polish and this one has a great shine to it that makes it really look metallic. This polish came out a while ago, but I think you can still find it in some stores, I bought mine online though. I was so angry when it arrived, in the bottle it looks like plain gold. I was mid complaint to my husband as I was applying it and realized that it actually does look rose gold on the nail. Here are my swaches:

So shiny and such a pretty rose gold! I applied two coats for the pictures above. I used a ridge filler for a base coat since I had previously seen that suggested. I really like this polish except for the frosty streaks it leaves before it dries. Once dried, the streaks go away. I can see so many beautiful combinations with this polish! I am so looking forward to creating them. When you look for metallic colors, what do you usually gravitate towards? I realized I have a lot of bronze colors, but I have been wanting a rose gold. Rose gold is just such a hard to find color. I am really grateful I have this now! Hope you enjoyed this post!

UPDATE: I did notice this polish chipping really easily. After two days of wear I have some major corner chipping. I did use a different base coat than usual, but I'm not sure that was the problem. Just a heads up!

Nail Art: Fox for Nail Art November

Have you seen this YouTube sensation- Ylvis "The Fox" or "What Does the Fox Say?"? I hadn't seen the video until today, you need to check it out! This month I am again participating in a nail art challenge. Day 4 was Fox and everyone had been tagging their fox nails with what does the fox say? I had to google it and now it has been stuck in my head all day! On to the nail art, I wasn't really sure of how to paint a fox, but I saw a few tutorials and this is what I came up with:

At first, I did a fox on all my nails, but I didn't like the way that looked. I swapped that out for the large polka dots and I like this a lot better. I used a larger dotting tool and a striping brush for this design. I painted a base of white (Sally Hansen- White On) and for the fox, painted the lower half of my nail orange (Essie- Meet Me at Sunset). I added the ears with a fine brush, dotted the eyes and nose and added the whiskers with the striping brush. What do you think? I think it is cutesy! I've done two cutesy designs recently and I think I need to move to edgy to balance it out now. Do you participate in the monthly nail art challenges? I do as much as I can, I missed "movember" on the first but I plan on doing the next one for the 7th, which is maroon. If you participate I'd love to see your designs on Instagram (@HandtasticIntentions). Thanks for reading!