40 Nail Art Ideas – Geek

Happy Friday everyone! I'm back with another Crumpet's Nail Art Challenge and this week's theme is Geek!

So I took this theme to be something that we geek out on. Recently, I met Amy of Literary Lacquers and she introduced me to this crazy match 'em Disney game called Tsum Tsum. Well ever since I downloaded it to my phone I've been playing it non-stop and I feel like I'm sort geeking out over it.



Well my favorite Tsum to use is the Chip Tsum, so I freehanded him on my middle finger. In the game you exchange hearts - or lives so to speak - and when you give hearts you get coins, which I have on my ring finger. Then for the thumb and the pinky I tried to dot together to show you the match 'em game. You can see some screen shots of the game in my collage! Let me know if you play it too, we can be friend and exchange hearts/coins!!!



Since Amy introduced me to the game, I thought it is only appropriate to use one of her polishes in this look. For the base, I used the lovely Literary Lacquers Heathcliff (can I get a woot woot for polishes inspired by fictional characters) as the base. The brown in this is also a Literary Lacquers Sherlock (it also stamps!). The gold is Elevation Polish Zhenjin and the rest are various Zoyas.



So I hope this fits in well enough to to the geek theme, but I guess I totally feel like a geek/nerd when I play it!

This weekend I'm getting the heck away from my condo because it is a construction zone. My husband, his dad and a contractor are moving in to redo the bathrooms! So I'm headed to a friend's house, where I'm planning to catch up on blogging and relaxing. Hope you all have fun plans this weekend too!

Don't forget to check out the other wonderful ladies taking part in this challenge at the inlinkz below!

    An InLinkz Link-up

   

Strawberry Nails with KBShimmer

Today I've got a fun strawberry look using some new KBShimmer polishes I recently purchased from their spring collection.



First I'll give the lowdown on the application and appearance of these lovely polishes and then I'll share the specifics of the nail art!





First up we have Blush Money. This polish is a lovely creamy pink holo polish with golden flakies which gives it a lovely golden glow. In some swatches I've seen this polish lean peach, I think that is the golden flakies glowing through on certain skin tones. On me it was clearly a creamy pink.

This polish was on the thicker side, but not too difficult to work with or anything. Just a tad thicker than most holographic polishes. I used three coats, because after the second coat I could still see visible nail line.





Next we have Ins and Sprouts. This polish is quite a bit stronger in the holo department, but also has a stunning golden glow to it in the light.

This polish was definitely thinner than Blush Money, definitely a different formula. It went on very easily in two coats.

Now when I put these two polishes together, I had no idea what I wanted to create with them. When I started to add Ins and Sprouts to Blush Money, I think I was going to for the whole freehand star burst look, but then I just thought they started to look like the tops of strawberrries!





So I used a small nail art brush to free hand the tops, and then used a dotting tool to created the seeded look. And the funniest thing of all, I totally forgot that the creator of KBShimmer used the Pantone color of the season Strawberry Ice when creating Blush Money (I really only found out when I was getting the links put on this post). So this look is seriously perfect in more ways than one!

I'm not sure I'm totally crazy about having this on all five nails, but I definitely could see this in a fun skittle look, maybe with another glitter polish like To Peach His Own.

What do you think? Do you like my strawberry nails?! I sure did like creating them, I think they are a super fun look for the spring and strawberries are everywhere in the grocery store right now. California is a bloomin' people, despite the terrible drought. 

Freehand Heart Nail Art

Today starts a week of nail art posts all dedicated to Valentine's Day. Now I'm not really all that into Valentine's Day all that much, never meant very much to me or my husband. Maybe he'll give me flowers or something, but it's not really a holiday we actively celebrate.

But holidays always bring on the themed nail art challenges, and so here I am. Sharing with you a week of nail art (not all of it is V-Day inspired).

Today I have a look inspired by 52 Week Pick and Mix Challenge, this week the challenge is purple and hearts.



For the base of this look I used two coats of Zoya Chantal, the best nude creme polish I own. And the real stunner of this whole look, a coat of Elevation Polish Aguja St. Exupery. Aguja St. Exupery is a holographic top coat with golden flakies throughout. It is delicate and beautiful. And I can already tell I will be using this topper again and again.



Next step was to add some hearts and purple. The purple is a stretch here (only one of the hearts is purple-ish), but I was going for a delicate heart vibe. I used a dotting tool and Zoya Brigitte, Rue and Odette to create the hearts. I added a little white dot to each heart to make it look more 3D.



I really did love these nails, I think it is a subtle nod to the holiday without being so in your face about it. What do you think? Are you a big Valentine's Day celebrator?

And don't forget to check out the other ladies in the challenge, listed below!


   

    An InLinkz Link-up

   

Cherry Blossoms over Fair Maiden Polish Times Square

So this week's prompt in the 52 Week Pick 'n Mix Challenge was pale blue and flowers. I combined the two and I knew just what blue I wanted to use!



I had been looking forward to using Fair Maiden Polish's Times Square again! I only used this during a swatch-a-thon I had on New Year's Eve, and I just knew I had to use it in some nail art. Times Square, which was a part of Fair Madien's New Years Collection, is a gorgeous light blue holo with the most beautiful pink flashes, that my photos hardly do justice to.



I just knew with that pink flash, this polish would be perfect to pair with a floral themed mani! And what better floral to use in a mani, than the beautiful cherry blossom?!? Now I've never really been to DC to see the cherry blossoms bloom, but I've always wanted to and all the photos I have seen of the blossoms just leave me in awe.



Now the above photo isn't the best in quality, but in the shade it shows that pink flash this polish has that for some reason my photos can't quite capture in all it's beauty!



Now to complete the look, I used a real small nail art brush to paint the branches, using Zoya Louise. For the flower buds, I used a larger dotting tool using Essie The Girls Are Out and went back over those dots with a smaller dotting tool using Essie Go Ginza.

I really loved the final result of this look. I like that it was freehand, but not that complicated. And I really loved how the pinks played off the pink flash in this polish. And word on the street is, I heard from a very good source, that Times Square might be released in Fair Maiden's next restock on Saturday. Check their Facebook page for more information on the exact time of the restock.

And don't forget to stop by the other ladies who are partaking in this challenge!


   

    An InLinkz Link-up

   

My Favorite Winnie the Pooh Character Nail Art

So who is my favorite character in Winnie the Pooh?!?! Piglet of course. I don't remember why Piglet is my favorite, but I do remember that I used Piglet in my very first screen name, long long ago in my childhood, I think the the days of Prodigy.

So onto the fun Piglet nails.



The polishes I used in this mani are Essie Cascade Cool and Essie Secret Stash. Secret Stash is a bit of a crelly, took three coats to get to this opacity, Cacade Cool only needed two for the Piglet face accent.



I used a stripping brush to make the stripes with Cascade Cool, and I was inspired by this manicure I found online for the face. I used a finer nail art brush and a black stamping polish to make the detail on  I wish I could say I was that creative, but well, I'm not.

Anyway, this was a pretty fun nail art prompt! What do you think of this look? Do you like?

And don't forget to check out the other ladies taking part in the challenge!


   

    An InLinkz Link-up

   

Icicle nails

Today's challenge was icy blue and white colors, and I guess I took this one pretty literally!



I started with two thin layers of Zoya Blu as the base for my gradient. Then I added Blu, Zoya Edie and OPI I saw... U saw... We saw... Warsaw (the longest and most annoyingly named polish!) to a make up sponge and applied the gradient!



I really do think I am getting better at my gradients! I'm finding the more I do them, the better I'm getting at it! For the icicles, I used a-England Encore Margot and a nail art brush to apply them. They aren't perfect but I do like how they turned out!



This whole manicure was based on my very first nail inspiration I pinned about January of last year. I had just stared to use Pintrest for nail inspiration, and this was my very first pin. So I knew this year, with all of the experience I had gained, I just had to try it! And I think the results were great.

At first I was going to use this manicure, below, I had created before I even started this challenge, but I wanted to try the icicle technique. And so in this post I am sharing two for the price of one!



The glitter base here is KBShimmer Fallen Angle. With my order of Fallen Angle, I got some fun snowman glitter, which I placed in the center nail. I used Bundle Monster BM-407 for the tree stamps. I wasn't in love with this manicure too much though, because I feel like the stamping got lost a bit. Which I guess is why I did this as a two for one post, because I wanted to do something that truly fulfilled the prompt!

So which one of these manicures is your favorite?

And as a fun bonus, I'll leave you with a photo of my husband and I with Santa. We met him last night at a bar. No joke. I told him I want a never ending supply of nail polish for Christmas! ;-) It's a shame I didn't still have on my Santa nails when I met him!



And don't forget to check out all the other ladies who are in this challenge too!

    An InLinkz Link-up