Red and Green Sparkle Chevrons

Today's challenge in the 12 Days of Christmas Art is a classic holiday theme: Red and Green.

I was so excited for this prompt, I had just the idea, and then that idea failed. But more on that later. My motto, if at first you don't succeed, try try again. And so I did.



Remember the star of my last manicure (Two Turtle Doves), well after I finished taking photos of that manicure, I finished it off by doing this manicure!



You'll have to excuse my photography skills with this manicure, the sparkle makes my camera go a bit mad. The manicure started out with two coats of Painted Polish Between the Pines on all nails except my ring finger (where the gold was in the last manicure), on that nail I did two coats of China Glaze Ruby Pumps. Then I added the single chevrons and two coats of the opposite polish on each nail.



The chevron placement wasn't perfect, but I do like the results. As I said earlier, this manicure was inspired by a manicure fail I had earlier in the season. Apparently some red pigment is a little difficult.



This is Smitten Polish Nose So Bright, and it is an AMAZING pure red holo. I think it just needs to speak for itself. Instead I combined it with Literary Lacquers A Thousand Christmas Trees. Yes that was meant to be green, see what the red pigment did to it? So much fail, so much sadness. Anyway, lesson learned, at least the second attempt didn't have that same problem!

Have any of you ever had mishaps with a red pigment?!

Don't forget to visit the other ladies doing this challenge, I can't wait to see what everyone has done with this prompt!


   

    An InLinkz Link-up

   

Christmas Tree Nail Art

Now we are on to the second nail art prompt for the 12 Days of Christmas Nail Art Challenge. Today's prompt is Christmas trees.

I decided to take a little less traditional route. Typically when I think about Christmas trees I think about green and red with twinkling lights and all that jazz. For this manicure, I decided to go the route of Christmas trees in their natural habitat before they end up on the tree lot (which incidentally I will be working at all month as a volunteer raising money for scholarships and grants).

 

To start this manicure, I began with two thin coats of OPI Thanks a Windmillion, which is the green color here. Then I sponged on a gradient of OPI Eurso Euro to create a Nordic twilight atmosphere. Then to totally complete it, I added a coat of China Glaze Fairy Dust to represent the stars.



After the gradient, I found the perfect stamp to complete the look. I broke out the Bundle Monster BM-H02 plate again and stamped the trees. I used Sally Hansen OMGhost to stamp with, which I find is a great white to stamp with. Perfect for a drugstore brand!



Now I feel like the trees get a little lost in the green, but I sort of like it. It is a really delicate and a not so typical take on the whole Christmas tree nail art.

 

And I had these nails on when I got my Christmas tree, so I just had to take a photo with it. I just love it! Looks great! What do you think about this look? Like it? Or do you prefer the more green and red look?

Don't forget to visit all the other ladies taking part in this challenge below!

An InLinkz Link-up

Practicing my gradients

I have been trying to perfect the gradient method for awhile. I have attempted it a few times, each time I walk away amazed with how beautiful it looks, but so disappointed with all my errors in application.

If I could just do a smooth perfect gradient I would be happy.



I love love love this color combination. For this gradient I used Essie Go Overboard, Zoya Alexa and Essie The More the Merrier to create a teal to lime green gradient. And just because I was not happy with the final result, I put some China Glaze Fairy Dust to cover up the imperfections.



I'll tell you my number one complaint about gradients, the white undercoat. White pigmented polish is from the devil. I have yet to find a white polish I am pleased with. Some gradients don't require a white undercoat, but I find in order for the colors to be bright and appear as they are in the bottle, the white undercoat is a must.

Unfortunately, white polish is never good in one coat. Usually takes at least two and then maybe a third depending on how chalky and streaky the formula is. And then when clean up is involved, you end up cleaning the edges and showing the white undercoat by accident.



As you can tell I tried to cover that up with a smaller brush, note the darker teal edges, trying to cover up the accidental white undercoat. In an attempt to make the gradient look a little better, I added a stamp to it.



I used my Lily Anna Plate 10 to stamp a coral looking design. It looked ok, but I think I prefer the gradient on its own. I just wish I could apply the gradient perfectly.



So now I plead with you dear readers, what tutorials help you with the perfect gradient? I've watched a million online tutorials and they all show the same thing, and it is never helpful. So do you have tricks for the perfect gradient? Please share them with me!!!

Destash Giveaway!!!

Hi gals. I have a lot of nail polish, so much in fact, that some of them are not receiving the love they deserve. So I went through my stash today and decided that my readers should get in on the polishes I have in my stash, that I've never used.



So I've created two prize packs for my readers and set up a Rafflecopter giveaway so that my lovelies I've never used will find a new home where my readers will hopefully give them the love they deserve!

So let's get on to the prize packs shall we?!?

Prize Pack #1 is the Shade Shifting Nail Polish set!



This polish set includes China Glaze Want My Bawdy, Butter London Knackered, China Glaze Rainbow, Pretty Serious Galaxy Invader and China Glaze Rare and Radiant. All of these polishes are duochrome and create shade shifting loveliness!

Prize Pack #2 is Everything That Glitters Nail Polish set!



This polish set includes Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure Twinkle Toes-ty, Essie Jazzy Jubilant, Jindie Nails Rave and ORLY FX Rockets Red Glare! These are all pretty glitter polishes that I never used but would be perfect for the impending holiday season!!!

This giveaway is for US residents only. Sorry international ladies. But if you have a US friend that will mule it to your country for you, by all means enter. I just need a US address to send it to! 

So here are the details of the giveaway below! Good luck fellow readers!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Colors By Llarowe Aliens & Outlaws

So earlier this summer I went on a fun girls weekend down to visit my best friend in Calabasas. She was house sitting for one of her clients, who live in a posh house complete with pool in the lovely celebrity-laden enclave of Calabasas.

Anyway, I wanted to put together some fun nails for the occasion, so this is what I came up with!



For this manicure I used China Glaze Flip Flop Fantasy, which is an amazing neon coral polish that is so bright, no camera can capture its amazing color.



For the accent fingers I broke out Colors by Llarowe Aliens & Outlaws. Aliens & Outlaws is a black and holo microglitter concoctions. I used four coats, but I think you could get away with just three for full opacity.



For the stamping image, I broke out one of my new MoYou London stamping plates. For this manicure I used ProPlate 08!

Overall this manicure was super fun, bright, summery and perfect for the occasion of a girls' weekend! Unfortunately, neon polishes and China Glaze on me, never last long and I had a huge chip on one of my Flip Flop Fantasy Fingers. Oh well, it happens!

Neon yellow skittle nails

Recently my friend Sarah Lynn over at Tunay Na Mahal sported some very gorgeous neon yellow skittle nails and it inspired me to do a take on neon yellow myself!



I started with a coat of white polish on all my nails (OPI Alpine Snow). Then I used nail vinyls for the black and white chevron and I painted two coats of China Glaze Celtic Sun on the thumb, pointer and pinkie nails.



Because I didn't have Painted Polish's Drunk on Holo yet (as Sarah Lynn uses in her skittles) I used a finer holo glitter polish – China Glaze Glistening Snow.



Overall, I liked this look, but it took too many layers of nail polish for me to reach my desired opacity between the neon formula and the white base.



What are your favorite way to wear nail skittles? I really like to wear them when I know I won't have a lot of time to do my nails that week. If I have multiple designs on my nails, I always hope I won't get as bored with the nails as quickly.

Neon glitter skittle nails

 I just love skittle nails! I usually break them out when I have a manicure that I want to wear a bit longer than normal. I figure I'll get bored less quickly if I have a different design on each nail.



For this look I used China Glaze Pool Party (the bright neon pink/coral), OPI My Favorite Ornament (sparkles) and OPI Alpine Snow (white).



I free handed the stripes and the heart and used a dotting tool for the polka dots!



I really liked this look but found out around this time that China Glaze polishes are not wearing well on me. Unfortunately,since I was out and about with these nails (my brother was visiting) this manicure got a premature chip, so I ended up redoing my nails anyway! Oh well.

Anyway I hope you enjoyed this nail art! I'm always looking for a good skittle nail. I really want to try a sailor skittle sometime soon. Those seem to be all the rage via Instagram. 

Sunset gradient nails

Let me start this post off by saying, I really really loved this manicure. These are the type of nails I dream about. Unfortunately, these nails lasted about as long as a sunset. :(



Now, I'm not the best at gradients, this is really my second successful go at it. But man is it beautiful!







Application: I began this manicure with three thin coats of China Glaze Son of a Peach. For the gradient I used Son of a Peach, Zoya Heidi and OPI Eurso Euro sponged up and down (with a makeup sponge) to create the sunset effect. To top it all off I did a layer of China Glaze Fairy Dust to create the twilight stars are coming out of the backdrop.

So I determined after this manicure, that my body chemistry does not agree with China Glaze polishes. They just do not want to last on me. The majority of China Glaze polishes I own are neons, so I guess this is a fact I remember every summer. I'll keep the ones I have around, they are pretty good for stamping, but I'm so sad that this manicure chipped in less than 24 hours of application. I'm sure it's the Son of a Peach base because I switched up nothing else in my application process.

I'm still a newbie at gradients, do you have any tips for making the application go smoothly? I still haven't tried the whole get your sponge wet first thing, I wonder if that would help? Using a non Zoya polish as the base definitely helped this time (because Zoya polishes take longer to dry on me), but I can't use China Glaze again. Anyway share your tips in the comments if you have any! Thanks and have a great weekend!!!

Made for eachother: neons and nuetrals

Awhile ago, I was browsing one of my favorite nail polish communities, Makeup Alley's Nail Board, and was inspired by their weekly theme: dots.

Dots on manicures are so versatile. They can make a plain manicure look classic or they can bring multiple colors and a unique look to a manicure.

I had recently purchased a few neon nail polishes and knew right away I wanted to use them in an ombre fashion, so when faced with the dot challenge I decided to put my new polishes to good use.



I've seen many manicures featuring neutrals and neon polishes together, but I had never tried it myself. I am so happy I did, I really like how this ended up looking! I don't look great wearing nude-neutrals, so I used a grey polish as the backdrop.



Looks great indoors and outdoors!





Polishes used: I used Zoya Dove as the backdrop, its a great light gray color. I used all China Glaze polishes for the neon colors (I really love their variety of neon colors!). From bottom to top of the nail we have Pool Party, a neon pink leaning coral; Flip Flop Fantasy, a neon light orange leaning oral; and Son of a Peach, a light neon peach.

This definitely has to be one of my favorite dotticures of all time! What do you guys think?