Southwest Inspired Mani Monday Tutorial for Lulu*s!

Happy Monday, Everyone! Wanted to share my latest Manicure Monday tutorial for the Lulu*s Blog! This was a Southwest inspired look and I seriously fell in love with how they turned out. If you have a nail art brush, these will be an easy look to recreate. Be sure to check out the tutorial! :)

Happy Polishing!!! :D

Father's Day Memories

Hello, all! It's Father's Day here in the States and when thinking about something I could do to represent my own awesome Father, I landed on all of the great memories that he has helped create and been apart of. 

I've been so incredibly lucky with my family life. Growing up, my Dad always made time to take my sister and I to soccer practice, doctor's appointments, and friend's houses. He has always been there for us and is so supportive of all of our endeavors. He is without a doubt one of the kindest, most understanding and generous men out there and I am so proud to be his daughter. 

So, I decided to paint some of my favorite memories and representations of my Dad:

- I played soccer growing up and he was often a coach and always a cheerleader. 

- My love of camping started at a young age when my parents took 6 month old me camping in Yosemite...and I've been hooked ever since ;) Our family camping trips could never run as smooth as they do without my Dad. He's the Superman of camping. 

- Our family has a ski boat and every summer we would spend the weekends out at our local lake. We loved to go inner-tubing, wakeboarding and kneeboarding, and my Dad was always at the helm of the boat. He always knew just how to make my sister's and my inner-tubing the most frightening and fun experience but managed to give us confidence to pop up on a wakeboard when we decided to give that a go instead. 

So, here those are, represented in nail art format! 

I added a matte top coat to these to avoid any glare and I actually really like these that way anyway. 

Hope you all have a great weekend! 

Happy Polishing :)

Moroccan Quatrefoil

My passion for nail art has also stirred in me a passion for patterns and fabrics. I now see patterns as something I can potentially recreate or be inspired by and I'm really enjoying that aspect of this nail art experience. 

To the embarrassment of my boyfriend, if I find a pattern somewhere - be it a table cloth, t-shirt or pillow case - I will snap a quick picture of it so I don't forget that I fell in love with it. Then when I get home I often fruitlessly search the internet for a general name of said pattern. Today's search informed me that the pattern I have been wanting to recreate is called Moroccan Quatrefoil. 

One of the very first manis I did that I really truly loved was a tape mani with this pattern. I painstakingly cut painter's tape to create a template I could paint over. Looking back, I can't believe I decided to stick with nail art after how frustrating that process was, but I LOVED how they turned out and was so proud of what I had managed to create. This was before I had figured out how to use my brushes so the idea of hand painting this pattern seemed absolutely absurd to me. Since then I've been wanting to do something else that was inspired by this classic pattern. 

Most quatrefoil patterns that you see create interest by repeating the shape seamlessly over and over. I had originally planned on doing this with my nails, but discovered that that was going to be more frustrating than the original taped one. So I opted for my own version.  

The base burgundy color is China Glaze's Purr-fect Plum and the offwhite is American Apparel's Cotton. 

I'm visiting my parent's place for the weekend and have none of my normal lighting or editing software for watermarks, so I made do. This however meant that photographing the detail with the high gloss shine of Seche Vite did not go over so well. Although the photos shown above are matted, I ended up going back to the shiny top coat for these. I've included the only two photos that managed to not have glare on the top coat. 

Do you have a preference between the two finishes? 

Happy Polishing! :)

30 Day Flower Challenge - Allium

Awhile back on my Facebook page I shared a 30 Day Flower Nail Art Challenge that was going on every day through May and I was so so excited to partake in it...because flowers are my favorite! But, life got in the way as well as other challenges and suddenly it was June and I had done absolutely ZERO manicures for the challenge. I was so bummed out because I really loved the idea of this challenge. But the lovely ladies that put on the challenge (datyorLOVES and Delight in Nails) decided to extend the challenge (and accompanying inlinkz codes!) for a whole year. 

So, I decided to quite slacking and go for it! I'm going to try and complete the challenge but who knows how long it will take me. 

The first day's flower is the Allium. Me and my inept gardening skills had no idea what this flower was so I of course turned to google.

Alliums are really quite pretty and it provided the opportunity to use too many of my purples together. 

The actual flower seems to be made up of tiny almost star like flowers that create the round shape that you see. Since I don't have the patience or talent to create that many tiny star petals, I just did a bunch of tiny dots all on top of each other in a circle to create the shape and color. I think they look close enough ;) 

Hopefully I can stick with this challenge. I really love the idea of it and I think it will provide great inspiration. 

Be sure to check out the other two ladies that took part in the Challenge in May. 

Happy Polishing! :)

Wondrously Polish X Lulu*s tutorial...a little after the fact ;)

So I'm not sure how I managed to forget to share this here, but I did another tutorial for the Lulu*s Blog! I got to do a matching mani to a SUPER cute purse that I am just so in love with :) You can see the full post and tutorial over on their blog, but here are some teaser photos! 

Cartoony Ocean

Super quick post for you all today! I've got to get some work done around the house but I wanted to get the latest theme of the June Nail Art Challenge completed. Today's theme is Ocean! At first I was a little bit irked that this was the next theme, but then I decided I was going to take it as cutesy and fun as I possibly could. I ended up literally typing "cute ocean scene" and used the very first google image that popped up as my inspiration :) 

While I really loved the concept of these, I think my execution is lacking a bit. The black polish of the eyes and mouthes smeared slightly when I added a top coat, and I definitely need to practice getting the general shape of things (like fish, turtles, and whales ;) ) painted more accurately. 

I painted a similar background on all my nails before beginning, and then used my medium striper and my small detail brush to create the fish, whale, turtle and crab. I had originally left these shiny from my top coat, but I about lost my mind when I was trying to photograph the detail in these with that. The shine was creating so much glare and the whole thing just sucked! Because of this, I added a matte top coat and had much more success capturing these than before. 

I used 12 different polishes for this one, so let me know if you're curious about a color in particular :)

I also really loved how the simple sky/water/sand base looked :)

Hope everyone is/had a fabulous Saturday!!

Happy Polishing :)

Funky Floral

Yeee! Can I just say that I am so super duper uber excited about this mani!? I'm sure that by now you all know of my passion/love/obsession with floral looks (and hopefully you're not getting tired of them!) and this manicure is just making me so happy to look at! Prepare for photos!!

This didn't actually start out as well as I had originally hoped. I had done almost 4 nails of another floral look but was really hating it. Sometimes I will push through with a design and hope that once I'm finished and have added a top coat that I'll finally like it. But that didn't happen with my original look.  At all. So, I scratched what I was doing and plunged my painted fingers into my super awkward acetone tub from Target (I mean, it's pink and has weird bristles and is just...weird...but works wonders!) and started fresh. And I'm so happy that I did! 

I ended up with these super funky flowers and am just so freaking happy with out they turned out. I absolutely love when I create something that I just want to stare at for hours. It doesn't always happen and I'm so proud of myself when I'm able to create something I really truly love. I hope you love them like I do! 

 I used a TON of colors for this look. The base is OPI's My Vampire is Buff, which is frankly, my favorite base polish for nail art. It's just subtle enough, but still has enough depth and warmth that it really works well with so many different pallets. 

 As for the other colors, there are so many! Please let me know if you are curious about any color in particular.  

I used a few different brushes for these  - a tiny detail brush, a long and thin striper brush, and a medium sized striping brush. The thin striper is what I used to create the purple outline around everything, and while it is definitely a finicky brush to use, it really give nice thin lines. 

What do you think of this look? Am I crazy for being so in love with them?? Also, would you be interested in a tutorial of any of the flowers? I don't think I could do all of them, but I would definitely be up for the crowd favorite :)

Happy Polishing! :)