10 day nail art challenge Part Deux!

Erica's Nails and More's 10 Day Nail Art Challenge flew by!!!  Here are the remaining entries I submitted:

DayFive-Gradients:

I LOVE doing gradients, I do them all the time and I always get tons of compliments on them.  This was done using the paint directly onto the make-up sponge method.  I started with a base coat of Avon nailwear pro in Jade (2 coats) then I painted rows of Avon Jade, Daphne by Julep and Walk on Air by essence onto the sponge and lightly dabbed.  I repeated the process on each nail twice.  Then I topped it all off with NYC Starry Silver Glitter.

 

Day Six-dotticures:

The polishes used for this dotticure are:

Pink-Island Girl's Big Island Magic-its a gorgeous bubble gum pink
Brown-Jessica's Glamorous Gladiator-a medium brown with fine micro gold glitter (a perfect shade for fall)
White-Julep's Kate-my "go to" white shade.

  Day Seven-Flowers:

I used a dotting tool for the flowers, base color is NYC Times Square Tangerine Creme, yellow petals are Joe Fresh in Butter, the center is Jessica Glamorous Gladiator and I sponged Wet n wild Hallucination on the tips for some sparkle.

 Day Eight-Galaxy Nails:

The base is Finger Paints Where Art Renoir?, sponged with Color Club Take Me to Your Chateau and China Glaze Desert Sun. A dotting tool was used with white polish for 'close up' stars, and China Glaze Fairy Dust was strategically placed randomly for the millions of stars in our universe.  

Day Nine-French Tip Variant:

For this french tip variant I decided to honor my Husbands love for the New England Patriots.  I started with a base coat of just base coat and then sponged the tips.  Blue is done with China Glaze Dorothy Who? and then along the very tip I used Cult Nails Living Water.  The red is done with NYC Broadway Burgundy Frost and along the very tip is China Glaze Lubu Heels.  The white accent nail is Julep's Kate (of course) and the awesome glitter is Lacquer Conventions Mondrian. I then topped it all off with China Glaze Fairy Dust.  I know this is sort if in between a gradient and a french tip variant but I wanted to do something non-traditional.

 Day Ten-Recreate your favorite:

All good things must come to an end I suppose.  I decided to re-try a french tip variant for my last submission as I wasn't 100% happy with my original entry.  The polishes I used for this mani are Loreal's French Tip White (I thought it was appropriate), Julep's Daisy and Leah, and essence Walk on Air and Ultimate pink.  This was my first time doing a paint drip manicure.  I hope you like it! 

Erica is having a contest for Day 10 entries, and the one who gets the most votes will win a prize. Voting will start tomorrow, Tuesday September 25 and will be open until this coming Friday September 28th at 11:59PM EST.  The link to vote for my entry is HERE.  I hope you all will help me win!!  

I will most likely re-post the link in a fresh blog post and on my face book page daily.

Do you like entering Nail Art Challenges?  Erica will be hosting another one which I will post about as soon as I have the information.  She did a wonderful job hosting this one... I can't wait to see what she has in store for the next one!

First nail art Challenge Entries!

I have been MIA as of late... working 2 jobs and having the need to change my nails so often really takes a lot of time!  Below are my entries for Erica's Nails and more 10 day nail art challenge.  This is the criteria:





Day 1-Favorite Color 

...is sadly Black but my second is pinky/purple, so this is Quo by Orly Purple Daydream, and wet n wild black creme stamped over Julep's Kate.
 

Day 2-Favorite Animal

...is my dog Jersey, she's a reverse brindle boxer, however, I do not have the skills to create her on my nails so I have chosen my favorite animal print.  This was done with Arabella's Raspberry ice (its a brand a local salon uses and its great)-a rust shimmer, the white is Julep's Kate, and the leopard spots were done with Cult Nails Nevermore and Raspberry Ice. 

 Day 3-Favorite Season...

is the Christmas season, and in my house it runs from the 3rd week in November until the first week of January.  My color theme is red, white and silver...this manicure represents that and the stamped star looks just like my tree topper.  The Red polish is a local Hawaiian brand that I picked up in Honolulu last year called Island Girl and the name is Old Lahaina, and the shimmery/silvery white is CHI Ceramic Nail Lacquer's Snow Angels in Central Park (I needed 4 coats for this color to be opaque. I also added a red rhinestone in the center of the star.

And Today is Day 4-Saran Wrap

This was done with Julep's Leah as a base, 2 coats for opaqueness and then CHI Ceramic Nail Lacquer in Subway to Wall Street, a concrete grey creme color, was brushed on and a scrunched up ball of saran wrap was used in a dabbing method to remove some of the grey so the green shows through.  I love how it looks marbelized (yup, that's a new word I just created :)

 This really has been very fun so far... Everyday I look forward to heading over to Erica's blog to check out all the entries!  Head over there by clicking here, let me know what manicures you like and perhaps are inspired by to try on your own nails!

Ouch! Damn salad spinner! And Lacquer Convention!

I'm going to start this post with a picture....

Yup... that's my pinky on my left hand...the salad spinner got away from me and ripped off my nail way past the point they are suppose to be! Its very painful... and what's worse...it happened right before a nail art challenge is scheduled to begin! 

So I figured why not turn this situation from a negative to a positive.  Rather than being bummed out about  all the nail art I am no longer able to do, why not just swatch some polishes that have been burning a hole in the proverbial nail polish pocket (or to you fellow nail polish junkies... the helmer!)

This is Pop Tart from Lacquer Convention...

Pop Tart is a light white jelly with multi-colored, multi-sized round and hex glitter. It truly looks the top of a strawberry pop tart! 

Look at my poor pinky! :(

I love this polish... its a great "palate cleanser" after numerous nail art manicures... I like to think of if as a taupe/natural with a little bit of bling.

You can find Lacquer Convention on etsy by clicking HERE  Right now they are closed for some re-vamping, but keep an eye out for when they re-open... its a must have!!

Please send positive thoughts for my poor poor pinky...I am hopeful it will grow out in time for Erica's nails and more's challenge. 

How many nail art challenges are you taking part in right now?  Feel free to include pics!

High School Reunion Mani!!

Wow... where did that weekend go???  And it was a long weekend yet!

I had my 20th year high school reunion this weekend and it was definitely something to remember!  There wasn't an overwhelming turn out, but in terms of quality not quantity-it was a home run!  So in honor of our school colors-black and gold-here was the manicure I was sporting for the occasion!  (See what I did there! :))

I used the following polishes (in no particular order) Essie-as gold as it gets, Julep-Daisy, Pretty & Polished-Valentino, Cult Nails-Nevermore

Again, I didn't have a lot of time to take a lot of photos and by the end of the night I had some chipping on my nails... yup, it was that kind of reunion.  I can't remember the last time I had a tequila shooter!

 As always... click here to sign up to be a Julep maven and receive gorgeous nail lacquers delivered right to your door!  Use the code  COLOR2012 at check out and get your first intro box for one penny!

Also click here to purchase Cult Nails polishes and officially join the cult!  If you are looking for a one coat true black, then Nevermore is for you!  Also, click here to visit Pretty & Polished on etsy! The shop is closed at the moment but is scheduled to re-open on Sept 5th.

Hope you all had a great Labour Day long weekend!