Challenge Your Nail Art: Penguins!!!

Of all the prompts, I was really excited about the Penguins one, because I *adore* penguins.  I really do, they're pretty fantastic :D  While I really, really wanted to make a much more elaborate mani, I just didn't have the time or energy I wanted to put into my mani.  So, alas, I have but one penguin, but I think the overall mani is pretty cute :)

I used Daily Hues Nail Lacquer's Nov/Dec limited edition polish for the base:

I then painted the snow with white acrylic paint and added very faint falling snow in the background using a white flakie polish topper from an unknown indie (no label on the bottle).  I also freehanded the penguin, using just acrylic paint

He's pretty cute, right? ^_^  I'm happy with it!  What do you think?

And don't forget to check out the other adorable penguin nail designs from the talented gals of Challenge Your Nail Art below!

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An InLinkz Link-up

12 Days of Christmas Nail Art: Silver & Gold Glitter

I know, I KNOW!  I'm super far behind.  Like, miles behind this challenge >.<  I have good reasons though - the Whooping Cough plague has torn through my house like a sniffly, hacking tornado, and after spending three nights on a couch holding a bucket for my eldest as he puked, and helping my youngest get back to sleep after waking up a few times from coughing, it finally reared it's nasty head on me.  So, my time's been a bit occupied.

But!  I am on the up-and-up, and I plan to go back and finish out the designs I've missed thus far!  I'll start by showing you my design from December 6th's prompt:

For the base, I used the new Frosty the Snowborg by Pretty Serious Cosmetics for the base in this mani.

For the gold glitter gradient and accent nail, I used Empire from ILNP's new Holiday Collection.

For the accent nail, I also wanted to use one of my new Snowflake holiday charms from Daily Charme.  I think it added a really nice touch to the mani overall ^_^

I'm very pleased with how this mani turned out - I actually left it on for a few days (sans the charm) because it was so pretty and sparkly :D

Be sure to check out the other gorgeous silver and gold manis from this prompt!!  Let me know what you think about this one in the comments <3

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Challenge Your Nail Art: Christmas Trees

I had a couple of ideas for today's Challenge Your Nail Art prompt, but I kept coming back to the one that involved flocking powder, because I still had yet to try it out, and the green always reminded me of fuzzy trees :D  So here's the design I came up with!

I used a base of ILNP's "Cherry Luxe" from the brand new Holiday Collection - I just looooooove the flakie goodness of it!!  It's the *perfect* Christmas red!

After the base, I used striping tape to make the tree design, then put clear nail polish down with flocking powder on top.  I have an accent nail where I used white glitter instead of the flocking powder to represent those that have those gorgeous white Christmas trees in their homes :D  All the trees got a holographic glitter star topper ^_^

I'm not too displeased with this mani, though my pinky looks super wonky - I tried pressing my finger into the flocking powder first, and found it clumped like a mofo.  I used a dry brush and dabbed it on the other nails and got a much better effect.  I'm definitely not opposed to playing with flocking powder again in the future!

What do you think of this design?  Have you had any experience with flocking powder?  Let me know in the comments, and be sure to check out the other fantastic designs for this challenge through the inlinkz below!

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An InLinkz Link-up

Challenge Your Nail Art: Snow Day

It's that time again - time for the 12 Days of Christmas Nail Art, hosted by the awesome Challenge Your Nail Art group on Facebook!!

I realized I didn't have any winter themed stamping plates (something I recently rectified with Black Friday sales ^_^ ) so I went with a hand painted snowflake pond mani.  I used Crown of Queen Elizabeth by Octopus Party Nail Lacquer as the base, freehanded snowflakes with white acrylic paint between layers of Parker (ring finger) and Amy, both by Creative Cuticles Nail Polish.

Make sure you check out the other fabulous designs by the members of this group!!  <3

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Challenge Your Nail Art: Windy Weather

So this prompt was definitely - most definitely - a challenge.

I had *no* idea what I wanted to do.  I had *no* idea had to show windy weather via nail art without it being the typical white swirls and such.  Leaves blowing and trees rustling are images that come to mind with windy weather in FALL, not spring, so that was out of the question for me.  My hubs suggested kites, which was brilliant, and I was going to go with that.  But then I had a flashback to my springs in Washington when all the hot air balloon tours started!  I lived in wine country near Seattle, so there were always TONS of those beautiful and colorful balloons decorating the skies.  So, I went with it ^_^

To my knowledge, it's best to fly these when there's a bit of wind present to help move it along.  Don't quote me on that - I've never flown one :P  But it is a happy memory of mine when I think of windy Spring :)  These were all done freehand over Gothic Gala Lacquers "Spectral Kiss."

Short post today - I hope you are surviving your week!  One more day till the weekend!!  And as Justin Timberlake would say (15+ years ago) - "It's gonna be may!" :D

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Challenge Your Nail Art: April Showers

I'm very happy that this month, the Challenge Your Nail Art group, led by the lovely Jessica of Be Happy and Buy Polish, had a round of prompts based on blue!

I love blue - it's one of my favorite colors ^_^  And I knew instantly what I wanted to do for this first prompt!  You all know how much I adore doing freehand silhouettes, so it's probably no surprise to you that I did that here:

I used Pahlish's "Light Upon the Water" bespoke as the base color, and painted rain streaks using "Jackson" by 77 Nail Lacquer, and "Island Waters" by Gothic Gala Lacquers.

I freehanded the silhouette, and I left it a bit ambiguous on purpose - is it a little girl?  A woman?  A man in a trenchcoat?  A child in a rainslicker?  You decide :)

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An InLinkz Link-up

Happy Valentine's Day!

Well it's Valentine's Day again - another Christian-holiday-turned-Hallmark :P  It's been a fun week creating lots of different mani's for various Nail Art challenges!  I wanted to show you a few I've done that I didn't blog about immediately :)

I've been doing a few designs for @NailPromote on Instagram.  Here is one from February 11th where the theme was "bows:"

Here is a design from the nail art group "Nail Crazies Unite" on FB for this week's prompt of "Love Song:"

I created this one after the love song by Maroon 5 called "Maps" :)  All but the blue polish background is freehanded.

And here is today's prompt from Challenge Your Nail Art & @NailPromote of "Happy Valentine's Day:"

I used a group exclusive by Ellagee for the base color and attached a beautiful charm by Mr. Nail Art.

I've had lots of fun so far, creating designs throughout the month - it's keeping my artistic juices flowing :D  I hope you've enjoyed them, too!  I've attached the inlinkz for both my Facebook challenge groups so you can see the other lovely and talented designs created by some incredible artists!  I'll be back tomorrow with a super awesome Twin Nail Art post with Narmai!!  You won't wanna miss it!!!

Here is the one for the Challenge Your Nail Art group:

An InLinkz Link-up

And here is the one for the Nail Crazies Unite group:

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Challenge Your Nail Art: Love Letters

I knew *instantly* what I wanted to do for today's prompt ^_^  Check it out:

And...it GLOWS!!! :D

I'd seen the letter design on pinterest a while ago, so I did that on the pointer as a "love letter" and then added the x's, o's, and I-L-O-V-E-Y-O-U as love letters - get it?  Eh?  Eh?? :D

I used Serum No.5's "Pure Glow Getter" for the white glow-in-the-dark base, and Gothic Gala Lacquer's "Blushing Bodies" for the glow-in-the-dark heart ^_^  Everything else is acrylic paint.  I'm pretty happy with it!

Check out the other lovely designs below!  I'll be back tomorrow with the next prompt <3

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Challenge Your Nail Art: I Love the Color...

I was pretty excited for today's Challenge Your Nail Art them ^_^  The color I love most is GREEN!  I looooooove me some green!!  Any shade - pale, neon, grass, etc.  If it's green, I luvs it.  Which is going to make the month of March leading up to and including St. Patrick's Day super fantastic and full of GREEN for me :D

So, I was pretty excited that yesterday, I received my order of the Spring Bouquet Collection by Model City Polish and my order of three spring holos recently released by KBShimmer.  There is a beautiful green from both orders that I was more than happy to put into my design for today's prompt ^_^

Before I get into what I used, here's my design for today:

I used Ins and Sprouts from KBShimmer as the base color.  I so totally love this color so much that I may actually buy a second bottle - it's SO GORGEOUS!  I'll be featuring it and the other two spring holos I got in a later post.  I used Swirls Vinyl Nail Decals (also KBShimmer) on top, and did a gradient technique with Hellebore from Model City as the medium green, and Gemini Rising from Colors by Llarowe as the dark green.  This is my first time using vinyls from KBShimmer, and WOW, it was sooo smooth!  Look at how clean those lines are?!?  I'm impressed!!

Check out the other entries for today at the inlinkz below!  I'll be back tomorrow with the next prompt!

An InLinkz Link-up