Monday, September 30, 2013

31 Day Challenge: Inspired by the Supernatural

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For day 29 of the 31 day challenge, I wore Hulk inspired nails. He is pretty supernatural, right?

Saturday, September 28, 2013

31 Day Challenge: Inspired by a Flag

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Sadly, this was a huge manicure fail. But oh, the inspiration for this flag manicure was great.

Friday, September 27, 2013

31 Day Challenge: Inspired by Artwork

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I have to be really quick. My Grandma Janice loved Monet and I loved her dearly, so any time that I can do, or see something that reminds me of her it is a treasure.

Thursday, September 26, 2013

31 Day Challenge: Inspired by a Pattern

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Today's manicure was inspired by the pattern on the throw pillows from my sofa. While looking at the pillow I thought, "Yay! An excuse to wear Briarwood!" and there was nothing else to consider.

Wednesday, September 25, 2013

31 Day Challenge: Inspired by Fashion

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Here are fashion inspired nails. This manicure worked a lot better in my mind, but was executed poorly. Inspired by a dress from Jason Wu's 2011 Fall/Winter line, I think if painted well, this could have been stunning. Instead, I spent lots of time trying to fix mistakes until it got too late for me to do anything else to fix the manicure. But sometimes that is the way these things go.

Tuesday, September 24, 2013

31 Day Challenge: Inspired by a Book

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I had a hard time with today's manicure. There are books I love that would be really hard to make into a manicure. At the very last moment, I decided to do a Howl's Moving Castle manicure.

Monday, September 23, 2013

31 Day Challenge: Inspired by a Movie

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The first time that I saw North by Northwest was a Friday night on PBS. I was getting ready to go out to a couple of bars, but I was swept up. No evening of bar hopping could be as good as this movie is. I have never regretted that choice.

Sunday, September 22, 2013

31 Day Challenge: Inspired by a Song

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Blackbird singing in the dead of night,
Take these broken wings and learn to fly.
All your life,
You were only waiting for this moment to arrive.

Saturday, September 21, 2013

31 Day Challenge: Inspired by a Color

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Yes, some nails are missing polish, but they were polished earlier today. I ran my very first half marathon today and it was POURING rain. My peel off basecoat just gave up and pieces of my polish apparently ended up littered near the Niagara River. My husband said yesterday's mani looked like water, so I ran by the river with watery nails.

Friday, September 20, 2013

31 Day Challenge: Water Marble

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So happy! My very first successful water marble. Every other time I tried, the polish wouldn't spread for the bullseye. I have no idea why it worked this time; I'm just glad it did.

Thursday, September 19, 2013

31 Day Challenge: Galaxies

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I did a galaxy manicure about a year and a half ago. I loved it. It had a little TARDIS nail and everything. I vowed to do another one because it is so cute and not difficult at all. Well, today, thanks to the challenge, I am finally making good on that promise.

Wednesday, September 18, 2013

31 Day Challenge: Half Moons

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Hello again! Day 18 of the 31 Day Challenge is half moons. I've never done traditional half moons before, so I wanted to try a fairly traditional version.

Tuesday, September 17, 2013

31 Day Challenge: Glitter

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Much happier with today's manicure. I love sparkles and this polish is pure sparkle!

31 Day Challenge: Tribal Print

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Really quick, late post. Sorry. I finally had an idea that I was happy about for tribal print. I figured that I'd honor the Iroquois people since they are from where I live and I am the teeny-tiniest bit Mohawk myself. But this manicure, sadly, did not come out as I envisioned.

Sunday, September 15, 2013

31 Day Challenge: Delicate Print

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Half way through the challenge and here I am with another manicure. This is the most often I have ever painted my nails and I even do the cheat of transforming a previous day's mani whenever I can. Is that frowned upon? If so, I apologize, but it is the only way I could to this while maintaining my sanity.

Saturday, September 14, 2013

31 Day Challenge: Flowers

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Happy Saturday! Today I am wearing my most successful handpainted floral manicure.

Friday, September 13, 2013

31 Day Challenge: Animal

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Today's manicure is a pretty big departure from my normal style. It is more bright and bold and I am not big into animal prints . . .

Thursday, September 12, 2013

31 Day Challenge: Stripes

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Today's manicure, I expected to be quick, but it took a bit longer than expected to create this look.

Wednesday, September 11, 2013

31 Day Challenge: Polka Dots

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I was going for a nice easy mani today.I did a very simple dotted manicure with two different sized dotting tools.

Tuesday, September 10, 2013

31 Day Challenge: Gradient

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I modified my rainbow manicure to create this gradient. As I said yesterday, I wanted to do something a little different than the traditional sponged gradient mani.

Monday, September 9, 2013

31 Day Challenge: Rainbow

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Rainbow nails today. I really like how the rhinestones pulled the whole manicure together.

Sunday, September 8, 2013

31 Day Challenge: Metallic

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Happy Sunday all! Today I show you another transformed mani.  

Saturday, September 7, 2013

31 Day Challenge: Black and White

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This has been my favorite challenge day so far. I have never worn a black and white mani before and I love this. There will definitely be more in my future.

Friday, September 6, 2013

31 Day Challenge: Violet

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Day 6 of the 31 Day Challenge, my favorite color! I took yesterday's blue manicure, added a coat of China Glaze Crackle Haute Metal, one coat of Nfu Oh JS27, and finally a coat of Nfu Oh 51. I love this flakie polish. It has flashes of indigo, copper, pink, and of course there is the underlying purple jelly. I wish that Haute Metal cracked a little better, but I still like the overall look of this manicure.

Thursday, September 5, 2013

31 Day Challenge: Blue

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So, when I thought blue nails, I immediately wanted to try yo do a manicure with Gallifreyan writing. I am in Doctor Who withdrawal right now as I always am this time of year. Please be kind: I am not very good at nail art except for stamping. My hands are just not steady enough.

Wednesday, September 4, 2013

31 Day Challenge: Green

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So, today was my daughter's first day of first grade and I'm wearing her favorite color on my nails. I transformed yesterday's yellow mani to green dotting Zoya Logan and Sonia Kashuk Golden Ticket to create some green flowers on my nails. I then decorated the manicure further with some green striping tape. Hey, how do you keep striping tape from peeling? I've only used it to polish stripes before, but the tape started lifting pretty soon after I finished even with a topcoat.

Tuesday, September 3, 2013

31 Day Challenge: Yellow

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Yellow nails! I am not a big fan of yellow nail polish, but Revlon Buttercup is a really creamy, delicate color and I do like it a lot. Three coats of Buttercup and then did a freehand, diagonal line with Sonia Kashuk Golden Ticket and filled that in with two coats of polish. Using a dotting tool, I created little flowers of Sinful Colors Unicorn and Zoya Logan. On my pinkies I added two coats. of Golden Ticket and topped it with embossing powder and a final coat of Golden Ticket for a textured finish.

Monday, September 2, 2013

31 Day Challenge: Orange

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Here is my orange manicure. This manicure is a perfect example of the old saying, "If at first you don't succeed, try, try again."

Sunday, September 1, 2013

31 Day Challenge: Red

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I've wanted to do the 31 Day Nail Art Challenge for quite some time, so I'm finally going to try it. We'll see how it goes. I will probably need to just do manicure retouches for a couple of the days when I can, just because I expect that I'll be pretty busy.