French Flowers

It’s the last day of the Nail Art Challenge.  Boohooie!  Before I joined the challenge I was thinking oh no.. will I be able to commit to 30 straight days of nail art!?  It sounded like so much work.  But now that the 30 days are up… I can’t believe how fast it went!  I was able to really immerse myself in nail art and I tried so many cool techniques that I’ve been wanting to try for so long! Julie picked some really cool themes and it was a blast.  One of my own favorite designs is probably my AriZona Iced Tea Nails.  AriZona recently posted it on their facebook page and my blog stats have blown up today!  Pretty cool I think. 🙂

Moving on to my very last mani from the challenge!  Day 30’s theme is RECREATE YOUR FAVORITE MANICURE.  I chose Brijit’s manicure to recreate:  Isn’t hers cute?  Brijit’s mani was in turn inspired by PSHIIIT.  Pshiiit made the cutest little GIF to show you how easy it is to paint these flowers: nail art fleuri.  I named my copycat of their manis FRENCH FLOWERS because both Brijit and Pshiiit are French bloggers!

My base color is Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Blue Me Away!  My petals are a light blue by NYC called Skyline Blue.  The silver accents were made with NYC Tribeca Silver.  I like the way it looks in real life- but so hard to photograph!

A final thank you for following me on this challenge!  I loved all the likes and comments- it really kept me going throughout the 30 days!  See you next time when poor Craftynail will have to come up with ideas on her own! lol

Right NOW Bath & Body Works is giving away a FREE PRODUCT of YOUR CHOICE up to $14 value WITH ANY $10 Purchase When You Present Coupon.

Any bath and body works fans out there? Last time PaPa’s Cents posted this coupon I printed it and went to the store. I bought one 60 Second Manicure Hand Scrub for $12 and got the second one absolutely free!!! I’m giving the 2nd scrub to my mom for mother’s day. Hopefully she won’t read this post! Check out PaPa’s Cent’s blog to get your own coupon!!

Black Roses

The theme of Day 29 of the nail art challenge is ‘inspired by a song’.  The song I have chosen is a reggae song by Barrington Levy called BLACK ROSES.  Here’s the song on youtube.   I love this song!  It’s part of my reggae playlist and iTunes says that I’ve played it 42 times… but I know it has to be way more than that!  I love how he says Oh Ay!  at the end of the verses.  It totally gets stuck in my head!

I used the Konad M53 stamping plate along with my Konad special polish in black.  And my lovely pastel pink polish is my new Wet N Wild Megalast called Sugar Coat.  I got it at Walgreens and made out like a bandit.  I got 5 polishes all for the low price of $7.22 total!  And one of them was an Essie flakie topcoat from the luxeffects collection that was on sale for $2.00!  Thank you Walgreens!    I am enjoying this mani- sometimes it’s nice to go with a simple stamp design.  It’s quick and easy and the color combo came out so delicate and feminine.  Oh Ay!

Studded Underside Mani

Day 28 of the nail art challenge is upon us!  The theme for today is ‘inspired by fashion’.  I’m pulling my inspiration from Christian Louboutin and the trendy ‘Louboutin manicure’.  Last time I did a Louboutin manicure on myself I absolutely loved it!  You can view my louboutin mani here.   That’s when I fell in love with the idea of painting the underside of my nail with a pretty color!  That makes sense when you think about it- especially for ladies with very long nails. We work hard to grow our nails this length- why not show them off?  We make the top all nice and pretty but then the non-painted underside looks so blah?  Well, I don’t think so!!!  This underside mani is dedicated to all the fashionistas out there that want pretty nails from top to bottom!  It’s a 360 degree manicure and I love it!  I haven’t really seen too much of it online so here’s my version of a studded underside mani!

To create this look I did a quick coat of Orly Ridge Filler on top and under my nails.  After that was dry I applied 2 coats of Elephantistic Pink from OPI.  When I painted, I did the underside first… then the top of the nails.  But I don’t think the order really matters, especially if you’re using the same color on top and bottom.  Then I applied a topcoat of seche vite (on top and underneath my nail) and waited for that to dry.  Lastly, I dotted some clear polish and applied black studs from Claire’s Cosmetics.  I’m glad I was able to fit exactly two studs on the underside of each nail so it looks symmetrical.

The idea of painting the underside of my nail is not really new to me.  When I apply nail strengthener as my basecoat- I apply it under the free edge of my nail (the underside) and I also make sure to wrap my tip well.  I do this each time I start a new mani.  I think this is a great way to protect your nails and help them grow nice and long.  If I go through all that then I might as well paint them pink and add studs too, right?  So what do you think of my pink underside mani?

Owl Nails

I can’t believe the nail art challenge is coming to an end!  For me it felt like nail art boot camp (minus the calorie burn)!  It has been a ton of fun and I’ve tried so many new designs!   I hope I don’t lose my inspiration once it’s over!  For day 27 I must come up with some nail art inspired by a tutorial.  Sounds easy enough, but there are so many great tutorials- it’s so hard to choose!!!  I’ve been dying to try some OWLS on my nails so I was at least able to narrow my choices down a little!  The tutorial I picked is this great YouTube vid by Renierainyday.  She has such a cute accent- I’ve watched this vid a zillion times now- and she still makes me smile.  Her tutorial is great and all you need is a dotting tool and three polishes.

If you have tried owls before- please share your link in my comments.  They’re such a cute nail art design and I wanna see some more!

Petal Impressions Gradient

Hey nail lovers!  I have a gradient manicure to share with you for Day 26 of the Nail Art Challenge! I did this mani in a hotel room, late at night, without proper tools… so hopefully it’s still craftynail-blog-worthy!

Last month I bought a bunch of AVON Nailwear Pro+ polishes from their recent Petal Impressions collection.  So I tried a gradient with with the blue, green and nude colors from this shimmery collection.  The polishes are called:

Forget-Me-Not-Blue (blue)

Garden Green (green)

Sweet Pea Dreams (nude)

  Even though these polishes look great paired together- the champagne color is a lot lighter than the blue and green.  I figured it could be a challenge to get Sweet Pea to blend in naturally.  So I decided to make my gradient heavier with the Sweet Pea polish just to throw off the balance of the three colors.  I only reveal a bit of the blue and green and I like the way they pop!  It looks cool in real life! Too bad my cuticles are a wreck though!  I have been moisturizing a lot while out of town this week for work- but they have still gotten really rough and dry!  In my luggage I packed my normal lotion and my rarely used tube of Onsen Cuticle Conditioner.   I bought this Onsen stuff in Las Vegas from a high pressure sales rep in 2011.  It was pretty expensive but it came with a buffer, a file, and a makeup bag so I thought WHY NOT.  Well, I never really ended up using it religiously.  Until this week.  And I found out– it kinda sucks!  It’s too watery, it doesn’t feel very moisturizing, it just rubs right in and seems to evaporate and disappear.  My cuticles are in worse shape than they’ve been in months.  In these pics I’m trying to cover up a hangnail- but it hurts!  I just typed up a negative review on their website.  I’m curious to see if they approve and publish it cuz they haven’t yet!  Now that I’m back at home- I’m going back to my oil and LUSH cuticle butter!  I guess I will slather some good stuff on my cuticles tonite and try to enjoy my pretty gradient.  Hopefully I’ll be back to normal soon lol!

Decorate your nails with tin foil!

It’s metallic day in the nail art challenge.  When I heard the term metallic– I thought about aluminum foil!  Why not?  I’m sure I can decorate my nails with that stuff!

I used one of those paper-punches (the ones designed for decorative paper crafts).  I think I got it at Michael’s Crafts Store in the $1 bins by the registers.  I used the paper punch on the tin foil and out popped a cute flower shape!  I painted my nails pink, applied a topcoat, then placed my flowers to my tacky nails. When they dried a little bit I pushed down any foil pieces that were sticking up and applied topcoat to seal them down.  Pretty cute and easy!  Oh and the pink polish I’m wearing in these photos is called Sweet by Zoya. 🙂 I also want to let you know that I’m out of town at a work conference right now. So plz forgive me if I don’t comment back right away. I am super busy all day with sitting… then eating… sitting …then eating lol! Luckily I had this post ready before I left town. Now, tomorrow’s gradient design for day 26, now that’s a different story! Not sure when I will have the chance to do that one! But, I hope you like my tin foil… and keep the comments coming! It makes me smile in between my financial aid sessions! Ciao 🙂