Day 23 of OMD Challenge- Equalizer Nails

Day 23 is all about music!  I’m on a bit of a stamping kick lately… but I’ll go ahead and post my 3rd stamp design in a row! 

I’m wearing EQUALIZER NAILS today!  A few other girls in the Oh Mon Dieu Nail Challenge had the same equalizer idea.  I guess we were on the same wavelength: check out Vic’s and Seize the Nail’s designs!   I was the only one that ‘cheated’ by using a stamp though! LOL

For my look I started with two coats of Alpine Snow by OPI.  When that was dry I sponged on stripes of four bright neon colors.  Then I topped it off with my CH31 Cheeky stamp and Konad black polish.  That cheeky stamp is very wide!  I had a lot of black polish to clean up off my skin!  Fun times.
Here’s the bright colors that I’m wearing:

RED ♥ Zoya Carmen (looks pink over top of my white base!)

ORANGE ♥ China Glaze Sun Worshiper (so bright!)

YELLOW ♥ China Glaze Yellow Polka Dot Bikini (highlighter yellow)

GREEN ♥ Cynthia Rowley Neon Green (un-named)

This mani was fun!  Easy to do on both hands too.  The funny thing is, I had a nail break on my dominant right hand last week, so I recently shortened all my nails, especially on that hand.  Turns out, it was so much easier to stamp on those shorter nails.  I kinda feel like going even shorter now!  I’ve noticed that my nail length has fluctuated a bit since I’ve started blogging.  They have been super long (here) and kinda short (here)… but I haven’t really settled on my signature length yet.  Not sure if I ever will!  I’m not habitual or predictable and I guess I change my mind a lot.  I’m the type of person that manages to do the same thing different every time!  So right now I want short nails.  In a week I’ll probably want them long again.  Who knows!

Check out the remaining themes for July↓  They get verrry interestingggg….. better put my creativity cap on!

23. Music Themed :

Day 22 of OMD Challenge- Panda Bear Nails

The theme of day 22 in the nail art challenge is ANIMALS.  I’ve been wanting to try panda nails for a while- so I tracked down a great blog tutorial to use as a guide: Kung Fu Panda 2 Nail Art by Mini Nail Blog.

Brown ♥ Orly Coffee Break

Green ♥ Wet n Wild Lickety Split Lime

White Accents ♥ OPI Alpine Snow w/ sephora nail art brush

Black Accents ♥ NYC Black Lace Creme w/ dotting tool and sephora brush

Black Bamboo Stamp ♥ Black Konad Special Polish and Konad M66 Plate

I’m sure there’s gonna be a ton of other fun designs for ANIMAL day!  Make sure to clicky here to see them all! ↓

22. Animal Themed :

Day 21 of OMD Challenge- Green Ombre Leaves

Day 21 of the nail art challenge is STAMPING!  I love stamping- I first started stamping a little over two years ago when I bought a Konad Starter Kit a the Excalibur Hotel in Las Vegas.  There was a vendor there selling all kinds of konad stuff and she would demo it for anyone who walked by with fingernails.  I was already thinking of buying some konad online (even before my Vegas trip)  so when I saw her booth I was like, ‘OK, lady- show me what you got!’  The starter kit had some really puny small designs like tiny flowers and stuff and I really wanted some full-nail designs- so the lady kept trying to get me to combine my order with some stranger standing next to me so I’d get free items or something.  Uh, no thank you.  Just gimme my starter kit and I’m outta here!  I think the kit was about $40 and when I got home I realized I could’ve bought the individual items way cheaper online- but oh well!  After that I kept buying individual Konad plates on amazon for $7 a pop… which got kinda pricey!  Plus, as my nails got longer I needed plates with larger designs.  I did some research and found out about Cheeky Plates.  Cheeky is said to have some of the biggest designs on the market.  So I purchased this awesome Summer Collection Bundle with 20 plates in it!  It was $20 on amazon which basically means each plate is one US dollar- so I was sold!  Plus, the designs come in this cool storage box which is very handy!  Check it out:

Enough yammering about my stamping history- let’s see my design for day 21!

I started by painting my nails in OMBRE using mostly green Orlys.  I used these 5 colors:

Alpine Snow by OPI (thumb)

Jealous Much? by Orly (pointer)

Gumdrop by Orly (middle)

Green with Envy by Orly (ring)

Lucky Duck by Orly (pinkie)

Then I stamped on top with Konad special polish and Cheeky plate 33 (CH33).  Then I topped it off with some MASH Matte Top Coat.

21. Stamping :

What brand stamping plates do you use? 

Day 20 of OMD Challenge- 3D Spiral Wire Nails

Day 20 of the Oh Mon Dieu Challenge is 3D nails!  There are so many options for this theme….and I contemplated for a long time on this one.  Since I make jewelry I kept feeling inspired to use jewelry findings to make my own 3D nail art embellishments.  I started with two coats of Zoya Zuza and then the 3D fun began……..

I used some 20 gauge silver beading wire to shape some spirals!  Crazy cool, right?  Creating spirals is a common technique for jewelry makers since they can be used in a lot of designs.  Also, spirals are used to make the cage part of a ‘caged bead’!

After I shaped my spirals I pounded them with a jewelry mallet to give them a nice hammered finish… and then bent the sides down with some pliers so they’d have a nice curved shape (like my nails do).  I stuck them on with some clear polish called My Nails Are Sealed.  I have no idea when or where I got this polish- I just know I’ve had it foreverrr and it works great to secure 3D stuff to my nails.  I’ve been wearing them for 3 hrs and washed my hands a few times too and they’re still stuck on there.  So we shall see how long they last!

So, what do you think of my crazy 3d nails?

20. 3-D Nails :

DAY 19 of OMD Challenge- Glitter Nails!

TGIF everyone!  I only work mon-fri so I basically live for the weekends! 😀  You too?

It’s day 19 of the Oh Mon Dieu! Nail Challenge and today is all about GLITTER!  Normally I don’t wear a lot of glitter… not sure why.  But I have some real gems that I’ve been wanting to try like my new bottle of POLKA.COM by OPI!  It’s lovely purple, blue and magenta glitters became the inspiration for today’s color combo:

This was one of the quickest manis that I’ve done in a while!  The colors I chose were great and I only needed one coat of most of them.  Here’s what I’m wearing-

Blue ♥ Pure Ice French Kiss– one coat on each nail

Magenta Glitter ♥ Sinful Colors Star Dust– on thumb, pointer and pinkie

Magenta Stripes ♥ no-name Stripe Rite striping polish on middle and ring fingers

Black Strips ♥ NYC Black Lace Creme on middle and ring fingers

Multicolor Glitter ♥ OPI Polka.com on middle and ring fingers

I had a little hiccup with this manicure and I’m surprised it didn’t get totally ruined.  Ya see it’s been EXTREMELY hot and humid in New York this summer and it’s really hard to do any photography outside.  My camera fogs up when I take it outside, so if I plan to use natural light- I have to place my camera outside a few minutes before I take pics so it can adjust to the heat to help eliminate fogging of my lens.  Ok, so I did that last nite- thinking I covered all my bases.  Well, once I walked outside to take some shots my whole mani wrinkled up and got all distorted.  What the heck?????  I thought it was ruined.  My seche vite was on for about 5 minutes at that time, which means it was mostly dry… I can’t believe the top coat shrunk like that!!  So I went back inside to try some pics indoors and to my surprise, the mani bounced back and looked normal again!  I can’t say that I’ve ever had that happen to me before.  Lessen learned- Stay inside Jacqui.  It’s just too damn hot out there!  I hope you’re having some tolerable weather in your corner of the world!

See you all soon for 3-D day!  I have no idea what I’m doing- but I’m sure I’ll think of something!  Maybe some embellishments that stick up off my nail…or maybe I can paint some 3-Dish looking nail art?  We shall see!  Ciao loves!

19. Glitter :

Day 18 of OMD Challenge- Scalloped Lace

Day 18 of the nail art challenge is centered around DELICATE designs.  I’ve never tried a lace pattern before.. so I decided on some hand painted scalloped lace over a pretty coral.  Here’s what I’m wearing:

• Color Club Coral Cascade– 2 coats as a base color
• Color Club Lava Lamp– sponged onto the tips
• NYC French White Tip– lace accents
• Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Perky Pink– 1 coat (it’s a pink holographic glitter)
• Revlon Quick Dry Top Coat

I think it’s looks way better in real life.  The white looks crisper and the Lava Lamp tips look so bright in comparison to the soft coral base.  I guess my camera couldn’t handle that lava lamp!

DELICATE can be interpreted in so many different ways so I’m excited to see the other designs for today!  Here’s the linky dink-

18. Delicate :

Day 17 of OMD Challenge- 3D Effects Gradient

Hi y’all! Ready for some holographic goodness for day 17?? I absolutely love my L.A. Girl 3D Effects polishes and I’ve used them 5 times already on my blog. Here comes L.A. Girl holo post # 6 for today’s GRADIENT theme!

I usually do my gradient with a small sliver of sponge and my ‘dabbing’ technique (see my technique here) because I find it clean and effective.  But for today’s look I went with the standard gradient technique that I usually see online which is to apply stripes of polish on a full makeup wedge.  Even though I applied glue around my nails to help with cleanup- pressing the makeup wedge onto my nails made my cuticles get covered with polish- so I’ll probably switch back to my dabbing technique next time!  If you’re interested in the glue I use to help with cleanup you can view my old post here. 

Here’s the polishes I used:

Orange ♥ L.A. Girl 3D Effects Electric Coral

Red ♥ L.A. Girl 3D Effects Ruby Sparkle

Black ♥ L.A. Girl 3D Effects Black Illusion

View the other participants’ GRADIENTS here:

17. Gradient :