MAY #NAILLINKUP THEMES

Ready for another set of nail art themes for our May challenge?
You’ll like our N.A.I.L. linkup since it’s not a big commitment- you can do as little as one manicure if you want.  It’s less of a ‘challenge’ and more of a fun way to share our nail art with each other.  Here’s what’s on the table for May-

TRAVEL (week 1)- May 7th is Tourism Day which got us thinking about how tourism and travel can be great inspiration for nail art.  For this prompt go ahead and paint your nails based on your favorite vacation destination, an upcoming trip, or memories from a past holiday.  Where will your nails take you?

CLOUDS (week 2)- Puffy little clouds, stormy skies, sunsets, let’s see what great cloudy nail art you can come up with.  And if you haven’t tried the “cloud mani” technique then now is the perfect time! Check out Nailside’s tutorial here: CLOUD MANI

EMERALD (week 3)- Emerald is the official birthstone of May so you May babies out there will enjoy this theme.  Emeralds are gorgeous gems so we expect a lot of glamorous green nails for this prompt.

TAPE MANI (week 4)-  Pick your poison- a roll of striping tape, invisible tape, painters tape, or any kind of stickies for that matter.  Let’s see your one-of-kind tape mani!

Rules for Nail Art Ideas Linkup (N.A.I.L.)……

• Do one of the weekly themes, or do them all.  It’s flexible!
• The dates for each week are only suggestions- you can post your nails whenever you want in May.
• The nail art ideas/themes are open to interpretation so you can create whatever kind of design you want. Stamps, stickers, acrylics- anything goes!
• We encourage everyone to join in no matter what platform you use- blog, Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr, etc…
• Feel free to post our May graphic on your site and you can use hashtag #NAILLINKUP on your social media.
• Lastly but most importantly, don’t forget to share your nail pics via the inlinkz below.  These inlinkz will be open all month.

TRAVEL/TOURISM-

WordPress.org + Inlinkz plugin: [inlinkz_linkup id=400380 mode=1]

WordPress.com:

Blogger.com: An InLinkz Link-up

 CLOUDS-

WordPress.org + Inlinkz plugin: [inlinkz_linkup id=400381 mode=1]

WordPress.com:

Blogger.com: An InLinkz Link-up

 EMERALD-

WordPress.org + Inlinkz plugin: [inlinkz_linkup id=400382 mode=1]

WordPress.com:

Blogger.com: An InLinkz Link-up

 TAPE MANI-

WordPress.org + Inlinkz plugin: [inlinkz_linkup id=400383 mode=1]

WordPress.com:

Blogger.com: An InLinkz Link-up

NAIL ART IDEAS LINKUP is hosted by Brijit, Craftynail and Eeeek.  Feel free to contact us if you have any questions at all!  You can also read more info about our monthly linkup on our blog links below.  We look forward to seeing your nails this May!

happy painting,

Brijit from Brijits Digits

Jacqui from Craftynail

Jemma from Eeeek! Nail Polish! 

Bold Gradient Dotticure for #NAILLINKUP

It’s the last week of our April NAIL Linkup and the theme is DOTTICURE.   Yes, it is officially May now… but I’m not too late!  This week’s theme goes til May 4th so you have some time to sneak in a dotticure too.

For this nail art I wanted to go bold and bright and mix together some weird colors. Here’s what I used-

♥ Zoya Dove as my grey base color

♥ OPI I Just Can’t Cope-Acabana sponged onto my tips for a gradient

♥ AVON Coral Reef that I dotted on with a dotting tool

 

It’s an unexpected color combination but I like it.  It feels summery and reminds me of beaches and Ron Jon surf gear.  I have no idea why, I dont even know what Ron Jon is really, but it popped in my head!

This weekend we’ll reveal our May N.A.I.L. themes so keep your eyes peeled for that.  See ya!

28th April – 4th May : Dotticure

Diamonds are a girl’s best friend! for #NAILLINKUP

It’s DIAMOND week for the Nail Art Ideas Linkup.  This theme makes me think of Marilyn Monroe’s “Diamonds are a girl’s best friend!” and also “Material Girl” by Madonna.  Remember their hot pink dresses with the big bow?  And how they were dripping with diamonds?  That’s the inspiration for my manicure today!

I’m wearing two coats of my favorite hot pink polish- Zoya Ali.  It’s so hot and summery… when I applied it the other day I was actually screaming HOT DAMN! Because I love it so much. Does anyone else get super excited by polishes like me?  So much so that you run around the house waving your hands around hooting and hollering?  Please tell me you do that too.

Now that we’ve established that Zoya Ali is a good base color for me…. then I applied a sheer pink holo over some of those nails.  Bobbie brand Margarita (which I swatched the other day) needed four coats, so I assumed it’s sheerness would be a good topper for Ali to allow the hot pink to shine through, yet still add a touch of holo sparkle to it.  I didn’t apply that holo to my middle or thumb fingers, just because.  And on my middle finger I painted a bow just like on Madonna’s and Marilyn’s dresses.    I used a white and a black striper along with thatleanne’s tutorial to do my bow nail art.  And the funny thing is, I just realized she used Zoya Ali in her tutorial post too!  What are the chances of that?  Such a strange coincidence!

Lastly, I added some diamond-looking bling on a couple of my fingers.  I love this manicure!

Don’t miss the other diamond nails here:

21st – 27th April : Diamonds

 

Bird cage nails for #NAILLINKUP

Hey ladies!!  Here are my BIRD themed nails for our April Nail Art Ideas Linkup!

It took me around two hrs just to get the pics ready to post.  Ughh- I have been having mega computer problems with the new desktop I bought.  I purposely got windows 7 on it, even though at the time win8 was brand new.  Well, that pc would not connect to the internet.  It was so frustrating!!!  We tried every troubleshooting thing possible, and even shipped the pc back to HP twice, yup, TWICE, and they kept sending it back unfixed.  WTF!  After arguing with them for months we finally got a newer desktop the other day, which works!!!!!!!!!  Holy crap.  The internet. Thank God.  I feel bad, because I know they will probably re-furbish it and sell it to some other poor soul who will never be able to get it connected to the web either.  Regardless, I’m glad that lemon is out of our hands.  But now, I’m having a hell of a time adjusting to windows 8 on the new machine.   Navigation is weird and I hate the whole app thing.  Many programs try to open as apps and the functionality is limited and sucky.  I know what I want to do, but don’t know what to click to make it happen.  I had to watch a damn youtube video the other nite just to figure out how to shut the desktop down!  Hopefully I can get the hang of it.  If you have any windows 8 tips, please let me know!

Back to the nail art….I’m wearing a grey holo as my base color.  It’s called Weng Weng from Bobbie brand- I will have to post swatches soon since it really deserves it’s own 5 minutes of fame.  Then I made some diy birdcage decals using white konad polish and BM-407 stamping plate. I usually make my decals on plastic baggies, but this time I left the stamp right on my MoYou stamper, then colored the white birdcage in with a detail brush and Essie Butler Please.  Then I covered the stamp with seche vite.  It dried pretty quick, then I peeled it off the stamper and applied it to my grey nail.  Awesome.  I will definitely be doing this again.  I feel a tutorial coming on.  Some of my other nails are decorated with some blue rhinestones and one of my favorite glitter toppers- Lights Of Emerald City by OPI.

You should try a bird themed manicure too!  Here are the other nails from the april linkup–

7th – 13th April : Birds

 

Blue rain waterfall mani for #NAILLINKUP

This week’s prompt for Nail Art Ideas Linkup is RAIN.  I was racking my brain on this theme.  I could not figure out what to do- massive creativity block!  Luckily Kairi gave me the idea to do a waterfall mani.  That’s perfect since I’ve never tried this technique before.

 I used The Nailasaurus’ tutorial right here.  I also added some raindrop shaped rhinestones that I got at a Harmon store.  I like the added touch of the drops.

I don’t feel like typing out all the blue polishes I used.  But I’ll tell ya that my white base is Zoya Purity.  With one coat I got awesome coverage!  That’s shocking for a white.  The formula is a little weird- I think it will probably get really nice and stringy if you ever wanna do a sugar spun mani though.  But even still, it’s nice and opaque.  I just decided that I might use Purity all the time for nail art now when I want a white base color.  I used to use OPI’s Alpine Snow all the time.  But sometimes I had to use 3 coats and I don’t have the patience for that!  3 coats is normally fine for me… but not when it’s just my base color and I plan to do a bunch more nail art on top.  Time is of the essence ladies, so I’m gonna use my Purity for nail art from now on.  Then again, I go through phases, so next month I may have a new fave white!

Anywho, I hope you like my rainy waterfall nails.  Check out the other NAILLINKUP nails right here:

31st March – 6th April : Rain (April Showers)

April #NAILLINKUP Prompts

It is with heavy hearts that we announce this. We are discontinuing the Nail Art Ideas Linkup challenge that we’ve been running since there hasn’t been enough interest.

Hold up, we are totally kidding! April Fools!!!

Did we fool you, or are you too clever for our tactics?? Not a chance that we would discontinue the #NAILLINKUP! The only month we are skipping is July. Because that’s when we host our huge 2nd annual 31 day OMD nail challenge!  More info on our prompts and prizes in the coming months.
Let’s get back to April! It’s one of the rare months where we can squeeze 5 prompts in instead of 4. For your nail art pleasure, here are our ideas-

RAIN (week 1) There’s an old adage that says April showers bring May flowers.  Well, maybe not in all parts of the world.  But still, we all know about rain!  Let’s see your nails painted with rain, droplets, umbrellas, or however you want to interpret this theme!

BIRDS (week 2) Did you know that April 8th is officially Draw a Picture of a Bird Day?  Let’s ‘draw’ birds on our nails to celebrate this weird holiday!  Of course, you can use a stamping kit or some decals if you’d like.

EASTER (week 3) Bunnies, colored eggs, candies and green grass!  We expect to see lots of cute nails for this prompt.

DIAMONDS (week 4) What is the birthstone for April?  Diamonds.  And we can’t think of a prettier way to decorate your nails.  After all, diamonds are a girl’s best friend!

DOTTICURE (week 5) We like to throw a nail art ‘technique’ in the mix every month and polka dots are a classic!

Rules for Nail Art Ideas Linkup (N.A.I.L.)……

• Do one of the weekly themes, or do them all.  It’s flexible!
• The dates for each week are only suggestions- you can post your nails whenever you want in April.
• The nail art ideas/themes are open to interpretation so you can create whatever kind of design you want! Stamps, stickers, acrylics- anything goes!
• We encourage all nail enthusiasts to join in no matter what platform you use; blog, FB, IG, Tumblr, etc…
• Feel free to post our widget on your site and you can use hashtag #NAILLINKUP on your social media.
• Lastly but most importantly, don’t forget to share your nail pics via the inlinkz below.

31st March – 6th April : Rain (April Showers)

7th – 13th April : Birds

14th – 20th April : Easter

21st – 27th April : Diamonds

28th April – 4th May : Dotticure

NAIL ART IDEAS LINKUP is hosted by Brijit, Craftynail and Eeeek.  Feel free to contact us if you have any questions at all!  You can also read more info about our monthly N.A.I.L. Linkup on our blog links below.  We look forward to seeing your nails this April!

warm regards,

Brijit from Brijits Digits

Jacqui from Craftynail

Jemma from Eeeek! Nail Polish! 

Spring Flowers for #NAILLINKUP

This is my design for the SPRING FLOWERS theme of the N.A.I.L. Linkup!  The colors I chose are a bit more intense than the usual spring pastels.  But then again, it doesn’t feel like spring yet in NY!  It was kinda nice out yesterday, but today is like brrrrr.

BASE COLOR ♥ I Love Nail Polish – Grape Alicious

STAMPING NAIL POLISH ♥ AVON Mirror – Blaze

STAMPING PLATE ♥ MoYou London – Pro Collection 04

RHINESTONES ♥ magenta gems from Sally’s Beauty Supply

ACCENT NAIL GLITTER ♥ Sinful Colors – Star Dust

NAILLINKUP Spring Flowers –