15 minutes to Funky Fingers

Ok, here’s the scenario.  It’s late at night.  You are about to fall asleep but you are trying to catch up on the last few episodes of How I Met Your Mother.  Cuz if you don’t finish watching them then the damn internet will ruin the surprise finale ending for you.  But but but…your nail polish is chipping like mad! And if you don’t paint your nails tonight then all day tomorrow you will be picking at them and they’ll look like ars.  Shows to watch, nails to paint, but you have to get your beauty rest too!  Talk about first world problems!

Since I was so short on time, I came up with this easy 15 minute mani.  I did it during commercials!!  I didn’t quite make it to the finale ending either, so don’t ruin it for me!  I just need to stay away from web browsers for the rest of the day!

Here’s how I did this funky 15 minute mani!

• I started with a base coat of Sally Hansen Maximum Growth.
• Then I did two coats of my Funky Fingers purple duochrome called Venom.
• Next I used a black striper polish to make three random brush strokes in the corner of my nails.
• Then I used OPI’s Push and Shove with a striper brush to make three silver strokes over top of the black ones.
• For some added bling I dabbed some clear polish and then stuck 4 glequins near the base of each of my brush stroke clusters.
• Lastly, I finished with a healthy coat of seche vite topcoat.

It’s funny how a quick n dirty mani like this one comes out so cute even though I didn’t plan it out or spend much time on it.  And the seche vite dries so quickly you can do this right before bed and you won’t mess it up while you sleep.  Ah Seche, you’ve changed my life! And I’m never looking back.

So did anyone see the finale of How I met Your Mother?  Don’t ruin the surprise, but was it any good??

 

Aqua Leopard Nails for #NAILLINKUP

Week 2 of the March N.A.I.L. Linkup is AQUA.  I picked through my stash for the best aqua shades (ironically two of them had the word MINT in them.. go figure) and I came up with this cute leopard print.  I only tried leopard one time before, using water-based paints and only on 2 fingers, so hopefully this came out okay!

What I’m wearing:

base color ♥ wet n wild I Need a Refresh-Mint

blue sponged on tips ♥ NYC Skyline Blue

silver spots ♥ OPI Push and Shove

teal glitter ♥ Sinful Colors  Lush Life

black striper polish ♥ L.A. Colors Art Deco in black

I’m excited to wear my new OPI Push and Shove mirror polish!  I haven’t worn it on it’s own yet, and since I’ve been dying to try it, I decided to make my leopard spots with it!  To make my silver spots look even cooler I thought I’d add my Sinful Colors teal glitter in little blobs over top… but unfortunately the sinful formula wasn’t dense enough with glitter.  So I ended up lightly swiping the glitter over the entire nail instead.  Not really the look I was going for since I really only wanted it over the silver, but as I always say… it’s good to want things! Other than that little change in plans, the leopard print was pretty easy to do.  Now I wanna try it again!

I hope you like my first ‘real’ attempt at leopard print!  You can see the other aqua designs right here:

Love Shields

Hey did you see that nailpolishcanada.com is doing another nail contest?  😀 The last one I entered was for the holiday season… this one is for v-day, of course!  Nail Polish Canada offers up some wicked prizes so if you are in the U.S. or Canada you should hurry up and check it out (ends on feb 10th 2014)!  A big reason I love entering these contests is cuz it’s so fun to link up with others in the nail art community.  Everyone comes up with such cool designs! Wanna see mine??

The idea for this mani was sparked by my fellow blogger Blimbo247.  She thought my China Glaze border mani from last week made my pointy nails look like little shields.  She was right!   I really liked that concept and it inspired me to come up with this valentines version of a border manicure.  Behold my little love shields!  It’s a very simple design… no crazy nail art this time.  But sometimes a simple mani can have just as much wow factor as a complicated one!  All I used was Nicole by OPI Be Ama-zing (rich pink) and a black striper by L.A. Colors.

You should go check out all the other ladies’ awesome valentines nails and vote for your favorite.  If you’d like to cast a vote for my little shields that would be mighty kind of you. 😉  Here’s the contest gallery link: VDAY NAIL CONTEST.  The voting ballot is at the bottom of the page… just enter your first name, your email (they won’t spam you), and then select your fave nails from the list.  Thanks y’all and happy valentines day!  xoxo Craftynail xoxo

Plaid nails! for #NAILLINKUP

Did you know that today (Jan 25) is an unofficial holiday??  Happy Opposite Day everyone!  You can read more about the holiday here on this Daily Grid article.  Our monthly nail challenge called NAIL ART IDEAS LINKUP has the perfect theme to commemorate this funky holiday!  Ready to see my nails for our ‘OPPOSITE DAY’ theme??

I’ve never done PLAID nails before so I thought this is the perfect time to tackle them!  In fact, when I did Short & Sweet’s 30 day nail challenge last year I did my nails EVERY day except one of the days: PLAID DAY!  It seemed hard at the time, I was drawing a blank, and I decided to skip it.  Well, it still urks me that I never did the plaid prompt!  I’m ending all that madness today!

In true Opposite-Day-spirit, I also used a color that I rarely wear: RED.  Here’s how I did this plaid mani:

♥ I did two coats of Zoya Seraphina (silver) as a base color.

♥ Then I hand-painted 4 red stripes on each nail using a mini bottle of sephora by OPI called Sample Sale.  Because it’s a ‘mini’ the brush is really tiny so it was perfect for making the red stripes! Minis are very handy for nail art!

♥ Then I used an L.A. Colors black striper to paint a skinny black line in the middle of each red stripe.

♥  Lastly, I used my Essence tip painter (which is kinda like a striper) to paint 6 white stripes in between the red.

♥  Of course, I used my trusty seche vite topcoat to finish it off.

This mani took a while, but it wasn’t too challenging.  Just time-consuming.  To do both hands I had to hand-paint 140 stripes for goodness sakes!!  I’d also like to mention that I used Seize the Nails purple plaid nails as a reference while I was doing my nail art.  Bella’s purple nails are gorgeous and almost make me wanna try this look one more time with prettier colors just like hers:  PURPLE PLAID NAILS

That’s all for today!  View the other ‘opposite’ designs right here:

20 – 26 January – Opposite Day :