Eiffel Tower Nails for #NAILLINKUP

Week 1 of N.A.I.L. for May is TRAVEL/TOURISM and I immediately knew I wanted to do something French.  My ancestors are from France.  Sure, they left Europe over 400 hundred years ago, but still, I’ve always been interested in my heritage.  The fact that my full name is super french-sounding probably has something to do with it.  I studied french for years and years in school and college too.  But unfortunately, I’ll forget it all if I don’t put it to good use.  What a shame that would be.  Is the fear of losing my foreign language skills a good enough excuse for me to blow a wad of cash on a flight and hotel in Paris?  I say a resounding YES!!!!!!!!!   And guess who I will be visiting when I land in the land of la France?  My Brijit, of course!  I’m putting this shiz on my bucket list.  I seriously need to get off this continent someday.

But you are here to see my nails….. not hear about my hopes and dreams.  So here they are!

I tried to stamp the Eiffel Tower using one of my Bundle Monster plates but I think BM didn’t etch the design well enough.  I had the damnedest time and got pretty frustrated.  I used my squishy MoYou stamper, and then my Konad one. The Konad stamper almost worked, if I pushed really hard.  But then I said forget it!  And I free-handed the towers instead.  Much better!!!! Kinda cute and artsy and french looking, non?

The accent nails are OPI Don’t Bossa Nova Me Around and the towers were done with a cheap black striper polish.  And my other nails…. such a pretty aqua color!  Here’s a closeup…

The aqua is Finger Paints Dream I Can Fly (Which I also painted on my mom too and we both love it!)  Then I sponged some Finger Paints matte glitter on the tips.  The glitter’s called Crystal Springs and it kinda looks like floam to me.  There’s also little shards of flakies in there.  I adore it.

You should totally do a TRAVEL mani too!  Where do you dream to go for holiday??

And for those of you with exceptional attention spans, here’s some background info on Nail Art ideas Linkup–

Did you know that Brijit and Jemma and I started the Nail Art Ideas Linkup after last summer’s big OMD Challenge? That July challenge we did was so much fun it was kinda depressing to think that it would be over.  So we developed N.A.I.L. to keep the momentum going.  Since we started in August 2013 I have done a manicure for every single prompt but I’m only realizing today how many that is!  If you wanna see all my N.A.I.L. manicures then hop over to my Gallery Page to see them all in one spot!  And speaking of the OMD Challenge, my next post will be a sneak peak at what’s in store for the 2nd annual July OMD Challenge.  So if you are into big huge nail challenges then stay tuned.  Oh mon dieu!

 

 

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! 

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

 

St. Patrick’s Day Nails for #NAILLINKUP

This is my St.Patty’s design for the N.A.I.L. Linkup! I loved brainstorming about which green polishes to incorporate into this design to make it look Irish.  I freakin love green nail polish.  Here’s what I’m wearing:  The dark green is Zoya Ivanka.  I’ve only worn it once before so I was happy to try it out again.  What a gorgeous foil green!

The light green is a new AVON quick dry polish that I ordered from my avon lady called Don’t Be Jaded.  It was in the outlet catalog for $1.99! Like seriously!  My mom picked up a bottle too and she texted me a cute nail pic this AM (it was her jade green nails with a sudoku game as her backgrdrop)  LOL. Her text said that she painted her nails with Don’t be Jaded on thursday. Today is sunday and it’s still holding up.  Yes, this is why we love AVON.  And green is my mom’s fave nail polish color too so we be happy!

Do you like my giant gold glitters on my thumb and pinky?  They kinda remind me of gold coins at the end of the rainbow. It’s OPI’s When Monkeys Fly! which I dabbed on and also had to pick and place some of the glitters too.  I also did a rainbow dotted nail using a dotting tool and a bunch of random polishes.  Then I placed some gold studs on my Zoya fingers, added some seche vite, and now I have a fun mix mani for St. Patrick’s Day!  It was relatively quick and easy.

I’d love to see your St Patrick’s mani too.  Here are the inlinkz so you can enter a N.A.I.L. pic for March-

St Patrick’s Day 

MARCH N.A.I.L. Challenge Announcement!

It’s March, lassies!  That means we’ve got another month of fun themes for the Nail Art ideas Linkup! As the old Irish proverb says, “A handful of skill is worth a bagful of gold“*  Don’t be shy, we know you have handfuls of nail art skills!  So show us what you’ve got this month for St Paddy’s Day!  Here are the N.A.I.L. themes:

*you will not get a bagful of gold if you participate in N.A.I.L.

STAMPING (week 1)- Get out your nail stamping plates and share your one-of-a-kind design!  If you don’t have a nail stamping kit then you can stamp something else on your nails.  We are flexible.

AQUA (week 2)- Aquamarine is the birthstone for March babies.  But really this is an excuse to dig out some of our aqua nail polishes.  Honestly, aqua is gorgeous, right?

ST PATRICKS DAY (week 3)- Shamrocks, rainbows, pots of gold, green, green, and more green!  We’re sure you can come up with some fun nails for this holiday!

SPRING FLOWERS (week 4)- For many of us it’s inching towards Spring.  And who doesn’t love flowers?  This theme will get you in the mood for some sunshiney weather.

Here are the rules for Nail Art Ideas Linkup (we like to call it N.A.I.L.)……

• Do one of the weekly themes, or do them all- it’s up to you!
• The dates for each week are only suggestions- you can post your nails whenever you want in March.
• The nail art ideas/themes are open to interpretation.  You can create whatever kind of design you want!  Stamps, stickers, acrylics- they’re all game!
• We encourage all nail enthusiasts to join in whether you have a blog, FB, IG, Tumblr, etc.
• Feel free to post our graphic on your site to share the word and use hashtag #NAILLINKUP on your social media.
• Lastly but most importantly, don’t forget to enter the URL to your nails via the inlinkz below!  They’ll be open all month.

Stamping –
Aqua –
St Patrick’s Day –
Spring Flowers –

NAIL ART IDEAS LINKUP is hosted by Brijit, Craftynail and Eeeek.  We are all nice ladies (or at least we’d like to think so LOL) so 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 March!

warm regards,

Brijit from Brijits Digits

Jacqui from Craftynail

Jemma from Eeeek! Nail Polish! 

Abs Challenge, #NAILLINKUP, and AVON!

ARE YOU INTO PHYSICAL FITNESS? I go to group fitness classes a lot and I’m always trying to get in better shape. If you are too then you should follow my pinterest board right here: FIT QUEST. I feel like I need an extra boost right now to whip me into shape though. Spring is around the corner! My fitness-partner-in-crime Vanessa (who has debuted her nails on my blog with her skull nails right here) put together a cool ABS CHALLENGE calendar for us. She printed the calendar for me and I’m going to check off each day that I do the workout. She based our calendar on this abs challenge shown below.  I’m going to start the challenge today, March 1st 2014.  At the end I’ll be doing 125 situps?  Yikes.  You should think about it though (if you’re into that kinda stuff) and lemme know if you try it!

Speaking of challenges!  If you are into nail art challenges….Brijit and Eeeek and I will announce the March Nail Art Ideas Linkup (N.A.I.L.) themes tomorrow Sunday March 2nd!  I love our graphic for the March N.A.I.L.!  Brijit did a great job on it- wait til you see it.   🙂

Oh, and the February N.A.I.L. is almost over.  The inlinkz are open through Sunday March 2nd.  That means I’ll be sneaking in my last mani for February pretty soon!  I can’t believe that I haven’t done my week 4 GLITTER theme yet!  I have 24 hrs left, but have something awesome planned for when I stop typing.  I’m gonna try a dark funky glittery french!  So that will be my next post.

I also wanted to show you some new stuff that’s in the latest AVON Campaign 6 catalog that I got from my AVON lady.  I scanned them on my flatbed scanner and they came out okay.

Avon is now selling these cute little gradient sponges for $1.99 >>

I don’t need this product since I use makeup wedges… but I think this is pretty cool!  Especially for someone who’s new at nail art.

Don’t you love the pale shades she’s wearing in this pic?  They’re called Serene and Honeydew Dazzle.  Here’s another shot showing what the bottles look like.  I might have to order Serene!

So, if you don’t have an AVON lady this is the kinda nail stuff you are missing out on!  They also have crackle toppers on sale right now for $1.89.  Insanity!

That’s all for now!  See you later tonite with my glitter french manicure!

Mediterranean Gradient for #NAILLINKUP

What I’m wearing:

♥ I used OPI’s My Vampire is Buff as my basecoat

♥ Then I did a gradient using a makeup wedge and a creamy teal called On The Go by Caronia

♥ I stamped over my gradient with Butter London Royal Navy and 4 different full-nail designs from my Bundle Monster BM-404 plate

♥ Lastly I applied quick-dry Seche Vite topcoat over all my nails.  The navy Butter London didn’t smudge at all. 🙂

The idea for this color combo has been swirling around in my head for days… and I see why.   I love how the colors look here!  The cream, teal and navy look perfectly Mediterranean together I think.  I hope you like it too!

Don’t forget to check out all the other entries for N.A.I.L.‘S  gradient theme!  And feel free to join in since the inlinkz are open for the whole month of February!

Gradient :