#31DC2013- Violet Nails

Day 6 of Chalkboard’s 31 day nail challenge is VIOLET and I came up with a bold purple petunia design using my new Essence colour & go polishes! The lighter base color (3 coats) is called Essence Oh My Glitter! and it’s such a pretty, pretty purple, I just love it!  It’s one of those purple shades that’s dusty, but also bright at the same time.  (does that make sense ?)

Moving on to the petunia motif…  I started by free-handing the petals with a detail brush and cheap black nail polish.   I almost always use this NYC brand of polish called Black Lace Creme for my black nail art.  This stuff was $0.98!  Also, it’s nice and smooth and it doesn’t get too goopy on my brush.  It’s just a great cheapo polish to have on hand!  Then I filled in the black outlines with Essence Break Through, a deep magenta-tinted purple.  The flowers came out big and bold but luckily they don’t outshine my gorgeous base color!  I like that my eye keeps catching the pink and purple micro-glitter that’s in there.  Here’s a close-up of Oh My Glitter! so you can see ….

Want to see more purple manicures?  Here’s the inlinkz for 31DC2013 violet theme…

Bold Heart Nail Art

Hey everyone!  I want to show you my heart nails that I’ve been wearing for a couple of days now…

They’re so fun to wear because the hearts are kinda pointy at the ends!  When I wave my hands around it’s like, ‘come here… lemme pierce your soul with my spiked love talons”!  Ok, well not quite that extreme.. but when you see all ten of them in real life they look kinda cute and fierce. 🙂  Here’s what I’m wearing-

♥ Sally Hansen Maximum Growth – one coat

♥ L.A. Girl French Manicure in Pink Nude – one coat

♥ hand-painted hearts using NYC Black Lace Creme – with a detail brush

♥ center of hearts filled in with AVON Sweet Pea Dream – using the bottle brush

♥ french tips dotted on with NYC French White Tip – with a dotting tool

I’ve really enjoyed this manicure- but it’s time to say goodbye.  Gotta work on my design for the SEA theme of Nail Art Ideas Linkup!  And don’t forget- you still have a few days to vote for your favorite nail genius of the week from last week’s SUN manicures!  It allows you to vote three times…here’s the link:

August 7-11th SUN

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 6 of OMD Challenge- BAM Neon Cloud Mani!

Welcome to day 6 of the OMD Challenge!  I’m psyched that today is NEON DAY since I have always been a huge fan of neon polishes.  The brighter, the better!  I love wearing nails that are eye catching.  I spend a lot of time on my nails- so I guess I want people to see them?  Hehehe.  Do you feel the same way?

I have the perfect polish for today’s theme!  It’s a bright green from Funky Fingers called Limelight.  I went with a ‘cloud mani’ for this design.  Have you ever tried it?  If not, you gotta!  It’s so simple and no special tools required!  Here’s an excellent photo tutorial on Nailside blog.

For this design I’m wearing:

Funky Fingers ♥ Limelight (2 easy coats)

NYC ♥ Black Lace Creme

NYC ♥ French White Tip

Cheeky CH47 Plate ♥ BAM stamp applied with Konad black polish

BAM!  It’s so bright and in your face!  Here’s a swatch of Limelight since it’s just so pretty- I couldn’t resist photographing it before I started my nail art.↓  I actually won this green from In The Gray Area’s awesome giveaway!  I feel like I could do a whole month’s worth of posts using all the cool polishes that J sent me.  15 in total!  So, if you’re out there and you haven’t won a giveaway yet- keep trying!  YOUR DAY WILL COME!  Maybe you will enter the OMD challenge and win the giveaway at the end?  Ya never know!  😀

You can see the other designs here:
6. Neon :

And here’s the themes for the upcoming days:

OMD Rather Awesome Challenge: Day 4 Black n White- Dreamcatcher

I have a quick post today for day 4 of our OMD Challenge….  It’s the Fourth of July in the US and I have plans to continue the celebration with some wine spritzers and cheeseburgers. 😀  I’ll make sure to keep my wits about me though- I still wanna squeeze in time for my next OMD mani later tonite!

The day 4 theme of our challenge is Black & White and I went with a dreamcatcher design.  I love dreamcatchers and I own a zillion of them… but it wasn’t until I saw the Polish Alcoholic’s dreamcatcher tutorial a few weeks ago that I became truly inspired to try it out!  Here’s what I used:

OPI Alpine Snow ♥ as my white base color

NYC Black Lace Creme ♥ with a detail brush for the dreamcatcher design

Zoya Carmen (red) ♥ with a dotting tool to make the ‘beads’

Pure Ice French Kiss (blue) ♥ with a dotting tool to make the ‘beads’

(I had to add a hint of red white n blue for the holiday!)

Hard Candy Black Tie Optional ♥ as a black n white glitter topper for my other nails

Hope you have a great day and are enjoying some nice weather in your neck of the woods!  See you tomorrow for SKITTLES DAY!

View the other black n white designs here: