purple

I love purple and glitter!  I will admit it and own up to it.  Some halo tips and a jelly glitter accent nail.

Nothing fancy but still fun in the sunshine.

OPI - A Grape Fit!
China Glaze - Techno

gold dot

Such an easy look.  Just toss some gold studs on there and you are good to go.

Wow, this picture is really bad and shows how drying soap can be. The cap on a bottle of car oil came off on the backseat floor of my car. So I spent the afternoon shampooing the carpets.  I now 100% understand why cars have floor mats.

Sinful Colors - Secret Admirer, Super Nova

blues

I do love ombre nails.  I decided to try a new color for this ombre look.  I have a few blues but it was hard to figure out five good ones for an ombre look.  I think these five polishes work together. The ring finger is a bit off but it was the best paint for that level.  The only hard thing about ombre nails is not hitting your wet nails when switching polishes.

MAC - Ming Blue
Wet & Wild - Saved By The Blue
LA Girl - Flash Freeze
Sinful Colors - Why Not
Sally Hansen - Air
*the polishes are in order from darkest to lightest

skull

A skull with a red bow, how cute.  The skull is just a sticker so it is easy to apply.  Then an accent nail of red glitter.  Done.  A girly skull look.  Not much else to say about this paint job.

OPI - Gettin' Miss Piggy With It
Sinful Colors - Toyko Pearl

girly

So, Valentine's Day my be done and gone, but I am still inspired by the girly/pink paint jobs.  Nothing fancy about this paint job, just a quick stamp and a glitter tip.  I like the bow stamp.  It is a lot easier than the 3D kind you can glue on your nails.  This one won't catch on anything.

OPI - Koala Berry
Nicole - Haley Good Looking...
C&E - Peony

little blue bird

I based this paint job off the little blue bird vinyl decal.  Nothing fancy, just add a polka dot nail.  Easy and quick.  Very preppy.  I didn't let the pearl polish dry long enough under the vinyl decal so it is peeling up a bit at the edges (I have curved nails).  The top coat helped hold it down a bit, but I just need to take my time when doing certain paint jobs.

Nicole - Stand By Your Manny
Essie - Room with a View
Sinful Colors - Rain Storm
Sally Hansen - White On

Frozen

I finally saw "Frozen".  I am glad I did see it on the big screen, it was beautiful. It totally inspired this paint job (in the most minimalist way possible).  I might have to break out the stamps to see if there is a snowflake or two, but I tend to go with the KISS* paint jobs.  So a frosty blue with a silver/blue glitter accent nail, presto - a "Frozen" paint job.

Nicole - Stand By Your Manny
Sinful Colors - Ice Dream

*KISS stands for Keep It Simple Stupid

elephants

The elephants are some of the water decals I order a long time ago.  I wasn't that happy with them, especially since I got the awesome vinyl decals right after.  But, these elephant water decals I have been wanting to use for a while.  So I picked out two different colors (there are five colors) and matched them with a basic red polish.  I love the blue elephant but the red elephant turned out a lot more pink than I was hoping.

OPI - Malaga Wine
Essie - Room With A View

cheetah

I have always wanted to try a free-hand cheetah print nail. I finally found a really great step-by-step (seems dumb for such an easy paint job, but sometimes following pictures really helps).  It is a pretty simple paint job that just takes a lot of time since each step has to dry before moving on to the next step.

Just a double color base coat.  Add some messy white blobs.  Then add the black details.  The white and black are both done with a dotting tool (the same one actually, just different ends).  I really like it and am happy I finally got around to trying it out.

OPI - You're Such A BudaPest
Sinful Colors - Black on Black
Sally Hansen - White On

poster

That's not a paint job, why is that posted on a nail blog?

That is a poster I created for a contest the band Slightly Stoopid is having.  It was all done freehand with markers and pencil, it is standard poster board size IRL.  If you like it and have a minute - go vote for me. Voting is open till the morning of Feb 20th.

http://www.talenthouse.com/creativeinvites/preview/afe8dd10bacf022d847dd946501fbc62/7294

I will be back with the regular nail art & paint jobs tomorrow or the day after.

valentine's nails (again)

A friend has been trying to get me to paint her nails for a couple of weeks.  Things, life and work kept getting in the way.  But Valentine's morning finally worked.  So we had to do a Valentine's Day paint job.  It is odd painting someone else's nails after painting my own for so long.  It's so much easier to bend your own fingers and hand to make the painting/stamping/dotting easier.

The best part of doing this paint job was right in the middle, while she was waiting for the base polish to dry before starting the stamping, her fiance surprised her with a dozen roses and chocolate covered strawberries.  It was super cute and all the old ladies in the coffee shop across the courtyard came out to 'ahh' and 'so sweet'.

I don't remember which stamping plates and polishes I ended up using.  I put all pinks and a few red/purples in a box with a bunch of stamps/glitter/tools.  It all got mixed around before I got home.  I do know that all three colors are OPI and the white is Sally Hansen.  The plates are all from one Cheeky collection.

valentine's day

Valentine's Day is one of the easier holidays to figure out a paint job for.  Five different pink polishes and a glitter heart sticker - done.  Super easy and really fun.  Bonus - I finally got the heart sticker on straight and center.  I went with a matte top coat to give the already busy paint job a bit more of a mellow feeling.  Plus, the polish on the ring finger has a bit of a glitter undertone to it.  With a gloss top coat it really stands out.  With the matte - nothing.

OPI - Kola Beary, Short's Story
Sinful Colors - Dream On, Easy Going
Sally Hansen - Fuchsia Power

night sky

Quick simple paint job.  Black jelly polish and a silver accent nail.  Done and done.  With the silver accent nail, it really makes the silver glitter in the jelly polish pop and not seem as dark.  I also didn't do a base color under the jelly polish, just two coats of jelly.  It helps keep it light.

Nicole - Luke of the Draw
Sally Hansen - Celeb City

party hat

This pink multicolor glitter jelly polish is one that I got but have never been really happy with.  It was in one of those bins 4 for $12 (or something like that) and it was cheaper to get 4 rather than 3.  It's an odd color.  The pink jelly base is sort of a muddy blue pink.  The glitter is both small and large hex.  It might not be a great NAIL polish but it is great for marking keys.

Urban Outfitters - Lollipop
LA Girl - Flash Freeze

purple & grey dots

This is another quick paint job that looks a bit fancier than solid nails.  Just a dotting tool, and some extra drying time between the base color and the dots.  Perfect when watching a movie.  The marble/gradient nail is a bit wonky but it's the best I could do with a dotting tool (didn't feel like busting out the sponges for a proper gradient).  I love purple and grey together, it's such a warm combo.

OPI - A Grape Fit!
Sinful Colors - Cool Grey, Black On Black, Smokin'

grey

I love this OPI color (I Have A Herring Problem).  It is so subtle and mellow with a great micro glitter.  It's a warm grey that goes with both silver and gold.  And it goes on like a dream, I used two coats in the paint job above.  But three coats makes it rich and creamy.

Add a single confetti glitter accent nail and it is a look.  Easy and quick.  I will admit that most of my paint jobs of late are on the quick & easy side.  There is something about cold dry weather that makes me shy away from extra drying agents (acetone, nail polish, etc) on my hands.  Once summer rolls around I will bust out the stamping plates again.

OPI - I Have A Herring Problem
Urban Outfitters - Scorcher

Side note - I'm having issues with coming up with titles for the everyday paint jobs.  There is no theme to this type of paint job but the post needs a title.  Any suggestions would be great.  For now I will stick to the straight forward and rather obvious.

new ring

I got a new ring.  It's a bit odd but I love it.  It doesn't go all the way down at finger, it goes between the middle knuckles.  Strange - yes, but fun - definitely.  It is also really comfortable.  So I wanted to do a paint job that goes with the ring.  Simple gold-ish paint with a heart decal.  Easy and quick but still lets the ring stand out.

Morgan Taylor - Give Me Gold

anchor

When you try and do quick nail art, things get wonky.  Like the anchor is no where near center.  Oh well.  I wanted to do all red nails but I changed my mind when pulling out the red polish.  I wasn't feeling a solid color paint job so I added two accent nails.  A sticker and some dots.  Quick and easy but still fun.  It would look better with stripes instead of dots but I didn't feel like using a stamp and my hands are way too unsteady to do free hand lines (thank you double espresso).

OPI - Got the Blues for Red
Wet & Wild - French White Creme
LA Girls - Flash Freeze

pink halo

Sometimes the halo polish needs to be more than the accent nail.  I love this halo polish, it has tons of different colors in it but the pink really stands out.  So, a couple of coats on the non-accent nails and a solid hot pink middle finger.  I know this paint job is going to be hard to remove but it is worth it.

The pink nail does not come across in this photo.  Think a mix between the two pink Mr. Sketch pens.  Plus it has a subtle light pink glitter to it, so it works with the halo nails.

Nicole - A Like-Haley Story
Urban Outfitters - Afterhours

snow

This paint job was inspired by the cold winter mornings we have had recently.  It's not quite cold enough that things actually freeze, but there is definitely frost everywhere.  As annoying as frost it, it can be very beautiful on a soccer field or a leafy tree.  This paint job is very subtle, and therefore very hard to capture in a photo.  The base color is a very mellow frosty/pearl white.  The accent (and a bit on the other nail's tips) is just my standard glitter.  No base color under the glitter because I didn't want a very strong paint job.  I am very happy with the end result, subtle yet elegant.

Wet & Wild - Hallucinate
essie - Room With A View

party time

Nothing fancy.  Usually my hands match (sometimes the accent nail is on a different nail on each hand) but not this time.  I changed it up with two different color accent nails, one color on each hand.  Again nothing fancy but really fun.  I picked two solid colors that are also in the micro glitter in the main polish color.

OPI - Koala Berry
MAC - Everything That Glitters
China Glaze - Turned Up Turquoise

black & red

Nothing fancy, but very Queen of Hearts without the hearts.  The 'dots' are rhinestones.  The jelly glitter is a great polish that packs a ton of glitter.  The red is a classic red.  The only downside is it is OPI pre-3-free so it is a bit on the smelly side.  Why do I still have it and use it?  I love the color and the new formula of the same color isn't quite the same.

OPI - Malaga Wine
Spoiled - Ants In My Pants
Sinful Colors - Black on Black

pink smudge

I don't really know what to call this paint job.  It is sort of a marble effect.  But also smudge-y, feather-y, cotton candy-ish.

I saw a q-tip paint job on another blog and thought it looked great.  I was trying to do that here (circles with the plastic part of a -tip) but it did not work.  So I made the best of the situation and flipped the q-tip around.  I dabbed the cotton fluff part in the polish and then dabbed on the nail.  First with a dark pink then with a light jelly glitter pink.  It's kind of funky but I like it.  Plus, it is easy & quick.  So many different color combinations.  The second lighter polish would be great with a halo glitter.  It would add some pop but not take over.

Sinful Colors - Easy Going
Sally Hansen - Strawberry Icing, Fuchsia Power