ARTSY WEDNESDAY: Farewell

For my last Artsy Wednesday, I used Rimmel Mintilicious as the base and stamped flowers using Bundle Monster stamping plate BM02 and Wet n Wild Black Creme.

I think this is a fair representation of why it's time for Artsy Wednesday to end. While it was fun to have the challenges, sometimes I just wanted to do nail art that didn't have to do with the challenges, and doing my nails every 2 weeks was kind of hard. I also have been getting busier, hence why this picture is so awful: it's just one I took on my phone.

Check out the other girls' manicures for the last time:

Lab Muffin - Nail & Polish - An Accent Nail - Valiantly Varnished - MASPOOASE - Makeup and Masala - Every Little Polish

ARTSY WEDNESDAY: Easter

Happy Easter everyone!

I did a jelly sandwich with Loreal Sheer Pink and Revlon Stunning. I wish the glitter was more visible. :(

Check out the other girls' manicures:

Lab Muffin - Nail & Polish - An Accent Nail - Valiantly Varnished - MASPOOASE - Makeup and Masala - Every Little Polish

ARTSY WEDNESDAY: Joke mani!

To celebrate April Fool's, we're posting joke manis today. I'm posting an ordinary French manicure:

Maybe I have a weird sense of humor that no one will get, but...here it is!

Check out the other girls' manicures:

Lab Muffin - Nail & Polish - An Accent Nail - Valiantly Varnished - MASPOOASE - Makeup and Masala - Every Little Polish

ARTSY WEDNESDAY: Inspired by a tutorial

I decided to try a Saran Wrap mani this week. It was inspired by this tutorial from Nailed It. I LOVE the graphic she made for the tutorial!

For my version, I used Sephora by O.P.I Havana Dreams and Maybelline Sapphire Siren. I mattified the look using Sally Hansen Big Matte Top Coat. [I LOVE this top coat and highly recommend it!!!] I painted a layer of Havana Dreams first, and once it dried, I painted a coat of Sapphire Siren on top and dabbed the wet nail polish with Saran Wrap. The great part about this is that if you don't like how it looks when you dab off some nail polish, you can just add more and try again! :)

Check out the other girls' manicures:

Lab Muffin - Nail & Polish - An Accent Nail - Valiantly Varnished - MASPOOASE - Makeup and Masala - Every Little Polish

ARTSY WEDNESDAY: Neutral nails

This week's theme was neutral. My nails were inspired by the Maybelline "Dare to Go Nude" ad:

From Musings of a Muse

I was short on time, so I did not have as much time to do and photograph my nails as I normally like. :(

I used Sally Hansen Big Money for the gold base and NYC Prospect Park Bloom on top.

Check out the other girls' neutral manicures:

Lab Muffin - Unnaked Nails - Nail & Polish - An Accent Nail - Valiantly Varnished - MASPOOASE - Makeup and Masala - Every Little Polish

ARTSY WEDNESDAY: Inspired by a song

I saw Frozen a few months ago, and I couldn't get the song "Let It Go" out of my head. Here's a video of the song from YouTube:

Here are the nails I did:

I did the gradient using Sally Hansen Pacific Blue and sponged on Rimmel 60-Second Nail Polish in Mintilicious. I then topped them with a coat of China Glaze Luxe and Lush.

Check out the other girl's manicures:

Lab Muffin - Unnaked Nails - Nail & Polish - An Accent Nail - Valiantly Varnished - MASPOOASE - Makeup and Masala - Every Little Polish

ARTSY WEDNESDAY: Metallic nails

This barely qualifies as metallic, but I really wanted to do this gradient and I figured...silver counts as metal, right? ;)

The base is Essie Chincilly and the glitter is Julep Paris. Sorry, my skin looks strange in this picture, I have no idea why. 

Check out the other girl's manicures:

Lab Muffin - Unnaked Nails - Nail & Polish - An Accent Nail - Valiantly Varnished - MASPOOASE - Makeup and Masala - Every Little Polish

Artsy Wednesday: Polka dots

Today nails were kinda inspired by a Kate Spade phone case I saw and loved:

It's very simple, but I was just in the mood from something simple this week. I used Wet n Wild French White Creme for the base, and OPI Designer De Better for the polka dots and accent nail.

Check out the other girl's manicures:

Lab Muffin - Unnaked Nails - Nail & Polish - An Accent Nail - Valiantly Varnished - MASPOOASE - Makeup and Masala - Every Little Polish

ARTSY WEDNESDAY: White nails

This week's theme was white. I did a white and silver manicure using striping tape. I used OPI Designer De Better and Wet n Wild French White Creme. This was definitely pretty time consuming, but I think it was worth it:

Check out the other girl's manicures:

Lab Muffin - Unnaked Nails - Nail & Polish - An Accent Nail - Valiantly Varnished - MASPOOASE - Makeup and Masala - Every Little Polish

ARTSY WEDNESDAY: Crystals

This week's theme was crystals. I did a saran wrap manicure using Wet n Wild Tickled Pink and BK Neon Luminous Glow in #13. I did a coat of the BK polish, and then did a coat of the Wet n Wild polish. While the Wet n Wild one was wet, I dabbed saran wrap in it. After this dried, I added the crystals.

Check out the other girl's manicures:

Lab Muffin - Unnaked Nails - Nail & Polish - An Accent Nail - Valiantly Varnished - MASPOOASE - Makeup and Masala - Every Little Polish

ARTSY WEDNESDAY: Disney-Inspired Nail Art

I was running a bit short on time this week, and so I couldn't spend as much time on my nails as I would've liked to. I didn't really have a good reason for doing 101 Dalmatians-themed nails; I just saw Sally Hansen Diamonds and Rubies in my nail polish stash and thought that it was the perfect "101-Dalmatians red."

I used Diamonds and Rubies as my base and then covered it with one strip of striping tape to make the red stripes on my nails. I used Wet n Wild French White Creme as the white and a Sharpie for the black spots. I covered my nails in PVA peelable base coat to prevent the sharpie from smudging [thanks for the tip Michele], and then used top coat. I'm not happy with my NYC top coat right now because there have been bubbles on my nails the last couple of times I used it. I'll need to find a new top coat. Any suggestions of good drugstore top coats? Should I just go with Seche Vite?

Check out the other girl's Disney-inspired manicures:

Lab Muffin - Unnaked Nails - Nail & Polish - An Accent Nail - Valiantly Varnished - MASPOOASE - Makeup and Masala - Every Little Polish

ARTSY WEDNESDAY: Green

Ok, so I kind of cheated today. I've been in love with Rimmel Mintilicious, and so I really wanted to use it today, even though it's a minty-blue. It always comes out very blue in my pictures:

I sponged on Essie Stylenomics on my ring finger to make the gradient. (There's a good tutorial here on sponge gradients.) I then topped all my fingers with Revlon Stunning and NYC's matte top coat.

Unfortunately, as you can probably see, NYC's matte top coat doesn't work too well with lighter colors.

Check out what the other girls did this week:

Lab Muffin - Maria's Nail Art - Unnaked Nails - Nail & Polish - An Accent Nail - Valiantly Varnished - MASPOOASE - Makeup and Masala - Every Little Polish

ARTSY WEDNESDAY: Three colors

Today's theme was three colors:

I used Rimmel 60 Second Nail Polish in Mintilicious as the base, and Kiss Brush-on Nail Art Polish in White and Wet 'n Wild Tickled Pink on top. After letting my base coat dry, I dipped a wand in some white polish, and then brushed the wand against my nail from my finger tips back to the middle of my nail. Then, after the white dried, I did the same thing with Tickled Pink. For my ring finger, I just dipped the mascara wand in white polish and then randomly brushed it against my nail. I think it ended up looking interesting; I want to try it with light colors on a dark background and see if the design will pop more.

Check out what the other girls did this week:

Lab Muffin - Maria's Nail Art - Unnaked Nails - Nail & Polish - An Accent Nail - Valiantly Varnished - MASPOOASE - Makeup and Masala - Every Little Polish

ARTSY WEDNESDAY: Blue

Today's theme was blue. I had wanted to try using Sally Hansens's Mermaid's Tale in nail art, and I thought this was a great time to try:

Here, I used it with BK- Neon Luminous Glow Polish #6. After using Mermaid's Tale as the base, I used striping tape to create the stripes, and I did the flower on my fourth finger with a brush.

Check out the other girls' blue manis:

Lab Muffin - Maria's Nail Art - Unnaked Nails - Nail & Polish - An Accent Nail - Valiantly Varnished - MASPOOASE - Makeup and Masala - Every Little Polish

ARTSY WEDNESDAY: Designer-inspired

Today's theme was designer-inspired. I was inspired by this gorgeous Monique Lhuillier dress:

I was pleased that my idea for my nails panned out:

I used Wet n Wild Shine Black Creme as the base, and used paper reinforcements to make the half-moons. [There's a great tutorial here.] I used Wet n Wild Shy on top of the black. Last, I used one of my new Bundle Monster stamping plates, BM-20, to stamp the design on top of my half-moon manicure. 

This was my first time doing a half-moon manicure with paper reinforcements, and I learned how important it is not to use a thick polish for your top color. If the polish is too thick, then it's hard to get a clear half-moon. Also, if you accidentally put too much polish on your nail, you also don't get pretty half-moons. This was also my first time using my stamping plates; I plan on doing a review of the plates soon, and I'll include some tips on stamping there, too. Also, let me know if you would like a more detailed tutorial of this!

Be sure to check out the other girls' designer-inspired manis:

Lab Muffin - Maria's Nail Art - Unnaked Nails - Nail & Polish - An Accent Nail - Valiantly Varnished - MASPOOASE - Every Little Polish 

ARTSY WEDNESDAY: Two Colors

Hi guys! So Haylee and I recently became part of the Artsy Wednesday group, and we are super thrilled to be part of a group of such talented and creative nail artists! Basically twice a month on Wednesday, we post a nail art design based on a pre-selected theme. Today's theme was 2 colors.

Here is what I did. I used OPI Pussy Galore and NYC Black Lace Creme:

I did the stripes with striping tape and freehanded the bow using a toothpick. I've wanted to try a striped manicure using a Liquid Sand polish, and this was the perfect opportunity! :)

Here's what Haylee did:

Haylee says:

"I apologize for the bad clean up job. I am saving up to buy a nice nail art brush set to help with my clean up jobs. I just couldn't break the bank right away because I bought my first set of  stamping plates!!!! It's been an exciting adventure and I look forward to posting many manicures using my new set (Cheeky Vibrant Collection). So basically, in honor of our first Artsy Wednesday, I am posting my first nail art design using the stamping plates. Isn't it cute? I would have put stripes on all my nails except I was still trying to get the hang of stamping so the lines did not turn out that great on the now solid colored nails. For the pink I used Essie's Italian Love Affair which is by far my favorite light pink for darker skin tones, and for the brown I used my new limited edition Pierre Hardy for NARS Vertebra Right."

Thank you to the Artsy Wednesday ladies for letting us join in on the fun!! Make sure to check out what they have done for Artsy Wednesday:

Lab Muffin - Maria's Nail Art - Unnaked Nails - Nail & Polish - An Accent Nail - Valiantly Varnished - MASPOOASE - Every Little Polish