Mmm, watermelon!

Here's a tasty manicure perfect for summer! I was inspired to try these after seeing a lot of different versions on Pinterest. My version came out a little messier than I would've liked, but it gave me a few ideas on how to clean it up for next time! This is going to be kind of a tutorial version since I remembered to take pictures at each step!

Step one: base coat! This would make a nice Christmas manicure, too. I used Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Red Carpet and Zoya Holly, one coat each. 

Zigzags

Can I hire someone to come up with titles for me? I seriously think that's the hardest part of blogging. Actually posting regularly being a close second, of course. Anyway this might be my favorite of the summer so far, though it's a bit on the darker side for the summer. What you're looking at today is a blue purple gradient beneath a stamped silver zigzag pattern from my MASH stamping plates.

The left hand! Which one of these is not like the other...?

Okay! For the gradient I used four different colors, two blues and two purples. The darker purple is Essie Sexy Divide, one of my absolute favorite polishes. The lighter shimmery purple is Sinful Colors Purple Diamond. The next is Sinful Colors Love Nails, a translucent turquoise. Finally, we have Sinful Colors Midnight Blue, an equally gorgeous marbled royal blue.

The infamous right hand! Which actually turned out just fine.

I stamped the zigzag pattern using Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Celeb City, and I loved the way it made the manicure brighter. I was originally going to stamp in black, but I'm glad I chose otherwise. Thanks for reading!

Hearts...and Dots

 Happy Valentine's Day! (Don't forget to hit the read more button!)

Just kidding. In case you needed ideas for a holiday half a year from now, here's some <3 inspired nail art. (Or if you have a time machine, 'cuz that'd be really cool.)

Red, White?...and Blue

As I was going through my pictures, I looked at this one and was wondering if I had intended to do this for the 4th of July...turns out I got too excited and read the date wrong :( 4th of July is not in June...anyways...

Another water marble from 2012, this one really surprised me! Because the polishes I used were on the thicker side, the overall marbling effect was darker than I expected, but it turned out better than I thought it would, too! My favorite parts on this mani are the loops on the ring finger and arrow shape on the pointer finger.

As a base, I used Sally Hansen Hard as Nails Extreme Wear: Celeb City (silver) and for the marble another Sally Hansen: Red Carpet and Love and Beauty: Royal Blue (from Forever 21). The interesting thing about the blue polish is that it looks more turquoise in the bottle, but in the marble, it mixed nicely with the red, producing a few areas of fuchsia.

Thanks for reading!

Hunger Games Inspired Water Marble

Hey, it's my first *real* post!

I did this water marbling technique for the premier of the Hunger Games movie in March, 2012. If you want to know more about marbling, try searching "water marble nail art" on youtube for ideas and tutorials (my favorites are by simplelittlepleasues). 

For this manicure, I used Sally Hansen Hard as Nails Extreme Wear: Celeb City (silver) as a base and both Sally Hansen Hard as Nails Extreme Wear: Red Carpet (an opaque, marbled red) with Sinful Colors: Cloud 9 (a sheer, shimmery orange) for the marbling. This is one of my favorites, because the polishes I used for this were so reliable, I've done this water marble several times since! I've also used gold polish as a base (also Sally Hansen) and found it works just as well as the silver. 

Here's just a single nail from a later manicure (not painted at the same time as the first picture). I really loved how I got more of the flower pattern on this one. Trial and error! 

I'll probably be going through the pictures I have from last year in chronological order, so stay tuned for more! In the mean time, feel free to comment below with anything you'd like to see! Next time: floral. Thanks for reading!