Wakey, wakey! The 31-Day Nail Art Challenge Day 3: Yellow!

Yellow!  Such a divisive hue among us nail bloggers... For some, a summery, sunshiney hue that brings images of bright cocktails and ripe fruit; for others, however, it invokes images of stained nailbeds or gives us the dreaded lobster hands!  I personally like yellow nail polish (usually), though until recently, I had only one sad, lonely yellow in my collection.  I now own... wait for it... three!  Yes, three.  I only used two for this mani though!

This was a fun one!  I had a couple of ideas, but none of them were very original, and one I had already done on my blog before!  Ultimately, this is what I came up with:

Eggs and bacon!  I hope that you can tell what it is, lol.  I am a big lover of eggs, and though I rarely buy bacon due to the price and fattiness, it is indeed delicious!  For this manicure, I used a base of Revlon Colorstay Buttercup (I have green gel underneath, which is peeking out around the edges, because I failed to cover it up properly.  Womp womp.).  I painted the egg whites with China Glaze White On White, and used a large dotting tool to paint the egg yolks with Julie G Canary Islands.  I used L'Oreal Mauvelous to paint on the bacon strips, and then painted little lines on the bacon using Pure Ice En Vogue and OPI My Vampire is Buff with an ultra fine tipped nail art brush.  Finally, I used black acrylic paint to outline everything with an ultra fine tipped nail art brush, and topped the whole thing with Salon Perfect Top Coat!

If you are interested in participating, check out the image below (courtesy of Sarah at Chalkboard Nails here - thanks Sarah!)

Thanks for stopping by, and don't forget to check out the amazing work of other nail artists for today's prompt below (and add your own link)!

An InLinkz Link-up

Vintage-inspired Floral Nail Art

I've been incredibly busy working on my final projects for school, but have been dying to do a real manicure for weeks. Today I happened to have a couple of hours to myself (rare) and decided that it was time... but I was feeling totally uninspired. Then, I remembered this awesome floral top I picked up at Goodwill a few weeks ago, and I knew EXACTLY what the inspiration for this mani was going to be!

The blouse is made of an ivory polyester crepe and is covered in half-dollar-sized coral-colored flowers that have bright blue-purple centers and abundant bright green leaves.  It's such a cheerful, springy pattern that I had to pick it up.  There's no tag, but I suspect that it was made in the eighties (just like me!  LOL).

With polish bottle for scale! (I can't help it; I'm a geologist!)

For this manicure, I had to custom-mix a bunch of colors to get the shades right.  For the background, I mixed a half bottle of plain white (L'Oreal French Tip White) with 8-10 drops of Julep Stella, a boxed-macaroni yellow-orange, to get an antique white creme.  I painted three coats of this over Sally Hansen Hard as Nails Hard as Wraps.  I then painted little splotchy rings of Wet n Wild Blaze randomly on each nail.  It's not the most pigmented polish, so I went over each one twice.  Next, I used a tiny paintbrush to add little smudges of Revlon Cherries in the Snow to the outer edges of the petals.  For the leaves, I mixed a couple of drops of Julep Roc Solid with China Glaze Budding Romance (my favorite polish of all time!), and painted little dashes randomly around the edges of each "flower."  The centers of the flowers were a mix of Sinful Colors Go Go Boots and Nina Ultra Pro Sailor.  I used a dotting tool to place a large dot in the center of each flower.  Last, I used a tiny brush with a bit of Sally Hansen Night Flight to place little dashes around the outside of the flowers and around the centers.  I'm not sure how I feel about the outcome of this last step, because it looks a bit messy up close.

Please excuse my ragged cuticles... I'm out of orange sticks, and I resolved not to use my nails as tools anymore! 

I usually feel like I shouldn't bother doing a crazy mani with my nubby nails, but I've been having such a hard time growing them out lately because of the horrible Buffalo winter, the stress and associated poor diet, and the fact that I have been terrible about my cuticles.  That said, I'm still really happy with this mani.  It's super cheerful, and from a normal viewing distance, it looks pretty good!!! 

Where do you find inspiration for your nail art?  Tell me in the comments :^)

First Day of Spring Mani!

Happy first day of spring!  It's been a loooong time coming... this has been quite a winter!  I'm still up in Buffalo, New York, and there's still plenty of snow on the ground.  From what I hear, there is more on the way!

That said, signs of spring have begun to show up, even here.  The Canada geese are coming back, and we've had a couple of days above 40 degrees (F).  I'm still reaching for my boots to go outside, but I'm looking forward to sandal weather.

I have a special mani to show you today; I wanted to do something super springy, so I decided to do a handpainted floral design, inspired by this picture from the University of Tennessee Institute of Agriculture Entomology and Plant Pathology program:

https://ag.tennessee.edu/EPP/Pages/TrigianoResearch.aspx

This gorgeous bloom is from one of my favorite plants, the dogwood tree.  This, specifically, is a Cornus florida 'Cherokee Brave,' and it's part of the university's dogwood breeding program.  The UT Institute of Agriculture is located in Knoxville, the city I am excited to say that I will soon call home!  Each April since 1961, a festival has taken place in Knoxville celebrating the culture, arts, and natural beauty of the area.  The festival is held during the blooming period of the dogwood tree, which has become a symbol of the festival and of the beautification of the city.

Dogwood trees are pretty few and far between where I'm from because it's just too cold, but on the few occasions I've seen them in bloom, they're breathtaking.  Interestingly (from a scientific perspective!), dogwood flowers are actually the tiny, yellow-green nubs in the center of the bloom; the large, white to pink "petals" are actually bracts.  Fascinating!  The blooms are quite large, about the size of the palm of your hand, and the petals (er... bracts) are very stiff and tough, like leaves.

Anyhoo, I adore dogwood trees, and since it is the first day of spring and I will soon be moving to Knoxville, I thought there was no better ode to new beginnings than a dogwood manicure:

For this manicure, I did a gradient of China Glaze Budding Romance (perfect name, eh?) over Sally Hansen Hard as Wraps and two coats of Sinful Colors Adventure Island.  I used a teeny paintbrush to paint on branches with Julep Rooney, and painted on the flower petals using L'Oreal French Tip White.  Using the same small paintbrush that I used to paint the branches, I painted pink streaks on the petals with Ulta Fuchsiamania.  I added some other details in with the small brush using Adventure Island and Rooney, and then I did a little dot in the center of each bloom using Sally Hansen SALON Lacquer in Forsythia.  I topped it off with Salon Perfect top coat.

Over all, this mani took probably about two and a half hours, and I was pretty happy with the result.  I had a little trouble with my right hand (obviously), so it looks a bit like it was painted during a moderate-strength earthquake.  Honestly, though?  I'm fine with it.  Perfectionism isn't my bag.

Here's a closeup:

And heeeere's righty:

And a closeup of the right hand:

This was a really fun manicure to do, and I think I'll be doing more hand-painted manis in the future.  I hope that you enjoy this post as much as I enjoyed preparing it!  Enjoy your first day of spring!

What is your favorite hand-painted mani theme (e.g. florals, abstract, etc.)?  Tell me in the comments!