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

Citron and Deep Teal Chevron Nail Art

Hello, reader!  I'm not sure what took me so long to post this mani; it's my favorite in a long time.  The inspiration came to me all of a sudden; I just saw the shapes and colors together all at once.  For this design, I used striping tape to get a clear line.  I had a little smudging, but I'm happy with it anyway:

Sorry about my cuticles; they're a horrible mess right now!  I have no excuse; I'm home all day (Ah, the bittersweet joy of unemployment?).  I did just pick up some lovely lotion, so hopefully I will remember to slather it on at night :^)

 

For the citron base, I used two coats of Julep Alma.  This polish has a decent formula (especially compared to other Julep polishes, which seem in my experience to be either horribly gloopy or hopelessly sheer).  In real life, the color on the nail is closer to to the color that appears in the bottle above - a bit greener.  It's a really lovely color, and I'm super glad I picked it up.

For the teal, I used Sinful Colors Blue Crushin.  I am totally in love with this polish, which is strange since I'm not usually a teal or aqua fan.  It's pretty color accurate on the nails in the photo; perhaps a hair darker and greener, and a bit darker than it appears in the bottle.  Blue Crushin is super opaque; easily a one-coater.  It has a thick but not gloopy formula, but it does dry quickly so fast handiwork is recommended.  I did get a couple stringy bits while removing the tape, which resulted in the smearing you can see in the photos.

I reversed the chevron direction for an accent on each hand, which turned out subtle, but in a cool way!  I'm really proud of how this turned out; I think my skills are improving (especially in the cleanup arena. On my right hand (my Cinderella hand of course), I used a striping tape that hadn't been cut evenly, resulting in weird, uneven stripes...

This is the most color-accurate photo of these polishes.

Still, I was happy with the results!  Fun fact:  If you've been reading my blog, you may have noticed my nails are nubs again.  There is a reason, albeit a gross one!  I was walking my darling Charlie, and... erm... cleaning up after him, and the baggie had a hole in it...  There goes my thumb, with my nice long nails, right into a fresh steaming dog poo.  After that, no amount of washing made my hands feel clean, so I decided to cut them so that I could get them truly clean.  So that was a bit yuck.  Good thing Charlie's such a cutie! #dogmomproblems

Sorry mommy!

Spring Honey Bee Nail Art

It's been a crazy couple of weeks! I'm finishing up my masters degree, and finals week is finally drawing to a close.  All this time spent studying, finishing projects, and proctoring tests meant no time for manicures or even makeup!  What ensued were several sleepless nights and a whole lot of days spent with dry cracked lips and cuticles... and some scary eyebrows.  After a week like that, I needed some self-pampering to reset my system and motivate myself to tie up all of the loose ends of the semester.  At first, I was feeling a bit uninspired, but after a quick perusal of my stamping plates, I came across a honeycomb pattern and knew just what to do... a springtime honeybee manicure!

I could swear I cropped this photo at one point... huh!  Too lazy to fix it now.

I'm just a week away from moving all of my belongings down to Knoxville... just writing that makes my stomach flutter with excitement, and a little nervousness!  I've spent my whole life living in New York, and haven't been further south than Maryland (except for a layover in Charlotte, but I never left the airport so it doesn't count haha!).  Up in New York, it's been such a cold winter that the trees just leafed out (we had snow until the end of April where I am).  With the newly springy weather, the lawn has become polka-dotted with dandelions, and the bumblebees are everywhere!  Bees are such a sign of spring to me; while I give them a wide berth for both their sake and mine, I can appreciate the important role that bees and other insects play in the propagation of both wild and cultivated plants.  I won't write an essay here about the environmental impact of bees, but suffice it to say, they're fascinating little creatures!  I recently read an article about a book (I know, so meta) that was recently released by Laline Paul entitled The Bees, about a worker bee who challenges the hive hierarchy.  Its premise, being from an animal's perspective, brings Watership Down to mind, but as I've not yet read the latter, I can't comment.  I'm definitely planning to pick up The Bees when I have a bit more cash though!  Definitely looking forward to having some time to read again.

This one's name is Thumbelina.

ANYHOO.  Got a bit off track there, didn't I!?  My honey-bee inspired manicure was created with 3 thin coats of Julie G polish Canary Islands, which is a gorgeous, warm and saturated buttery yellow.  I stamped a honeycomb over the canary yellow with Sally Hansen Forsythia, which is a muted mustard with a hint of white shimmer.  I have had it forever, and I believe it is discontinued, which is a shame, as it's quite beautiful.  The bees were painted by hand using a very small brush, using China Glaze White on White, Sinful Colors Black on Black, and Julep Stella.  After I painted the bees, I accentuated the highlights and shadows of the honeycomb in the background with Julep Stella and Revlon Colorstay in Buttercup.

Some wonky bees on my right hand!

This manicure is so cheerful; from a distance it looks like little windows into a hive, with all the little bees bustling about.  I may or may not have worn giant enamel and rhinestone bee earrings to school today...

On a related note, I've been working on rehabing my nails from this terrible winter and getting into a cuticle care regime.  They're not quite there yet, but looking back at my spring dogwood blossom post, I think it's safe to say I've come a long way (with cuticle cleanup, too... yikes!).  I'm using Nail Tek II Intensive Therapy as a base, topped with Nail Tek Foundation.  While it recommends using the IT as a topcoat, I don't see much benefit, as it's not going to touch my nails, so I just use Salon Perfect topper.  Hopefully I can get some length pretty soon... more area to make pretty paintings on :^)