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

The 31-Day Nail Art Challenge Day 2: Orange!

So here we are at day 2 of the 31-Day Nail Art Challenge, sponsored by Sarah at Chalkboard Nails!  I'm excited, as this is my first time doing this challenge.  My nail art skills have plenty of room for improvement, so I'm really psyched to learn some new techniques and improve on the methods I've tried in the past :)  Day 2's prompt is orange, so here's my attempt!

In diffused natural light

Here are the prompts for the challenge:

Visit Chalkboard Nails, the sponsor of this challenge, here!

For this mani, I did a gradient with some silver dot accents.  The polishes I used were Funky Fingers Hang Ten, Brah, Revlon Top Speed Haunted Heart, and Revlon Brilliant Strength Polish in Magnetize.  Hang Ten, Brah is a solar-reactive polish that appears neon yellow-orange indoors and coral-orange in sunlight; it also has a very subtle neon-green shimmer.

Closeup of Hang Ten, Brah indoors.  So shimmery!

Unfortunately, while the polish in the bottle is quite reactive in sunlight, that reactivity didn't translate to the nail.  I suspect this had to do with the topcoat that I used.  While it would have been neat to see this effect, I didn't really mind because I liked the gradient as it was!  Haunted Heart is a red-leaning bold orange with apple-green shimmer.  I did a sponge gradient of Haunted Heart over Hang Ten, Brah, and then made a dotted off-center cross shape using Magnetize, a classic silver chrome.  I topped the whole thing with Salon Perfect Matte Topcoat.

In sunlight

Thanks for reading, and stay tuned for day three of the challenge, yellow!!!

An InLinkz Link-up

The 31-Day Nail Art Challenge Day 1: Red!

Hi guys!

I'm a little nervous... this is my very first 31-Day Nail Art Challenge, and I must say that it looks pretty daunting from here!  I just took a temp job in retail with super nutso hours, so getting these challenges done on time is going to be a bit of a stretch!  As a result, I might combine some challenges if I'm having a busy week, and I might even post challenges late on occasion... Since this is a hobby for me, I have no intention of making it stressful :^)  Here are the prompts, courtesy of Chalkboard Nails:

The first prompt, "Red," was super tough for me!  At first, I thought I would do an adventure time theme, with Shades of Red a la Marceline... but I couldn't think of a good way to execute it.  Then, I thought I would do a little Orange is the New Black manicure, but I wasn't sure I could do ten odes to Kate Mulgrew's character in a way that would do her justice in the short amount of time I had!  I actually ended up doing three manicures before I did one I liked... and even this one is a bit wonky!  Here it is, in all its dubious glory:

I attempted brushstroke flowers for this design, but only about 25% successfully... There was a lot of touch up afterwards lol.  The flowers were done using China Glaze Seeing Red (a brick red from the new limited edition The Giver collection) and Julep Isla (a frosty pearl white), over a base of China Glaze Five Rules, a light putty-hued neutral also from the Giver collection.  For the black leaves and flower anthers I used Konad black.  I topped it off with Salon Perfect Topcoat!

I actually really liked how it came out; unfortunately the sun was rather bright when I took the pictures (I don't have a photo setup at my new house yet, womp womp). Here's a polish pic:

Thanks for stopping by for a look-see!  Check out some of the other lovely work below, and be sure to submit your nail art here if you are participating!

An InLinkz Link-up