Nails Inspired By... A Rug??

Yupppp, today's nails are inspired by an Instagram photo from DesignLoveFest of a polka dot rug!

Not just the rug itself, but the colors of her shoes and jeans against the black and white polka dot rug... It made me wanna do this:

Here's the original Instagram post by DesignLoveFest, in case you lazily didn't click the link at the beginning of this blog!

For polishes I used (left to right):

• Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear - Fuchsia Power
• Orly - Preamp
• Ruby Kisses - Blue Pearl
• Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear - Blue It
• Sinful Colors - Snow Me White
• Revlon - Stiletto

I did tons of swatching to decide which colors to use for the blue and pink in these nails. In the end, I ended up layering two different polishes for each.

I bought the Fuchsia Power polish recently, thinking (foolishly) that it would be the perfect pink color for this mani. It was definitely not. The better choice to make would definitely have been Sally Hansen's Insta Dri in the color Flashy Fuschia, but for some reason I decided not to buy that one, so here we are - mixing 'n matching polishes like we're some kind of effing Bob Ross.  Perhaps you saw my swatch-a-thon on Instagram.

What I decided upon for the pink nail was a coat of Fuchsia Power followed by a coat of Preamp. (I did a whole post about Preamp here.) For the blue nail, I did a coat of Blue It topped by a coat of Blue Pearl.

Look how sparkly Preamp is when I use the flash:

.  whoooooa  .

Nothing fancy planned for me this weekend. If I can manage to get a haircut, it'll be a solid victory. I'm soooo overdue! It would also be nice to go for a hike - I haven't been into the mountains in a month or two.

What are you rocking on your nails today?
Have you picked up any new polishes yet?
Let me know what your weekend plans are!

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{Linking up with Friday's Fab Favorites, Beauty Buzz, and The Nail Files}

St. Patrick's Day Rainbow & Pot o' Gold Nails

Rather than going a standard "green nails" route for some St. Patrick's Day themed nails, I thought I'd take things in a more rainbow/pot of gold direction. HOPE THAT'S COOL WITH YOU!

Colors used:
Snow Me White - Sinful Colors (white)
Ruby Ruby - Sinful Colors (red)
Fuzzy Navel - Ruby Kisses (orange)
Lightening - Sally Hansen Insta Dri (yellow)
Envy - Sinful Colors (green)
Midnight Blue - Sinful Colors (blue)
Amethyst - Sinful Colors (purple)
Stiletto - Revlon (black)
Big Spender - Nina Ultra Pro (gold)
Crystal Gold - Love & Beauty (gold)
#077 - Color Club (gold)

I started off with a coat of Snow Me White on all my nails, and followed that up by taping all of my fingers the same way you may have seen me do in this nail tutorial. That step isn't totally necessary, but it most definitely cuts down on clean-up time later.

Next I grabbed a makeup sponge and painted a stripe of each color of the rainbow onto the sponge before quickly dabbing the sponge on my nails. I reapplied the rainbow colors to the sponge between each nail. For the thumb I painted the bottom half of the nail black and then used mixed coats of all 3 gold polishes to cover the top half of the nail. Update tip: I find it's a good idea to twist all of your nail polish bottles open (while still leaving the cap on) and line them up, ready to swipe onto the makeup sponge. It's a pain in the butt to have to twist them each open right before you swipe them onto the sponge, especially because you don't want the polishes to dry on the sponge before it gets to your nail!

 To finish off, I gave the rainbow nails a top coat to help smooth the colors together better.

Are you going to do anything crazy this weekend for St. Patrick's Day? I actually don't even know if Canadians celebrate this holiday... I'll have to find out. Anyway - whatever you're doing this weekend - keep it real and have funnnnn!

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Autumn Leaves Nails

All of the autumnal foliage around here has been making me want to splash some of that fall flare all over my fingernails! So I did.

The inspiration behind these nails is a fully-swagged out tree against a beautiful blue sky. Something like this:

So I pulled out my favorite "sky blue" nail polish - Snowcone by Orly - and selected a crop of fall leaf colors from my stash to make it happen:

.  fuzzy navel by ruby kisses, little miss sunrise by essence, posh by revlon, a list by essie, and snowcone by orly  .

After applying a base coat and one coat of Snowcone to all of my nails, I tapped a few dots of the green polish onto a scrap paper and used my dotting tool to place a few green dots randomly around the lower half of each nail. I repeated this step with each color, until the lower half of each nail was more or less full of multi-colored dots.

I left a little bit of blue peeking through the "branches."

What do you think of this look? A little abstract, but fun, quick and easy!

And today there's a little something extra in my weekly nail polish blog! Each Friday I link up with Jennie over at her weekly Nail Files link party. This week she's hosting an awesome giveaway full of nail goodies and has asked for some help in spreading the word about zee fun. You can follow the link to enter the giveaway here ~> a Rafflecopter giveaway

Check out what Jennie is generously giving away to the winner:

A bottle of Seche Vite top coat (which is apparently the Rolls Royce of top coats in the nail polish world), a bottle of China Glaze Patent Leather Top Coat, a bottle of Finger Paints Paper Mache, a bottle of Seche Vite Collage Overlay, a bottle of China Glaze Razzle Me Dazzle Me, a set of 10 assorted striping tapes, a set of nail art brushes, a set of dotting tools, and a packet of cheetah nail strips.

You can even earn extra entries for following me on Bloglovin, sooo.... DO THAT, RIGHT?

Find me on Facebook! ~ Holla @ me on Twitter ~

{Linking up with The Nail Files, Friday's Five, Friday's Fab Favorites,  What I'm Loving Fridays, Tell Us Tuesdays}

Candy Corn Nails!

Ah, candy corns. Tiny little tri-colored pyramids of waxy sugar. You're alright with me. Time to put you on my nails!

This is a really easy Halloween-inspired nail look, and all you need are a few polishes and an inexpensive makeup sponge.

You can see on the card below that I was doing some swatches to choose a color, because I had a couple different oranges and a couple of different yellows that I was trying to decide between. I ended up using Fuzzy Navel by Ruby Kisses, Lightening by Sally Hanson Insta-Dri, and Snow Me White by Sinful Colors.

First I painted all of my nails one thick coat of Snow Me White and let it dry. Then I took my makeup sponge and applied my yellow, orange, and white polishes to the sponge in stripes, as you see above. While the polish is still wet on the sponge, line it up against your nail and in a rocking motion roll the colors over your nail. It might be tricky to get the lines straight, but just keep working at it. 

Try not to dab too much, as you would if you trying to do an ombre effect. You don't really want these colors to blend together much.

And look - I was even able to re-use the same sponge I used to do my purple ombre nails from back in May! #WasteNot.

What do you have on your nails today? Anything Halloween-inspired?

P.S. My Revlon 3D Nail Appliques post is featured today over on Coffee Beans & Bobby Pins!

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{Linking up with Tell Us Tuesday, The Nail Files, Friday's Fab Favorites,  What I'm Loving Fridays, and Friday's Five}   

Quick and Easy Snowfall Nails

I'm still going strong on my habit of painting my nails then peeling it all off within a day and a half, so there are ample opportunities for me to try out different holiday-spirited nail polish looks.

Here is one that was really easy because it didn't require any fancy Bob Ross skills in the painting department - I'm calling this look Snowfall Nails:

I try to browse Pinterest in my spare time, because it is sew creatively stimulating and I can get lots of different ideas for nail polish looks, outfits, artwork, paintings and #WHATHAVEYEW. I saw a few different nail polish ideas that used white snowflakes on a dark blue background and I really liked the way it looked. 

I started out this look with something similar in mind - I was going to do a dark blue background and add some white dots for snow. I was also going to use my Dust nail polish to pluck out some of the larger hexagonal silver glitter chunks and use a toothpick to place them carefully onto my nail amongst the white dots, as "sparkly" snowflakes.

HOWEVER!

When I got out all of my polishes in a row - Blue Pearl by Ruby Kisses, Snow Me White by Sinful Colors and Dust by Urban Outfitters - I started thinking that it might look really nice to just use Dust, as is, over Blue Pearl. It seemed to me that it might still resemble falling snow... and would certainly be sparkly and pretty, at the very least. So that's what I decided to do instead! I may still try the white snowflake/sparkly snowflake look in the future.

.  blue pearl by ruby kisses, dust by urban outfitters  .

Start out with two coats of the dark blue polish:

And top that shit with a coat of Dust!

.  a view in inside lighting  .

And here we have some Snowfall Nails!

.  "sha-zam," as they say  .

Fun Random Fact:  I am especially fond of Blue Pearl because it reminds me of my '88 Chevy Nova (RIP). In 2003 I was rear-ended while driving my beloved Nova through Park Square in Pittsfield. With the money I received from the person who hit me, I got my little lady a paint job with metallic blue paint - thus adding a fine metallic shimmer to her entire exterior and rendering her officially "blinged." This Blue Pearl polish has the same shimmery metallic sparkle to it, and so The Nove lives on!

Favorite Fall Nail Polishes

As mentioned last week, I really enjoy collecting nail polishes and painting my nails. Fingernails are like ten tiny little canvases, as far as I'm concerned, and painting them actually makes a fun creative outlet. I don't always feel like I've got time for a full-on craft project, and painting my nails is a less time-consuming way to feel artistic. 

Pair my fondness for craftiness with my compulsion to peel the polish off of my nails almost immediately, and you're looking at a pretty serious need for a large nail polish collection.

That said, this blog will be about a combination of two of my favorite things: autumn and nail polish. 

Below is my line up of nail polishes that I love this fall. I know there are some pretty "major players" missing from this list (I'm lookin' at you, Lincoln Park After Dark), but these are just the ones that I happen to love and (in most cases) own.

.   outlined below, from left to right  .

Essie - A List:  A darker red (not a darrrrk red, but a darkER red). It's more of a cherry than it comes across in pictures.

Ruby Kisses - Fuzzy Navel: The color I think of when I hear the phrase "blood orange." Definitely a "New England foliage" type of bright red-orange.

NK Nail Enamel - Vibrant Orange/Milani - Metallic Mango (these two colors are pretty much dupes for one another):  A rusty, citrusy tangerine with golden yellow shimmer.

China Glaze - Heart of Africa: A dark merlot with a fine red shimmer.

Essie - Sew Psyched: A "brighter-than-army green" earthy green. Have you ever smelled the Gap perfume/candle "Grass"? Sew Psyched reminds me of that scent.

Sinful Colors - Rain Storm: The name is very appropriate - this is a "stormy day" blue with a greyish/greenish undertone.

Orly - Bailamos: Let the rhythm take you (and your fingernails) over. This is a rich, jewel-tone turquoise that's perfect for fall.

Orly - Mysterious Curse: A holographic, oil-spill, galaxy-esque purple/blue polish.

Sally Hansen - Luminous Tulip: A mashup of dark pink and lilac purple with blue undertones and gorgeous flecks that catch the light. It's a great way to wear something pink in the fall, b/c it looks good even against (perhaps especially against) paler skin.

Essie - Mochacino: Yum-my. A light, earthy brown with fine silver flecks. Combines my love of light brown with my love of silver!

<< Orly - Buried Treasure: A shimmery bronze, perfect for fall metallics lovers.

>> China Glaze - Desert Sun:  A mustardy, brownish yellow. I don't actually own this one... yet! I've been on the hunt for it but haven't been able to locate it in a store. The color is very "fall" but a little bold for me to wear in an article of clothing - I can't picture myself getting much use out of a "desert sun" shade of jeans, for example, but in a nail polish it's the perfect splash of fall!

What are your favorite fall nail polishes? Did any of your favorites make this list? Do you not give a crap about nail polish? Let me know!