orange ombre - butterfly kisses

I wanted to do a sunny, summery nail, so I picked Zoya Arizona for my manicure today.  I am just starting to use Zoya polishes - they are a little thinner than what I've been used to, but they do have a nice formula.  I wasn't in love with Arizona, but I do set myself up for failure with these oranges.  I love the color, but it doesn't always love me back.  To temper the color, I decided to do an ombre nail with OPI Take the stage.

The interwebs say that this ombre nail is very ON TREND.  I hear that a lot.  On Trend.  I've never been on trend before.  With, uh, anything.  I'm not sure how I feel about it.

The ombre nail is simply another color sponged onto the nail using a makeup sponge.

Put a little polish on the sponge, and dab it gently (you can always add more polish, it's harder to take it away) about 1/2 to 3/4 up the nail.  I like to dab another layer at the tip to make it opaque at the bottom.

I really liked this look, and it made the Arizona more wearable for me.

A few hours later, though, I started playing around again....

...and used a sponge to add some yellow (Sally Hansen Xtreme in Mellow Yellow) to the nail, so I could try a new-to-me nail art, the monarch butterfly.

After sponging on the yellow and orange, take a nail striper and black polish (I used Pure Ice Black Rage) and make a curved line from the cuticle to the side of the nail bed.  Then make diagonal lines out from the curved lines.  Cap off each segment with a curved line, and fill in the tip.

Add white hi-light dots along the edge.  I also added some near the cuticle, but I didn't like it there as much.  You'll want to use a top coat to make the art pop and to protect it.

I was happy that my husband recognized these as butterfly wings when I showed him the mani.  I'm proud of my first try!  It's a little busy of a look for me, but I'd probably do it again for a theme mani, or as an accent nail.

Puppy-inspired manis

The Skylar mani inspired me to think of ways to pay homage to my other pups on my nails...

First up was Lena.  Lena is about 30 lbs of SomekindofItalianGreyhound mix.  She's neurotic, sweet, and is totally in love with my husband.  Every time he comes home from work, she acts as if it's the 2nd coming of Christ.

I started with 3 coats of China Glaze Golden Spurs.  I don't usually wear gold polishes, as they wash me out.  I thought this one would be good, but... well, it still isn't my color.  I think it'll be relegated to an accent color.

When Lena is freshly bathed, her coat shimmers with red and orange hi-lights that are so beautiful.  I wanted to try to capture that with a flakie topcoat of Up Colors Flocado (Viagem a 2!)

It was my first time using a flakie polish - and I'm hooked!  I couldn't stop looking at my nails, turning them to catch the light and different colors in the flakes.

Of course, my nails aren't as beautiful as my little Tiny Girl, but I think it matches her fur quite nicely, and captures the fire in her coat. 

Next, I wanted to figure out how to capture the black and tan love of my life, the Rottweiler.  We've owned 4 over the years, and still have two of them:  Paksennarion (aka Pax), and Banjo.  They are both adopted, and likely mixed with something else.  Pax is our old lady, and a lot of her tan is now grey and white.  Banjo is 90 lbs of puppy - a ball-obsessed brute with the squiggliest butt ever.

For this mani, I was inspired by a tape mani I saw on Chloe's nails.  I cut strips of tape and put them on my nails in this spray pattern, and then painted the nails with OPI Black Onyx.  It's important to make sure the tape is on securely, and that the polish goes everywhere the tape isn't, and not under the tape.  Also, remove the tape while the polish is still wet, or the polish will stick to the tape.

My husband thought they kinda looked like claws, so appropriate for a puppy-inspired mani..  I like how you can still see the flakies and shimmer, but it's just a dramatic splash.

I woke poor Pax up to take this pix.  Her tongue wasn't awake yet.  I love how the brown stripe on my nail matches the brown stripe on her nose. Aww.

 

Banjo came running when he heard the treat jar!  His coat is very short and glossy, and the tan is rich and bold - just like my nails. ;)  

I wonder if any others have tried matching their nails to their pets?

Creamy, dreamy clouds

I'm not that creative - I take a lot of my nail art ideas from blogs and pinterest.  There is some cool stuff out there, people.  I have been really excited about many of the colors and styles from a blog called Nailside, written by a 20+ year old in the Netherlands.  She did this one mani called 'clouds' that I took this inspiration from.

When I picked up Sinful Colors Cinderella, I couldn't resist a few more colors.  I have been in the mood for green lately.  This is Exotic Green.  The first coat was really yellow, and I didn't think I was going to like it.  Another coat made all the difference.  

Some bottles still had this little stretchy rose ring on the neck.  Silly, but cute. 

I don't know why I picked up this minty-apple green color, it doesn't suit my skintone well. After I swatched this, I took it off and put Exotic Green on both hands as the base coat.

 Call me crazy, but I do love the bottle shape of this brand of polish, though.

I started to experiment with the layering of the clouds.  I added Sally Hansen Made in Jade and Xtreme wear Mellow Yellow to my accent nail. 

All four colors went on my thumbs.

I liked this so much, I did both hands.  This is a happy manicure.

Glitter Gorgeous

When I was little, I remember wanting to wear nail polish, and my mom would only let me wear Tinkerbell polish, or very, very, very pale pink polish.  I think as a consequence of that, I rarely wear pink, and even more rarely, anything sheer.  The polish I chose for this mani isn't exactly demure, but it was a more sheer pink than I'd worn in a while.  It took 3 coats to get to the level I wanted, but the Orly formula is so nice, I didn't even mind.  This is Orly's Gorgeous:

Look at that opalescent glow.  It looks a little like a holo in these pix, picking up some blue and purple, but it wasn't in real life.  It does have a pretty shimmer, though.

I'm not huge into glitters, but I couldn't leave this manicure alone, so I thought I would try a few Sally Hansen X-treme wear glitters I picked up on sale at Walgreens. 

I did a heavy application of Rockstar Pink on my thumbs, and a lighter application on all the other fingers except my ring fingers, where I just used one coat of In the Spotlight.  RSP went on pretty easily, and came off okay - the heavy application was hard to get off, but I didn't use the foil method or anything.  I was hoping there would be more glitter in the application of ITS, but I had to go fishing for the bar glitter and kind of place it around the nail.  Sometimes, with glitter, you get what you pay for.

It may be pink, but I still don't think my mother would approve. ;)

Spotted Skylar

I couldn't leave Skylar just plain on the nail for long.  I am learning to use some nail art tools, and I have to say that the dotting tool is the easiest so far.  Especially for someone like me who is clumsy doing art with my left hand.  I saw a version of this on Pinterest with purples, but no link to the originator, so I can't give credit for the original idea. 

Dots: Zoya Cynthia, Orly Snowcone, Sally Hansen White Tip, and OPI Yoga-ta get this Blue!

I love this mani.  I'm proud of myself! 

See, clumsy left hand.  And the white got a little stringy.  I was a little slow.  Gotta get more practice!

Beloved Skylar

Zoya's Skylar is a beautiful polish, but I have to admit that wasn't why I was attracted to it.  It's a beautiful dusty blue/grey shimmer.  Muted, understated, with a hint of something even prettier.

No, I bought it because it reminded me of my sweet Skylar Mora, our beloved bald mastiff, who we had for only a short time, but is always in my heart.  Mora means 'blueberry' and I named her that because of her grey/blue skin.  She came to us with severe mange, and her fur never grew back.  She was the ugliest beautiful dog ever... and it was like Zoya made this color for her.  Perfect.

Cinderelly, Cinderelly... Sinful Colors Cinderella

I've been reading on the polish blogs about this brand called 'Sinful Colors' and the darling of the collection, Cinderella.  I went on a pilgrimage to Walgreens to score some of this magic elixir...

It's not bad for a $2 bottle of polish.  I liked the color, but the formula?  eh, not so much.  First, I tried 3 coats, straight up.  It's a beautiful baby blue with a slight, slight pink shimmer.  A little sparkly surprise, if you will.

 There's still some VNL and it was uneven.. and I just wasn't happy with it.  So, I took it off and tried again.

I put on 2 layers of Essie's Borrowed and Blue.  It's okay for a pastel.. a little chalky, but had good coverage.  I was missin' the sparklies, though.

Then I put one coat of Cinderella over the Essie.  This worked for me - and, because I'm not very good at cleaning up my manis, I liked this better than using white as a base.  I'm always seeing little white streaks where I don't want them.  This blue backed up the Cinderella and let her sparklies shine.  Only one finger in the pix, though, because I messed all the others up trying to figure out how to make this work, and I was too tired to do the whole mani!

I found Cinderella at Walgreens for $1.99 a bottle.  I also picked up a few other colors I'll show you in a bit.  I found that my local Target started carrying the Sinful Colors line, but couldn't find a price.. and no Cinderella.