Autumn Trees Gradient

Today is the Autumnal Equinox which means fall is officially upon us. Fall is hands-down my favorite holiday. I love when the trees change colors and lose their leaves. I love wearing tall boots and scarves and drinking warm beverages. It means it's time to snuggle by the fire pit with my husband. Also, one of the BEST parts of fall is that Halloween is coming!

I found a beautiful nail art picture via Pinterest that I tried to recreate today. I tried searching to find where this photo originated from, but I could not locate the source. It's frustrating when people link their images back to their Pinterest Home Page just to get traffic instead of linking back to it's originating website.

Autumn Trees Gradient

Here is my inspiration picture. (if you recognize where this image is from, please let me know so I can properly cite the talented artist and turn this image into a link to their website)

Found on Pinterest - source unknown

It's beautiful, isn't it? I tried to make my trees as organically flowing as she did but needless to say I struggled with that a bit. Also, about 2 nails in I realized I was doing my art upside down, oops. This made it a bit more difficult to capture a good picture hence the upside down photos. Perfect capture of the trees changing during fall. I would LOVE to know where this is from!

Colors used in my photos:
   • FINGER PAINTS Cordur-Orange
   • CHINA GLAZE Lemon Fizz
   • JULEP Cameron
   • KONAD Special Polish in Black
   • Mixture of ZOYA Melanie & SALLY HANSEN Xtreme Wear White On

Well, HAPPY FALL to all of my lovely followers. Thanks for popping in!

Butterfly Gradient Skittles

Welcome back, ladies! Boy is it HOT outside today. It's going to get even hotter as the week goes on for us here in VA. I decided on doing more nail art today. My last nail post I did ladybugs, today I have butterflies! This one is also a re-creation from a Pintrest find originally done by Beads. Nails. Food. Pairing the gradient with the butterfly look was so gorgeous I immediately bookmarked it in my head to do later. I have been getting a nice little collection of shimmer polishes so I decided to pair a shimmer with a corresponding color for my gradient. Lots of polishes and pictures for this one so hunker down there, girls.

Butterfly Gradient

butterflies and flowers (that's a Gerbera daisy from my garden)

Little Miss Amoki admiring Momma's nails from afar.

Dpow smelling the daisy

Skittle Gradients before butterfly-ification

Colors used:
   ● thumb: ZOYA Midori w/ ZOYA Ivanka
   ● pointer: ZOYA Arizona w/ ZOYA Myrta
   ● middle: ZOYA Lolly w/ ZOYA Kimber
   ● ring: ZOYA Robyn w/ ZOYA Charla
   ● pinky: JULEP Anne w/ ZOYA Zara
   ● KONAD Special Polish in Black
   ● White Acrylic

all the polishes I used for this look!

I told you I used a lot! It took a while to achieve this look. I started with 2 coats of each base color (the ones listed first under colors used) and let it completely dry. I then used a small makeup sponge and applied the shimmery colors (second colors listen under colors used) on the tips down partially to the middle of each nail. I let this dry and then applied Seche Vite. It helps to use a top coat before adding nail art so if you mess up it's easier to remove your mistake without mussing up your base color too much. After that was dried I used my small art brush and freehanded the black butterfly lines and then added the dots with white acrylic using my dotting tool. After the detailing was COMPLETELY dry, I topped once again with Seche Vite to smooth out the look and help make it last. When adding top coat over any sort of nail art be sure it's 100% dry. If it isn't, the drag from the brush can smear your work.

Phew! Hope you could follow all of that. I love my summer toes and nails! I kind of have a mixture of things going on here; skittles, gradient, nail art... :-)

Thanks for popping in!

Do You Believe in Magic?

Good morning, ladies! Well, good morning if I wasn't feeling all stuffed up and meh. My husband made me some tea this morning and we bought cinnamon bagels from Panera yesterday for breakfast today so that was most enjoyable.

Today I have some nail art for you that I'm entering in a contest being held by Lindsey at Neverland Nail Blog. Her blog is incredible and if you haven't checked it out before you should do so! The theme for the contest is "Do You Believe in Magic?" I decided to go with a Magician themed nail falling under the slight of hand category.

Colors used:
   ● ZOYA Sooki - 2 coats thumb & pinky, Ace of Diamonds
   ● CHINA GLAZE Liquid Leather - magic hat, wand, Ace of Spades, bunny accents
   ● CHINA GLAZE Snow Globe - 1 coat Pinky
   ● JULEP Emilie - 2 coats ring, middle and pointer
   ● FINGER PAINTS Papier Mâché - white on all nails
   ● OPI Skull & Glossbones - thumb magic hat accents
  ** I mixed a bit of Sooki and Papier Mâché for the pink on the bunny

So, on my nails I have a magician's top hat and wand, 2 playing cards and the bunny that comes out of the hat. I added a gold star to the top of the wand which I adore. I freehanded all of these with my brand new art brush I picked up yesterday from Michaels for $4. I am so happy with this mani, I think it's so fun! I hope you like it too.

new art brushes, yay!

Thanks for popping in!

Tie-Dye Accents

Happy Saturday, ladies!

I am loving this weather! I can't say the same for my 2 siberian huskies though who much prefer the cold and snow.

We did take them down to the Boardwalk though which they enjoyed. There were LOTS of huskies out that day!

Dpow is on the left & Amoki is on the right

Aren't our babies gorgeous?! Ok Ok, enough of being one of those people who fawn over their dogs...we have nails to discuss!

So, I did end up adding that nail art to Lemon Fizz yesterday. I'll jump right into it and show you because it makes me happy!

Isn't it PSYCHEDELIC?! I used this great tutorial. This look is achieved by gently dragging a small pin or needle through your still wet polish. I must have done mine a bit too hard because instead of smearing the colors it revealed the white underneath, but I still LOVE this. It's so fun and I remember making tie-dye shirts when I was younger. I did a small change to the base polish by removing Lemon Fizz on my thumb and ring finger and replacing it with China Glaze Papier Mâché to give myself a good base to make the colors for the tie-dye really pop.

Lemon Fizz & Papier Mâché

Colors used for tie-dye in order of use:
● FINGER PAINTS Papier Mâché
● CHINA GLAZE Lemon Fizz
● SALLY HANSEN XTREME WEAR Sun Kissed (150)
● JULEP Cameron
● ZOYA Sooki
● JULEP Anne
● CHINA GLAZE Frostbite
● CHINA GLAZE Holly-Day
● Topped off with Seche Vite

I definitely plan on trying this pin dragging art again. I think the look it makes is fabulous.

Well, thanks for popping in and enjoy the rest of your weekend!

Very Merry Berry

I borrowed today's color from my sister's stash. Very Merry Berry, from the Color Club holiday Scent-suous Collection, is a mix of purplish-pink hexagonal flakes and smaller blue flaky glitter in a clear base. It has a pleasant, if not a bit strong, berry aroma to it. I wonder how long the scent will stay so pungent for. We shall see. So, I got it in my head that I would sponge Very Merry Berry over Julep Anne gradient-style. Fail. Turns out flaky glitter does not sponge the same way sparkle polish does. It all wanted to stick to the sponge and I ended up having to wipe it on my nail. So, one nail in, I just decided to use the brush to apply it. Still, not the best scenario. The flakes all sort of stacked and clumped on the tips. I did my pointer and thumb full nail and that was easier to apply. The flakes are really easy to manipulate around where you want them with the brush. Well, here are the results:

natural light

shaded light

I like these colors together and I dig the big flakes. I'm not completely sold on how it looks with just the tips done. I MUCH prefer the full-nail look with this particular polish. Either way, this is a fun polish and I'm glad my sister loaned it to me. (= See you all next time!

JULEP Anne

Happy Saturday, ladies! Today's manicure is another Julep beauty, Anne. Anne is a cream violet color with LOTS of pigment. It applied evenly and smoothly and cleanup was a breeze. I decided to go all Julep today and traded my usual Zoya Anchor for Julep Nail Therapy as my base and then topped with Julep Fast Dry Top Coat. It all just went on so cleanly.

indoor lighting

natural light

The top coat is what gave this the sheen, but the polish itself dried a little bit flat. I wish now I had snapped a few to show you before I did the top coat, but it looks pretty with or without. The color also has a bit more saturation is person, but it still photographed gorgeously. 

Hope you all have a great weekend! The husband and I are going out to dinner with one of his work friends who's changing duty stations, so it's his goodbye dinner. Then tomorrow we are going to IKEA to get new desks :-).  See you all next time.

JULEP Helena

Hello ladies. My husband picked out today's color. He chose one of my new ones, Julep Helena. This color has so much pigment you could probably get away with 1 coat! It's a very pretty, ultra saturated, fuchsia. Julep says it works with all skin tones. Indoors this color leans more towards a purple, but outdoors it really popped as a bright pink. It applied very smoothly and dried very fast. However, when the color dried it was very flat. There really was no sheen to it at all,  but I would not go so far as to say it was matte. Not even close, just flat. I topped it with my new Julep topcoat which gave it that glossy finish and smoothed out the look. Dry time wasn't too bad either, but it stunk! Take a look at this morphing fuchsia!

natural lighting

indoor lighting

fluorescent lighting

See what I meant about looking more purple indoors? I really didn't get a good picture of a true representation of how this color looks in person, but it's lovely. I always find it intriguing just how much lighting changes the look of certain polish colors.

Hope you all have a great night and thanks for stopping by!