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!