4th of July Nails

As promised yesterday, here are my 4th of July nails!

 

Here is what I did last year. This years water marble came out MUCH better.

I used a whole bunch of polishes for this! First, the base I used for every nail is OPI- My Boyfriend Scales Walls (Spiderman Collection 2012). My go to white, not your traditional stark white, but still white enough, and a very good formula.

The glitters:
My index finger is Sally Hansen- Red White & Hue (Color Frenzy Line). I am not too sure if this is limited edition, I just stumbled upon this at Target and had to get it since I don't have a red white and blue polish in a clear base. I know Hard Candy has one too. The formula wasn't the best. I tended to get a lot of the clear base on my brush rather than glitter, so it got a little thick.

My pinky is Polish Me Silly- Razzmatazz (Formally known as Lush Lacquer). This polish is no longer available unfortunately. It is just red and blue medium hex glitters in a clear base.Very easy to work with.

Red and Blue:
Everyone in the nail polish world knows about Sally Hansen- Pacific Blue being changed to an awful formula along with some other loved Xtreme wear polishes. I have heard these polishes are great for water marbling, so I gave it a whirl. I think it came out pretty good. It didn't spread out as easily as the OPI's I used, but it got the job done. It especially got the job done for the stripes on my middle finger since it is so creamy and opaque. I got the striping tape from Nailvinyls, and used various sizes.

The red is a new one to my collection and the nail polish world, which is OPI- Coca-Cola Red (Coca- Cola Collection 2014). This polish is FLAWLESS! I used it on my other hand for the base before applying the Sally Hansen glitter. Super creamy and opaque, and almost a one coater. I think I may have a new favorite red.

I think that covers everything. If you are in the US, have a safe and fun holiday!

Merry Christmas!

I know I am posting this on Christmas Eve, but I will be rocking these nails for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. With all the stuff I am doing with mine and my boyfriend's family, I will have no time to do my nails! I went pretty festive this year:

Christmas Trees and Candy Canes

I thought I had a pretty good idea with the Christmas Tree on my two middle fingers, but it really didn't turn out the way I wanted :( I started off with two coats of China Glaze- Running In Circles (Cirque Du Soleil Collection Winter 2013). Seriously the most amazing glass fleck green polish ever! Then I topped it off with a coat of Lush Lacquer- Tree-Mendous, now the brand is Polish Me Silly due to legal issues... I will probably always call them Lush Lacquer since they were my first love of an indie brand, and they even featured some of my pictures on their etsy, but they have discontinued A LOT of their polishes since then. Fortunately they have re promoted this one this year, and you can get it on their Etsy. You can see my opinion on this polish on my blog post from last year.

For the string of lights, I first made the black line using my Orly Instant Artist Striper- Jet Black. Then using a variety of colors, I just used a small nail art brush to make weirdly shaped light bulbs. Here is a list of the colors I used:
China Glaze- Adventure Red-Y (On Safari Collection Fall 2012)
OPI- On the Same Paige (Brights Collection 2009)
China Glaze- Flyin' High (Up and Away Collection Spring 2010)
China Glaze- Happy Go Lucky
China Glaze- Man Hunt (On Safari Collection Fall 2012)

The red I used on my index and pinky is Butter London- Chancer. Again, I love this red actually. Luckily I got this for free at ULTA :P. I used two coats. The gold for the gradient on my index is OPI- Golden Eye (James Bond Collection Winter 2012). Another amazing glass fleck polish, it really looks like liquid gold. Lastly, the stripes for the candy cane was accomplished by using my Orly Instant Artist Striper- Crisp White

Here is a picture of all 5 of my fingers:

Hope you have a happy and safe Holiday!

Textured Rainbow Stripes

I haven't really been doing much nail art lately...So I did some pretty awesome free handed stripes to continue to practice getting straight lines. Textured polishes are perfect for that since they aren't runny, and are really opaque. Here's how it came out:

The colors I used starting from red to purple: China Glaze- Bump & Grind, China Glaze- Toe-tally Textured, Milani- Yellow Mark, China Glaze- In The Rough, China Glaze- Of Coarse!, and Dance Legend- Vernazza.

I started off with making the yellow stripe so I was sure I had enough room for all the colors. I used 2 coats for each color. I really like the outcome! I also put two coats of top coat on it making it super shiny. My camera couldn't handle it. Hopefully I will have some nail art coming up!

Rainbow Stripes

I am still trying to master stripes! They are so freakin hard. Maybe I should just try tape... Here is what I came up with:

As I have mentioned before, I will never get tired of rainbow nails!

I just used the brush from the bottle, and simply painted half of each nail.

The colors I used are: Index finger: Sally Hansen- Fuchsia Power, and Jessica- Tangerine Dreamz (Gilato Mio Collection Spring 2012).
Middle finger: Jessica- Banana Peel (Gilato Mio Collection Spring 2012), and Finger Paints- Sexy Sundress.
Ring finger: Essie- First Timer (Resort Collection 2013), and OPI- Fly (Nicki Minaj Spring 2012).
Pinky finger: Color Club- Endless Summer (Fiesta Collection Summer 2013), and Essie- Play Date (Go Overboard Collection 2012).

After the polish dried I just used Orly Instant Artist- Crisp White to do the stripes! I definitely need to work on them more... But either way I love how they turned out.