31 Day Challenge, Day 2: Orange Nails, featuring neon flames

Neon flame nails, featuring Orly Mayhem Mentality

Yikes! Even on a once a week schedule, I'm having a hard time getting my posts in on time. I had already delayed this post because I spent all day Saturday at a family event. Then, I ended up spending half of today looking for my missing camera! It wasn't until late in the day that-duh- I realized I should just take pictures with my cell camera. So without further ado, here are my neon flame nails!

I was a bit stuck when it came to the theme for this week's orange manicure. I knew I wanted to do a neon orange look, but I couldn't figure out how to do something unique. It wasn't until I browsed Youtube that I realized that orange flames would make for a great manicure. I took a bit of a different approach to this look. You can find out what polishes I used, what my technique was, and see more pictures after the jump!

31 Day Challenge, Day 1: Red Nails, featuring lip stamping!

Red lip mani featuring lips from Winstonia stamping plate 104, sun

Hi, guys! Welcome to my attempt at the 31 Day Challenge! As I discussed earlier, I will be doing this on a weekly basis rather than a daily one because that works better for my schedule.

Red lip mani featuring lips from Winstonia stamping plate 104, shade

I totally based this look on this mani from Cris over at Let Them Have Polish! She shared this stamped look as one of her options last year for her 31 Day Challenge red prompt. I totally encourage you to check out LTHP's 31 Day Challenge archives. Cris is totally amazing, she's done a ton of gorgeous looks. She said she wasn't happy with her lip stamped look in the mani I'm basing mine on, but I loved it! However, I'm using Winstonia plate #106, which only has 1 individual lip image. I knew that doing a whole mani full of lips would be a fool's undertaking, so I opted for skittles. Find out what polishes I used and see what my right hand variation looked like, after the jump!

Coming Soon- The 31 Day Week Challenge!

Hi, guys, just wanted to let you know that I'm going to challenge myself to complete the prompts from the 31 Day Challenge. Rather than stress myself out trying to post every day, which I know is unrealistic on my schedule, I'm changing things up a bit. I'll be posting every Friday for 31 weeks, using the corresponding week's prompt! I think this is something that's actually doable for me, and I'm happy to have an excuse to challenge my creativity.  We'll see what happens. If anyone out there wants to join me on this journey, I'd love some company! Comment down below or email me if you're up for the revised challenge!

Don't Make Me Wine about waterfall nails!

 

China Glaze Don’t Make Me Wine with OPI and LA Colors accents, shade

Don’t Make Me Wine is one of the polishes in the new China Glaze fall collection. It didn’t strike me as being super unique, but it was pretty and seemed like something I didn’t have in my collection. Don’t Make Me Wine is a dark berry wine shimmer. It’s not quite as dark as colors like Zoya Jem or OPI Every Month is Octoberfest, but it’s definitely a fall color. I wore it with the waterfall look that TheNailasaurus originated. I really like the overall look, I think the colors work really well together. Join me after the jump to find out what colors I used and see more pictures!

China Glaze Don’t Make Me Wine with OPI and LA Colors accents, sun

Feeling Eva So Bright in Skylark!

Sinful Colors Eva So Bright over Skylark

Here's a mani I did recently with a couple of the new colors from Sinful Colors. I started with 2 coats of Sinful Colors Skylark, a bright pastel peach. Then, I used the plastic wrap method to dab on Sinful Colors Eva So Bright, a vivid coral pink.   I really liked the combination of these 2 colors. It felt really summery and fresh!

Sinful Colors Eva So Bright over Skylark, shade

Join me after the jump for a few more pics and Skylark on its own!

Tips and tricks Tuesday-Watch your acetone!

Acetone is a VERY strong chemical

This post is to alert you about the perils of acetone. Yes, of course, we need it for many nail related things, but I want to share something I wish someone had told me earlier in my journey into lacquer.  

*BE REALLY, REALLY CAREFUL WITH ACETONE.* REALLY

Over time,  I learned through the blog world that acetone dissolves plastic. It´s what nail technicians use to remove acrylic nails. It´s really strong stuff that acts more quickly than you´d expect and can end up causing a good amount of damage. Join me after the jump for a few of my sad stories!

Tips and Tricks Tuesday-Holding your striping tape

Welcome to Tips and Tricks Tuesday! If you're not familiar with this feature, join the club. It's something I did early on in my blog and kind of fell off doing. However, I have a few ideas for content to share that qualifies as a tip or trick, so I decided to start doing it on Tuesdays again. :)

Using a scotch tape holder for striping tape

Here's an awesome idea I found out about through the Makeup Alley Nail forum. Somebody posted about this video and I think it's genius. Personally, I only have 3 rolls of striping tape that I got from the Fing'rs display, but the video shows that this works really well for multiple rolls of nail art tape.

It turns out, striping tape is the exact right size to fit onto an empty scotch tape dispenser. I think this is great for a couple of reasons. First, it eliminates the annoyance of finding and pulling the hidden end of the striping tape. Also, it stores the striping tape in a way that's consistent with the way that us nail art people use it. I actually only have 2 rolls of striping tape on my dispenser because I lost my first roll-they're so flat and small that I think they're easy to misplace. Thanks to this storage solution, I won't have to worry about that anymore!