Olympian Manicure

Hi there!  Thank goodness it's finally the weekend!  It's been a long week over here, and I'm thrilled to have two days in a row with nothing planned.  Like many of you I'm sure, I've been watching the Olympics most evenings over the last several days.  Last night, when I was looking around for a manicure inspiration, my eyes alighted on Adelina Sotnikova's skating outfit.  Then she won the gold medal and it pretty much sealed the deal.

As skating costumes go, this one is pretty tame.  But I love the color combo and you can never go wrong with a little bit of sparkle!

Here's what I came up with!  My mani comes off as more gold than her outfit, but that seems fitting when you consider the medal.  I started with 2 coats of China Glaze's Mingle with Kringle, a bright gold foil-like polish with some coppery glitter thrown in.  I topped that with a coat of Sinful Colors in All About You, a fine gold glitter topper again with copper glitter as well.  I wasn't able to quite capture that aged gold/bronze color of Adelina's glitter, but it's pretty nonetheless!

For my accent nail, I used striping tape to create a pattern similar to the skating costume's bodice.  I applied one coat of Sinful Colors in Smokin', a neutral dark grey creme.  I then removed the tape, et voila! the pattern was created!  I had originally wanted to do this on all my nails, instead of just an accent, but it was after midnight when I'd done the one and I just couldn't stay up any later.  I must be getting old...time never used to matter when it came to getting the perfect mani!
 

I hope you guys enjoyed this mani.  It was a lot of fun to wear and now I'm thinking I might do a few more skating costume-inspired manicures...the costumes are so pretty and almost all of them have glitter!  How could you go wrong?  :)

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Thanks so much for reading!

Nail-aween Challenge 5: Ghosts & Goblins

Howdy, everyone!  I know it's been a few days since I posted but I've had a bit going on.  Nothing I want to share just yet, but who knows what the future will bring? :)  Anyway, I'd been wearing my Game Day Manicure from Saturday until today which was just no good!  I had to change it up so it was on to the next Nail-aween Challenge, Ghosts & Goblins.  I racked my brain to come up with something fun and different for this one.  I knew I didn't want "bed sheet" ghosts, not that there's anything wrong with them but I wanted something spookier.  I also wanted to incorporate a bit of the goblin aspect, too.  Here's what I came up with:

 

...more after the jump...

20 of 31: Water Marble Nails

Howdy, everyone!  We're 2/3 of the way through the 31 Day Challenge already, can you believe it?  I really can't...amazing how time flies when fun is being had!  Day 20 brings us water marbling.  Everyone loves how a water marble looks and pretty much everyone hates doing them.  I'm no exception.  In fact, I'll let you in on a secret...I cheated this time!  I figure if I can get the same look from an easier technique then I'm goin' for it!  I did a faux water marble or dry water marble (you can read about that technique here) to save my sanity and I think it turned out pretty well.  Have a look:

I started with 2 coats of Sinful Colors Jungle Trail as a base color.  Jungle Trail is a light grey creme.  To do the marble, I used Jungle Trail again as well as China Glaze Secret Peri-wink-le (a light blue creme) and First Mate (a deep navy creme) and Wet 'n' Wild Wild Shine in Sunny Side Up (a sherbert orange creme).  After everything dried under a coat of Seche Vite, I went back in with the point of a cuticle stick and Sunny Side Up and First Mate to create the dots.  The dotted water marble is a manicure that I've been seeing around on Pinterest (although nothing is ever linked back so I'm not sure who to credit for it) and is such a great easy way to change the look of the marble.  I love the way this turned out, everything from the color combination to the pattern is just fantastic!

Tune in tomorrow to see a color inspired mani and thanks so much for reading! 

Orange and Grey Gradient Manicure

Hello and welcome! Today I have a gradient manicure that I did using this tutorial from The Nailasaurus.  I like the end result, but I think I need a bit more practice before I get the really nice blend that she gets in her gradients.  In any case, here's the manicure. 

I started with two coats of Wet n Wild's Wild Shine in Sunny Side Up and then sponged (per the tutorial) some Sally Hansen's Hard As Nails Xtreme Wear in Wet Cement.  I really like this color combo!  Wet Cement starts to look really smokey where it meets up with Sunny Side Up, almost like a mist in places.  It's pretty cool!  I had to use two coats of Seche Vite on top to smooth out the bumpiness from the sponging technique.   Over all, I think this technique and I'll use it again, hopefully with even better results!