Dutch Ya Just Love OPI + Shine of the Times = LOVE!!!!!!

Hi everyone! I am back after a short break for my nails sake. So today I bring you a color I had debated about buying, but in the end couldn't resist (as usual). So OPI's "Dutch Ya Just Love OPI" (Dutch for the rest of this post) is a really nice purple with a pretty bronzy shimmer that was one of the stars of OPI's Holland collection. I thought I wouldn't need this color since it isn't something I could see myself using all the time, but after seeing it swatched over and over again I broke down and got it. I finally decided to test it out last night and I really liked the color, but I wanted to kick it up one more notch so I added one coat of Essie's "Shine of the Times". So here are some pictures of just Dutch on its own to start.

I thought the formula was a bit on the thin side so if I had been planning on wearing this on its own I would have gone for a third coat to punch up the opacity and even things out a smidge more.

I love how this looks! You can see some green and gold and bronze flashes with this topcoat that just makes it look so cool! Anyways, I think that this combo is just perfectly awesome and I hope you all enjoy it too! :-)

Challenge Day 31- Recreate your favorite challenge

EDIT: I just realized that although I set this to post it failed to do so! UGH! SORRY!!!! Well here it is now! Sorry again!

Hello everyone! Well I have a very special manicure for you today. It is the last day of this very interesting and wonderful challenge. So for this one I decided to recreate my pansies because I loved them so much, I got tons of compliments on them and I had this nagging feeling that they just would have been that smidge bit better with a different background color. So I started off with two coats of Sinful Colors "Morning Star", which is such an amazingly incredibly wonderfully beautiful color! I am totally in love with this color and actually wore it on its own for a day. It has such incredible shimmer to it and it is such a light and easy summer color. Then I used Sally Hansen's "White On", Sinful Colors "Amethyst" and Finger Paints "Lemon Sour" for my pansies. I again followed this tutorial and it really is fool proof. Anyways, there isn't much more to say about this manicure other than I love it and I think it is the perfect way to end this challenge! :-)

Well everyone, I think that I will be taking things just a bit slower now for a little bit since my nails seem to be showing some signs that they need a breather. I will certainly still be posting regularly, but I don't think I will be doing so every single day for a little while. I hope you enjoyed this challenge as much as I did since it certainly was a great way to get me to do some things I had been considering and even do some that I never considered! :-) Have a great day everyone! :-) 

Challenge Day 29/30- Inspired by the Supernatural/ Inspired by a Tutorial

Hi all! So for the Supernatural challenge I wanted to do something a little bit different than your ghosts and whatever and I have been eyeing these Paint Drip manicures so I thought True Blood would be perfect for my Supernatural inspired mani since it is just chock full of that stuff and what cooler way than with bloody nails! I have been wanting to try out the whole drips manicure thing for a while so I thought I could sorta kill two birds with one stone. I looked at a bunch of different tutorials for drip manicures and kinda ended up doing it my own way so it was inspired by a lot of different tutorials, but not exactly executed following a specific one. So I started off with one flawless coat of Sally Hansen's Insta-Dry in "Silver Sweep" and then I painted some freehand very basic tips with "Cinna Snap", which is another Insta-Dry color. After the tips were on I used "Cinna Snap" and placed three dots per nail below the tips and then used a small paint brush and more "Cinna Snap" to connect the dots to the tips. I kinda went over that a couple times until it came out the same shade and opacity and looked vaguely drippy. (maybe not a real word, but you get the picture) After that was slightly dry I used the paint brush to add some highlights using "Cherry Red" by Sally Hansen. I am actually really happy with how this turned out and I think I will be doing different "drips" in the future! :-)

Well I hope you all have enjoyed this challenge so far so now just one last day to go! Also I really do appreciate each and every comment and all of my very precious few followers! :-D

Challenge Day 28- Inspired by a Flag

Hi everyone! Well today I bring you an epic FAIL! For this challenge I was inspired by the American flag and I thought I would try and do some stamping. Well that was a bad idea apparently. I haven't had much practice with stamping and so I am still not all that good at it, but I have a star image so I thought it would be perfect. I started off with a base of Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in "Red Cherry" and Barielle's "Berry Blue" then I used "White Out" by Sally Hansen for the stars. Here are the pictures for you to judge yourself...

I did two coats of "Red Cherry" and three coats of "Berry Blue" and I just realized that I had some very fruity nails with this manicure! I used the Salon Express stamping kit for the stars and I am going to blame my technique for this failure because I had a lot of trouble scraping the polish off evenly. I think that my ring finger came out the best so I guess there is hope for me someday getting the hang of it, but just not with this attempt. Hope you enjoyed this one too even though it isn't quite a winner. :-)

Challenge Day 27- Inspired by Artwork

Hi again everyone! So I have always been a HUGE fan of Vincent Van Gogh's works. When I was a teenager my parents even took me on a trip to the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam and I think it was probably the most amazing experience of my life! So of course I chose his works in general and I suppose more "Starry Night" in particular for my inspiration. I tried to mimic his signature swirl on one nail since I didn't have the patience to do them all like that. I started off with two coats of "Neptune" by Sinful Colors, which I am utterly in love with now! I love this color so much! It is an amazing blue with the most beautiful shimmer to it. The formula was pretty good since I got good coverage with two thicker coats. For the accent nail I started using my trusty Art Club in light blue to make a swirl then I used a small paint brush and a bunch of other nail polishes to layer on top and outward to get that Van Gogh feel. So here we go with the pictures!

As you can see the Van Gogh style is a bit harder to achieve with nail polish than with actual paint, but I was pretty happy with the overall look. I think that "Neptune" is the perfect color for this manicure because on its own it reminds me of "Starry Night". Hope you enjoyed!

Challenge Day 26- Inspired by a Pattern

Hi everyone! So I am going to post a few different times today in order to catch up a bit on this challenge. I am hoping to finish it up by Wednesday and then I am planning on slowing down a bit to give my cuticles a bit of the break they deserve. So here we go! I recently bought a super cute dress at Marshalls and although the pattern of it is simple I really love it so that is where my inspiration came from for this manicure. I have to apologize in advance though because I couldn't get any good pictures of this manicure when I first did it and by the time I could get a decent picture I had pretty much destroyed it. So I only have one fairly lousy picture of it for you today, but I will swatch it on a nail wheel soon and add that for you all to see it better. It really is a lovely and subtle combination that I got lots of compliments on. So to start here is a picture of the dress that inspired me.

Here is a picture of the dress on me...please excuse the bra strap showing.

So I started off with two coats of "Nite Owl" by Orly, which has become my favorite neutral polish ever since it doesn't make my skin tone look weird and the formula is fantastic. Then I topped this off with one thicker coat of Sally Hansen's new Jewel Overcoat in "White Veil". I love love love love "White Veil" I think it is very pretty when used over the right base color and gives a very unique look to your nails with the satin white glitters and the chunky gold hexs. So overall I loved this combination and I am sure if I had let it dry properly before going out it would have lasted a lot longer, but I did this super super super quickly and then didn't let it dry enough before showering and washing my hair so it kinda got destroyed instantly. So here is the only picture of it. I promise I will add a nail wheel swatch soon!

Challenge Day 25- Inspired by Fashion

Hi everyone! Sorry this is so late and it is going to be a quick one too. So to get to it I have been loving the trend this season for bright colors and color blocking so I decided to go with some brights for today's manicure. I used Wet n Wild "Blazed", Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in "Green with Envy" and a blueish that I can't remember the name of from Sephora that I absolutely hate the formula on. I will check later and update with the name, *EDIT: the name of that polish is "Myrtille"* but for now onto pictures!

As you can see I switched up the color order on each hand a bit and I truly love this overall look! It is so much fun! Well enjoy! :-)