Melting Ice Cream Cone Nails

It's finally starting to warm up here in MA, and I wanted to celebrate that with some ice cream cone nails! I saw a blog post on Shaymitchell.com where Shay's celebrity manicurist, Steph (Instagram @stephstonenails) painted melting ice cream cone nails on her. It looked really cute on Shay, and I decided to recreate them.

I used OPI's My Vampire is Buff and Julep's Otte for the ice cream cone, OPI's Alpine Snow for the ice cream, OPI's OPI Red for the cherry, and Color Club's Poptastic collection for the sprinkles.

Here's a picture of the ice cream without the sprinkle accent nails. 

I really wanted to take a picture with an ice cream cone, but we didn't have any and no one in my house wanted to go out for ice cream for the sake of my blog post. Priorities, geez haha. Anyways, I decided to just take a picture with Ben & Jerry's FroYo instead. 

Here's my attempt to recreate the exact photo I saw on Shay's website.

And here's a picture of the original mani that inspired mine. 

Happy Memorial Day!

So it's Memorial Day today! I would like to take a moment to thank all the brave men and women who died defended our country. And I figured instead of wearing red white and blue to emulate the flag, I might as well paint my nails to look like the flag instead. My good friend Erin (Instagram @erinhughes_) sent me a picture of her flag inspired nails, and I knew I had to recreate them immediately!

I used OPI's Alpine Snow, OPI Red, and Sinful Color's Endless Blue. 

I decided to keep it simple and not add any stars. And of course I had to take pictures with both an actual flag, and a mini flag. 

Here's the mani Erin did that inspired mine! This wasn't her finished mani, but she added stars afterwards and I wanted to include the picture that inspired my nails, and is closest to my finished product. 

Spotted Orchid Nails

My mom got a really pretty Orchid for Mother's Day, and I wanted to recreate it's colors in a mani. I've also been pretty addicted to water spotted nails, and I figured it would be perfect to do a water spotted mani with the Orchid's color scheme. 

I used OPI's Alpine Snow as the base, and Anti-Bleak for the design.

Here's a picture of the Orchid that inspired this mani.

And of course I had to take a bunch of pictures with my nails and the flowers together! I've been trying to be more aware of things around me, and get my inspiration from that instead of just online or other nail artists. I really like these colors, and I love the way it turned out. Not the same exact pattern as the Orchid, but it's more of an abstract representation than a replication. 

Water Spotted Ocean Nails

I fell in love with the water spotted technique that I used for the accent nail in my last mani, so I decided to do that design on all my nails for my next mani. Since I have some really cute 3D shells from the Born Pretty Store, I wanted to make my nails look like an abstract ocean.

I described how to do this design in my last post, but in case you missed it, I'll recap briefly. I painted my nails the lighter blue, then filled a paper cup with lukewarm water. Then, I dropped a dot of the dark blue polish into the water, and waited for it to spread out. I sprayed a bottle filled with rubbing alcohol onto the polish, which created this intricate design. Then, I dipped my nail in the design, pulled away the excess with a toothpick, and took my nail out of the water. I cleaned around the nail with a q-tip dipped in polish remover, added a topcoat, and put the seashell on my accent nail with glue to hold it in place.

I used Essie's Mint Candy Apple as the base, and OPI's I Saw U Saw We Saw Warsaw for the design. 

Pastel Watercolor Nails

So I've never been very good at water marbling, dry water marbling, or saran wrap manis. I saw a tutorial that Natacha (Instagram @hello_glossy, or helloglossy.com) posted on Instagram, which is a combination dry water marble/saran wrap mani. I've been wanting to do a pastel mani using Lime Crime polishes, so this was the perfect opportunity!

To do this mani, I painted a white base coat and let it dry. Then I added dots of the Lime Crime polishes and OPI's alpine snow and placed a piece of a sandwich bag on top. I gently moved the bag around a little to swirl the polishes together, and then took it off. I cleaned up the skin around my nails with polish remover, and added a holographic topcoat.

 I used OPI's Alpine Snow as a base, and Lime Crime's Parfait Day, Lavendairy, Pastelchio, and Once in a Blue Mousse. I used China Glaze's Fairy dust as a holographic top coat. 

I really liked this mani, but I still wanted to do an accent nail on it. I decided to try a water spotted design, which is actually pretty easy to do. Just fill a small dish with lukewarm water, and add a drop of polish to it. The polish will spread across the water, and then spray it with rubbing alcohol, sanitizer, hair spray, or perfume. To get this design, I used rubbing alcohol. I love how it turned out; it looks incredibly intricate, but was so easy to do!

Here's the photo tutorial Natacha posted on Instagram, it's really easy to follow. 

Girly Punk Mani

So I was lacking inspiration for a few days, and I scrolled through my nail polish inspiration board until I saw the perfect mani to get my mojo back! It's a little punk, a little girly, and a lot of cuteness! It was painted by the talented (Instagram @) Kt_tk1, and I was super excited to recreate it!

I used OPI's Alpine Snow, Black Onyx, OPI Red (the name is actually OPI Red, not super clever but oh well), and Lime Crime's Parfait Day.

I had never painted lips before, and it was a bit challenging, but I really like the way this turned out. I believe Kt_tk1 said this was inspired by a purse she saw in Forever 21. 

Here's the picture that inspired my mani. I absolutely would encourage you to follow Kt_tk1 on Instagram, she has so many amazing designs!

Island Floral Nails

I've always believed that art is everywhere. The same goes for nail art inspiration! I saw so many things in Florida I wanted to recreate on my nails, partly just because a lot of outdoor decorations in Florida incorporate so many gorgeous colors. A few houses down from where I stayed was a really cute mailbox, and I knew as soon as I saw it that I had to turn the design into a mani. I just happened to have nail polishes with me that matched the color on the mailbox; it was like mani fate haha.

Here is my mani with the mailbox that inspired it. I used OPI's Alpine Snow and China Glaze's Too Yacht To Handle.

Here's a picture of the mailbox that inspired my mani! I just love it, I wish we could pull of such fun decorations up North.

I was at the beach and obviously had to take several pictures of my mani, and I tried to take some with the sunset too.

I just had to include a picture of the gorgeous sunset, Florida is so pretty!