Palm Trees in the Summer

So I've had this mani (by Instagram @Mireyaaxo) on the back burner for several months. I was planning to do it in Florida, but then I saw a mailbox I was inspired by so I painted that instead. I finally decided to give it a shot, and I really love the way these turned out! Unfortunately, I went swimming yesterday and almost all my nails had polish peeling off afterwards. So even though this took me several hours to paint, I only had it on my nails for 3 days.

I took over 50 pictures of this mani- in the sun, in the shade, in the pool, etc. And fun fact, I actually burned the bottom of my feet standing barefoot in my driveway for about 5 minutes trying to get the perfect shot. They didn't blister or anything, but they were pretty painful for two days. I learned my lesson though, and I will always put on shoes before going to stand on hot pavement from now on.

Just a warning- there will be a lot of pictures, because I wanted to capture the colors in different lighting, and because I'm just obsessed with this design.

For the gradients I used China Glaze's Son of a Peach, Flip Flop Fantasy, Too Yacht to Handle, and That's Shore Bright. I added China Glaze's Fairy dust over the gradient, then painted the palm trees with OPI's Black Onyx.

Here's the mani Mireya (Instagram @Mireyaaxo) painted that inspired mine.

Field of Daisies Nails

In case you couldn't tell, I'm constantly inspired by other nail artists and their beautiful designs. I have a folder on my phone that contains over 200 pictures of manis I hope to recreate at some point. I've been wanting to recreate a mani that Judith (Instagram +spektorsnails) posted on Instagram for quite some time, and I finally did it!

I used Essie's First Timer, Rimmel London's Sunshine, and OPI's Alpine Snow.

There's a field near my house that has little buttercup flowers growing, and even though it's not the same type of flower as what I painted, I took pictures anyways.

Here's a picture of Judith's mani. You can follow Judith on Instagram or visit her website, www.spektorsnails.com.

TFIOS Okay? Okay. Nails

So a few months ago, I read The Fault in Our Stars for the first time; I've read it a total of 3 times in the past several months. It is still my favorite book, and I read a book every day or two. John Green is just an amazing author, and he captures the feelings of being sick amazingly, making it easy to relate even if you don't have a terminal illness. I saw the TFIOS movie last night, and it was amazing, of course. I really wanted to do nails to celebrate it again, so I've been looking at different designs for the past several weeks. I saw the perfect design on Instagram (@cutepolish), and decided to recreate it. I did a similar design with my first TFIOS mani, but Cutepolish added newspaper print, which I thought was a quirky, unique twist. Anyways, enough babbling, here's the mani!

After a lot of swatching, I chose to use Revlon's Coastal Surf as the base, because it's the closest shade to the actual TFIOS book cover. As usual, I used OPI's Black Onyx and Alpine snow for the clouds.

Then I took pictures in my light box, just to show how the color looks inside vs. outside.

I really wanted to take some pictures with the book cover, but I bought it on kindle so I didn't have the actual book. Luckily, my best friend Karisa let me borrow hers! It's a testament to how good friends we are that she didn't think it was weird that I wanted to borrow a book not to read it, but to take pictures of it with my matching nails. 

All in all, I'm really in love with the way this mani turned out! It's so cute, and every time I look at it, I'm reminded of the best book ever, haha. 

Here's a picture of the mani by Cutepolish that inspired mine. She has a Youtube tutorial for it (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Rtaut3wo6A), and a lot of great video tutorials on her channel that you should check out!

Vintage Roses Nails

I've been super into summery nail designs lately, which in my mind means lots of florals! I saw a really cute mani on Instagram (@Sharingvu) that I really wanted to recreate. It took a while but I really like the way they turned out.

I used Essie's Bikini So Teeny, Boom Boom Boom, Milani's Paradise Pink, OPI's Black Onyx, and Color Club's Wild Cactus. 

I took a bunch of pictures both in the sunlight and indoors, trying to capture the colors accurately. 

Here's a picture of the mani that inspired mine!

Stamped Reverse Accent Nail

So recently I bought a bunch of stamps and 3D nail art from the Born Pretty Store, and I fell in love with a particular design. It's just so pretty, I've already done two manis with it. I also have been trying out what I call a reverse accent nail, which means that I do a design on all of my nails except my ring finger. Here are two manis using the same stamping plate and technique.

I used the design from the upper right hand corner on this stamping plate.

I used OPI's La Paz-itively Hot for the base, and Alpine Snow for the design.

The colors for this design were inspired by a picture Carol (Instagram +Colores de Carol) posted on Instagram.

I used OPI's Alpine Snow as the base, and Sinful Color's Endless Blue for the design.

Here's the picture Carol posted on Instagram. I didn't have a blue that exact shade, but I did my best haha.