13 Days of January Nail Art Challenge - Recreate One of Your Old Manis

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Good evening! Yesterday's prompt for the 13 Days of January Nail Art Challenge was to recreate one of our old manis. I was a bit under the weather yesterday so I'm posting a day late.

I decided to recreate my most-viewed (and most pinned on Pinterest) manicure that I created about 2 1/2 years ago. It positively makes me cringe when I look at it because I see every flaw in it. But I am so glad I chose to recreate it because it has shown me just how far I've come.

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13 Days of January Nail Art Challenge: Complement and Contrast

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Good morning! I have a quick post this morning. I tried to post this last night but my internet went out so it is late, but it's not my fault (this time LOL). I struggled with today's challenge prompt and I'm not very thrilled with how it turned out. But, it's better than not posting, right? They can't all be winners.

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13 Days of January Nail Art Challenge: Rainbow

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Happy Hump Day! Today's prompt in the 13 Days of Nail Art Challenge is rainbow! I've been craving some neons lately so I thought I'd use one of my favorite collections and have some fun with neons!

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13 Days of January Nail Art Challenge: Artwork

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Good evening! I missed two days of the 13 Days of January Nail Art Challenge last week (during Digit-al Dozen Week), but I plan on playing catch up! In the meantime, today's prompt is "artwork." I had no problem choosing the artist I was going to draw inspiration from. I chose my favorite artist, who also happens to be one of my very favorite people, my bestie! 

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Digit-al Dozen Does Fairytales, Day Five: Brave

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Hello and happy start of the weekend! Today is the last day of Digit-al Dozen week which means I have officially survived! I'll admit, this week kicked my butt! But I had so much fun creating the nail art and thinking outside the box. This theme was not an easy one to start with but I'm glad I got to participate, it really pushed me to try things I wouldn't have otherwise! Today's mani is also serving as my "green base" manicure for today's (err... yesterday? LOL) prompt in the 13 Days of January Nail Art Challenge. I am behind a couple of manicures in that but I'll catch up!

I have been wanting to do a manicure for the Disney movie Brave for quite some time, but I never knew how to translate it into nail art. I've had it in the back of my mind all week but just kept pondering over it. I finally came up with something and I am really happy with how it turned out!

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Digit-al Dozen Does Fairytales, Day 4: Mother Holle

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Good evening! For day four of Digit-al Dozen Week I have a nail art look based on a story I had never heard of before today. The fairytale I am using today is called Mother Holle.

I found out about Mother Holle after a bit of googling (how I find pretty much everything!). Mother Holle tells the story of a girl with a horrid stepmother and stepsister. The girl is kind and hard-working and beautiful while her stepsister is lazy and ugly. Because of this her stepmother hates her and wants to get rid of her. (I read about this story at 2 separate links, which I will link a little later, and this part of the story differs. One version has the stepmother shoving the girl into an old well, while the other has the girl going into the well trying to retrieve a spindle that she dropped.) However she wound up in the well, instead of hitting the bottom she winds up in a beautiful place full of sunshine. She sees things that need to be done - cleaning, taking bread out of the oven, etc. - and jumps in to help without seeing anyone. An old woman (Mother Holle) sees her and asks her to come help her clean. Once she is done the old woman gives the girl an abundance of gold and jewels and sends her home. The stepmother is so jealous that she takes her own daughter and shoves her down the well. However, her daughter is lazy and does not help. After demanding something from Mother Holle without doing any work, Mother Holle covers her in a burning pitch which will stay there the rest of her life. (Another discrepancy  between the two versions,  one story ends there while the other adds in the next part.) When she returns home frogs and snakes spew from her mouth, with one toad landing on her mother's face where it remains forever, chewing on her nose.  If you would like to read more about this story, or read about any of the other creepy fairy tales (this one was mild compared to most), you can visit here and here.

So, how did I turn this story into nail art? I created the well in a spooky setting (since that was the overall feel of the story itself) on three of my nails, while two of my nails represent the world the girl arrives in after going into the well. The well is on my middle nail, which was much harder to paint than I had imagined.

I used acrylic paint for most of this design but I did use the following polishes:

"Spooky" nails - Elevation Polish Definition: The Vivid Unknown and Storm in the Morning Light

"Happy" nails - Elevation Polish Puncak Jaya and Wuyi Mountain.

I used Wet n Wild Matte Top Coat on all of them after the regular top coat was dry.

And because I was really happy with how y thumb turned out (and it never gets attention ;) )....

Had you ever heard of this story? I was trying to think outside the box, and I found that outside the box there are some really frightening fairytales! Hahaha! I will see you back here toorrow for the conclusion of Fairytale Week!

Make sure to check out all of the other ladies below!


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Thanks for reading and happy polishing!

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Tami Beauty: Skibo Sunset - Swatches and Review

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Happy Thursday! Today I have swatches of a gorgeous polish from a new-to-me brand, Tami Beauty! Tami Beauty is based in the beautiful country of Scotland, where I dream of going (and will manage to make happen!) someday! This is the first polish of theirs that I have tried, and I am very impressed!

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The Digit-al Dozen Does Fairytales, Day Three: The Little Mermaid

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Happy Wednesday! Today continues Fairytale Week for The Digit-al Dozen. I have the less known version of a very well-known tale as my inspiration today. Let me preface this post by saying that I love Disney's version of The Little Mermaid, it's one of my favorite movies. I actually watched it today! However, Disney altered the story a lot - and that's putting it mildly! The original fairytale has much more of a "spiritual" aspect to it instead of just being a "love story." I am going to try to summarize the story as short as possible but it is important to understand the original story in order to understand why I created the nail art that I did (because it doesn't really pertain to the Disney version).

In Hans Christian Andersen's The Little Mermaid, the Little Mermaid lives with her father, grandmother and 5 sisters. When they reach the age of 15 they are allowed to go to the surface to see the human world for a brief period of time, and once a year after that. As the Little Mermaid listens to all of her sisters tales about the human world she listens fervently and longs for her turn to come. On her first trip to the surface she sees a prince on a ship in the distance and falls in love with him. There is a great storm and the ship crashes. The Little Mermaid saves the  prince by placing him on the shore but leaves before he sees her. (So far, it's pretty similar to Disney's version, but here is where it starts to change.) The Little Mermaid returns home and asks her grandmother if humans are immortal. Her grandmother explains that humans have a much shorter life span than the mermaids' 300 years but that when humans die they have an eternal soul that lives on in heaven, where mermaids turn into sea foam when they die. The Little Mermaid wants to become human so she can have an eternal soul and so she can marry the prince. She visits the Sea Witch and trades her voice for legs, never to return to the sea again. The potion works and she has legs but every step she takes feels like she is walking on knives. She also must win the prince in order to stay human. If the prince does not love her and marries someone else she will die and turn into sea foam. The prince is mesmerized by her beauty but falls in love with a princess (whom he thinks is the one who saved him from the shipwreck) and marries her. The Little Mermaid will die the next morning. That night her sisters come to the surface with a knife they got from the Sea Witch. If the Little Mermaid kills the prince with the knife she will return back into a mermaid and return to the sea to live out her life with her family.  The Little Mermaid can't bring herself to kill the prince and the next morning she dives into the sea. Her body dissipates into sea foam but instead of ceasing to exist, she feels warmth.  She has become one of the "daughters of the air." Because she has spent her life striving for a human soul, she will now be allowed to earn one by doing good deeds.

Not quite the happy ending Ariel had in Disney's version! I apologize that it was so wordy, but I felt it necessary to share since it is the basis for my nail art. I decided to create sea foam on my nails, as well as adding a representation of The Little Mermaid's soul rising to the sky.

To create this look I created a spray marble (on all of my fingers except my pinkie) over a base that I created by sponging for a more realistic "ocean." You know I love spray marbles, so I am really enjoying this mani.

The base of all 5 nails is Elevation Polish Walk a LIttle Farther. On the sea foam nails I sponged on Definition: The Vivid Unknown and Storm in the Morning Light, along with a little more Walk a Little Farther where needed. Fo the spray marble I used a plain white creme and Elevation Polish Weddell Sea for a bit of added depth and just a hint of sparkle. 

On my pinkie I used Elevation Polish Walk a Little Farther and Chaos and Crocodiles There's Magic in the Air, along with white acrylic paint, to create what I thought a soul ascending to heaven might look like. I was inspired by solar rays, like you can see here. 

I wasn't planning on making this one matte but I had to see what it looked like. And, of course, I like it better matte!

Did you know the original story of The Little Mermaid? I was really sad the first time I heard it, but as time went on I grew to like this version. I will always like the Disney version better though. Nothing like a happy ending. I hope you're enjoying Fairytale Week as much as I am!

Don't forget to check out the amazing manis below!

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Thanks for reading and happy polishing!

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The Digit-al Dozen Does Fairytales, Day Two: Alice in Wonderland

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Hello! I am late but I am still here! I apologize for my first two posts of The Digit-al Dozen being so late. This week is kicking my butt! Hopefully it will calm down tomorrow and I can play catch-up. I currently have a migraine so I only have a quick post tonight with one pic.

For today's inspiration I went with the classic Alice in Wonderland. I made a funky mushroom and I couldn't do an Alice in Wonderland mani without a little piece of The Cheshire Cat!

My base is Elevation Polish Rose Cardamom Chocolate Truffles, which will be in February's A Box, Indied. I will have swatches of it for you soon! The rest of the manicure was done with acrylic paint except for the dots on the mushroom.  

Dot colors: Elevation Polish Kilauea, Pipe Dream Polish VIP Pass. 

Be sure to check out all of the other manis below!

An InLinkz Link-up

Thanks for reading and happy polishing!

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The Digit-al Dozen Does Fairytales, Day One: Beauty and the Beast

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Good evening and happy (end of) Monday! I am very excited to now be a member of the Digit-al Dozen! If you don't know what the Digit-al Dozen is, it is a small, diverse group of nail art bloggers who post on the same theme for one week each month.  The theme to kick off 2015 is fairytales! I was excited about this theme when I first heard it but it certainly has proved to be difficult in translating to nail art!

I am pleased with  this mani. I based it off one of my very favorite fairy tales, and one of my favorite movies when I was a kid. (Who am I kidding?  I still love this movie!) I took inspiration from a nail art blogger whom I have followed for a while, fellow Digit-al Dozen member Will Paint Nails for Food. She created this mani back in November and it instantly reminded me of Beauty and the Beast (even though her inspiration was something completely different) and I knew I had to try to re-create my own version one day!

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13 Days Of January Nail Art Challenge, Day 4: Monochromatic

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Hello lovelies! Today, errr... yesterday in most parts of the world,  is "monochromatic" day in the 13 Days of Nail Art Challenge. I've been craving some browns lately so I decided to use browns for this prompt!

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13 Days Of January Nail Art Challenge, Day 3: Half and Half

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Good evening! I'm back with a late post for the 13 Days of January Nail Art Challenge! Today's prompt is "half and half" and I am pretty happy with my mani despite doing it quickly and at the last minute!

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13 Days Of January Nail Art Challenge, Day 2: Happiness

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It's late in the day, but it is still Monday so I am not too late for the 13 Days of January Challenge! Today's theme is "happiness." I was originally going to do a dog-themed mani because my dogs make me happy, but I knew of 2 friends who were doing that today so I decided I'd do something else. Friends and family and other things that make me happy were hard to translate to nail art so I decided to go with something that always makes me happy - rain!

Yes, you heard correctly. I LOVE the rain! Any rainy, or even just cloudy and overcast, makes me a happy gal. It doesn't rain often here in the Arizona desert so I thoroughly enjoy it every time it does.

This manicure looks so much better in person. I took about a million pictures in every lighting situation and my pictures just wouldn't turn out for some reason. It really has so much depth in person. All of the polishes I used are from the upcoming Elevation Polish A Journey Told Through Music Collection that I will have swatches of tomorrow! 

Make sure to check out the other manis below!

An InLinkz Link-up

Thanks for reading and happy polishing!

PRESS RELEASE: Zoya Delight Collection for Spring 2015

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Who is ready to start seeing what companies have in store for us for Spring? Here's what Zoya has in store for us!

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13 Days Of January Nail Art Challenge, Day 1: Follow A Tutorial

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Happy Friday! For my first post of 2015 I am kicking off a new nail art series for the month of January! The 13 Days of January Nail Art Challenge is one I am doing with some friends. It is a spin-off of Crumpet's 31 Day Challenge. There's a lot happening this month and we didn't feel we could commit to all 31 days, so this will be a less stressful challenge! 

Day 1's Prompt is "Follow a Tutorial" and I decided to try my hand at freehand houndstooth! I had been wanting to try this for a while so this seemed like the perfect opportunity. I followed this tutorial from Pointless Cafe. She made it super easy to follow! Unfortunately I am having issues with all of my nail art brushes and it was very hard for me to get clean lines. I was planning on doing more than one nail but I had to re-do this one several times and I was so frustrated by the time I got it done that I didn't even want to think about doing more. I have a new brush due to arrive tomorrow so hopefully it's a good one!

The base of this mani is Cacique Give Me Grey, which I picked up at a Lane Bryant store a few months ago.  This was my first time trying this brand. I quite like the color, it's a nice cool grey with blue undertones. The formula was a bit iffy but not overly problematic. I used 3 thin coats to help it apply evenly as it didn't self-level very well. The bottles and caps are square and the cap does not lift off so once you screw it back on, it's all caddywhompus, which bothers me greatly. I did like the brush though, it was flat and a nice width. The design was done with acrylic paint. After I used a regular top coat I added a coat of Wet 'n Wild Matte Top Coat.

Don't forget to check out all of the other manis below!

An InLinkz Link-up

Thanks for reading and happy polishing! 

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