Inspired by... Pinterest!

Hi everyone, sorry I've been so lazy with these lately. I tried a gradient recently and I think it was enough for me to swear off nail art forever lol. Anyway, my Pinterest nails today are inspired by Dressed Up Nails' Dotty Hearts post. She did hers in a number of colors so each nail was different but I just chose two colors to alternate. Basically, the technique here is to use dots to create dot shapes and then outline it in another color. I used the same dotting tool but applied different amounts of pressure to get varying sizes and then went back with a tiny one to fill in gaps. The teal ones came out pretty cool but the purple on pink is a bit more subtle than I'd hoped.

Oh! The base color is Julep Carrie and the dots are Sinful Colors Sweet Nothing and Sweet Tooth. Go see what Amanda's got for you! (PS this entry counts for additional comments for my giveaway I posted earlier if you comment and let me know in the Rafflecopter widget!)

xoxo,
Amanda

Inspired by Instagram/Another Blog

Hi everyone. I feel so meh about blogging lately. It's so much work to go from taking the photos to publishing a post and I'm just tired lately. Sorry about that, hopefully my mojo will be back asap :) Also, please note: the commenting giveaway will be active for March. I just haven't picked prizes yet! Would you guys prefer several smaller prizes or one grand prize? Any requests? Let me knowwww!

Today's mani was inspired by Nicole, the photo I used for inspiration was from Instagram but she has a similar mani here as well. This was a really simple mani to do, actually, but I love love loved the look! Nicole's on to something here, folks!

The base color here is OPI Rumple's Wiggin' (hi Jamie! thanks again!) and the dots are Finger Paints 15 Minutes of Frame, Julep Hayden, and Sation Holiday Pink. I just used three sizes of dotting tools and did a few dots of each size on the nail. Ta daaaa!

xoxo,
Amanda

Inspired by... Instagram!

Oh hey look who's on time for a challenge! ;) Today's nails I saw on Girly Bits' Instagram months ago and saved the picture to my phone (I do this a lot with the high hopes someday I'll actually try them out). Mine pales in comparison to hers, partially because her nail length really allowed this design to work and mine were a bit to short but anyway, the photo is here. Also, my color choices... gosh, there's so much wrong with this I am effectively labeling this a FAIL.

The base os Color Club Bintage Couture and the dots are Orly Butterflies, China Glaze Keep Calm, Paint On, and Sation Lollipop! Goes the Princess. The photo shows them more yellow/orange than IRL, imagine this with a more pink hue.

Aaaaand now you guys know why I never try nail art anything.

xoxo,
Amanda

I'm Late, I'm Late, I'm Late for.. Inspired by...

A tutorial? I think this counts for mine and Amanda's Monday "inspired by" series except it's clearly not Monday and actually I found this on Facebook. I have had a really good excuse for being late because last Monday, Blogger was uploading all my photos as black boxes and not the actual photos... but then the rest of the week I was just lazy and whenever I had time to blog, my notepad wasn't with me to tell you what polishes I used. Anyway, you'll get a couple posts today and starting fresh tomorrow!

This was a tutorial from Nailed It and it was exceptionally easy to do but I still fudged it up. Regardless, it was adorable but don't examine the dots too closely (except on my pointer finger because those came out pretty perfect). In retrospect, I would have used a smaller dotting tools for the outermost dots but meh, you live and you learn.

The base color here is OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls (thank you Amanda, what a perfect white!) and the dots are: Sation You're My Lacquer Charm (coral-pink), China Glaze Tart-y for the Party (light purple, bottle in my hand), and China Glaze Aquadelic (blue). I loved this look! Really easy and it looked complex so all my non-blogger friends would probably love it and how much time it took, etc. etc. etc. They don't have to know the truth. ;)

xoxo,
Amanda

Untrieds: Sally Hansen Carribean Coral

Hey everyone! Sorry this post is late. I have another post I'm drafting too with my explanation of why but the post at hand is more important :) Today Amanda, Sarah, and I are back with our untrieds challenge and I actually didn't cheat (much).

This base is Sally Hansen Carribean Coral which is a red-leaning coralcreme, though the bottle looks like it has shimmer. It didn't translate to the nail so I'm calling it a creme :) Application was easy in two coats, no top coat in this picture.

Then I felt bored and had leftover Valentine's Day thoughts floating in my head so I did a simple skittle mani using my white dotter. My heart's wonky so it looks like a weird triangle but whatever. The glitter on my accent nail is Different Dimension Love Her? I Don't Even Lacquer! which had really good glitter payoff but I had to fish for the heart to get it out of the bottle :( It's a fun color anyway and I'll try thinning it for next time.

There you go, happy Thursday!

xoxo,
Amanda

Lazy 15: Inspired by Another Blogger's Mani

Hey guys and gals! Last post of the lazy 15 and I'm pretty relieved, tbh. Nothing like a challenge to teach you that you need a LOT more practice at nail art before you're considered "good", haha! I tried though and finished it (also, I was only late once which seems notable!).

So for the final challenge, we had to try something inspired by another manicure. I ended up doing a very professional google image search for "nail art dots" and came up with this mani by Little Green Heart. It was based off another blogger's mani as well so it feels like this is some sort of paying-it-forward situation... but anyway. I happened to buy a set of Claire's pastel minis and this seemed like a perfect opportunity to use them all. Instead of doing the white base, I chose the Claire's pink and peach and then did the dots in the three remaining colors: green, blue, and purple. The minis are unnamed so I can't really identify them beyond that but it was fairly recent and they were just a 5-pack of minis, something about "pretty" in the name? Anyway... the base:

And then my dots:

I loved my accent nails but I sucked at making half moons with a gap like Little Green Heart did in hers. However, since I sucked uniformly, it looks like it was the intention. I actually loved this mani and I wore it for a day or so, which is pretty much a record in this world. The polishes were pretty easy to work with except the pinky, which you can see was a bit temperamental. But anyway, the lazy 15 is now officially over! Did you have any favorites?




xoxo,
Amanda

Lazy 15: Disney

Hey everyone! Hope you're having a good week. I'm out of work early today so I'm pretty excited for that, as well as a long weekend!

Today's challenge is Disney movies and characters. I'm really not much of a Disney person so this was a bit challenging for me because I just wasn't very inspired. I decided to start with a color and see where I went with it and China Glaze With Love from the recent holiday collection was my choice. Instantly I thought: Minnie! So that's what we have today.

From left to right I have Minnie's bow (yes, I know, the colors are reversed), little Disney mice, Minnie's polka dots, and more mice. This was obviously super easy nail art but I'm still fairly proud. Nobody would probably know my inspiration if I didn't tell them but that's okay. Check out what my fellow challengers came up with!




xoxo,
Amanda

Pink Wednesday & Lazy 15: Dots

Hello everyone. Not feeling so chatty... quite a few things have me a bit upset lately but not getting into that here. Just understand my posts might be a bit quiet for a little while.

I'm back with another day of the Lazy 15 challenge and today's challenge is dots.

I started off with China Glaze Sexy Lady (one of my untrieds, I should get extra credit for mine and Madeline's November Untried Challenge, too) which was two coats of pink perfection (AND it's a pink... on a Wednesday!). Also, yes. My nails are complete nubbins right now and no, I don't want to talk about it.

Then, I got creative and made a "subliminal" message in my dots. I used my neon orange and yellow Migi pens and there's a little message in there in my dots!

I wasn't too impressed with myself because moments after making my dots, I managed to smudge a couple nails on a stray hair that miraculously dove off my head into my manicure. (You might also see my middle finger dots are no where near straight lines but... when you see what the shape on that nail was subliminally, you'll understand why I was struggling. Also, it was late.) I added some matte top coat which did anything but disguise the mistakes...

If you want to see the "subliminal" message (I admit, it's tricky to see...) check below the cut, after the pictures of all my fellow challengers manis!

xoxo,
Amanda

Lazy 15: Gradient

Hello out there! Happy Monday... just kidding. No such thing ;) Today I'm back on the challenge bandwagon!

Today is gradient nails. Now... let's be honest. I haven't gotten this technique down. I tried really hard... but for some reason, my gradients barely are showing up when I sponge them on. So I tried, I really did, but you couldn't even see the gradient on my white underwear. I need some more practice. Not to let you down, I did a gradient of dots in the same colors I'd chosen for the gradient originally (no, there's no picture, because it just looked like white nail polish with sponge-shaped dents in it).

I started with a base coat of Hits Hello Kitty Sweet, which is a perfect coral-orange creme. (I have 6 of these Hits and I love them all, so you'll see the swatches of these as I use them for underwear for manis throughout this challenge.) 

Because I can, here's a bottle shot to show how RIDICULOUSLY cute these are. I love Hello Kitty!

Then I added a gradient of yellow-purple dots using Barry M Lemon Ice Cream (yellow), Orly Frisky (blue), and Barry M Berry Ice Cream (purple).

Once I was done, I added matte top coat and this was the final result:

What do you think? I'm a bit disappointed I didn't do a "normal" gradient but... call it going outside the box! I loved it matte!




xoxo,
Amanda

Fail and Unfail: Orly Snowcone & Depend 243

Hi girls! Here's my first NOTD since returning, kind of nervous! Please be kind, my cuticles are still... um, awful. But I've maintained my painting technique so hopefully that's redeeming.

My original idea was to do Depend 243 on my nails with accent nails of Orly Snowcone, and then do opposite dots of each. But, it doesn't always work out. Here they are pre-dots:

Orly Snowcone is a perfect blue creme. Seriously. This was one coat, and no top coat. Look at the shine and perfection! It was also really easy to control (this picture is no cleanup!).

I got Depend 243 from Dolores in a swap, and it's a really pretty purple with gold shimmer (or microglitter, I can't really tell, TBH). These swatches are two coats and no topcoat. This one was also really manageable.

Here it is once I added the dots...

 Disasticure 2012. For some reason, I hate the way Snowcone looks dotted. So I took it off and gave up on the accent nail idea, and this beauty was born:

This is actually my first full dotticure (hehe) and I kind of love it! I need to do this more but for some reason I always back down.

Oh, also! I used my Chick Nail Polish top coat here, and I love it! Look how shiny this mani looks! I got it free with a promo way back when but never really got around to trying it. It works well especially when I'm taking my time and not using a quick-dry necessarily :)

What do you guys think? Disasticure? Cute? Was I right to switch from accent to full mani?

xoxo,
Amanda