Hey guys!  Its been forever since I did a Design Seeds inspired water marble, so I did one for you today!  I loved the unique combo of colors in this palette, it looks so fun, don't you think?


This palette is called Candied Bright and can be found on Design Seeds here.


As usual, I started my marble with one coat of OPI Funny Bunny.  For this marble I used Funny Bunny, China Glaze Aquadelic, OPI You're A Pisa Work, and Depend Nr. 346.



Doing this made me so happy, I really missed marbling!  I'm going to try to have marbles for you more often again because I think you guys enjoy them as much as I do.

Please let me know if you see a Design Seeds palette that you'd like to see a marble of, and I will do my best to do one for you!

Hey there lovelies!  So I ended up not having time to finish up with book week last week, so I'll be posting this and one more book mani this week instead.

Today's mani is inspired by Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins, the second book of The Hunger Games trilogy.  This trilogy is one of my favorite book series ever, its up there with Harry Potter for me.  I could NOT stop reading these books once I started the first one, and I was again left missing my favorite characters when it was over.

This is pretty self explanatory as far as symbolism... I just wanted some more flame nails!  (I've done water marble flame nails, and some flame nails with my dotting tool, so I tried a different technique this time.)


I started off with two coats of Cult Nails You're My Dandy Lion (totally my favorite yellow polish ever).  Next I added the orange, Cult Nails Ay Poppy!, with a dry nail art brush.  Finally, I added the blue, Kiko 336, with the same nail art brush.

I didn't use top coat because I quite enjoyed the texture I was left with.


Now I'm just anxiously awaiting the release of the Catching Fire movie!  (The trailer literally gave me chills when I watched it... I may be obsessed....)

Hi guys!  First of all, I'm sorry for the slacking on blogging lately... I'm trying to figure out how to make working two jobs and blogging work together.  I think I will be having to cut back on my challenge participation and post a bit less, at least for the time being.  I'm at the point where I only have one day off a week, and I don't get home until 8pm from work, so there isn't much time to devote to nail art or blogging.  I'm planning on still participating in the Digit-al Dozen weeks, and having at least 3 posts per week the rest of the time.  So I hope you will stick with me through this transition period!  That said, let's move on to the good stuff!


Today I want to show you some polishes that Natalie Dee from Super Black Lacquers sent me to check out!  I'll just preface this post by telling you that the formula on all of these was lovely, no issues at all, and all of my swatches are two coats with no top coat.


First up is my personal favorite, Purdy.  Purdy is a gorgeous lilac with a pink shimmer.  I love the color of this one, and when I wore it with a glitter topper I didn't have any chips for something like 3 days, which is practically miraculous for me.  This one dries semi-matte.



Next we have Drunk Dial, which is a really unique polish.  Its a purple-leaning pink jelly base, with red, orange, and holo yellow glitters.  I was surprised by how opaque two coats of this looked, as the first coat seemed really sheer.  Yay for two coat jellies!



 This blue beauty is called Hello, Officer.  It is a true blue creme, which dries to a semi-matte finish.  A really nice color, and looks to be close to a "TARDIS blue" for those Doctor Who fans.




Finally, I have one of Natalie's holo polishes.  This one is called Whip, and is a charcoal grey holo.  The holo in this one is a sort of linear scattered holo.  Looks really nice in the sun and still has a hint of holo in the shade.

Hi guys!  Welcome back to Book Week!  Of course I had to do some Harry Potter nails, since the HP books are some of my all time favorites.  I just love them.  The characters felt like they were my friends, and I was so sad to lose them at the end of the series!  So this mani is a few of the characters.


If you can't tell, we have (left to right) Ron, Hermione, Harry, Dumbledore, and Hagrid on the thumb.

The base for this mani was two coats of OPI Let Them Eat Rice Cake.  The art was done with Barry M Nail Art Pens in black and white, and acrylic paint for the colors.



I hope you love these as much as I did!  The art was based on a cartoonized poster of the characters which was super cute.

Have you had any books that made you feel so sad when they ended, like you were loosing a bunch of friends?

Hi guys!  Here we have Day 2 of Book Week, and I am featuring Matilda, by Roald Dahl.  Roald Dahl was one of my absolute favorite authors when I was younger.  I devoured his books like nobody's business.  Matilda was a great one, and since she loved books, how could she not be a feature during book week?


The base for this mani is two coats of Orly Lemonade.  Everything else was done freehand with acrylic paints and a small nail art brush.


I intended for this to look like Matilda was standing with a cloud of levitating books hovering around her, so I hope that comes across!



I'm debating on doing another Roald Dahl mani for this week as well, since I just loved his books so much!

Hey guys!  Its time for the most challenging week of my month again... Digit-al Dozen week!  I love that the amazing artists in this group force me to push myself so much each month.  This month we are doing a theme that I am actually really excited about since I'm the one who chose it! :)

Our theme is books!  I am an avid reader, and always have been.  I knew this would be awesome to channel into nail art.

My first mani is based on a book called The Giving Tree, by Shel Silverstein.  This was one of my favorite books as a child.  I've recreated the cover art on my nails.  Here is a picture of the cover:

 

The base for this mani is Essie Mojito Madness.  The leaves/tree trunk/boy's shirt are a blend of MM and China Glaze Holly-day.  The red is Zoya Sooki, and the black and white are my Barry M Nail Art Pens.  Everything was done freehand, as I seem to be doing most of the time these days!



Have you read this book?  Did you like it?

Don't forget to see what the rest of my creative friends have come up with, and check back to see what other book-inspired manis I will have this week!

Hi guys!  Its the last day of Dexter Week, and I hope you are super psyched for the final season now... I know I am!  Today's nails are inspired by a bit of the totally cool retro poster I used for yesterday's inspiration.

This is a small bit of Dex's apartment... the shelves and the AC unit where he hides his trophies, the blood slides.  And the ring nail is one of those slides.

This mani consisted of two coats of Depend Nr. 346 on my index and middle finger, and two coats of China Glaze Liquid Leather on my ring and pinkie.  I did the art using the black and white Barry M Nail Art Pens, and added the blood with a dot of Zoya Sooki.


Don't forget to see how my super talented friends have wrapped up the week!

Welcome back to Dexter Week!  Today I've done a mani inspired by this really awesome retro styled Dexter poster I found online when googling for art ideas.  I loved the poster based on season one, so I did two bits of it as manis, one for today and one for tomorrow.

Today's depicts a scene from season one where Dex is called to a crime scene with a severed hand on a lounge chair on the beach.  I thought the contrast of the imagery was really neat here... a bloody severed hand surrounded by palm trees and beach toys.

The base of this mani is one coat of Zoya Sooki, and the rest of the details were all freehanded with acrylic paints.


Don't forget to see what my super talented friends are coming up with this week!

Hi again!  So we are continuing Dexter Week with a Dark Passenger mani...  This is how Dexter refers to his ever-present need to kill, for those of you who don't watch.  Mr. Sparkles suggested this mani, so thanks to him for always helping me come up with ideas! :)

I've got a base of two coats of Ciaté Dangerous Affair, and then I've added on my dark passenger and a silhouette of a knife with black acrylic paint.



Don't forget to see what my super talented friends are coming up with this week!

Hey there!  Today's Dexter mani is based on his killing outfit.  Dexter always wears the same olive green henley shirt, and black leather gloves when he's injecting his victims.


The green I used for this is OPI Uh Oh Roll Down The Window.  I custom mixed that with black for the detail of the shirt neckline.  The skintone one is Ciate Cookies and Cream.  The black is China Glaze Liquid Leather.  I mattified the black and added the shiny details sort of like the stitching in the gloves.


I thought this mani was super awesome until I saw Emma's mani yesterday where she did one accent nail with the killing outfit.  She totally kicked my ass so definitely look at what she's done!

 Hi darlings!!  So this week is going to be Dexter Week on the blog, as the final season starts at the end of the month.  Who else is excited to see how they wrap up this series?

Dexter has been one of my favorite shows since it started, and I got Mr. Sparkles hooked on it when we started dating as well.  I think I will feel really sad when its over... a series ending is like loosing a friend sometimes, isn't it?  (Books do this to me as well... I miss the characters terribly when they're through!)

Anyway, this mani was inspired by how Dexter wraps his victims up in plastic before giving them the stabby-stabs!  Clearly it isn't very wearable with the plastic still on, but I've included some photos after removing that if you keep reading.


These started off with a base of Gina Tricot Cream, a nice off white with a subtle shimmer.  Once that was completely dry I painted China Glaze Velvet Bow over top, and then while that was still wet, wrapped each nail with a strip of plastic wrap.


Here they are with the plastic removed... I left the mess because, well, it looked good and bloody!



So, stay tuned for more Dexter themed nail art this week, and check out my other friends who are doing this mini-challenge with me!