31 Day Challenge: Day Six, Violet: Roses and More Roses

Hi everyone! I meant to have this up last night but my photo-editing software crashed at the ninth hour, of course taking with it my unsaved photos. Also I've been feeling some anxiety about how I watermark my photos - I'm not happy with my usual system and I need to figure out some sort of solution. Anywho... what I'm trying to say is that I was totally distracted and preoccupied - these are the types of things that keep me up until the wee hours of the morning!

About this design: I know I just did roses last week - for Day Four of the challenge - so hopefully you don't mind them again so soon. Instead of stripes I combined them with some sort of fractured pattern. It sort of resembles stained glass, although I didn't fill in all the spaces. At first I wasn't sure how I felt about this, but now I really like them. The fractured pattern has a bold look and I like the contrast to the more delicate roses.

To get this look: I started with a base of Lime Crime Milky Ways for all nails. My thumb and pinky were topped with one coat each of Jindie Nails A History of Violets - I hope to have swatches of this soon.

The roses I painted with China Glaze That's Shore Bright as my mid-toned base colour, NOPI Back in My Gloria Days for the darker strokes, and Essie Full Steam Ahead for the highlights. The leaves are Sally Hansen Lickety-Split Lime.

For the fractured pattern the darker outlines are a mixture of black polish with NOPI Back in My Gloria Days. I filled them in with Back in My Gloria Days, piCture pOlish Metallic Mush, and Essie Full Steam Ahead.

What do you think of this design? Are you tired of roses?
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Simple Spring/Summer Florals Inspired by MrCandiipants

Hi everyone! I've been inspired by the easy nail art suggestions and blog posts that have been submitted for my survey (if you're interested, you can find the details here). So I decided to do some easy nail art for tonight's blog post.

Simple spring/summer floral nail art

The inspiration for this was an amazingly simple floral design done by MrCandiipants aka Candice. She's done a few variations on this design, and I love each and every one of them. You can find the YouTube video tutorial she did here.

Simple spring/summer floral nail art

The thing I love about these flowers is that they don't require any fancy nail art tools. You use the brushes in the nail polish bottle to make the petals and the dots in the centre. Just make sure to wipe all the excess polish off of the brush before making your flowers. When I made my strokes for the petals I worked from the outside to the middle.

Simple spring/summer floral nail art

My base polish is Lime Crime Milky Ways. And for the flowers I used Lime Crime Once in a Blue Mousse and Butter London Trout Pout. The dots in the centre are Misa BreakAway, a dark purple with a shimmer - not that you can see the shimmer, it's just what I grabbed.

Simple spring/summer floral nail art

I'm so in love with these! It's one of those designs where I can't stop staring at my nails, they please me so much. And they are so easy I was able to do them on my right hand. The flowers on my right hand are a little bit more awkward, but they are supposed to be kinda awkward in the first place. :)

What do you think of these? Have you seen MrCandiipants' easy florals before?

Shimmer Polish Vivian Stained Glass Nails

Hi everyone! It's been a while since I've done some nail art with the Shimmer Polish samples I received last month. I've had stained glass nails on the brain lately, so naturally, when I was brainstorming ideas for my Shimmer Polish I thought "glitter stained glass, of course!" ;)

Shimmer Polish Vivian

My intention was to showcase Vivian, as I've been doing with previous nail art designs. Unfortunately the polish gets overshadowed by the glitz of the stained glass design. Poor Vivian. I will tell you that Vivian is an intriguing polish from this brand. It has a black-brown base and what looks like copper, rose, silver, and holographic glitter. It has an overall neutral brown look but the holo glitter keeps it interesting. On my index finger I only needed two coats for full opacity. The application is excellent - it is a bit thick but goes on smoothly.

Shimmer Polish Vivian Stained Glass Nails

Shimmer Polish Vivian Stained Glass Nails

For the stained glass nails I used Shimmer Vivian, Jasmine, and Karen. The black lines were done with Orly Liquid Vinyl. I started by painting the outlines and the inside lines on each nail. Then I filled in the spaces and reinforced the black lines at the end. It's not as delicate as I would hope but the glitter makes it difficult to paint fine lines.

Shimmer Polish Vivian Stained Glass Nails

For my pinky and thumb I used a base of Lime Crime Milky Ways with a dot of Vivian instead of a stud.

Shimmer Polish Vivian Stained Glass Nails

I just finished this design not too long ago (it's on my nails as I'm typing this), so I'm still undecided how I feel about it. Do you ever feel that way about the nail art that you do? Like you need some time to process something first? I do feel they look better in person where the details are more obscured and the imperfections less visible.

What do you think of this design? Have you tried Shimmer Polish?

*Shimmer Polish provided for review, all opinions are my own. See my disclosure policy for more details.*