Bunny Day Egg Nail Art

Happy Bunny Day everyone! If you're in lockdown with a Nintendo Switch, then you've probably bit the bullet and bought Animal Crossing: New Horizon. And if you've done that, then you know exactly where the inspiration for these Easter nails came from. It was no small task, and required a LOT of colors, which I've listed below in no particular order. Happy Bunny Day!

Bunny Day Eggs

Here's a list of the colors I used, some of which needed to be combined to get the right color.

OPI Colors:

• Show Us Your Tips!
• Mermaid's Tears
• Sailing & Nailing
• I'm Sooo Swamped!
• What's the Double Scoop?
• Sorry I'm Fizzy Today
• Life Gave Me Lemons
• No Room for the Blues

China Glaze Colors

• Life Preserver
• Stoked to Be Soaked
• Sun's Up Top Down

Other Colors:

• Milky Ways, Crema de Limon, and Lavendairy (Lime Crime), Sky (piCture pOlish), Load (Illamasqua), Danielle (Zoya)

What a Load of Chat

A trip to Marshalls the other day revealed that Sation polishes are indeed in stock. You may remember a post about that earlier. It's not a complete stock, with only a few polishes here and there, but I couldn't help picking up a beautiful neon pink for just $2.99.

Mimicking a shirt I also picked up during that same trip, these stripes were created using Chatty Catty (Sation) and Load (Illamasqua). I love the way the accent nail looks. It's so subtle and difficult to tell there's a party nail in the mix.

Happy Plants

You've seen a few ColourLover-inspired designs here before. If you're new, or don't recall, ColourLovers is a fantastic site to browse color palettes and patterns. It's my go-to for inspiration.

Every Tuesday, an email to members is distributed, which they call Happy Huesday. They feature six or so popular patterns in the emails.

Yesterday, I liked one so much I decided to make it into a manicure.

Here's the manicure:

 And here's the pattern it was based on:

Image source: http://www.colourlovers.com/pattern/2958888/happy_plants

It's pretty obvious which part of the pattern is being shown on the manicure, but if I hadn't told you, would you think they were tiny mustaches?

Here are the colors I used: Ancient Jade (ORLY), Load (Illamasqua), Get in the Expresso Lane (OPI), Pull Over (Sinful Colors), and Front Row Flasher (Sation).

Bleeding Blue

Tonight's nail art comes straight off of ColourLovers. It's a gorgeous gradient, but it's called melting. It actually looks like it is melting, and so do my nails.

The colors used were Load (Illamasqua), Rock-a-Guy Blue and Blue Sky's the Limit (Sation).

This was a really easy design to do. Just paint your base color, add messy stripes of your second color about half way down your nail, and then add some more on top of that near the top of the nail. Easy and effortless.

EDIT: 8/26/12 You can easily try this yourself. Follow this new tutorial for the exact steps and tools you'll need.

Native American Rug

Native American culture is amazing. From the wall art to the baskets and blankets, Native Americans really seemed to have some serious artistic ability. Southwest U.S. states still flourish with the styles portrayed by our predecessors, and tonight's nails reminded me a little bit of this kind of art.

This simple yet striking design was really easy to create too! I coated my nails with Load (Illamasqua) first, then a small diamond shape of alternating January (Julep) and Cote D' Azur (Icing). Then it was just a matter of painting some small vertical lines outlining the diamonds and a little blob in the middle. It was easy because it's imperfect and uneven, which makes it more interesting.

I'm betting we'll be seeing a lot of these skinny little imperfect lines here at Nailed It.

EDIT: Ok...this is too hilarious not to add. After I posted this manicure, I got a comment from my mom, who reminded me of this song we used to listen to in our Plymouth Voyager mini van when I was a little girl living in Utah. Here's the lyrics to the song that must've somehow brought some emotional memory to my mind's forefront:

Ay yi yi Katy. 

Shades of red and blue.

Ay yi yi Katy.

Whatever became of that Navajo rug and you?

The lyrics aren't as innocent as the song's memory in my mind, but it's obvious it had some serious impact on me. Thanks Mom!

Show Your True Colors

I owe every bit of inspiration for tonight's manicure to an unlikely, but highly inspiring source: PixelgirlPresents. I found this site when I first got a laptop for college in 2006. That was six years ago, but now outdated Dell I was given as an awesome present from my Dad makes it seem like much longer. PixelgirlPresents offers graphic artists a chance to get their work on peoples' desktops, phones and electronic screens of other sorts. It's all run by one girl, and the submissions are always unique and colorful. I'm a fan of bold patterns and designs, so I've had this bookmarked for a long time.

Browsing it the other day for an updated background, I stumbled upon something I looked at and thought to myself, "Katy...you need to put that on your nails." I give myself great advice sometimes, so thanks past-me for that great thought (and for quickly saving the picture to your phone to reference later). 

The design I used as my guide was by the artist Plumeology, who, judging by their PixelgirlPresents bio page, has only submitted one design to the site. They do link to a company webpage though, and it seems they're a design company offering services like logo design, advertising, and business name consultation. See? Unlikely source for inspiration! If you're in San Diego, I bet they offer some pretty designs if their work is anything like their logo. 

So, without further ado, here's my interpretation of their beautiful logo!

I used Load (Illamasqua) as the base. The plumes were done with Electric Pineapple (China Glaze), Sea Breeze (Sally Hansen Insta-Dri) and Dream (Savina). Yes I know, I'm reusing colors, but I keep getting drawn to the same bottles. The decorative swirls beside the plumes were done with Pelican Gray (China Glaze), and it was all freehand. Maybe that's why only two nails got the treatment.

Take the Load Off

Two days of skiing did a number to my limbs. All I wanted to do all day today was sit down and take a load off. Tired eyes and tired legs need the time off.

Bare all this in mind when reading these polishes names.

Elegant and simple, this manicure was inspired by my friend Tammy, who said she had seen something similar on Pintrest. I haven't been able to find the image she was talking about, nor do I know which colors they used, but I used Illamasqua Load and Sinful Colors Time Off.

I know, so clever. About as clever as I can get without overstimulating my tired brain into a state of malfunction.

Such a Pansy

Pansies have always been one of my favorite flowers. The contrast between the purple and the yellow and the white is so yummy! I've been wanting to do a manicure featuring pansies for a while, and this is the first attempt. I think I should've picked a different background color, but I also blame the camera for silly contrast problems. (I haven't mastered manual mode yet.)

The base is OPI, Stranger Tides. The purple petals are Kieko from Zoya, the white petals are Load from Illamasqua, and the stamens are Savina's Grape. Finally, the center yellow pollen is Color Madric's Design Yellow.

Not bad for a first attempt, but not the best.

UPDATE: 2/3/12

I've created a tutorial for this manicure. Enjoy! (I'm also trying a new layout for my tutorials, and I must say, I love it.

Dainty Asian Flowers

Is grey work-appropriate? Where I work, there is no dress code. One of my friends had purple hair for a while! So when I show up everyday with a new, usually bright manicure, no one blinks an eye. I mean, we can bring our pets into the office, no biggie. However, tomorrow we are having some potential clients come in, and I'll be organizing the lunch, so the potential for them to see my nails is large. With that in mind, I wanted a manicure that was appropriate, but I also really wanted to do this manicure, so I risked it. What do you guys think...appropriate? Would a stickler boss strike down these colors?

I used I Vant to be A-Lone Star (OPI) as the grey base, Be My Valentine (Sinful Colors nail art brush) for the stems, and Illamasqua's Load for the flowers. Subtle?

Birthday, Christmas and New Year Haul

The end of the year is always full of some serious celebration for me. With a birthday right before Christmas, Christmas itself, and all the celebration and hangovers that accompany New Year's Eve, there's a lot to be happy about. In addition, I have gifts and presents to celebrate over that I know you all will also appreciate. Of course, I recieved some lovely non-nail gifts and love from my family and friends that are also reason to celebrate, but since this is a nail blog, I'll just share those with you today.

Get ready...it's picture heavy!

First up, these are the gifts my sister gave me. She understands nail polish more than anyone I personally know, so you can only imagine my joy opening her gifts. She gave me tools:

...dotting tools

...striping brushes

...and a glass nail file.

She gave me the Butter London Dressing Table duo, Black Knight and Tart with a Heart. Unfortunately, the dressing table suffered a fatility during the 17-hour car ride, so it won't be making an appearance in today's shots.

She gave me some amazing nail art brushes I've never heard of, but definitely want more of. The formula on all of these is great, and only requires one coat. That's practically unheard of with brighter striping shades. All of these are from a company called Color Madric. They're all sort of metallic, not matte as their bottles seem to indicate.

Shown here is Design Yellow, Green, Ocean Blue, and Hologram Glitter.

Hologram Glitter really is holographic, as I tried to capture here.

Shown here are the metallics from the Metal-licious collection of Color Madric brushes. These colors are Am-Ore, Platinum Rush, Lead to Riches, Metal-Licious, Iron I Lovely, and Gold Digger.

These all appear metallic, as their collection's name suggests.

She gave me part of L.A. Girl Glitter Addict collection, including the elusive Uninhibited I've been craving since I saw Rie from Nails and Noms use it.

Shown here are Uninhibited, Jostle, Animate, and Celebrate.

A few days after getting these, we stopped by a random Rite Aid to get Andy some contact solution, and I saw a glittering display of five more colors from the collection!

I added Eutopia, Nostalgic, Purge (a new nail polish name favorite in my book), Synergy, and Provocative to my infant collection.

Now it's a glittering grand collection!

She gave me some polishes we had talked about over the phone. These are randoms I mentioned liking that she had cheap access to out there in So-Cal.

Shown here is Sea Gurl from ORLY, Good Witch? from China Glaze, Cleopatra also from China Glaze, Glass Slipper from Sally Hansen Diamond Strength (one I actually snagged for myself), Lady Luck from Sally Hansen Gem Crush and January from Julep. She didn't like that color on her, so I took it off her hands. To top this load of polishes off is the amazing Load from Illamasqua. Look at it back there. Beautifully raunchy.

Rounding out my sister's amazing gifts is my first bottle...or bottles rather...of Seche Vite.

Look at this monstrosity! It's so much top coat, I don't even know what to do with it! 4 ounces!

So that's it from her...but fear not, my haul has not ended! She did an unbelievable job of making my Christmas gifts a thrill to open. Thanks Sisser, I love you!

I mentioned in Sapphire that Andy's mom's trainer, Robbie really hooked me up with some amazing CND products. Here they are!

She included in my bag of goodies some nail care items including some tasty CND Solar Oil (a cuticle conditioner), Scentsations lotion minis in Sparkling Champagne and Clementine & Mistletoe. They smell awesome! There are also several samples of CND's Spamanicure hand lotions, in Citrus Soothing Creme and Almond Hydrating Lotion. I absolutely love the smell of the almond lotion. Finally, there are a few nail buffers, showing their support for breast cancer research with the words "Nail Community Cares" written on them.

She also included some amazing colors, including Smoochie (#518), Sapphire Sparkle (#561), Plum Truffle Sparkle Effect (#586), and Plum Truffle Colour (#585).  You've seen Sapphire Sparkle already in Sapphire.

Thank you again Robbie, I love everything!

Last but not least! We have the polishes I bought myself.

You've already seen the Urban Outfitters collection I picked up here, but here's a few more shots of those beautiful bottles.

I also snagged the entire Finger Paints Special Effects collection today at Sally's!

 Not much to look at when they're in the bottles, but I'm sure you've seen them used by other ladies. My favorite shots are from Jen at The PolishAholic, from this post showing each on its own, and this post showing them all layered together. Oh many these are going to be fun to play with!

So that's it. Can you feel my excitement through the screen? It's radiating!