Inktober Day 25: Buddy

There's one "buddy" that comes to mind for most people, especially if you're in Colorado right now and the snow is falling. Here's the infamous Buddy the Elf for day 25 of Inktober!

This little Christmas-in-October look with Buddy the Elf wasn't difficult to create, but it did require a few polishes:

• Cement the Deal (OPI)
• Pale to the Chief (OPI)
• Get in the Expresso Lane! (OPI)
• Chyna (Zoya)
• Cece (Zoya)
• Gravitron (Misa)
• Tumble Bug (Misa)
• Loop-de-Loop (Misa)

Inktober Day 22: Chef

I had an idea to do riff on the "holy trinity" of Italian cooking (celery, carrot, and onion), so when I hopped online to find pictures of onions, I stumbled upon this ADORABLE design of vegetables from Zhe Vasylieva and knew they belonged on my nails.  

There were a lot of colors needed for these little veggies:

• Sultry Solstice, Mahogany Magic, and Emerald Bae (China Glaze)
• Whitley (Cacee)
• Loop-de-loop and Cherry Blossom Awesome (Misa)
• My Boyfriend Scales Walls (OPI)
• An NCLA purple that's missing its name

Inktober Day 24: Dizzy

Round and round and round...just like the wheel of time. Or the Wheel of Fortune. Regardless of the wheel, here's my interpretation for Inktober day 24, "dizzy".

Inktober Day 24 - Dizzy

There were a bunch of colors for this look:

• Misa: Shoot the Chute, Blue Jade Vine, Ripe Rashberry
• essie: On the Roadie
• OPI: My Favorite Ornament, Cajun Shrimp
• INM: Black Hole
• Color Club: Almost Famous
• Kleancolor: Pastel Purple

Inktober Day 14: Overgrown

I've officially made it 2 weeks into Inktober! To see all the posts from this year, click here.

Today is "overgrown", and while it's not my favorite look, I think it gets the point across, and I like the contrast of the vines against the brick wall.

Inktober Day 14 - Overgrown

The brick background is Sienna (LVX), with accents of McKenna (Zoya) and overgrown with Gravitron (Misa) vines.

Inktober Day 10: Pattern

Day 10 of Inktober was made for nail art. I mean, the prompt is simply "pattern". My mind was going nuts with possibilities, but I liked this retro pattern I stumbled across on Pinterest, so this took the cake for the evening.

Inktober Day 10 - Pattern

There's actually 5 colors used for this pattern, include Mezmerised (essie), Shoot the Chute (Misa), Sun Worshipper (China Glaze), Skater Dater (Sation), and My Boyfriend Scales Walls (OPI).

Inktober Day 5: Build

"Build" is the prompt for day 5 of Inktober, and while I could have gone a super punny route and given you nails on nails, or super alliterative and given you hammer hands, I decided on a more colorful, more foundational building block.

Here are my Lego nails!

Inktober Day 5 - Build

I was inspired by a Lego set I saw recently at Costco and nearly bought for myself. However, knowing my cat's tendencies to knock small objects over into some oblivion, never to be found again, I decided against that purchase.

The rainbow of colors I needed for this look came from China Glaze (Summer Reign, Sun Upon My Skin, Emerald Bae, and Sun-Set the Mood) and Misa (Gravitron and Power Surge). Then I either mixed in grey (Decoded by ORLY), white (White Porcelain by INM), or black (Black Onyx by OPI) to get the darker and lighter shades for shadowing and highlights.

Inktober Day 3: Bait

How do you make a word like "bait" into a fun nail art design? I thought about cheese, I thought about traps, but I couldn't get the idea of worms out of my head. But in the spirit of Halloween, I painted some fun candy worms instead of earth worms. After all, I've heard it's pretty common practice to bait your kids to do chores with candy.

Inktober Day 3 - Bait

These gummies were done with a pretty rainbow of polishes, including:

• Essie: Strut Your Stuff
• China Glaze: Shore Enuff and Sultry Solstice 
• OPI: Got Myself Into a Jam-balaya 
• Misa: Tumble Bug
• Sation: Peppermint Pedi

Anna Bond Florals

The Inspiration

Anna Bond is the creator of some unbelievably beautiful florals that have been inspiring nail artists for years. Her creations can be seen on almost anything a print adorns, as she is the co-founder for Rifle Paper Co. I've been following her work for years, and today's nail art was inspired by this design recently shared on her Instagram. I happily spent a few hours just freestyling each finger based on that design, and here's the result!

Freehand Anna Bond Florals

The Color Palette

As you can imagine, this look called on a lot of different colors. After rifling through lots of Melmer drawers, I wound up with these colors for my Anna Bond floral look:

OPI: Alpine Snow, Black Onyx, Never a Dulles Moment
Misa: Shoot the Chute
Zoya: Wyatt, Danielle, Sawyer, Sage/Satin (this was the base), Sonja, Arbor, Presley, Laurel, Kieko

Of course, everything is freehand.

Thank you for inspiring me Mrs. Bond!

Misa Collection Review - Riding All the Rides at the County Fair

While summer's coming to a sad close, the colors of summer are still in full swing at nail salons around the world. So before you put away your brights, consider one more summer collection...for me.

You've already seen some crayon nail art using colors almost entirely from this collection. The collection is Misa's Riding All the Rides at the County Fair. This collection was perfect for crayon nails because it's a very bold, bright and basic collection (in the sense that its colors are mostly primary and secondary shades.)

The first swatch is the darkest in the rainbow, the blue Power Surge.

Misa Sunny Side Up Spring 2014 Collection

Although here in Boulder it doesn't feel like we got a spring, I'm still happy to wear spring colors. Today I'm sharing the Misa Sunny Side Up collection with you, which includes a variety of spring colors.

I chose three and a complementary non-Misa grey polish for the Sunny Side Up nail art!

Here's the swatches of the shades, which all needed only two coats (except Dusty Magnolia, the sandy shade used in my nail art).

Floral Nail Tutorial for Online Fashion Week

OFW continues for just one more day, and as a special exclusive for the event, I've created a floral tutorial!

Check it out over at Online Fashion Week! Be sure to check all the other posts for beauty and fashion there before the day ends, so you can be sure you're on trend and stylish all through summer.

Fake Tattoos Nail Tattoos Review

Before recently, I thought stamping and stickers were the next easiest way to get the artistic, perfect look without the steady hand some nail saints have. Then I was introduced to Fake Tattoos.

This European company specializes in temporary tattoos, whether they be on your body, or more excitingly, your nails! I've got a review today that's bound to excite you, and it's brought to you by Fake Tattoos!

Just like the temporary tattoos with unicorns and kittens we all wore as kids, these apply just as easily. They come on a sheet with paper backing and a plastic sheet on the other side. To apply this on your nails, you need to cut out the tattoo you want, peel off its plastic, and then apply the decal side to your nail. Then, with a damp paper towel, dab against the paper backing for about 15 seconds (they recommend 30). The backing will peel right away, and you'll be left with a beautiful design on your nails, just like these!

The colors used for this mani include My Vampire is Buff (OPI), Blueberry Blast (Misa), Lovely Lychee (Misa), Ripe Raspberry (Misa), Lime Love (Misa), Vintage Boutique (Avon), and Posh (Revlon).

The middle finger bird (how appropriate) and the ring finger hearts (damn I'm good!) are all Fake Tattoos. Aren't they great!? Perfect, clean lines, with tiny details nearly impossible to achieve with a little brush or nail art pen. The floral design was inspired by the feminine florals of The Daily Polish.

The ease of putting these on was surprising. I thought I'd mess up at least one or two nails, but what you see above is my first attempt. They do have a slight visible (though not tactile) texture to them, as you can see in the black heart on my ring finger. I've layered on a thick coat of Seche Vite, and it still appears, but I honestly don't mind. It doesn't detract from the look in the slightest.

Though I've only used three tattoos here, there are plenty for you to choose from! You can see their whole catalog here, but I received six sheets. Here's what's on them:

Which is your favorite? How would you rock these?

You can try these yourself by ordering your own set here. Fake Tattoos offers shipping worldwide, so grab your favorite sets and try them out yourself.

These products were sent to me by Fake Tattoos. The reviews are based entirely on my experience with the products and were in no way influenced by anyone.