Holiday Nail Tutorial - Red Nails with Glitter Gradient Tip

Hello all!  Sorry I have been MIA lately.  Too much going on leaves me little time to my hobby, and an overall unhappy polish-a-holic!  But, today, I have a treat! A TUTORIAL!  I am going to give you step but step instructions on how to obtain this look!  You are seeing China Glaze "China Rouge" as the base color and OPI "Spark De Triomphe," and Essie's "Good as Gold" on the glitter tips.  Using a little striping tape, I created "present," accent nails.  Click the "read more" button for the instructions!  Enjoy!

Also, special thanks to my lovely hand model, Ms. Meghan Field!

Breast Cancer Awareness Take Two!

Because this is such an important topic, and because I have a lot of pink polishes, why not do an Ombre Tribute to Breast Cancer Awareness month!  Starting with the pinky nail you see OPI "Kiss my on my Tulips," "My Address is Hollywood," "Pedal Faster Suzi," and "Mod About You."

Breast Cancer Awareness Month

I am pretty sure we all know that cancer is an evil, vile diagnosis, and likely know someone that has been somehow affected by cancer, if not specifically breast cancer. So, because this month is Breast Cancer Awareness month, it is only appropriate that I have a few dedicated posts to the cause!  Starting with this one!  What you see is OPI's "My Address is Hollywood," with white cancer ribbons stamped on my accent finger.  One picture in the lightbox and the other in direct sunlight.  Pray for a cure, my friends!

OPI DS Reflection & White Butterfly Accent

OPI DS Reflection is just one of many in this particular line by OPI.  Pretty much any color in the "Designer Series" is a must have.  They are almost all holographic, which I love, and they are ALL gorgeous.  So if you see a silver topped bottle like the one shown....BUY IT!  Because this polish is pretty on it's own, I really didn't want to embellish it much, so I just added a dainty little butterfly! 

The Tree of Life

There are a multitude of reasons why I love this manicure and what inspired me to do it.  Besides the fact that I think trees are beautiful and have a symbolic meaning directly correlated with life, I have a few wonderful people in my life that LOVE trees!  SO....to complete this manicure took a lot of time and patience and POLISH!  I used 9 different polishes for this one, including the top coat.  To create the sunrise gradient effect I used a makeup sponge with Sally Hansen's Insta-Dry "Lightening," "Snappy Sorbet," OPI's "Miami Beet," and Orly's "Velvet Rope," over a base of OPI "Alpine Snow."  Once the gradient was sufficient, and after removing a reapplying on at least two nails, I cleaned up the horrific mess called my cuticles and proceeded to stamp the tree.  With the trees in place, I then used a nail art brush to paint on the leaves with Orly "Lucky Duck" and Sally Hansen "Lickety-Split Lime."  Top it all off with clear coat, and a few hours later I got this!  I am fairly happy with it.  I wished I had more time to use the glue method for the gradient clean up because I hate how much polish got everywhere, but I am a bit neurotic about that.

In doing this manicure, it really gets me thinking about about how blessed I am to have all the wonderful people I have in my life, so without getting too mushy, I just want to say, "Thank you, and I love you!"

Elegant Lace French Manicure

There is a BUNCH going on this manicure.  It took some time for sure, but I think the pay out is well worth it!  Is started with Orly's "Deja Vu" French Manicure as a base.  I then used blue painters tape to mask off my tips and painted them white with Orly's "White Tips."  I then applied a coat of China Glaze's "Fairy Dust" which is a fine holographic glitter polish.  With each coat of Fairy dust, I also applied a holographic hex glitter I picked up from Michael's to the cuticle edge of my nail.  I covered all that with a coat of my Seche Vite top coat to expedite drying time.  Once my tips were dry enough for stamping, I stamped the lace image over the white tips using Konad's Special polish.  Remember that learning curve I mentioned earlier this week, you can still see a bit in this mani, which bums me out, but what can I do?  So a LOT of steps in this manicure, but I really like how it turned out.  What do you think?  To Blingy?  Just right?

Essie "Midnight Cami" and Color Club " Angel Kiss" Holographic Stamping

I am a little disappointed with how this one turned out.  I tested the paisley stamping and it seems like it would come out well, but when I actually did the manicure, the image got lost, so it looks like some random splashes of holographic somethings.  But I really can't complain about that color.  Essie's "Midnight Cami," has to be one of my all time favorite blue polishes and it is so pretty in the sun!  Combine that with some holographic sparkle and you should have a winner, but I digress.  You can be the judge!