Spring, Butterflies, Gradients? Oh my!

Hi guys!! How are you all? On my end things are up and down as they have been the last few weeks. I've been feeling down and depressed and nothing really seems to be helping. Although there is one thing that has been helping, that  is my friends not just here at home but on the Internet too! If it hadn't been for their words of encouragement I don't know what I would do. I just have to remember I'm not alone in my struggles and eventually everything will work out.

So for today's post I wanted to share with you some nail art I did last week. Since the weather is finally getting warmer (its gonna be 60 today) I was inspired to do a bright manicure.

I started off with two of my favorite neon's from China Glaze, Pink Plumeria and Loves A Beach. The pair of polishes created a subtle gradient that I really liked. Then I decided to add some nail art. Originally I was going to do butterfly wings on all of my nails but since I like the gradient so much that I only did the accent nail.

I have to say I need to practice my butterfly wings more, my nails also need to grow out more too. Its hard to do a butterfly wing on short nails.

After finishing the nail art I waited a day and added Finger Paints Flakies in Flashy.  The iridescence of the flakies really made it look like a butterfly wing. I topped it all off with Julie G Jet Set Fast Drying Top Coat. It has quickly replaced my Seche Vite and Sally Hansen Insta Dry as my favorite top coat!

That's it for today! See you next time! <3 Nicole

Spring has Sprung!

Well hello again!

As promised in my last post here is my next post that is Spring nail oriented!

A while back before my two weeks of hell started I did some freehand nail art which I don't always get to do because I suck at it! I'm practicing when I can but nothing turns out the way I would like it to. I think that's why I stick to stamping so much.

Anyway enough pity party for one up there in that last paragraph lets get to it. Since Spring is FINALLY here, I cannot wait to start wearing bright clothes and spring dresses and not heavy sweaters and boots! Even though the temperatures are not Spring worthy yet, were still in the upper 30s to 40 degrees here in NY. A funny fact is that the weather guy the other day said that one year ago at this time we were actually having a heat wave, it was almost 80 degrees here last year! I wish we could have it back! We still have 3 inches of snow to get rid of!

Anyway one part of spring that I love is when all the pretty little butterflies come out, so that's what I decided to recreate was butterfly wings. I have seen so many nail artist recreate these I wanted to give it a shot. My favorite butterfly is the Monarch Butterfly as seen over on the left.



So to create my version I started off with three coats of China Glaze Orange You hot from the Summer Neon (2012) collection.

Here is a swatch photo of it on its own.

My photo makes it look more golden but its not it is very much orange! I couldn't get my editing program to color correct it :(.

Then I did a gradient of Love's a Beach on my tips, and then with a fine nail art brush from my Cheeky kit I got for Christmas I did the black out lines and then the white dots with a fine dotting tool also from the same kit.

All photos were taken with top coat and in natural light with the exception of the swatch of Orange You Hot that has no top coat.

 

 

For a first time take on butterfly wings I have to say I like them a lot and actually wore them for almost a whole week before changing the polish due to chips and pealing.

Since spring is here I hope I get inspired to do more spring nail art post and to work on my free hand more!

So until then I will talk to you all soon! <3 Nicole.


*Any and all nail polish mention in the above post was purchased by myself with my own money*

NOTD: Follow the butterflies!

Hello!! Happy Thursday!

Is anyone here a Harry Potter Fan? I am! I prefer the books to the movies, but that's a discussion that would take up a lot of time! Anyway for those of you that are fans know that in the second movie Chamber of Secrets, that when Harry and Ron are following the spiders, Ron says " Follow the spiders? Why couldn't be follow the butterflies?"

 I don't remember if its the same in the book or not and I have no idea where my copy is to cross reference. Today's manicure is inspired by that line. It came to me while I was changing my polish this afternoon.  I wanted something bright but with a pattern. Pulling out my stamping plates I started wanting   alternating flowers and butterflies but then the first set of butterflies ( which looked like little cartoon butterflies)  smudged and all went to pot. So I took it off and tried a different type of butterflie that looks more elegant. Viola! Success!

For my base color I went straight for my China Glaze Aquadelic, the bright blue is exactly what I needed to make this icky weather seem more bearable. Not to go off track here but... yeah the nice weather got me sick. Allergies and a cold all packed in my body together. There are times I feel fantastic and other I just want to curl in a ball! Thanks to Flonase though I am doing much better and think I will live.

Anyway, Aquadelic is an awesome two coat bright blue creme that just makes a perfect palette for a black stamp. Breaking out my Wet n Wild Black Creme, I went to work.

Here's the result!

All of these photos are with out flash, in natural sunlight coming through my window. Its too cold and windy to go outside today :(

The little dots around the butterflies are free handed with a toothpick!

Hope you all like this! Thanks for stopping by and reading!

Talk to you all soon!

Nicole.

P.S. I just noticed that my blog turned 1 back on Sunday the 18th and I never acknowledged it! I'm so excited that my little blog is a year old. I have accomplished a lot and met so many new amazing people and made some awesome friends as well! With out readers or my new polish friends I don't think my blog would of made it to a year old! So Thank you to everyone who has visited-read-and subscribed!