A girl and her love of nail polish

Posts tagged ‘Gradient’

Top 5 Nail Art Manicures Of 2012

Happy New Year! Hope you all had a wonderful holiday. My unplanned break turned into more of an unplanned hiatus, but I’m back now. Exhausted, but back!

I had all of these wonderful plans for year-end posts I was going to do, but alas, it just didn’t happen. So here’s just one, a roundup of my most popular manicures from last year.

No. 5: Vampire Nail Art

Vampire Nail Art

This vampire nail art manicure was part of the 30-Day Challenge I did in September, but it also got big boosts around Halloween and again in November when the last Twilight movie came out!

No. 4: Zebra French Manicure

Zebra French Manicure with OPI Care To Danse? and Pirouette My Whistle

Animal prints aren’t really my thing, or so I thought until I tried this zebra french manicure out for the 30 Day Challenge. The more I look at it, the more I like it!

No. 3: Bold Retro Wallpaper Nail Art

Black and White Retro Dot Nail Art with Color Club Tweet Me

I can’t take any credit on the design for this bold retro wallpaper nail art look since it came from a tutorial I found online, but I did like my color choices.

No. 2: Silver And Gold Gradient

U2 Silver and Gold Glitter Gradient nail art

This silver and gold glitter gradient was actually inspired by the U2 song of the same name, but I think it made for an excellent holiday look as well.

No. 1: Pink Glitter Gradient

Pink Glitter Gradient Nail Art with Essie Luxeffects A Cut Above

You ladies love glitter gradients! This one was part of Breast Cancer Awareness month and was done in honor of my grandmother, so I’m very glad this was my most popular post of the year.

Bonus Manicure: My Favorite

Gradient Dot Manicure: OPI Berlin There Done That with Sinful Colors Ruby Ruby

I LOVE dotticures, usually ones that I see on other people, but I really loved the way this gradient dot manicure came out.

Thanks very much to everyone who visited my blog last year. Wishing you health, peace and prosperity in 2013!

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NOTD

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Nail-aween Nail Art Challenge: Spider Nail Art

Today’s theme for Day 7 of the Nail-aween Nail Art Challenge from datyorkLOVES/SassyNails is spiders.There are 10 themes for the challenge, and I have to complete all of them by the end of October, but other than that, it’s self-paced.

Spider Halloween Nail Art

I found this super-cute spiderweb funky french manicure from Kayla Shevonne that I liked a lot, but since I just did Frankenstein french tips for yesterday’s prompt, I switched it up a bit for this one by doing a gradient instead.

Spider Halloween Nail Art

I started with three coats of Sinful Colors Lets Meet, which is pretty much a shimmery Tweety Bird yellow. I followed that with one coat of Poshe fast-dry top coat.

Spider Halloween Nail Art

Then I applied Sinful Colors Lets Meet and China Glaze Riveting (beautiful shimmery orange) directly to a makeup sponge and dabbed that on my nails. I did it at least twice on each nail to get the orange as dark as I wanted. I followed that with one coat of Poshe.

Spider Halloween Nail Art

For the spiderweb and spider legs, I drew on my nail using a Kiss Nail Artist pen. The spider body is a large dot of Orly Liquid Vinyl. The eyes are smaller dots of NYC French White Tip and Orly Liquid Vinyl again. Topped that nail off with one final coat of Poshe.

Nail-aween Halloween Nail Art Challenge

 

Check out all of the NailAween Nail Art Artists!

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Holiday

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30 Day Challenge Day 11 – Dots: OPI Berlin There Done That

I think technically Day 11 of the 30 Day Challenge is supposed to be polka dots, but I just did gradient dots and realized it a little too late. I actually like it quite a bit, so I hope you do too even though it’s not quite what was called for. I’m simultaneously doing 30 Days of Untrieds, so I fit a few new polishes in as well.

Gradient Dot Manicure: OPI Berlin There Done That with Sinful Colors Ruby Ruby

This mani includes three polishes:

  • OPI Berlin There Done That (untried)
  • Sinful Colors Ruby Ruby (untried)
  • Orly Rage

Gradient Dot Manicure: OPI Berlin There Done That with Sinful Colors Ruby Ruby

I started with two coats of OPI Berlin There Done That, a taupe creme, on everything but my ring finger, which has two coats of Sinful Colors Ruby Ruby, a bright red jelly-leaning polish.

For the dots, I used the head of a straight pin to do the large dots, starting with Orly Rage, a rose gold foil. I layered over that with large dots in the opposite color of the base nail, and then added some smaller dots with a small dotting tool down the nail to create a gradient effect. Then I want back and added some base-color dots inside the large “opposite dots,” i.e. added red dots to taupe dots, taupe dots to red dots.

Gradient Dot Manicure: OPI Berlin There Done That with Sinful Colors Ruby Ruby

I overlapped the dots a bit and also made sure some hung over the tips. My inspiration came from this gradient dot manicure from Chalkboard Nails. I finished everything off with a coat of Poshe fast-dry top coat.

Gradient Dot Manicure: OPI Berlin There Done That with Sinful Colors Ruby Ruby

Shade

I was a little sad to have to take this one off to move onto the next challenge!

30-Day Challenge, 30 Days of Untrieds

Please visit some of the other bloggers that are participating in the 30 Day Challenge this month. I know we will need a lot of encouragement to get through! Click here to see them:



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30-Day Challenge, NOTD

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30 Day Challenge Day 10 – Gradient: Cult Nails Untamed with Zoya Lotus

It’s day 10 of the 30 Day Challenge, which means I’ve survived one-third of it. Woo hoo for me. Today’s theme is gradients.

Since I haven’t done this kind of gradient before, I tried to keep it simple. For the gradient, I used two colors, Zoya Lotus and Cult Nails Untamed. The latter satisfied the 30 Days of Untrieds challenge I’m doing simultaneously with this one. I also added China Glaze Luxe And Lush, a layering polish with holographic flakies, to make it a little more interesting.

Gradient manicure: Cult Nails Untamed with Zoya Lotus and China Glaze Luxe And Lush

I started with two coats of Cult Nails Untamed as the base, then a coat of Poshe fast dry top coat. I let it dry completely before starting the gradient. Untamed is a medium pink sheer-ish polish with a fine shimmer. Zoya Lotus is an amethyst purple with a stronger pink/gold shimmer (click to see it on it’s own).

Gradient manicure: Cult Nails Untamed with Zoya Lotus and China Glaze Luxe And Lush

I know there are several different techniques for doing gradients; I used a makeup sponge and brushed the polish directly onto it, then dabbed it onto my nail. I dampened the sponge a little with water before I started so it wouldn’t absorb quite as much polish … not sure if it made a difference or not. I put the darker color on first and then the lighter one, making sure they overlapped some in the middle. As I dabbed the sponge on my nail, I moved it back and forth a little, tip to base, to make sure I got Zoya Lotus where I wanted it, and also to help with the blend a bit.

Gradient manicure: Cult Nails Untamed with Zoya Lotus and China Glaze Luxe And Lush

I added another layer of Poshe, then one coat of China Glaze Luxe And Lush, followed by one coat of Gelous since the flakies are chunky in the CG, and finally another coat of Poshe.

Gradient manicure: Cult Nails Untamed with Zoya Lotus and China Glaze Luxe And Lush

I wasn’t able to achieve as much of the blend in the middle as I wanted, so perhaps this technique wasn’t the best for that. It also might have been my polish choices: the Cult Nails Untamed was sheer and light in color, so it didn’t blend into the Zoya as much is get absorbed into it.

Still, I’m glad to have my first sponge gradient under my belt. Any tips you can share would be greatly appreciated.

30-Day Challenge, 30 Days of Untrieds

Please visit some of the other bloggers that are participating in the 30 Day Challenge this month. I know we will need a lot of encouragement to get through! Click here to see them:



Category:

30-Day Challenge, Indies, NOTD

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