Nail Design: Christmas Skittle

The first day of winter has come and gone and now Christmas is less than 24 hours away! I sketched out a lot of ideas for Christmas nails, but I couldn't decided which to choose. So I decided to combine them into a skittle mani! Aside from a simple Santa suit on my toes last year, this is my first real Christmas design. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. I especially love my peppermint nails, which I wasn't sure about right away. Please excuse some of my mess-ups... I need a thinner, smaller brush for detailing.

I'm also not a big fan of the color gold, but I am loving my Zoya polish in "Ziv." It's a gorgeous warm golden color with specks of deeper hues of gold/bronze. I might have to do something on all my nails with it here soon. 

Nail Design: Holiday Waterfall

The magic of Christmas is lingering in the air yet again, which means it's time to try my hand at Christmas/winter themed designs. I've been wanting to pair gold and red for months now, so my color combo birthed from that. I got the idea from the beautiful waterfall designs I always see on The Nailasaurus. I used the tutorial that she has posted. My thinnest brush was still a little too thick, but the idea is the same. At first I didn't like it, but it's grown on me now.

Ignore the tip wear you see below. I wore the red/gold mani for a few days before deciding to do a design over it. I recently switched my top coat from Out the Door to HK Girl, which I am loving! I go days without a single chip, just tip wear.

Anyway, enjoy my first holiday design!

Nail Design: Frankenstein and the Bride

First off, Happy Halloween!

I finally spared some time to whip up a fun design! Aside from simple spider webs on my toes, I've never done a Halloween themed design. I had quite a bit of fun doing these and I love the end result. My Cinderella hand has a few mishaps, but nothing big enough to keep me from loving this design. 

I present Frankenstein and the bride!

Nail Design: Green Reverse-Gradient Leopard

A little over a week ago I saw a mani on Instagram by ModNails and knew immediately I had to recreate it. The mani that inspired me can be found here. I'm loving gradients right now and leopard print is always fun...and easy. So when I saw this reverse-gradient look, it was love at first sight! The hardest part was deciding on what colors to use. I changed my mind quite a few times, but eventually settled on a subtle green gradient. I definitely think I'll be giving this another go in the near future. Perhaps next time I'll pick two colors with more contrast.

I love everything about this mani, but I think I may have blended the two shades together too much. It can a little difficult to see the two colors. I was afraid I would get a harsh line, but I think after I completed the leopard print it would have appeared less harsh. I still love it, though! 

Photographing this mani was difficult! I couldn't, for the life of me, get the true colors to show through. The first picture is the closest to their true color, compared to the other photos taken with my camera. The second photo was taken with my iPhone, which shows off the gradient effect better than the rest.

Nail Design: Neon Gradient Stripes

Man was this a tedious mani! This one involved a few "first" for me. My first time doing stripes with tape, using my new sponges, and doing a neutral/neon combo! I've been wanting to use this color combination for quite some time, but couldn't decide how I wanted to execute it. 

I cut up some painters tape to make my stripes, which took more time than I expected. Aside from that though, it wasn't too difficult. In fact this mani was pretty simple, it just took a lot of time and patience. I also bought new sponges awhile back to use for gradients and they work much better than my old ones. 

I didn't want all the stripes to go in the same direction, so I did a mix of horizontal and vertical stripes. In the end I loved the vertical ones, but not so much the horizontal. Guess I'll know for next time!

Immediately after I applied my top coat, I bumped my left hand, which is my best hand, and it smudged the design in a few spots. However, I was able to pose my hands just right so the glare helped hide the smudge. ;)