Tropical Zebra

The other day I was wandering around the Fashion Show mall here in Las Vegas, and as I passed by a store creatively called 'The ABC Store' I saw a huge display for a brand called Island Girl Cosmetics. I remembered Michelle of All Lacquered Up mentioned that her friend Christine was excited by them, so after a million times just walking by that store, I finally went in...and man, I'm glad! They had some awesome color changing polishes, some fun glitters (shapes and flakies), and some great and bright colors. Best of all, the normal polishes were only $2.99! For today's nail art, I wanted to show a few of the color changing polishes. I've even included a video (don't mind the silly), of it in action! :)

I used Island Girl Color Changing polish in 2006 for the base (it's a shimmery tangerine color that changes to neon yellow), then used Konad Plate m57 to apply Island Girl Color Changing Polish in 2009 (a bright blue that changes to turquoise). Topped it all off with 2 coats of Seche Vite top coat.

Hot water...cold water....hot water...cold water....:-P

Pink tea rose

Hello My Sweet Nail-s
I was really pelased with the manicure that i am posting today.
Yes it took me quite a time to hand paint these beautiful roses , but i think totally worth it.
I see now that i deffinately need more practice, and should make more hand painted designs. I used to be able to do painting much quicker.
So i hope that this manicure will please you too, please enjoj and feel free to comment.


This is my right hand

SUMMER PLEASE DON'T END!

On these nails I took four different colors of purple acrylic and just randomly placed them across the nail. I painted white lines with a striping brush separating each color of purple. I added 3d flowers on the ring fingers.

On these nails my client picked out the 3 colors of stars she liked and then gave me permission to do what i wanted with them. I was inspired by the nails Krizia from young nails did. (there is a picture of them on a previous post) I really had a lot of fun with these.


These are some fun 3d acrylic flowers that I just had to play around with.


This is a really fun elegant look. This is a light pink from Young Nails called Sakura storm. I added some irridescent circle glitters as an accent.

This is black acrylic in nebula with a glitter mix in purple passion faded into it. I had to paint some little accents to make them super wild and sexy!

This is a glitter from sparklesnailproducts.com in chunky funk. I also added a random design on some of the other fingers to coordinate with the chunky funk glitter mix.

Recently I learned how to add little glitters in with gel polish. This is opi gel polish in "opi ink". I added some little silver cirlcles and small black dots.

This is opi gel polish in "kyoto pearl" I added some purple stars and dots.

Back soon!

Vacayay!

Hi guys! If you're reading this, I already took off! I'm away for vacation for about a week, and I'm going with Michelle from TheLacquerFiles and Daphne from Nailswatches. How cool is that?! Things have been kinda hectic lately, so I was really flaking on replying to comments and emails.. I really really suck sometimes. I do read every word that comes in and I can't express how much I appreciate all of you! Hopefully I'll be more refreshed and energetic when I get back.

I did my hardest best to come up with some posts while I am gone, so I hope you'll enjoy them. I also have some pretty awesome stuff to show you when I'm back, so stay tuned. Be safe and see you soon!

Think Happy Thoughts

So today's nail art was inspired by my friend Faye and her daughter Riley's love of Tinkerbell (and all other things Disney). The other day I was trying to figure out how to use the awesome combination of two glitter polishes (Amour Rain and Deborah Lippmann Happy Birthday), and I thought this would be the perfect application- FAIRY DUST!! :) So Faye and Riley- I hope you approve!! :)

I used Amour Rain Glitter polish as a base (it's a dupe for OPI Mad as a Hatter but MUCH cheaper), topped with two coats of Deborah Lippmann Happy Birthday over it. For Tinkerbell on the ring finger, I used American Apparel Summer Peach for her skin, American Apparel Manila for her hair, which I also mixed with A Beautiful Life Poison to shade her hair. For her lips, I used A Beautiful Life Poison, for her eyes, I used Sally Hansen Professional Lavender Cloud, then Orly Cosmic FX Lunar Eclipse for the iris, with American Apparel Hassid for the eyelashes and brow. For the green of her dress, I used CND Green Scene , and for her wings, I used OPI What's With the Cattitude?. For the shading on her face, ears, etc, I used a mixture of American Apparel Summer Peach and American Apparel Rose Bowl. For the thumb version of Tink, I used American Apparel Summer Peach for the skin, American Apparel Manila for the hair, OPI What's With the Cattitude? for the wings, and a combination of Sally Hansen InstaDry Spring Green and CND Green Scene for the dress and shoes. Topped everything off with 2 coats of Seche Vite top coat.

Don't forget to think happy thoughts! :)

Also- got some polishes from Eyeko today and one of the sets of 4 arrived like this:

*cry* but don't worry, I cleaned them all off, and the polish that leaked is still half full. :)I totally can't wait to check these out!!! I'll let you know when I get them posted on the Review site! :)

There's No Place Like Home

Contest update:

Since several international folks have commented asking if they are eligible, the answer is YES!! Because it took me a bit to get back to you, the contest deadline has been extended until 11:59 PM Pacific time on August 11, 2010.

Remember, you MUST send a PICTURE of your nail art

to thedailynailcontest@gmail.com with your Google ID to be eligible, as well as comment on the original contest post. If you could, I would really appreciate it if you explained your design! :)

New prizes have been added by a wonderful reader, so check it out for the new prizes- and where you can buy more of her stuff!!!

Get painting!!

-Melissa

JAW-breaker

Tonight I was invited to a friend's house to participate in some kick-ass Shark Week festivities, namely, drinking games. I'm not entirely sure what Shark Week drinking games entail, but I probably won't participate, since I'm a hopeless lightweight. :-D It still should be fun with all the others getting silly. :-D Today I did another Shark Week nail design in honor of the events tonight! :) Poor unsuspecting swimmers.

I used OPI What's With the Cattitude? as a base, with a mixture of Orly Snowcone and Orly Cosmic FX Lunar Eclipse for the water. For the seagulls, I used Sally Hansen Professional Lavender Cloud, which I also used for the shark's teeth and lower part of its body. For the rest of the shark body, I used American Apparel Factory Grey, then American Apparel Hassid for the eye, and American Apparel Rose Bowl for the gums. For the swimmers' bodies, I used American Apparel Rose Bowl mixed with American Apparel California Trooper, with American Apparel Manila for the blonde hair, and Essie Foot Loose for the shorts on the swimming guy. :) For the waves and splashes, I either mixed Orly Snowcone with Orly Cosmic FX Lunar Eclipse for the darker waves, or Orly Snowcone with Sally Hansen Professional Lavender Cloud for the splashes. Dabbed a little Milani 3-D Holographic Cyberspace in a few places in the water for sparkle and shimmers of reflection on the surface. Topped everything off with 2 coats of Seche Vite top coat.

It's Cosmic!

Orly has a new line of polishes out that are, let's face it, amazingtastical. Seriously. If I could, I would have this nail polish's babies...and I don't even want babies. These polishes change with every angle you look at them, and I have nothing like them in my collection. I chose to use one of my favorites of the collection on my nails today, its pretty much what MAC Blue Brown pigment would look like as a polish and threw in a bunch of hot pink shimmer too. I didn't expect it to be my favorite, but it definitely is. This isn't the first nail art I tried tonight though, I picked up Deborah Lippmann's Happy Birthday today and tried to figure out a design that I could do for today, but nothing looked good, and now it looks like a stripper exploded on the front of me, and on my jeans especially, it's glitter EVERYWHERE for me. I'll try to figure out something with that polish in the next couple of days because it's super sparkle city. Anyway, to the nails!

Side view to show some of the shimmer in the polish:

I used Orly Cosmic FX Galaxy Girl as a base, then used China Glaze DV8 with Bundle Monster plate BM06 for the design, then little turquoise gems I found at Michaels in corner of the cuticle end of the nail. Topped everything off with 2 coats of Seche Vite top coat.

NO H8.

In 2008, a Proposition was passed in California that put a ban on same-sex marriages. Today, that ban was overturned by US District Court Judge Vaughn Walker, giving the right to same-sex couples to marry. I may offend some people by saying this, but frankly, I don't care because It's ABOUT DAMN TIME. No one should have their rights limited by the government in regards to who they love. It DOESN'T take away from the sanctity of marriage between a man and a woman, it isn't gross, or wrong, it doesn't affect anyone but the couple that wants to marry. I'm excited that people that love each other can get married now- legally! Obviously there will be appeals, but for now, there is justice, and that rocks.

NO H8!!

I used Sally Hansen Professional Lavender Cloud as a base for all nails, then used Nubar Sexy Red, Zoya Jancyn, American Apparel Manila, CND Green Scene, CND Anchor Blue, and CND Eclectic Purple for the rainbow. For the NO H8 logo, I used American Apparel Hassid for the black, and Nubar Sexy Red for the red. Topped everything off with 2 coats of Seche Vite top coat.

New Essence stampy plates!

Essence Stampy Plates

I stumbled upon four new plates by Essence, I think these are pretty cute!! What do you think? I don't know when and where these will be sold, I'll update when I know more :-)

Source: EssenceAdicta