Nail Art Inspired by “Tiny”

Nothing to Disclose

Hello all my fantabulous readers! Sorry I’m a little behind this week. It’s been a strange one so far to be sure. For your troubles I’ll have at least two posts this week!

Today I’m going to share a nail art look that was inspired by a friend of mine. Tiny (this is obviously a nickname) is the daughter of two of my very best friends and is 7 years old. Recently, Tiny has been wanting to chat online and naturally her parents want to make sure that she’s chatting with safe people so they asked if I would chat with her. I’m like “Are you kidding, I love kids!” Tiny is pretty spectacular and she -loves- all things glittery, girly, pink, and loves it when I share my nail art with her.

The other day I asked her for her suggestions on what I should do next and she responded with this sketch:

Tiny’s Nail Art idea Sketch

I said, “CHALLENGE ACCEPTED!” While I did not recreate it exactly I was heavily inspired by her color choices and design. For this I turned to the trusty Washed Out 2.0 collection from Bohemian Polish. I use these so much for nail art it’s not even funny:

Bohemian Polish – Terrapin, Birdie Hop, Long Gone, and Octopus

First I started by painting a base coat of Long Gone and adding a pattern of small white polka dots and then the fun began.

Nail Art inspired by Tiny

Rather than the straight lines that Tiny drew, I thought the whole sketch reminded me of confetti and streamers, so I wanted to make sure I had some curves and curls in there as well.

Nail Art inspired by Tiny

Using Terrapin, Octopus, and Birdie Hop I did some random streamers and curls over the top of the dotted base using a small nail art brush.

Nail Art inspired by Tiny

I was really pleased with how festive, cheerful, and happy this mani came out! Best part? Tiny loved it too!

You might see more nail art inspired by Tiny because she gives me lots of ideas and is a very creative little girl. I’m delighted to be friends with her!

Bohemian Polish

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Nautical Nail Art

Nothing to Disclose

Hello all my lovely readers! Today I’m gonna show you most recent manicure. I decided on a nautical theme, not sure why I just really wanted to give it a go as I haven’t before. Mermaids and unicorns I’ve done to death but I wanted to do something a little different.

As usual my focus remains on indies so I used all indie polishes (except the white, I really need to get a good indie white and black. I think that will be my next goal. I already know I’ll probably get the ones from Digital Nails but if you wonderful folk have any other suggestions I’m all ears).

For this mani I pulled out some gorgeous creme polishes and one really amazing gold flakie topper. I used Literary Lacquers – Bluestocking Romance and OPNL – Universal Loner were part of the Creme a la Mode box which I have reviewed before. They are really perfect for nail art. The gold flakie topper I chose to go with them is Indigo Bananas – A Star to Sail By.

Literary Lacquers – Bluestocking Romance, OPNL – Universal Loner, and Indigo Bananas – A Star to Sail By

First I started by painting my base colors. I used Bluestocking Romance on my forefinger and pinky finger and I used Universal Loner on my thumb and middle finger. I painted my ring finger with A Star to Sail By (keep in mind it is a topper so I needed to use four coats to reach an acceptable opacity, it is possible though!)

Nautical Nail Art featuring: Literary Lacquers – Bluestocking Romance, OPNL – Universal Loner, and Indigo Bananas – A Star to Sail By

Once I had the base down I added a crisp white stripe to the nails painted with Bluestocking Romance using some nail vinyls to make sure that it was straight and clean. I hand-painted an anchor on my ring finger, I know that freehand nail art intimidates a lot of folks but this one is a really simple design that I think anyone can do! I’m no impressive nail artist and if I can do it then certainly anyone can. Once I had the white accents added I decided it needed some metallic studs. I used a teardrop shaped gold metallic stud on my middle finger and thumb and then I added teensie red metallic studs to each of the white stripes on my forefinger and pinky.

Nautical Nail Art featuring: Literary Lacquers – Bluestocking Romance, OPNL – Universal Loner, and Indigo Bananas – A Star to Sail By

While I do not think that Bluestocking Romance or Universal Loner have been discontinued you will want to check Literary Lacquers new pop-up sales model to find out if and when it will be restocked. OPNL usually also works on a pre-order model and releases certain polishes at certain times. A Star to Sail By is still available at the Indigo Bananas shop! I will include social media and shop links for all three brands below:

Indigo Bananas

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Literary Lacquers

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Octopus Party Nail Lacquer

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Stamping Nail Art

Nothing to Disclose

Hello all my lovely readers. I promised I was back and here I am again! Today I’m going to show you a pretty mani that has me staring at my nails whenever I think no one is looking!

I started off with a base coat of Indigo Bananas – Immortal Game. How I never reviewed this for you guys before I do not know! So let’s start with that. I’ve actually had this awhile but it is still available on her site. If you don’t have any Indigo Bananas nail polishes…I urge you to go and change that. I haven’t been disappointed yet.

Immortal Game is a turquoise crelly polish filled with glassfleck and a color shifting shimmer. Honestly, it’s a fantastic stand-alone polish even without nail art…but I can’t control myself sometimes. I digress! Back to this polish. The color-shifting shimmer was extremely shy when I tried to photograph it. I did get one picture where you can see a little bit of the yummy shimmer. It’s -much- more prominent in person.

Indigo Bananas – Immortal Game

The application on it was fantastic. Even though it is packed with glassfleck and shimmer it went on smoothly. First coat is a touch sheer but it was opaque in two coats so I have no complaints with that. Pictures show two coats plus topcoat.

Indigo Bananas – Immortal Game

So then, I said to myself let’s stamp this. But then I saw my bottle of Cult Nails – Seduction sitting on my desk (I was testing it out with different things) and I thought…why not add flakies…flakies make every mani better! So I started by adding a thin coat of Seduction over top of Immortal Game. Now this darkened the base a bit because Seduction is a flakie topper in a indigo tinted base. Seduction could not be used alone it’s far too sheer for that, but, it makes an amazing effect topper and is packed with iridescent color shifting flakies.

Indigo Bananas – Immortal Game topped with Cult Nails – Seduction

Then, because as I mentioned I can’t stop (can’t stop won’t stop!) I stamped a pretty lacy image from Moyra Ornaments 03 over top in a magenta creme. The stamping is subtle particularly with all the glassfleck and flakie action but I’m really pleased with the result. Because I used a flakie topcoat I used a matte topcoat so that they really pop (matte all the flakies!).

I hope you like this as much as I did. Unfortunately Cult Nails is no longer in business, but I will include links below for Indigo Bananas. As usual you can find me on Facebook and Instagram and I love hearing from my readers!

Indigo Bananas Website – Indigo Bananas Facebook – Indigo Bananas Instagram

Valentine’s Day Nail Art

Some Polishes Provided for Review

Hello All my Lovely Readers! Today I’m using my stash to create a fun Valentine’s Day inspired mani. But, because I didn’t go all heart crazy it will work for just about any time! I used a fun and easy nail art technique that can be used with any combination of polishes.

I used three polishes for this nail art look. MOD Lacquer – Baby Flamingo, Northern Star – Protego Totalum, and Crows Toes – Edgy Ocean Blue. I’ve reviewed all of these before so I won’t go into that in this post.

Crows Toes – Edgy Ocean Blue, Northern Star – Protego Totalum, MOD Lacquer – Baby Flamingo (Left to Right)

The first step was the base color. For the base of my mani I used MOD Lacquer – Baby Flamingo. I used two coats to give it a nice base for my upcoming nail art:

MOD Lacquer – Baby Flamingo

Next I used a latex barrier around my cuticles because I knew things were going to get messy. I used Digital Nails – Questionable Browser History, though I do not think that it’s available any longer. Latex barriers are pretty easy to find these days though and there are a lot of good ones on the market!

Nail Art Preparation

Then using a fan brush I started adding the detail. I got this brush for a set off Amazon, you can find them pretty easily and they don’t cost a lot of money:

Fan Brush

To create my art I started by putting a several drops of Northern Star – Protego Totalum on my silicone mat and I dipped the tip of the fan brush in it. I then swiped it across my nails to create stripes. After I did all of my nails with Protego Totalum I went back and cleaned the brush in acetone and then put several drops of Crows Toes – Edgy Ocean Blue on my silicone mat and followed the same process right over the stripes I made earlier:

Valentine’s Nail Art Progress

I was glad I did use the latex barrier, reds and blues are particularly hard to clean up off of skin. This way all I had to do was peel most of it away and then touch up just a tiny bit around the edges!

I topped everything off with Ciate Gelology Top Coat that I got in my Ipsy Bag last month. I thought I would try it out because it’s supposed to be super shiny, squishy, and hard wearing. It doesn’t dry as fast as a quick dry top coat but it does dry super shiny! I don’t know about the wear yet but if it doesn’t provide at least several days wear I will update this post!

Valentine’s Day Nail Art

There you have it a quick, fun, and EASY nail art look that is perfect for Valentine’s day or any time!

Valentine’s Day Nail Art

Boom Shaka Lacquer is Back

This is gonna be a short post. And while this particular post won’t have any pretty polishes or nail art it will have an explanation for my absence and some things to look forward to. Also, I’d love your input as well if there’s something that you’d like to see let me know and I’ll see what I can do to fulfill those requests!

Back in May around the time of my last post I was having a serious bout of blogger burnout and I sort of was letting things slide a bit. I planned some posts and did some nail art but I just couldn’t get it to come together. I needed a break and badly.

In July, my aunt (who is disabled and I am caregiver for) had a serious heart attack. Needless to say this rocked my/our world in more ways that can be imagined. She’s recovering well, but we had a rocky time. About the time things started to look up with her health it was the holidays…well that’s never a good time to get back to blogging what with all the other holiday shenanigans going on.

But, lately I’ve been doing my nails more, doing more nail art, and even posting on Instagram some (as many of you may have noticed). Most importantly, I’ve missed all my lovely readers!

I have some travel coming up this summer so I’m on a pretty serious no-buy BUT I have a huge stash of polish and quite a bit that I’ve never shown you. So I will be challenging myself to use and blog my stash for you all. This means you’ll see more nail art, some LEs and discontinued polishes (which you may be able to find on the second-hand market), and some things that never made it to the blog before.

What would you like to see? Do you want me to test nail art techniques or tutorials and tell you my thoughts on how easy or hard they may be? Do you want to see my fails as well as my successes? I promise you I fail hard at nail art sometimes! Let me know in the comments.