March Nail Art Challenge - Vintage and Swatch

So, yet again, I've fallen behind on my nail art challenge for March :( In my defense, I have been crazy busy, sick, and was completely in love with my previous flower mani that I couldn't bear to say goodbye to it (I wore it for over 5 days!? WHAT? I never do that!). Despite my lack of maintaining the schedule this month, I'm still on track to finish every challenge! Maybe next month I'll even have them done on the right days ;) 

The two themes I had to do on the 19th and 22nd of this month were "Vintage" and "Swatch," respectively. I've been wanting to do the vintage roses that you see everywhere for awhile now but didn't want to use the colors I keep consistently seeing them done in (mint background with pink flowers). Well, I varied in one of those aspects and ended up using China Glaze's Kalahari Kiss as my base color AND, because I'm super sneaky and multitask-y, it is my "Swatch" theme! 

I know that this color isn't for everyone, but I really love it. I think it's just a fabulus neutral that isn't too yellow. 

To complete the "Vintage" theme, I did the basic vintage roses as mentioned above. This is a really popular design right now and I figured I had to jump on the bandwagon at some point. I think that I liked the idea of these colors in my head much more than the actual final result, but that happens I suppose. These took me all of 10 minutes to do which was good considering how exhausted I am! 

Happy Polishing :)

March Nail Art Challenge - Day 6: St. Paddy's Day!

I'm a tad bit burnt out on St. Paddy's Day Nails :/ After putting together my Four-Leaf Clover tutorial I had looked at clovers WAY too much. I am also pretty exhausted and, while I wish I could say I was doing something fun for St. Paddy's, I will be up in 6 hours to get ready to go to a class at 8 am :/ Oh well! I ended up throwing together something quick and festive enough that I won't get pinched today ;)

 I also got some above the knuckle rings that I completely love! I got them from Galisfly and I just think they are fun and unique :)

Happy Polishing :)

March Nail Art Challenge - Day 4 & 5! (I'm cheating...)

Alright, alright. Yes, I am cheating a bit with this one. I was supposed to do Color Blocking for the 4th day of the March Nail Art Challenge but I fell behind :/ Well, I've decided to combine the 4th theme with today's new theme of Luck! As it is March and everyone's mind is on St. Paddy's Day coming up in less than a week, I decided do a color blocking with a four leaf clover! Luck and color blocking. There, I've met both themes in one mani ;) 

I've also added a touch of gold for some good luck as well :)

These are pretty simple to create. I used Julep's Courtney, Hoch, and Fiona, along with China Glaze's Running in Circles to create the initial squares. Then, using my dotting tool, I create small hearts in each corner of the boxes. The rest of my fingers are Courtney and Essie's Good as Gold in a simple gradient. 

Happy Polishing :)

March Nail Art Challenge - Day 3: Gradient

Okay, so I suck at keeping to a schedule. But I think I have a worthy excuse! I have been so busy studying for a big engineering test every weekend all day long on top of working all week. No days off makes for little time for nail art. 

I finally got around do doing the 3rd installment of the March Nail Art Challenge (though, I was supposed to start the 4th one today...oops!). The theme was gradient and I wanted to use two more of my new Julep Polishes to create the look. I ended up pairing Georgia, a pretty peach micro shimmer, with Susie, a muted mint green creme. These were colors I wasn't 100% sure would look nice together in a gradient, but I'm really happy with them! A happy surprise :)

 If you don't know by now, I don't know how to leave simple nails like this alone. I can't resist the urge to add some extra pizzazz to my nails when I can. So, I got out my trusty striping brush and added some random and odd triangle and polygon-ish shapes over these. I really love how these turned out. Pretty subtle, but I love them :)

Be sure to check out some other fabulous bloggers through this weeks GFC Collective! 

Happy Polishing :)

March Nail Art Challenge - Day 2: Stripes

Today marks the start of the next theme in the March Nail Art Challenge! Stripes is the theme and boy do I love me some stripes :) I was a bit impatient tonight, so rather than wait for my base color to dry, I went ahead and did my stripes free hand. My inspiration came from what I was wearing tonight, actually. I have a cute striped skirt in this navy and tan, and then I was wearing a plain what t-shirt with it. Pretty literal interpretation ;) 

I used a striper for this and about pulled my hair out in frustration when my lines weren't perfect. I used OPI's My Boyfriend Scales Walls (big surprise) as my base, Zoya's Natty is the navy and Zoya's Jacqueline is the tan/light yellow. Overall, I think it's a simple and classy look that is a bit on the nautical side. 

Stayed tuned for the 7th when I will likely tackle gradients! 

Happy Polishing :)

March Nail Art Challenge - Day 1: Chevrons

Well, apparently it's already March? Where did the time go!? Craziness!! March brings with it the start of a new monthly challenge with new themes! I definitely failed and didn't finish the February Nail Art Challenge...however, I did complete 5 of them which is far better than I have done with the other monthly challenges. I figure I'll actually be able to complete every theme in the month by say, September or so ;) 

The first theme for March is Chevrons! I wasn't quite sure which way to go with these as I did chevrons only two posts ago but I recently received a bunch of loose glitter and figured I'd make something with those! These were pretty simple to do, but definitely a bit more time consuming. I ended up watching a movie while working on these which made the tedious task of hand placing tiny hexagons on my nails slightly more bearable :) As it's nearing spring and I've been feeling bright colors lately, I decided to go with a bright neon pink as my base. This is China Glaze's Escaping Reality and 4 different colored glitters.

I'm never going to get this glitter off my hands! Eek!

Here is this Month's Challenge for anyone looking to partake :)

Happy Polishing :)