JUNE NAIL ART CHALLENGE: OCEAN NAILS

Hello again! :P I just realized after my last post that I'm a little ahead of myself...I've been so scatter brained all week and I'm still trying to catch myself up, so I apologize for that.

This post has a similar theme to my sea critter nails because it's ocean nails :) I think they kind of look similar...but my ocean nails look a little bit more realistic compared to my fun, cartoon-ish sea critters :P

I started out with a base coat of Sinful Colors, Sugar Rush, then with blue acrylic paint I painted a line near the top of each nail, so it would look like waves against the sky. Then with Sinful Colors, Sweet Nothing I painted each nail below the line. Once that was dry I used Sinful Colors, Love Nails over the same part of the nail. The reason I wanted to use layers of different blues is because I wanted to create the look of the ocean getting darker the farther you go down. So the next color I used was China Glaze, Sky High-Top, which I sponged onto the tip of each nail, making each one different, and then I finished with China Glaze, Man Hunt. 

As you can probably tell, I really like China Glaze, Fairy Dust :P It is the most perfect glitter polish! And in my opinion it works perfect for any kind of water nail art. So before I painted the fish, I put one coat of Fairy Dust under the blue line on each nail, and then to kind of blend the line together so it wasn't so distinct, I sponged a little bit of white over the light blue and the line. Then using Man Hunt again, I hand painted all of the fish, and the reason I did them in dark blue instead of making them fun colors, is because I wanted them to seem more like outlines...almost as if the fish were far out in the distance instead of close up. If you've watched Finding Nemo, it's kind of like the part when Marlin and Dory see the whale out in the distance...so I hope that's how it looks.

Overall, I am so happy with how these nails turned out, but with one exception. The nail that I loved the most and thought the fish were so cute, I messed up :( and I messed it up right before I was going to put my top coat on. It's the pinky nail, which is why if you look closely at it, the bigger fish looks like a blob...I had redone the entire nail and then I messed it up again :( it was really frustrating.

But anywho! :P I hope you guys like this design!

JUNE NAIL ART CHALLENGE: SEA CRITTERS

Ok guys! As promised here is my Sea Critter design :)

I was inspired to do a design like this a few months ago when I found some really cute sea critter stickers at Sally's, but unfortunately until now I never got around to doing them. So when I read the Nail Art Challenge for June and saw that one of the days was Sea Critters I got really excited because I finally had more of a reason to finally do it! :P

Even though I had wanted to do a design like this for awhile, when I actually sat down I had no idea where to start. So I just started pulling out some colors and then I remembered seeing a cute tutorial on Instagram (from @asinails) on how to paint bubbles on your nails with acrylic paint. I started painting my nails with a base color of Sinful Colors, Sweet Nothing and then put a coat of Love Nails over the top of it, because Love Nails is a beautiful, shimmery blue, but not very opaque...so it was the perfect combo :) Once that dried I sponged Sinful Colors, Rise & Shine (which is the polish in the pic above) over each nail to give it more of that ocean color. After that was done drying I painting China Glaze, Fairy Dust over each nail to give it that ocean shimmer :P

Before I started painting any bubbles on my nails I practiced on a fake nail, and I will be honest, I am SOO glad I did lol! Had I not tried it a few times I would have been so frustrated and would have had to start over...But once I got the general idea of how to do it I attempted my first one on my actual nail and it turned out so good! (it's the big bubble under the jellyfish :P) ...although that one turned out really good, overall I don't think my bubbles are perfect and @asinails' tutorial made it look super easy, but I am still happy with how they turned out :)

Now to the fun part! :D Painting my little sea critters! I wasn't sure if I wanted to just wing it and paint directly on the nail or if I wanted to try drawing something first...but I remembered watching some YouTube videos on how some people have made their own stickers/decals by painting on a plastic bag (For those of you who haven't seen that method, click on the link for a tutorial http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-AT1nR7kb5Y ), and I knew I wanted to try it out! So here is the proof that these are my little homemade stickers :P All painted by hand with acrylic paint.

And I want to apologize now...because of how much I am in love with this design, I took multiple photos :P So you'll see this design from so many different angles hahaha. I love it so much I'm surprised I haven't named each of my little critters yet :P

And it just seemed fitting to take a few pics with a sea shell too :P

So there you have it! My fun sea critter design! :) I hope you guys like this design as much as I do...I know I'll be super sad to see these ones go, but I know more fun designs are coming :) If you have any comments or questions please feel free to leave a comment down below. And also, you can find me on Facebook and Instagram! So if you guys want to leave feedback or if you have suggestions, please don't hesitate! I would love to hear from you guys!!

JUNE NAIL ART CHALLENGE: FLOWER NAILS

Hello again :P I'm really excited to show you guys this design, because not only are these Flower nails, but also Birthday nails! I did this design really late on the 5th and my birthday was on the 6th :) So I incorporated the 2 together.

I really wanted to do 2 separate designs so that I could have fun birthday nails, but when I was watching some YouTube videos I came across this cute, playful design by Robin Moses and I knew that I had to do this design! And I couldn't be more happy with it!! The only sad part was that because I did the design so late I wasn't able to get good pictures before the tips of the nail started to wear off :(

Isn't this design so cute!!?? I absolutely love it!! :D The colors I used were Ulta, Celebutante (purple), O.P.I., Ya'll Come Back Ya Hear?, Pink Friday (orange and light pink), China Glaze, Def Defying, Sky High-Top (green and blue), Sinful Colors, Sugar N Spice (pink), and Julep, Bess (light blue). I also used some acrylic paint to paint some of the designs :)

So if you look at these 2 photos you can kind of see how the polish on the tips of my nails started to wear off :( I went to bed at 1 after painting these nails, hardly touched anything and when I woke up around 7:30 and the tips had already started to wear off...I must scratch myself when I sleep because I know I didn't do anything before I went to bed. 

This is one of my new favorite designs! I was really sad to take it off yesterday :( But I painted another fun design to replace it...so check back to see that design!!

JUNE NAIL ART CHALLENGE: SUMMER NAILS

Hey guys! I thought I would take a break from all of my swatches and show you guys some of my designs for the June Nail Art Challenge :)

So as you can see the first day's theme is Summer :) And when I was trying to think of what I could do for Summer nails all I could think of was something to do with the beach, flip flops or sunglasses...and those are all themes for other days of the month...I was having what you could call 'writers block' but for nails :P I don't know what you'd call that, a nail block?? Hahahah! :P Anywho, I needed some inspiration so I was going through photos I have liked on Instagram and came across this beautiful design by @seizethenail :)

So after deciding that this was the design I wanted to re-create I went to work! Obviously I think her design turned out better (her nails are gorgeous!) but I have to give myself some credit because I really like the way mine turned out as well :)

Real quick, I do have to tell you that when I was starting the palm trees I really wasn't to happy about how it was turning out. I actually had to start over on about 4 nails :S but once I figured out how to paint the palm trees it was a little bit more exciting to see the design come together.

I started out with a base color of China Glaze, Sky High-Top, and then using a make-up sponge, sponged China Glaze, Coconut Kiss, Frost Bite, Happy Go Lucky, Sinful Colors, Sweet Nothing, Orange Cream, and Silky Polish, Viole Serenade on the tips of my nails. Before I started painting my palm trees I painted one coat of China Glaze, Fairy Dust over each nail to give the sunset a sparkle. Then using my black acrylic paint and a small nail art brush I painted each tree. As I said before I didn't get the trees right on the first try, it took me a minute to figure it out, I even had to look up some YouTube videos to see how other people painted their palm trees. Once each nail had a palm tree on it I was able to finish with a top coat of Seche Vite and then apply Orly's cuticle oil to complete the design.

Thank you for taking a moment to check out my nails! Be sure to follow me on Facebook (Playful Polishes) and Instagram (@playfulpolishes) if you have them :) 

JULEP MAVEN SWATCH & REVIEW

Good afternoon everyone! I hope you guys enjoyed my last post about Becoming a Maven and found it helpful :) Today's post is another Maven box! My second box (which was May, I received my June box 2 days ago, so pics and swatches to come!) came with 3 gorgeous colors!

This box is so cute! It's the perfect combination for a date night :P The rose hair pins are super cute too, but I don't know that I would ever wear them. Even though I paint my nails Alot! I'm not a super girly girl.

The best thing for me about receiving these Maven boxes every month is that I get polishes I normally wouldn't chose. Not that I don't like the polishes they send (because I love them!) I would probably just chose other colors before the ones I've received.

So onto the swatches of these colors, which are my favorite swatches I've done so far :P

Coco - Coco is absolutely stunning! This is one of those colors that I could wear all year long, because it is so elegant and beautiful! I only applied 2 coats, but if I got polish on my cuticle it was NOT easy to get it off! lol you can kind of tell in the photos...not that I should point that out :P but oh well.

Clara - Clara is the polish I wasn't really excited about when I first saw it. It just seemed kind of plain. So when I started painting I wasn't sure if I was going to like it or not. The first coat was kind of streaky and thin, but once I finished a 2nd coat and actually looked at the polish on my nails, I fell in love with it! Lol. It's a beautiful peachy-pink color, very soft and pretty, and I have to admit, it's now one of my favorite colors :P

Paris - Paris is a very beautiful sparkle/glitter polish. If you remember from my last post, I don't really like using glitter polish very much, but because I have received some in these Maven boxes I'm starting to like them more...I guess I just need to start using them lol :P

The reason I really like Paris is because it has 2 different size sparkles. The larger sparkles are silver and gold, and when the light reflects off of them they look like different colors of the rainbow :) The sparkles don't apply evenly (but I don't think many sparkles polishes do) so I had to move them around with the brush and place them where I wanted them.

I hope you guys enjoyed this post! :) I have many more to come! Once I catch you guys up on everything I plan on having a more set schedule with my posts, so stay tuned! :P