31 DAY NAIL ART CHALLENGE: INSPIRED BY A FLAG

Today's post, 'Insipired by a Flag' is probably my least favorite day of all of the 31 days. I know that I said I have a hard time with the 'Inspired by Fashion', but this day is worse for me. I know I can just go with the American flag because there are SOO many ways you can depict it, but being myself I always want to find something a little bit different. Also because there are other days in the year that I can do an American flag.

So now that you know that I don't really like this day, I do have to say that as much as I don't like it, I have loved both of the designs I have come up with :P Last years design is still one of my favorites! I am still amazed at how well it turned out. This year I Google searched Flag images and decided to go with the Jamaican flag.

At first I was going to do the multiple colored nail across all of my nails, but after doing two I decided to switch it up a little bit. And I LOVE this yellow!! It looks absolutely flawless! It's Catrina, by Julep. I signed up to be a Maven a few months ago...If you don't know what that is and would like to know more info, and receive your first Maven box for FREE, check out my blog post. All of the information is there, including links to Juleps website.

The green I used was O.P.I., Hot Fun in the Summerlime and of course China Glaze, Liquid Leather.

31 DAY NAIL ART CHALLENGE: INSPIRED BY ARTWORK (Pictorial Included)

This is a fun design! :) I think you guys will really like this one. I didn't pick a certain piece of artwork for this specific design, I just decided to go with a paint splatter look. I have seen a few other nail artists do this and I have wanted to try it for awhile so I figured this was a perfect opportunity...because it is art!

How could you not love something as fun as this! :P I am really happy with how this turned out. I was nervous about it at first, but I'm so glad I tried it!

I bet you're looking at this design thinking about how messy it was and I'll be honest, it was very messy! But I did tape around my nails and that helped :P 

Here is my mess :P

I decided to make a pictorial for this design because I knew I would have people ask how I did it :) So I hope you enjoy it!

Step 1: You will want to paint your nails with a base color, I chose China Glaze, White On White.

Step 2: Tape around your nails (optional). I highly recommend it for an easier clean up.

Step 3: Choose your colors. 

My colors - China Glaze: Sky High-Top, Happy Go Lucky, 

                   Julep: Nellie

                   Ulta: Celebutante

                   O.P.I.: Hot Fun in the Summerlime

Step 4: Dip your straw into your bottle of polish. 

Step 5: Quickly blow into the opposite end of the straw onto your nails. You may have to do this a few times, I suggest doing each nail individually.

Step 6: Repeat Step 5 until you have used all of your colors and are satisfied with the look.

Step 7: Remove the tape. Before I did this I used an orange wood stick to remove most of the excess polish around the cuticle. As you can see it does build up and get pretty thick.

Step 8: Clean around your cuticles. You may have to do this a few times as well because the polish may still drip. 

Step 9: Apply your favorite top coat and take a picture (or a few) of your finished work! :)

I hope you guys like this design and found the pictorial helpful! If you decide to try it please tag me somehow, on Facebook or Instagram, or even leave a comment with a link to your design down below. I would love to see it! And thanks for taking some time to check out my post! :)

31 DAY NAIL ART CHALLENGE: INSPIRED BY A PATTERN

I am on a roll tonight! It feels good to finally get myself caught up with these posts :) Especially because I have more posts that are not related to this challenge, I just want to get all of these up before I start other posts :)

I didn't pick this pattern for any reason other than it was a stamp that I haven't used before. It was Cheeky plate CH13. The two colors I used were Ulta, Celebutante and O.P.I., Do You Lilac It? Although it is a stamp, I did have to use my nail art brush and go over the stamped area. The base color is the O.P.I. and I used the Ulta polish to stamp with. It stamped pretty well, it just wasn't dark enough so I filled in the stamped area to make the colors match on all of the nails...I hope that makes sense :P

So because this design is super simple, I am going to keep this post short and simple :) And I will be back shortly with more designs to show you guys!

31 DAY NAIL ART CHALLENGE: INSPIRED BY FASHION

Day 25, Inspired by Fashion is always a hard day for me. I probably go through Google for an hour or longer trying to find something I like without it being super difficult. I always find dresses and styles that I love and those pictures usually end up on Pinterest :P ...But they aren't designs that I can really do much with as far as nail art goes. So this design is actually pretty simple...and I apologize in advance because the lighting in the pictures are terrible! :( I've had to experiment with the lighting in the new house...I used to use the natural light on my balcony in the old house, but here it has been cloudy alot and so I've had to find the best lighting I can inside.

This is the picture I chose :) Cute, simple flower print.

...and my sad pink blobs :(

This design turned out super cute, but because of the lighting my "flowers" just look like pink blobs :( You can barely see the darker color in each of the flowers. I do love this design, it would be absolutely perfect in the spring with some bright fun clothes! I wish the lighting had turned out better...I even took my photos twice, because believe it or not my first set of photos turned out even worse! :S

I started this design with my base coat of China Glaze, White On White and using a dotting tool made pink blobs (lol) with Silky Polish, Viole Serenade. Then using a small brush and Julep, Nellie I made small "U" shapes starting in the center of each blob and working my way out to the edges. With green acrylic paint and my small brush I filled the empty spaces with leaves. I have done a pictorial on this before, you can see it here. It is kind of small, but it's pretty easy :)

31 DAY NAIL ART CHALLENGE: INSPIRED BY A BOOK

Hello again :) Just so you know I'm on Day 24, and it's 'Inspired by a Book'. The book I chose is quite different...I normally would probably go for a childrens book with illustrations and what not, but this time I decided to go with a book that my fiance gave me for Christmas last year :)

The book is called Dancing Otters and Clever Coyotes, by Gary Buffalo Horn Man & Sherry Firedancer. Idk if those are their real names...so if you were wondering, I wonder the same thing lol.

This book is about Animal energies and how we can use them as a guide in our lives. I don't know about you but I believe animals are sent to us in person, in dreams, visions etc. to teach us something, or help us with something that is going on in our lives. I know I may sound extremely weird if you've never heard of this before. I'm not one of those crazy people that worship animals or anything, it's just something I've come to believe over the past couple years :) If this sounds like something you'd be interested in or you just might be curious to know more, google animal meanings. For example, if you come across an animal randomly one day, say a deer, you can google search the meaning and see if the meaning of it can help you through anything that is currently going in your life or in your mind. I won't go into so much detail about it, because that's not what this post is all about, but I recommend you try it out at least once, even if you think it's stupid. It's not anything you have to live by but it has helped me understand certain situations in my life :)

Here is a picture of the book.

So...now onto the design!

I started this design with a base coat of China Glaze, White On White and then did a sponge gradient using Essie, Borrowed & Blue. Using red and white acrylic paint and a small nail art brush I free-handed all of the little images using the book as my guide.

As you can tell this design is very different. Very unique. I love that the images look like cave drawings. If you guys decide to check out the book or any animal messages through google and would like to share your experience with me I would Love to hear about it! You can either comment below, or email me at playfulpolishes@gmail.com if you would like to keep it on the down low :P

31 DAY NAIL ART CHALLENGE: INSPIRED BY A MOVIE

Good evening! :) I'm happy to say I am almost done with the 31 Day Challenge...lol, took me long enough huh!? Now all I have to do is update my blog with all of the designs and finish the last design :) I normally would have done all of my designs in the 31 days but the past couple months have been hectic for me...if you've been following me you probably already know that.

Anywho, onto what your here for right!? The nail design :) I love how this design turned out. I had a nail day with my friend Sophie (our last one before I moved :( ...sadly) but it was fun! It took me a long time! I think we went through 3 Disney movies and I still wasn't finished. I decided to go with the movie "The Nightmare Before Christmas", so of course one of the movies we watched was that :) I sat in front of the TV trying to look for things in the movie to be inspired by, and I have to admit that even though it took awhile, I am so happy with the result :)

What do you think!? If I haven't already said, I love it!! :P I wasn't super happy about how the snake turned out on my first finger, but overall I am super satisfied with it!

The background colors are Ulta, Celebutante and Julep, Simone. I wish that I had taken a picture of the background before I covered it but I didn't really think about it :S And the only other polish I used for this design was O.P.I., Skull and Glossbones, China Glaze, Concrete Catwalk and Orly, Grave Mistake. All of the other colors are acrylic paint :)

Say "HI" to Zero! :) This nail and my pinkie with the spider web with Christmas lights are my 2 favorite nails for this design. I love how they turned out! 

So now that you have seen this design and know how much I love it I would love to hear your opinion!  Leave a comment down below or find me on Facebook and Instagram :)