Author: Shannon Rae

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Color block — take two.

As you’ve kind of noticed, I’ve been killing color block manicures lately. Sometimes I have a hard time deciding on just one bright color, so I have to used them all. (Haha, maybe not all. I own 300 polishes so that would be quite a time consuming manicure.)

Today’s bright and colorful manicure is a combination of some fun Summer colors. It took me a little while to get done, but I love the finished product. I painted everything completely free hand, so my lines are not perfectly straight–but I find that adds to the charm.

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The polishes I used for this manicure were:

  • Sinful Colors in Be Happy.
  • Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Coral Reef.
  • Art Club Striping Polish in Paisley Paradise.
  • Essence Color & Go  in Let’s Get Lost!
  • Art Club Nail Art Duo in Baby Blue.
  • Stripe Rite Striping Polish in white.
  • Stripe Rite Striping Polish in orange.
  • Stripe Rite Striping Polish in black.
  • Sally Hansen Diamond Flash top coat.

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I really, really love the look of these. They’re just really fun! And the best part about a manicure with this many colors is that I can pretty much match it to any outfit. =) We’ve still got some serious grey skies happening right now, so at least my nails are spring-like.

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Bright and Colorful nails!

I have a fun manicure to share with you today.

With the Summer quickly approaching, I’ve been feeling the bright colorful polishes lately, and I really wanted to do a color blocking manicure. I came up with this random pattern while I was painting my nails–I started with the triangles, and then went from there. I’m not sure what to actually call this pattern, but they’re bright and colorful which was what I wanted.

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For this manicure the polishes I used were:

  • Essence I’ve Got a Crush on Blue! (from their love letters collection) — blue grey base color.
  • Revlon Siren — orange triangles.
  • ACO by Ardene Lollipop Queen — Pink stripes.
  • ACO by Ardene Lagoon — blue polka dots.
  • Stripe Rite Striping Polish in back
  • Stripe Rite Striping Polish in white

Even though I had no plan going in with this manicure, I love how they turned out. Sometimes it’s nice to just start something, without knowing what you’re doing, and have them turn into something neat. Also I managed to create those triangles with just my regular polish brush (before I added the black stripe outline). Sure, they’re not exactly perfect but they ARE triangles, so I couldn’t be happier! =)

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Crayon Nails.

Just a quick manicure post today.

I did these nails last night, as I was trying to come up with something pretty to put on my nails. My original inspiration came from pinterest,  although I used a different color scheme and used striping polish instead of tape. I was going off what I had remembered seeing, so it didn’t turn out exactly how I was hoping. In all honesty, these nails really remind me of crayons haha.

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The polishes I used for this manicure were:

  • Sinful Colors in Be Happy — base color.
  • Stripe Rite striping polish in black.
  • Art Club striping polish in Paisley Paradise.
  • Sally Hansen Diamond Flash top coat.

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Pure Ice — Get in Line.

I’m really trying hard to wear more colors from my stash, and today I have an untried for you that I have had sitting in my stash for the last year, but I haven’t played with (or, even tried on to see how it looked.) I guess that’s what happens when you have almost 300 polishes. I don’t know what girls that have 1000+ polishes!

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This is Pure Ice in Get in Line. I picked it up last Spring when I first noticed the collection in my local Wal-mart, however I believe it must be part of the permanent collection because I’ve still noticed it as part of the display. I was drawn to the frosty turquoise leaning blue color, and slightly metallic quality of it. In person it’s much more turquoise, but my camera brings out the blue-ness of them–as you can see.

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The application was pretty good. The polish goes on fairly smoothly, but it’s also pretty thin. It took three coats for opacity, and there are some noticeable brush strokes. Now that I’ve worn this polish, I like it but not as much as I thought I would. The one thing the color does remind me of is the movie Frozen–the frosty blue color just seems very fitting.

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Sadly the sun has decided to hide now–we have rain in the forcast for the next week, which means that my polish is forced to be shine-less for the next little while. Sad times.

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Stripes make your nails look longer, right?

With my new short stubs, I wasn’t feeling very inspired for nail art. =( But I wanted to do something, as I just can’t deal with naked nails. They make me even sadder than short nails. I tried doing a bright gradient but it just didn’t work the way I wanted. I haven’t played much with my striping polishes lately, excluding my unlucky outline nails, so I decided to pull a bunch of them out and do some stripes. (Truthfully I was hoping maybe the stripes would give me the optical illusion of longer nails.)

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The polishes I used for this manicure were:

  • ACO by Ardene in Sugar Champagne.
  • Art Club striping polish in Paisley Paradise.
  • Art Club Nail Art Duo in Baby Blue.
  • Stripe Rite striping polish in black.
  • Sally Hansen Diamond Flash top coat.

I always rely on my striping polish for creating lines. I’m not very good when it comes to striping tape… I’ve used it a couple times but I much prefer drawing the lines myself. I find that with most manicures it’s much easier, and saves on time because I don’t have to wait for my base color to dry completely before creating my stripes.

Also I must share my excitement over how my lines are becoming much smoother and steadier. When I got my first striping polishes a couple years ago, my freehand lines definitely did not look like that! Now if only I could find a way for my nails to never break. =(

Oh, I created a little before-and-after comparison just to show the difference. =( Stupid table.

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