Category: Starbucks

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31 Day Nail Art Challenge — Day 11: Polka Dots!

I love polka dots.

Maybe it’s the girlie girl in me, but I’m all about the polka dots.

I actually ended up doing two polka dot manicures. I started one the day before, and my manicure idea ended up being cut short. Because I didn’t really feel like I gave Day 11 a fair shot, so I decided to the prompt over again. I figured I would feature both manicures, just because I do love the colors I used for attempt #1 (purple, yey!), and it wasn’t a BAD manicure, just a little simple.

allpolkadots

Dot nail art is a really easy way to spice up an otherwise bland manicure. I got my first dotting tool almost a year ago, and it was one of the best $3 purchases I ever made. Over the years, I’d tried doing polka dot manis with tooth picks, and bobby pins, but never found they would turn out how I wanted. However, buying a dotting tool changed all of that–I could finally attempt the manicures I never could before! Flowers! Roses! Leopard Print! And Polka dots.

purplepolkadots

The polishes I used for polka dot manicure #1 were:

  • Essie’s We’re in this Together — the pink base on my accent nails.
  • China Glaze Flying Dragon — dark purple thumb and pinky finger, and some polka dots.
  • China Glaze What a Pansy — lighter purple on index finger, and some polka dots.
  • OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls — white dots.
  • Sally Hansen Diamond Flash Top Coat.

I did like this manicure, even if it wasn’t what I had intended to do when I started. However, even though it was fairly simple, I can’t help but love purple nails. Flying Dragon has to be one of my all time favorite polishes–I just wish it wouldn’t chip so bad at work (even with base coat, and regardless how many coats of top coat I apply.)

 

polkadots

The polishes I used for polka dot manicure #2 were:

  • Mariposa nail polish mini — the teal (my base color), dark pink, and light pink polish (dots on accent finger.)
  • Maybelline Color Show Nail Lacquer in Audacious Asphalt — base color of my accent finger.
  • Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Pacific Blue — polka dots on accent finger.
  • Sally Hansen Diamond Flash Top Coat.

I tried to go somewhere different with this second manicure. I grabbed the most spring-like colors I could find and just started dotting. I also put some dots on the base of each of my non-accent fingers. I’ve been seeing that look around a bit from different nail bloggers, so I wanted to give it a try. I’m not sure if I like the color combinations I chose, but besides that I like the look of the single dot. It’s almost like a jewel resting on your nail.

Also how gorgeous is that teal color!? It’s from one of the mini sets my roommate gave me for Christmas. None of the polishes have names, but it has a really awesome formula that makes painting your nails so easy.

So which manicure do you like better–the more simple purple dotticure, or the bright and colorful and crazy dotticure?

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31 Day Nail Art Challenge — Day 7: Black and White.

I’ll be honest, I wasn’t looking forward to the black and white day of this challenge.

I started trying to figure out what I was going to do a couple days in advance. I wanted to try something different. Tuxedo nails? Nail stamping? What the heck was I going to do! Thank god for pinterest, huh? I could get lost on there for hours looking at nail art ideas (and quite frequently do). Once again, my inspiration came from a  pin on there: these geometric square nails.

blackandwhite

The polishes I used were:

  • OPI’s My Boyfriend Scales Walls — White Base.
  • ACO by Ardene’s Tuxedo — Black base.
  • Stripe Rite Striping Brush in black.
  • Stripe Rite Striping Brush in White.
  • Sally Hansen diamond Flash top coat.

Obviously you can see, mine turned out a little different from my inspiration. I didn’t really figure out I shouldn’t cram as many squares until I got to my black nails (I did the white base first). Even though they’re not perfect, they look different and made me not dread the black and white prompt quite so much. Even though I used to wear black nail polish frequently, I don’t as much any more. With the exception of Halloween, I can’t actually remember the last time I wore it as a full mani.

What do you think about these geometric nails? Which look do you prefer–lots of squares, or only a few?