Animal Print Nails for the #31DC2018Weekly

Hey there!

Purchased by Me

I am officially caught up with the challenge now!  Today, I have my animal print nails for you.  Mine aren't exactly an animal print but they do have bits of real animals on them.  I used some real feathers from the craft store on my nails in a fun little brown skittlette mani for the prompt.  Let's take a look!

Striped Nails for the #31DC2018Weekly

Hello!

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I am almost caught up!  Today, I have my striped nails to share with you for Week 12 of my weekly version of the 31 Day Nail Art Challenge.  I chose of calming colors and a little image of a succulent for this mani.  I have been obsessed with succulents over the past few years.  I am a brown thumb but my mother can make any plant thrive.  So, for Mother's Day this month, I got her a few succulents to start her rock garden off right.  Hopefully, I can watch her grow these beauties now!  My manicure today combines regular stamping with a little reverse stamping.  I think it all ties in well together!

Blue Nails for the #31DC2018Weekly

Howdy!

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It only took 5 weeks before I broke out my old standard, the skittlette.  This have been one of my most favorite nail art ideas of all time.  I generally do my skittlette manicures with two plain nails, two nails with nail art on them and then a textured accent nail.  You can do them in any way that you like as long at two nails are the same.  For the blue prompt this week, I combined light blue and pink together with some unicorn fun.  Let's take a look!

Inspired by a Color for the #31DC2017Weekly

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We are in the home stretch of the weekly version of the 31 Day Nail Art Challenge.  The last 10 weeks of the challenge are the toughest prompts.  All of the themes from here on out are all pulling inspiration from art and culture.  Usually, I start to get heavy on the hand painting.  Hopefully, my ideas will play out well on the nails.  For this week, we are doing manicures inspired by a color.  I was inspired by the color teal.  So I create a smooshy marbled manicure using several teal shades.  Oh yeah...and I gave my nails the chop!  Back to those little nubbins that I love so much :)

Inspired by a Tutorial for the #31DC2016Weekly

Hello all!

Purchased by Me

I finally have my nail art look for this past week's #31DC2016Weekly challenge.  This past week, we were doing nail art inspired by a tutorial.  Nail art tutorials are flooding social media over the past year.  With the addition of video to Instagram, there have been an over abundance to tutorials available to everyone.  It used to be just a blog thing and a little bit on YouTube.  But now you can learn how to do any type of nail art technique with the flick of a finger.  I decided to follow an old tutorial by my favorite short nailed lady, The Nailasaurus.  Sammy does great tutorials and is a huge inspiration for me.  Love her.  You can find her quilted nail tutorial here!

For this manicure, I started with a base of Kiko "Pearly Golden Coffee #514" which is a dark brown with golden shimmer.  I applied two coats and a quick dry glossy top coat.  After I let that dry for a few minutes, I added a matte top coat.  Before that dried completely, I used a dental floss pick to create the cross hatch that gives this mani a quilted look.  I tried to make them as uniform as possible but obviously they are not perfectly spaced out.  Oh well!  I still think it looks super neato.  I added tiny gold caviar beads to the intersections with a little bit of top coat.  For a little extra pizzazz, I also added a few accent nails of OPI "What Wizardry is This?" which is a brown/golden textured polish.

Overall, I am pretty happy with this manicure.  I would have liked my lines to be more uniform but in real life, you can't really tell.   I want to try this in a ton of other colors and maybe try it with a glossy top coat instead of matte.  Have you ever done a quilted mani before?  We only have one more prompt left in the 31 Day Nail Art Challenge weekly edition!  Be sure to check out the #31DC2016Weekly tag on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook.

Thanks for stopping by!

 - Amy (McPolish) McG

*products purchased by me*

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OPI HAWAII 2015 COLLECTION

Hi all!

I have not posted on the blog in months. I have been so busy with nails and my job. However, in 2015 I am making it a point to blog more of my swatches that I have been posting on my Instagram.

Lets get to it shall we...

PINEAPPLES HAVE PEELING TOO 

Probably the ugliest color combo known to man. Most girls on IG seem to agree. 

ALOHA FROM OPI 

A gorgeous two coat orange/red crème. Comparison pic below. 

IS MAI TAI CROOKED?

A possible dupe for Where Did Suzi’s Mango? Beautiful, Nonetheless.

DO YOU TAKE LEI AWAY?

I love this nude. A tan version of Don't Bossa Nova Me Around. A must have...

MY GECKO DOES TRICKS

Lovely green with metallic silver shimmer. Perfect for spring.

HELLO HAWAII YA

A nice dusty purple. Gorgeous in two creamy coats. 

LOST MY BIKINI IN MOLOKINI

I love purples this bright. I think it is perfect to wear year round. A must have…

GO WITH THE LAVA FLOW

A reddish coral crelly with golden flaky shimmer. 

JUST LANAI-ING AROUND

Soft mauve with very subtle silver shimmer.

SUZI SHOPS AND ISLAND HOPS

Bright baby pink crème. Formula was a bit finicky, so I had to use three coats.  

THIS COLORS MAKING WAVES

Ocean blue duo chrome with silver metallic shimmer.  

THAT’S HULA-RIOUS

Bright neon mint green. Nothing I have from OPI comes close to this color. Comparison pic below. 

COMPARISON PIC

Thumb – Hey Get in Lime (3 coats)

Index – That’s Hula-rious (2 coats)

Middle – Feel The Mo-Heat_oes (3 coats)

Ring – Gargantuan Green Grape (4 coats)

Pinky – Damone Roberts 1968 (3 coats) 

COMPARISON PIC

Thumb – Can’t Afjord Not to

Index – Live.Love.Carnival

Middle – Aloha From OPI

Ring – Cajun Shrimp

Pinky – Coca-Cola Red

I hope you enjoyed these swatches. All in all I think this collection is nice. There are colors in here that are a must have. However, a couple were a miss for me. What are your thoughts?

Don't forget to follow me on Instagram! xoxo

Stamping over nail vinyls

Hi Girls! Sorry I have been MIA lately. I started a new job back in late January and I have been so busy. I usually would write parts of my blog posts during my breaks at work but sadly I have had to put it off to the back burner.

Today I just wanted to show you my stamping I did using some nail vinyl stickers I had ordered online.

I started my base with some of my favorite OPI's. Alpine snow, Black Onyx and Hey Baby. 

I then applied nail vinyl stickers. You can also use regular tape and cut them with pinking sheers. 

I got my stamping image ready to apply to my nail

After stamping and removing the nail stickers. You have a very unique image. I chose chevrons for a creative accent nail.

I hope you give this a try. Let me know what you think! 

Lacquer Legion: Reinvention Challenge

Hello Lovelies!

There is new monthly nail art challenge hitting the streets today.  It is called "The Lacquer Legion" and hosted by four extremely talented nail bloggers: Sarah, Sammy, Rebecca and Leslie.  If you are not following these ladies...remedy that, now!  Each month there will be a new prompt to get your creative nail art juices flowing.  For the first challenge, the theme is Reinvention.  You can reinvent a favorite mani with new colors, reinvent a classic with a new twist or just do something completely new.  All participating nail artist will post their reinventions on January 27th using #LLReinvention on numerous social media platforms.  I think this is a great idea to spark some creativity, especially if you are in a nail art funk!

So for this months prompt, I decided to revisit the mani of mine that has been copied and redone the most by my followers on Instagram.  I was inspired by one of Sammy's tutorials for negative space stripes but did some funky French tips with the idea.  I actually hated this mani at first and wasn't even going to post it.  So glad I did!  For the challenge, I changed it up with some mirrors instead of negative space!



Top: Negative space striped done in July 2013
Bottom: Mirror striped nails done in January 2014

For both of these looks, I used striping tape to make the clean lines.  The chrome color is "Push and Shove" from OPI's newest Gwen Stefani collection.  This polish is very delicate and requires a special base coat (supplied with the polish) to help give is a smooth mirror finish.  I did give my nails a light buffing to help make ridges less noticeable.  I wasn't going to pick up this polish, but I saw too many cool swatches of it on IG and I am a sucker for good swatches.   Here's some more pics :)

 

Do you plan on picking up Push and Shove?  It is a pretty special polish.  Also, make sure to check out the other #LLReinvention posts on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest.  I can't wait to see what other people come up with!

 

-Amy McG aka McPolish

McPolish's Birthday Stamping Adventures

Hey all!

So, my birthday was last week.  Yep...another year older and my fourth 29th birthday (ha!).  I wanted to wear something super-duper awesome on my nails for the day, so I did some epic stamping.  This technique has many different names: advanced stamping, reverse stamping, stamping decals, I can't believe these are really my nails stamping.  Take your pick!  For this mani, I did the decal method.   I think Chanfie at Indian Ocean Polish has a great tutorial on this method, definitely check it out.

So on to the birthday mani!  I used OPI "Fly" for the base.  It is a gorgeous teal that really goes on smooth.  This polish was from the Nicki Minaj collection.  On my pinky, I used Freak Show Polish "Virgo", which is a microglitter textured polish.  Using the stamping decal method, I created the cool designs on my thumb and ring finger with MoYou London "Explorer 03" plate.  This is my most favorite stamping plate ever!  It has so many designs just begging to be made into stamping decals.  If you have not had the chance to experience MoYou London plates...put them on your wish list and bite the bullet for shipping.  They are absolutely worth every penny! 



MoYou London Explorer 03 plate

Ok...enough jibber-jabber and onto the mani!  I really, REALLY loved this manicure and would recreate it over and over again.  Do you love it?

I am currently holding a birthday giveaway on Instagram which ends on January 28th.  If you would like at chance a fabulous indie polish and your very own MoYou London plate, check out my page and do your best "McPolish Pose".

Would you guys like a tutorial on advanced stamping?

-Amy McG

Margarita on the Rocks Here!

Hi ALL!

I am very excited to be here with my very first blog post! A Year ago when I started collecting nail polish, I never thought I would be here. I signed up for a nail polish sub box in December of 2012 and it was all downhill from there. I joined Instagram later on in March and posted my first water marble on St. Patrick’s day. The past year I have met several fabulous ladies on IG who have encouraged and supported my nail polish addiction! I am really into nail art and love trying new interesting techniques. I love stamping, glitter gradients and different polish combinations. Here are several pics of mine from Instagram so you can get to know a little bit of what I will be posting.

I think Winter may be my favorite season for nail art. I did these last month. 

Morgan Taylor Gotta have hue

                                                               OPI Elaphantastic Pink

                                                        Colors by Llarowe Coconut Water

Colors by Llarowe Twinkle, Twinkle little star

                                                                OPI Skittlette mani

                                            OPI My Santa suit stamped w/Cult Nails Tempest

                                 Girly Bits January Morning w/ Enchanted Polish To Die For glitter gradient

                             Cult Nails Tempest and Riot gradient w/ Ethereal Lacquer Spotted Snow

                  OPI Black Onyx and I Snow You Love me stamped w/ Enchanted Polish Dime Piece

This was probably my favorite combo of the year. It was my last mani of 2013 and I was pretty proud of it. It's combinations like this that I love doing.

Here are a few of my favorite OPI mani's from the last couple months.

 OPI with advanced stamping

 OPI Suzi's Hungary again

 OPI Pamplona Purple

 OPI Water marble

As you can see OPI is one of my favorite brands!

I really appreciate the opportunity to be here and share my nail story with everyone. I hope you enjoy it! Don't forget to follow me on Instagram. -Gari

Halloween Stamping Mixed Mani!

Halloween is definitely one of my favorite holidays. I'm not sure why, but there's definitely something fun about costumes and spooky stories. I've been so busy that I almost missed doing some Halloween nail art, luckily I managed to fit it in after all.

Here's my mixed media Halloween mani! I used both stamping and some free hand, and mixed finishes for a fun mani.

Index: Cult Nails Fetish stamped with Zoya Purity and MASH plate #29.
Middle: OPI Deutsch You Want Me Baby stamped with CN Fetish and Bundle Monster plate #305.
Ring: OPI Deutsch You Want Me Baby with Make It Stick bat vinyl nail decal.
Pinky: CN Fetish and OPI Deutsch You Want Me Baby freehand with Butter London Matte Topcoat.

I loved wearing this mani and I got a lot of fun comments from friends! What's on your nails for Halloween tomorrow?