Hi!

Once again, I've merged two themes into one for the August nail art challenge! Here's day 22: tribal and day 25: guilty pleasure.

Polishes Used:
Deborah Lippmann Build Me Up Buttercup | OPI My Vampire is Buff | Wet n Wild French White Créme | acrylic paint

Nail art is my guilty pleasure, so I decided to paint fingers on my nails! The yellow background and the skin color I used are kind of hard to see in these photos, but in real life they're more distinct.

I recreated the tribal pattern from Chalkboard Nails' Cosmoprof nails :)

This is supposed to be a nail polish brush and the neck of a polish bottle... not sure this came out too well!

What's your guilty pleasure? I feel like I spend so much time on nail art that if I "wasted" time on something else too I'd never get anything done!

Thanks for reading!

Lucy xx

French Tips & Saran Wrap

Hi!

Oops, I've fallen a little behind with the August nail art challenge! I'm playing catch-up by merging two themes into one manicure :)

This one is day 17: french tip and day 20: saran wrap! This post is going to be really quick as this was a really simple design that took about 20 minutes.

Polishes Used
Deborah Lippmann Blue Orchid, Flowers in Her Hair, Spring Buds, & Tiptoe Through the Tulips | Nails Inc Chelsea Bridge Road

Now for the saran wrap part:

I've never had success with the saran wrap technique, and this was no exception. It just looks kind of dirty... anybody have any tips?

Thanks for reading!

Lucy xx

Day 14: Pineapples

Hi!

I'm still keeping up with the Californails Totally Doable I-Have-a-Life Challenge, kind of -- this one is a couple days late because I just got back from Maine a couple days ago!

Pineapple nails have popped up everywhere lately, and I love it! I think they're just so cute and summery. 

Here are some that are too good not to share:

// Paper Thin Nails - here and here //

// Wondrously Polished - here (+ tutorial) //

I've been thinking about what design to do all of vacation (I'm that obsessed, haha); I was drawing out little diagrams on the plane and the lady sitting next to me probably thought I was crazy!

Polishes Used
Deborah Lippmann Blue Orchid, Walking on Sunshine & Whip It || JINsoon Poppy Blue || Wet n Wild French White Creme & Tickled Pink || brown & yellow acrylic paint

These were really fun to do, and I'm pretty pleased with the end result! Now that I've gotten back into gradients I want to use them in every manicure, they're so fun!!

Thanks for reading!

Lucy xx

Day 11: Tropical

Hi!

Today is day 11 of Californails' Totally Doable I Have a Life nail art challenge! So far I've managed to post on time for all the days, which makes me surprised and proud :) Today's theme is tropical.

I'm sure you've seen about a billion different versions of this design, so I don't have much to say haha!

Polishes Used:
Deborah Lippmann Walking on Sunshine | JINsoon Blue Iris & Tea Rose | Wet n Wild Black Creme | black acrylic paint

I haven't done a gradient in a long time, I forgot how fun they are!

I've had so much fun wearing this design, hope you guys liked it!

Thanks for reading!
Lucy xx

Gladiolus Nails

Hi!

Today's prompt for the Californails August nail art challenge is 'gladiolus', the August birth flower. I didn't know what gladiolus looked like at first, and when I looked it up I knew there was no way I'd be able to paint them realistically on my nails. Since their petals kind of fade from color to color, I decided to do flowers using the one-stroke technique.

Polishes Used
Deborah Lippmann Don't Stop Believin | Urban Outfitters unnamed grey | Wet n Wild Black Creme | red & yellow acrylic paint

 These don't really call gladiolus to mind, but they are pretty, so I'm happy!

This is a scheduled post -- as you read this, I'm on vacation in Maine! I don't know if I'll have Internet yet, and I'll be pretty busy doing all the stuff one does in Maine so I might not be able to approve and respond to comments until I come back :-) 

Thanks for reading!

Lucy xx

Ikat Nails, Take 2

Hi!

First, it was my first blogiversary on August 1st! The first year was a blast, the nail art community is so friendly and supportive. I never thought I would make it this far! A huge thank you to all of you guys -- I would have quit by now if it weren't for all the sweet comments!

I thought about recreating some old designs I did, but the first few designs I did weren't too inspiring, so I'm letting my blogiversary pass quietly. If you guys want to go laugh at my first post (it was pretty...well, I've improved a lot) you can find it here. 

I do have something a little special though! Since I haven't been posting very regularly lately (the last couple of months I've only posted 4-5 times?!?), this month I decided to try my first nail art challenge to motivate myself to get back on schedule! I chose to do the "Totally Doable I Have a Life! Challenge" run by Californails. It has a couple prompts for every week, which fits my schedule perfectly!

The first prompt is "classy", but as I hadn't posted my gold summer nails on Instagram yet I decided to cheat a little and use those for the classy prompt. Now it's time for ikat!

Polishes Used
Deborah Lippmann Walking on Sunshine, She Drives Me Crazy, Video Killed the Radio Star, Whip It | Wet n Wild French White Creme | black acrylic paint

I went a little wild with the colors I chose. I did stick to shades in the same collection, though (Deborah Lippmann's 80's Rewind collection). I feel like you can't go wrong with polishes from the same collection -- they were curated so that they all match each other, right?

This ain't my first time at the rodeo -- I've tried ikat nails one other time, 7 months ago! I really liked the colors I used the first time, but I think the ikat pattern came out better this time. And my photo quality has decidedly improved :-)

Thanks again for an amazing first year of blogging! It isn't always easy to balance school, extracurriculars, and nail art blogging, but it is so worth it.

Thanks for reading!

Lucy xx