New Mani, New Year!

Out with 2011, in with 2012! I am SO done with last year and looking forward to lots of great things for the year to come. I haven't updated in a few months, but that doesn't mean that I haven't been doing my nails ;) Back in December I did a cute snowy manicure inspired by Nailside's design...

I also tried 3D nail decal stickers from Sally's. I hated the texture of these and removed them right after snapping a few pics!

Last night I got around to trying a manicure I had been wanting to attempt for a long time - a full on (double!) rainbow gradient. I was intimidated to try this. I had only ever done a maximum of 3 colours in a gradient, and I was looking at using 6 to get the effect that I wanted. My nails are at a good length now, so last night I finally decided to go for it. Here are the polishes that I used:

Zoya Marley, OPI Pink Friday, random orange OPI (oops! no label!) mixed with white*, Essie Barbuda Banana, Picture Polish Honey Dew, and Essie Borrowed & Blue
*I really need to get a pale orange!

 I apologize that my thumbnail looks a little gnarly... I am mending a crack with a tea-bag patch - I'm pretty new at this but it's holding up well! Here are a few more pics. I'm really happy with how this manicure turned out!

I want to share one tip with you... this is the best thing that I have come across to help me with sponging. When I sponge a gradient on my nails, I like to cut up a makeup sponge into tiny pieces in order to get the most of it. The pieces are difficult to hold, especially with freshly-painted nails. I tried regular tweezers, but these proved difficult too, since you have to continually squeeze so you don't drop the sponge. Enter these tweezers:

I believe that they are sticker tweezers, from a company called Making Memories. I bought them at Michaels Craft store years ago. They are reverse tweezers, so by default they are in a closed position, and you only have to squeeze to release the grip and open the tips. This is great for sponging, since you can loosely hold the tweezers like a pencil and not strain your wrist or risk ruining your mani :) 

Thanks for reading,

Hayley

NOTD: Inspired Nails

This manicure was inspired by some nail art I came across on Make my Day, a nail art blog from Argentina. Take a look through this site, the designs are beautiful. I forced myself to take my time and do a neat job with my nail art brush, and I am SO pleased with the results! To the right is the inspirational photo -->


And here is my take on it...

Here is a photo to prove that I did both hands! This is the first time I even attempted something so intricate on all nails. 

 As you can guess, I used a lot of polishes to complete this look. I painted each nail with two coats of white. After it dried, I used my nail art brush (striper brush?) to fill in a half-moon near the base of my nail with one colour, left a stripe of white and then filled in the tip of my nail (basically an extended french tip). Finally, I made a Black "W" on each nail and added some dots. Fini! The polishes I used, from l-r are: China Glaze Liquid Leather, China Glaze Re-Fresh Mint, SOPI Arm Candy, Essie Turquoise & Caicos, OPI Rumple's Wiggin', OPI Fiercely Fiona, Essie Splash of Grenadine, Essie Barbuda Banana, OPI What's With the Cattitude, Orange OPI (I don't know the name!) mixes with white, and Sally Hansen White Tip 

 Here's a photo of one of my Mom's plumeria plants in bloom! The flowers smell amazing :)

Thanks for reading!
Hayley