Easter nail art

Happy Easter, everybody!  Woohoo, bonus blog post for the week!

Last year, Ellagee hosted an amazing collaboration with 15 other indie polish makers for Easter, called the Indie Bunny Mani Box.  It was filled with bunches of nail polish, both full-sized and mini; some nail butter; nail polish remover; latex mani mask; nail care tools; and, of course, candy!  I was super excited to get mine, and I'm super excited to bring out those polishes for another awesome Easter mani.  (Last year's was a bit more last-minute and thrown together, but also very nice!)

This year, armed with some chevron nail vinyls from KB Shimmer, I decided to do one Easter egg-esque stripey nail paired with one nail of each of the colors I used, topped with one of the unique glitters from the box.

 

From thumb to pinky, the colors are: Monster Polish Oh For Peep's Sake!, Above the Curve Nail Polish Rockin' Robin, Blue-Eyed Girl Lacquer Kaffir Lily, and Blue-Eyed Girl Lacquer Queen Lime Rose Zinnia on my pinkie.  My ring finger of course, has all four colors.  The glitter topper is Sweet Heart Polish Sprinkles!, and I like it a lot.  I think the colored glitters get a little lost on top of Oh For Peep's Sake, but they pop super well over the other colors.
**All of the polishes used in this manicure were limited editions for the Bunny Mani Box, so I don't have links to the products as I usually do.  I have linked to each indie shop, so definitely check them out!**

Rockin' Robin has some really nice blue flakies in it, like the speckles on a robin's egg, but they definitely got lost underneath Sprinkles.

Of course, all of these being holographic nail polishes, indoor lighting just doesn't do them justice.  Lucky for your viewing pleasure, the sun finally came out and I was able to capture the polish in all of their holographic glory!

I don't know if you can quite tell in this photo, but the holo shimmer in Queen Lime Rose Zinna is very pink.  It's absolutely gorgeous.  And I'm guessing that's where it gets its name - the base is lime-y green, and the shimmer is rose-y pink!

This closeup definitely shows the holo shimmers best for indoor lighting. 

This mani was a lot of fun!  I'm really digging my indie glitters lately, which is making me happy.  For a while I kind of stopped wanting to wear any glitter because it's such a pain to remove.  But next week, you'll get to see why I've changed my mind - so stay tuned! ;)

What did you don on your nails for Easter?  If you don't celebrate, what did you have on your nails this weekend?  Let me know (or show me) in the comments!

Spring-y Nail Art inspired by...

**I wrote this post way back in the spring, thus the spring-y colors and title!**

Today's post probably has the least interesting object to take inspiration from: a box of Kleenex!  I don't mean to say that the pattern isn't interesting; it's a very pretty box of tissues, and I'm quite happy with the way my design turned out, but... it's a box of tissues.  Not exactly something that usually springs to mind when I think of "artistic inspiration," y'know?

For some silly reason, I didn't take any pictures of this manicure in my standard poses, so this is the only one I have of all of my nails.  Oops!

The colors that I used for this design are: 6 Harts Polish "Blue Eyed Bunny" (pinkie), Above the Curve Nail Lacquer "Rockin' Robin" (middle finger), Zoya "Prim" (pointer finger), and Zoya "Zuza" (on my thumb, which I didn't even get a shot of!).  The white background on my ring finger is Salon Perfect "Sugar Cube."  (I don't have links for either of the first two polishes, because they were designed for a limited-edition indie polish collaboration box and those two colors aren't available individually.)

 

I really wanted to do another video tutorial for this design, seeing as it's been a long time since the last video I did, but I simply couldn't find an angle that I was happy with, so I settled for a photo tutorial!

1. I started with a white background, then waited an absurdly long time for the white to dry.  When using striping tape, you always want to make sure that the background color is completely dry, or else the tape will peel off your nail polish!  (Placing the tape was kind of a pain - I'm really regretting not having any nail vinyls!)

2-4. Once I got the tape lined up, I took a small nail art brush and gently dabbed on each color.  The lightest blue, the one right at the cuticle, is very sheer so I had to use two coats.

5. After painting on each color, I took the tape off, starting with the last piece of tape that I'd placed.  Unfortunately the tape pulled up a tiiiiny bit of the white, and at the base of my nail the tape actually broke, leaving some behind on the nail!  So I did my best to paint over the wibbly lines with my smallest nail art brush.

6. Add a coat of top coat after it's all dried thoroughly (to avoid streaks), and ta-da!  Always snap a close-up photo of your nail next to the inspiration. :)

What do you think of this design?  What's the weirdest thing you've ever taken inspiration from for nail art?  Want to see more photo tutorials, or want me to try harder to find a good angle for a video tutorial?  Let me know in the comments!  And if you're really aching for some different types of posts, be sure to give me your feedback here.

Finally, don't forget to enter my blogiversary giveaway, which you can find here!