Easter Puppy Nails.

I've been wanting to use the puppy water decals that were part of the set I reviewed here for a while now and when I noticed there was an easter puppy decal I knew it was the perfect time!

The polish I used for this manicure was American Apparel Office.

Born Pretty Cat Water Decals Review.

This past October I shared my experience with using water decals for the first time. And I ended up loving the manicure I came up with so much that it was one of my favorites of 2013 and I knew I wanted to try more water decals in the future.

And that future is today! This time I went for something that was totally different from what I would normally freehand (as opposed to roses which I did last time), cats.

This is the manicure I came up with. I put the flower and cat decals over a base of OPI Sparrow Me The Drama.

I'll definitely be doing more manicures with these decals in the future, the sheet they came on also had lots of puppies and ducks, and I know I want a dog manicure soon. 

The sheet with all of the decals, which has enough for at least four manicures is $3.99 from Born Pretty Store. And as always, you can use the coupon code BRJ61 to receive 10% off any BPS order!

Inverse Dotted Flower Nails.

Today's nails were inspired by this manicure. As far as floral designs go, dotted flowers are the way to go when you're looking for something easy that still makes an impact! 

I didn't want my flowers to seem too spring-y so I used China Glaze VIII and Orly Rage.

Close-Up Flower Nails.

I always love a good floral design, and today's manicure is no exception. For this design I decided to do just one flower on each nail and do a much more zoomed in design which is something I hadn't tried in the past. 

The polishes I used to create this design were Bellisimo Calgary Flame, OPI My Very First Knockwurst, and China Glaze VIII.

Born Pretty Rose Water Decals Review.

Finding time for blogging (and good lighting) isn't always as easy during the school year as it is in the summer, which is why I've been absent lately. I haven't been doing any nail art over the last two months or so, but when I received rose water decals from Born Pretty Store, I had to test them out and share the results.

I haven't had any experience with water decals before, so I was very happy to find that there wasn't a learning curve and they were super easy to use right off the bat.

My method was to paint all of my nails and let them dry completely before starting on the decals. The base color I chose for this manicure was China Glaze VIII, I wanted something dark so the roses wouldn't seem to spring-y.

Once my nails were dry I cut out all of the flowers I wanted to use and set them aside. Then one by one I dropped them into a cup of water for a few seconds before pulling them out. Then I used tweezers to separate the decal from the paper backing and placed them on my nails. Once I had all of the decals in place I just added topcoat to keep everything in place.

I love a good floral manicure, and I was very happy with how these turned out! I also tested the decals out for a week and was pleased to find that since I put topcoat on top there wasn't any peeling and they stayed perfectly in place all week.

The decals I used come in three different colors, but the ones I got are called HOT-035. They're currently on sale for $1.99 from $2.99 and you can get at least a few manicures out of one sheet of decals.

Born Pretty also has lots of other water decal options and if you're interested in trying those or anything else from BPS you can use my coupon code BRJ61 to get 10% off your order!

Watercolor Floral Nails.

For today's manicure I decided to use the acetone watercolor technique for a floral design. I used all neon polishes which balanced nicely with the subtle design.

The polishes I used are Essie Boom Boom Room  (a perfect Barbie pink,) China Glaze Pink Voltage, China Glaze Flip Flop Fantasy, and China Glaze Purple Panic.

I don't think the design ended up being quite my style, but I was happy with the results!

OPI Nail Polishes Review.

If you've ever gotten a peak at my nail polish collection, you'd easily be able to tell that my favorite brand is OPI. So of course when I was offered to pick a few OPI polishes to review, I jumped at the chance!

I decided on six polishes that I thought I could get a lot of use out of during the summer; Can't Find My Czechbook, Dating A Royal, You're Such A Budapest, OPI...Eurso Euro, Sparrow Me The Drama, and I Don't Give a Rotterdam.

I've had the polishes for a few weeks now and have had the chance to wear them all. They all applied very nicely. I needed two coats for each of them except for I Don't Give a Rotterdam which required three.

In the past I've mostly reviewed nail art products and not polishes, so at first I wasn't sure how I wanted to go about doing my review. This has never been a swatch blog, so I decided to keep it that way and do a few nail art looks with the polishes instead.

The first design I did uses OPI...Eurso Euro, Can't Find My Czechbook, Sparrow Me The Drama, and You're Such A Budapest.

I thought this dotted manicure would be fun for the summer, I really liked all the spring-y colors on the darker purple base color.

The second design I did used I Don't Give a Rotterdam, Sparrow Me The Drama, and Dating a Royal.

This time I went for a dainty floral design, I liked the look of the creme finish polishes over top of a shimmer one.

I was very happy with my choices of the OPI polishes, they're already becoming key items in my collection. Can't Find My Czechbook has been my favorite so far, I've already dubbed it my favorite polish for summer!

OPI nail varnishes are available for purchase at Littlewoods.com! 

Winter Floral Nails.

I love floral nails, and they're perfect for spring but with a few color changes they can become perfect for any season.

I chose a darker color scheme, using OPI Suzi and the 7 Dusseldorfs, Chopsticking to my Story, Don't Mess with OPI, Ski Teal we Drop, and Skull & Glossbones.   

Warhol Flower Nails.

I saw a manicure inspired by one of Andy Warhol's Flowers paintings over a year ago now, and I finally got around to creating my own version! 

I really love how it turned out. I used Wet n Wild Black Creme for the base color, and the green I created by mixing OPI Who the Shrek Are You? and Sinful Colors Envy. I mixed CND Bicycle Yellow and American Apparel Neon Yellow for the yellow flower. The other flowers are OPI Ate Berries in the Canaries, OPI A Good Mandarin if Hard to Find, and Sally Hansen Lively Lilac.

And here is the painting for comparison!

Tie Dye Paisley Nails.

I really love today's manicure! I used the same technique I used for this design, but this time with pastels. And I like the results even better than I did last time. The pastels create a really soft and pretty tie dye effect. 

I painted all of my nails with Milani White on the Spot as a base to create the tie dye over. Then the pastel polishes I used were Orly Pixy Stix, Orly Spark, American Apparel Office, OPI Lucky Lucky Lavender, and Revlon Blue Lagoon.

The perfect finishing touch to complement my tie dyed nails was stamping with the Born Pretty Store M64 plate (reviewed here.) I stamped with Konad Special black polish.

I'll have to come up with more designs I can use the watercolor technique for because I'm really loving it at the moment!

Girly Floral Nails.

Today's manicure is probably my favorite stamped design I've done in a while! I painted my nails with China Glaze Spontaneous and then I stamped a pattern from BM-221 with Sally Hansen Lively Lilac. To add more dimension to the design I added a floral print from BM-224 with Sally Hansen Fuchsia Chrome. 

Simple Daisy Nails.

Today's manicure is pretty simple, but I think floral nails are always cute, and I realized daisies were a type of flower I had yet to do!

The base color is China Glaze Watermelon Rind and the flowers are done with acrylic paint. I finished things off with steel balls for the centers, which I reviewed here. I've found them to be a very fun addition to my nail art supplies.

Rose Ruffian Nails.

I'm back to short nails, and hopefully back to my regular posting since it's been a bit sporadic lately!

As for today's manicure, one of my most popular pre-blog designs was a manicure with roses for a french tip. I realized that I hadn't done a manicure with roses in quite a while and decided that similarly to the rose french tip, roses could make for a great twist on a ruffian design.

I used two of my favorite polishes in this manicure, OPI Done Out in Deco for the base color, and Color Club Starry Temptress to add a bit of glitter. The roses are done in acrylic pant. 

Metallic Floral Nails.

I needed a fun manicure to go with a dress I'm wearing to a wedding, and so I decided to stamp a floral design on my nails. The plate I used for this design is BM-225. The base color is Wet n Wild Black Creme and the color I stamped with is Sally Hansen Silver Sweep. 

Symphony in Hue Nails.

In June I posted this manicure, inspired by a Vera Bradley pattern on my favorite post-it notes. After that post I had a few requests to do manicures for some of the other Vera Bradley patterns. I decided to go for it since I don't care to carry any of my Vera Bradley items anymore, but the patterns are still perfect for being worn on my nails. 

This time I took my inspiration from this ID case in the Symphony in Hue pattern.

And here is the manicure I came up with...

This design was the biggest pain to clean up, the blue polish was especially bad since it stains. I'll have to remember that for next time. The polishes I used were Wet n Wild Black Creme, CND Bicycle Yellow, Sally Hansen Presto Pink, Sally Hansen Brisk Blue, and Sally Hansen Lickety-Split Lime. The rest of the colors are acrylic paints.

Sunflower Nails.

After a few of my nails breaking too badly for Orly Nail Rescue to be the solution, I had to cut my nails down a bit shorter than I would have liked. If I had my choice, my ideal nail length would be right around here. Luckily my short nails are still plenty long enough to have fun with nail art. 

I think this sunflower design is great for summer, and it's one flower type I hadn't tried before. When I was thinking about my inspiration this was my favorite sunflower design I'd seen before and the one I decided to be most inspired by.

The greens I used are China Glaze Tree Hugger and Wet n Wild Sagreena the Teenage Witch. I used two different glitters, one over the base and one in the centers of the flowers. Those are Color Club Starry Temptress, and LA Girl Clear/Gold. The colors for the sunflowers are CND Bicycle Yellow and OPI Chop-sticking to my Story.

Silver Flower Nails.

This is a pretty simple design. I used BM-224 to stamp the design, for whatever reason this design never stamps perfectly. The larger flowers always end up blurring a bit, but I still think it worked out okay. I stamped with Sally Hansen Silver Sweep. The base color on my nails is Wet n Wild Buffy the Violet Slayer with a coat of Sally Hansen Laser and then a coat of Sally Hansen Byte. My accent nail is LA Girl Overdose, which is also dotted in the centers of the flowers.

Spring Bouquet Nails.

I had a request for floral nails on tumblr (you can make requests here) and wanted to do something different than my typical roses or something I've done before, and this is what I came up with.

I used OPI Ate Berries in the Canaries as the base and used OPI Done Out in Deco, Essie Turquoise and Caicos, and Sally Hansen Lively Lilac for the petals. the centers of the flowers are Wet n Wild Tickled Pink.