Patriotic Skittle Nails.

I've tried a bunch of different designs for the 4th of July in the past, so deciding on something different to do this year took a little extra time. I ended up choosing a red, white, blue and silver holographic theme. Any excuse for a glitter and holographic-ness. 

The polishes I used were China Glaze First Mate, Mary Kay Radiant Red, Sally Hansen Hard to Get, and LA Colors Star Light.

The holographic flakes on the red nail were done with nail foils from Born Pretty and the hexagon glitter on my blue nail is my favorite Born Pretty glitter.

If you still need more ideas for your 4th of July mani, here are all my patriotic designs of the past! And hopefully I can manage to share another new red, white, and blue design before the week is over. 

Candy Cane Heart Nails.

I decided to do my first holiday manicure of the season for a Christmas party last week. I did a bunch of Christmas designs last year so I wasn't sure what to choose until I was inspired by this candy cane hearts manicure. 

I chose to skip the faded look of my inspiration mani and opt out of the typical bright Christmas colors and instead chose darker, winter appropriate shades. The polishes I used for this design were Zoya Gemma, American Apparel Port, and a LA Colors gold glitter striping polish. The white was done with acrylic paint.

I received a lot of compliments on these and I thought they were just festive enough without being too much!

Snowman Nails.

I guess today continues with the winter weather nails! I've wanted to do snowmen on my nails for a while now and I think these turned out super cute. 

I was inspired by this tutorial. For my version I used Wet n Wild Silvivor with LA Colors Star Light as the base. The details were done with OPI Hot & Spicy, Julep January, and CND Oilslick. All of the white is acrylic paint.

Plaid Heathers Nails.

Chances are you've been quoting and obsessing over the wrong high school comedies. The movie you should be obsessed with is Heathers! Late 80's Winona Ryder, Shannen Doherty, and Christian Slater paired with a whole lot of plaid and blazers. What more do you want? 

I've been contemplating Heathers nails for a while and decided to give them a shot. In the film each of the Heathers has a color that they wear that is representative of their personality, which made making each of my nails a different color of plaid the obvious choice.  

The red for my Heather Chandler plaid nail is Julep January, for my Heather Duke (green) nail I used LA Colors Atomic, the Veronica Sawyer nail (blue) is LA Colors Static Electricity, and the Heather McNamara nail (yellow) is Orly Spark. On all of my nails I used CND Concrete and Oil Slick and Wet n Wild French White Creme.

Heathers is full of incredibly quotable lines, and I knew I wanted one on my ring finger, after a little internal debate I went with, "How very."

Blue Sideways Gradient Nails.

The sideways gradient is one of my favorite designs I've done, so I decided to go for it again with a different color scheme.

The colors I chose this time were LA Colors Static Electricity, China Glaze Spontaneous, and Sinful Colors Hottie. The rhinestones I finished things off with are from Amazon.

Green Ombre Nails.

I ombre'd my hair at the beginning of summer, and it's been the perfect change for the season. Ombre hair might not be for everyone, but ombre nails are so simple and fun. 

The color I started with is LA Colors Atomic (on my middle ringer,) and then I just added either white or black to get the colors for the rest of my nails. To add a little something extra to the manicure I used the hexagon glitters I raved about, here.

Dotted Triangle Nails.

This design started out super simple, but when I wasn't crazy about it I kept adding more and more details until I was happy. I like it a bit more in person, but I think it turned out pretty cute. The base color is LA Colors Atomic and the rest of the colors I used are acrylic paints!

Firework Nails.

For Memorial Day I chose to do American Flag nails, so for the 4th of July I decided to go with a firework design. 

I wasn't sure exactly how I wanted to go about it, but I ended up just adding lots of lines and sparkle until I was happy. 

The base color is OPI Yoga-ta Get This Blue, and I used red, white, and blue acrylic paints. For the shine and sparkle I used Sally Hansen Silver Sweep, LA Colors Star Light, and China Glaze Some Like it Haute.

Happy 4th!

Rainbow Splatter Nails.

When I decided to do a splatter manicure, I wasn't sure about a color scheme. Eventually I decided on a bright rainbow color scheme. At first I wasn't sure about the outcome, but after a while it really started to grow on me. 

I used a bunch of polishes for this: OPI Hot & Spicy, Orly Spark, OPI Elephantastic Pink, China Glaze Tree Hugger, China Glaze Rich & Famous, China Glaze Spontaneous, and LA Colors Static Electricity.

Beachy Crab Nails.

After seeing this manicure during my search for inspiration, I decided that crab nails were a must-do. As I mentioned earlier this week, my current focus in on summer, and it's only a matter of days now until I return to Maryland for the summer. So, crabs are the perfect nail art choice. 

This manicure doesn't show much of the base, but it's a gradient that is supposed to show where the ocean meets the sand. I started with a base color of Zoya Jules, which is like a prettier version of wet sand. Then I created the gradient with OPI Ogre the Top Blue, LA Colors Static Electricity, and Wet n Wild Blue Wants to be a Millionaire. The crabs were done with CND Flashpoint with Wet n Wild French White Creme and Black Creme for the eyes.

French Tip Glitter Gradient Nails.

I asked for nail art requests on tumblr and a few people responded with suggestions of a french manicure. I don't typically like french manicures, so I decided to add a glitter gradient and make it seem a little different.

I used OPI Isn't It Romantic?, OPI Ink, Love & Beauty glitter, LA Colors Star Light, and Sally Hansen Byte.

Queen of Hearts Nails.

Today's manicure was inspired by the Queen of Hearts from Disney's Alice in Wonderland. I did these nails for the Temptalia Disney Villains nail art challenge.

I wanted my nails to be an homage to the Queen of Hearts, but still be a bit subtle. I started with looking at images of the queen.

After a little contemplation, I decided the elements I wanted to capture in my manicure were her crown, the red roses, and the queen of hearts card.

The polishes I used were Wet n Wild Black Creme, OPI Don't Mess With OPI, Sally Hansen Whirlwind White, Julep January, American Apparel Port, and LA Colors Wave Length. I did the roses using acrylic paint.

I played around with ways to do roses for this manicure and ended up going with something a little different than my typical rose manicure. I really like how they turned out.

Galaxy Nails.

There are a lot of great ways to do space or galaxy nails, but my favorite involves lots of layers and glitter.

I used a bunch of different polishes to varying degrees for this manicure. Here is the list: OPI Ink, OPI Yoga-ta Get This Blue, Sally Hansen HD Byte, Sally Hansen HD Laser, Chameleon Blue Sky, Chameleon Calypso, Wet n Wild Hannah Pinktana, Hard Candy Beetle, Love & Beauty holo glitter (no name,) and LA Colors Star Light.

All of the holographic glitter makes this manicure not the easiest to photograph, but I'm happy with how it turned out. I love catching glimpses of all the different duochromes and glitters in the sunlight.

Easter Water Marble Nails.

This is my third Easter manicure (see the previous ones here and here) but this water marble is also perfectly suited for spring in general.

I'm happy to say I've finally figured out all the components of a successful water marble mani. It definitely takes some practice and patience, but now that I've got it there are many more water marbles in my future.

I painted all of my nails with Essie Sweet Talker and used Wet n Wild Tickled Pink, LA Colors Blue Paradise and American Apparel Office to marble with.

Now I just need to choose what colors to marble with next!

Twister Nails.

When I went to do my nails yesterday all I knew was I wanted to do something with the rainbow and something with dots. From there I basically just winged it, and ended up with something sort of Twister-esque.

The colors I used were CND Flashpoint, CND Electric Orange, CND Bicycle Yellow, Sinful Colors Envy, LA Colors Static Electricity, and China Glaze Spontaneous. The base is Sally Hansen Whirlwind White.

This is a really simple design but I like how colorful it is, it's nice and cheery. Cheery nails are definitely a mood booster during midterms! (Which are almost over...which I think means time to treat myself to a few polishes or nail tools.)

Spring Rose Nails.

Roses are always one of my favorite freehand designs to do. They're really simple to do but result in such a cute feminine manicure.

This time I went with Essie Mint Candy Apple for the base. I bought this polish at the end of summer and have only used it once or twice since then, I need to make a note to use it more because it's a great spring color. The stripes were done with a white LA Colors Art Deco polish. The roses were actually done with acrylic paint (hot pink and white) and the leaves are LA Colors Atomic with a tiny bit of Milani Dressmaker. Lastly, I added just a little CND Effects Raspberry Sparkle to the roses. I really like the little touch of shimmer.

Now that it's finally starting to get warmer here there are so many fun spring nail choices. I'm happy to continue breaking out all my pretty pastels.

Neon Tribal Nails.

After my first attempt of tribal nails, I knew I had to do it again, and this time I used neons.

The colors I used were China Glaze Pink Voltage, Claire's Orange Neon and Marine Blue, and American Apparel Neon Yellow. The details are all done with LA Colors Art Deco in black.

This would be a really fun look for summer, maybe I'll have to break out something similar again sometime!