Fall Floral Article and More.

I realized today that I am horribly behind on updating my blog readers on my work over at Beauty Blitz. My favorite article over the last few months was probably the one detailing how to recreate this rose design.

I also shared tutorials for a favorite gory manicure, a tweed technique, watercolor fingertips, and leopard nails.

I think that covers all of my updates for now, however you can expect my annual favorite manicures post in the next few days!

Black French Tip Rose Nails.

I usually do a lot of colorful manicures, which I think are fun with my mostly black wardrobe, but sometimes a darker design is fun too. For today's manicure I chose to do black roses with a dark grey base. 

The base color is CND Asphalt and I added CND Gold Shimmer for a little sparkle after doing the roses with acrylic paints.

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!

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. 

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.

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.