Purple Fishtail Nails.

After finally mastering the fishtail braid, I knew it was time to break out this awesome fishtail nail design tutorial I had saved a few months ago for inspiration.

I decided to put the full nail design on all of my fingers instead of just as an accent though, and I really liked how it turned out. Carefully making all of my lines for the design took a while, but with a little patience and a few episodes of How I Met Your Mother, it was actually pretty simple.

At first I thought I'd go with all cream polishes for this manicure, but I ended up incorporating one shimmer and I think the outcome was nice. The polishes I used were OPI Lucky Lucky Lavender, China Glaze Below Deck, and China Glaze Bogie. Bogie isn't a color I'd typically be using at this point in the year, but the shimmer looked great in the sun!

Guest Post on Nailed It.

I did my first guest post for another blog! I did a neon paint splatter manicure for a post on Nailed It. I won't say more about it here, but you can read all about the manicure and see more photos here.

Kite Nails.

There isn't too much to say about this design, but I think it's cute! The base color is OPI Mermaid Tears and the colors I used for the kite are OPI Elephantastic Pink, Sally Hansen Lively Lilac, and Wet n Wild French White Creme.

American Flag Nails.

I've seen a lot of great Memorial Day manicures, but I decided to keep things simple and classic for my design. Maybe I will do something crazier for the 4th of July.

I created stripes on my pointer and ring fingernails using striping tape, and stars on my middle and pinky fingernails. For the stars I used the BM-20 plate, but I ended up going over them with a small brush so the white would be more opaque. 

 The blue polish I used is Essence Just Rock It! and the red is Julep January. The white I used for the stripes is Wet n Wild French White Creme and the white for the stars is Konad Special White Polish.

Drips on Dots Nails.

This manicure combines two pretty simple designs for a cute look. I started off with a mint green base color (American Apparel Office) and added white dots in diagonal lines, using Wet n Wild White French Creme. Then I painted on the drip design with OPI Ogre the Top Blue. 

For a long time I wasn't sure if I cared for drip manicures, but there are so many options, they are great to play around with. 

Evil Eye Nails.

Today's nails were inspired by an evil eye necklace I saw on tumblr. I used Claire's Marine Blue as the base, Wet n Wild Black Creme for the triangle, and white acrylic paint for the eye.

I've had this photo of the necklace saved on my desktop for a few weeks now because I knew it would make the perfect nail art.

          

I'm really happy with how these turned out!

Plaid Sparkle Nails.

I knew I wanted to do a gradient today, but I had a hard time figuring out exactly what I wanted to. Eventually I decided on the gradient as an accent nail, with a plaid design (done using striping tape) on top. The rest of my nails are Wet n Wild Black Creme with CND Raspberry Sparkle on top, and the gradient is done with Claire's Orange Neon and China Glaze Shocking Pink. 

And here is a closeup of the plaid nail...

Teal Marble Nails.

I'm not 100% sure how this manicure happened, but I liked the result so I figured I would share. I started out with my nails painted Claire's Marine Blue and from there my intended outcome changed probably four times. 

At one point I was thinking I would just scrap everything I had on my nails start fresh, but I decided to try and salvage my failed manicure and ended up with this. 

This manicure is the result of a bunch of techniques and a bunch of polishes, too many for me to remember and list. But I'm holding OPI Who The Shrek Are You and the black is my favorite, Wet n Wild Black Creme.

I don't know that I could ever recreate this manicure since I just played around until I had something I no longer wanted to remove all together, but I was pleasantly surprised with how things turned out, the finished design reminds me of marbles.

Also, please excuse my pink skin in these photos. I have to work out the lighting situation at home and haven't had a chance yet, it is among my many weekend projects to tackle!

Neon Music Note Nails.

I think today's manicure ended up being pretty fun and cute! I was inspired by a coin purse I own and decided to center the design around music notes. Then I added various dots and stars around the music notes. 

I used Essence Just Rock It! for the base color and did the design in Color Club Glitter Envy. Then I added just a little more glitter with Color Club Starry Temptress. 

City Skyline Nails.

I did nails inspired by Maryland earlier in the week, so it seemed necessary to follow up with New York nails! NYC is my favorite place, and it definitely deserves a little nail art in it's honor. 

A skyline design seemed like the perfect choice, and I very fittingly chose China Glaze Skyscraper as the base color. Skyscraper is a gorgeous color, I'll have to try to use it more often. For the actual design I used Wet n Wild Black Creme. The finishing touch was a little extra glitter in the sky, which was from  Icing Magnetic Attraction.

Fred Flintstone Nails.

Today's nails are a simple design inspired by Fred Flintstone. I saw a bunch of other designs inspired by his attire and had to give it a shot for myself.

I started by painting all of my nails OPI A Good Man-darin is Hard to Find and added the black triangles with a Sally Hansen nail art pen. Then I did the tie with Sally Hansen Brisk Blue and outlined it with Wet n Wild Black Creme.

Purple Dot Border Nails.

Border nails have been becoming increasingly popular lately, and I think this is an easy and fun interpretation of the trend!

I went for a purples on purple look, which didn't photograph the greatest. (All the colors are more discernible in person.) The base color for this manicure is Julep Taylor. The different dots are OPI Lucky Lucky Lavender, OPI Done Out in Deco, China Glaze Spontaneous, and China Glaze Go Go Pink.

I really like the subtlety of the monochromatic design, but this would be fun to try in a bunch of different colors!

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.

Sunset Palm Tree Nails.

With finals week just starting my mind is already on summer, so I thought I would do nails that spoke to that. 

For the sunset gradient I used CND Yellow Bicycle, OPI Hot & Spicy, OPI A Good Man-darin is Hard to Find, and China Glaze Rich & Famous. The palm trees were painted with Wet n Wild Black Creme.

Tricolor Wave Nails.

Today's design is nice and simple, but bright. 

The colors I used were China Glaze Tree Hugger, OPI Ate Berries in the Canaries, and Sally Hansen Brisk Blue.

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.