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. 

Skittle Valentine's Day Nails.

I decided to start early on trying different Valentine's Day manicure ideas. For this design I brought out my stamping plates (something I haven't done in quite a while) and also added some freehanded dots. 

The plates I used were Bundle Monster BM02 (I heart U and the lips), BM03 (the group of 3 hearts), and Born Pretty Store m59 (the bows and the rest of the hearts.)

The polishes I used were Essie Boom Boom Room, China Glaze Rich & Famous, Sally Hansen Hard To Get, Mary Kay Radiant Red, Konad Special White Polish, and a Born Pretty Store red stamping polish.

I wasn't sure how I'd end up feeling about the manicure and combining a bunch of different images from different plates, but I think these turned out vey cute!

Black Swan Nails.

There are a handful of manicures I did before I started this blog that I really liked the concept for and have wanted to share with my blog readers. One of those was a design I did inspired by the movie Black Swan, and even though it isn't the most summer-y design, I decided to recreate my old manicure today.

Black and white, feathers, and blood pretty much sum up the film, so I think these nails do a good job of capturing the movie. 

For this design I painted my nails black (CND Oilslick) and stamped white feathers on all of my nails using Bundle Monster BM15 and Konad Special White polish. Then I splattered a mixture of Mary Kay Radiant Red and an unnamed red shimmer polish (which I'm holding in the photos) to look like blood.

I've really enjoyed doing manicures inspired by books and movies, and I think this is another fun one. It would be great for Halloween.

Patriotic Explosion Nails.

Last year one of my 4th of July manicures was a freehanded firework design, this year I decided I wanted to use fireworks as my inspiration again, but take a different route. I decided to do a tape manicure and do the explosion design I've been planning to do for quite a while.

The polishes I used were Mary Kay Radiant Red, Sally Hansen Silver Sweep, and OPI Dating A Royal.

This design takes a bit of patience since there is a lot of waiting for layers to dry completely, but besides that it's pretty easy and I love how it turned out!

Camouflage Nails.

I steer clear of most things that are camouflage, but I'm very happy to find that it makes for really cute nail art! When I started I wasn't sure if I'd like how the design turned out, but I ended up being very pleased with it. I could definitely see myself trying a fun, summer-y version in the future. 

For this manicure I used OPI Skull & Glossbones, We'll Always Have Paris, Don't Mess with OPI!, Brake for Manicures, and Mary Kay Tempting Teal.

Red Puzzle Piece Nails.

I have a new obsession, and of course all good obsessions deserve a little coordinating nail art.

The thing I'm obsessing over are the Consequences books by Aleatha Romig. I read about the books online and heard you couldn't read them without obsessing, and boy is it true. They're psychological thrillers that are super intense. I read the first book, Consequences and am currently about 40% of the way through the second book, Truth. 

I decided to translate my obsession into nail art by taking inspiration from the book cover which features red puzzle pieces. The base color for my manicure is Mary Kay Coral Stone, and I did the lines with white acrylic paint.  I used Milani White on the Spot to add the grunginess to the puzzle pieces.

Let me know if you read or have read these books, we can obsess together over twitter.