Nail Polish Challenge Week 31: The Final Challenge!

It's the very last challenge!

    I feel so accomplished! I actually completed 31 weeks of this! On one hand I am proud of myself for actually sticking to this and doing it every single week. I'm also happy that it is finally over so that from now on I can do whatever I want without having to stick to a theme, but on the other hand I'm a little sad to see it all end. I've devoted half a year to this little project so it has kind of become a routine for me and it has also challenged me and improved my nail art skills by a marginal bit. Oh, my conflicted feelings... But all things must come to an end. So for this final nail challenge the theme is to re-create your favorite challenge! Honestly, I don't have a favorite theme although I do have a favorite nail design. (*cough* My cityscape nails for artwork week *cough*) Instead I chose to do a mixture of re-doing both gradient week (that was a fail of epic proportions) and tutorial week (since I rushed through that one). Without further ado here is the final nail challenge...

Ombre Sunset Forest Nails

    I followed SimpleNailArtDesigns's tutorial on Youtube to create this. For the base coat for the gradient to stick to I just used one coat of Zoya's Bela. Then on a make-up sponge I used Sally Hansen's Xtreme Wear Hard As Nails in Blue It, Avon's Orange Creamsicle, and Avon's Sunshine. I just dabbed my nail to create the ombre. Then with a toothpick dipped in China Glaze's Liquid Leather I patiently added the ground and trees. Finally I just sealed it all in with my trust NYC Long Wearing Extra Shiny Top Coat. Viola! Tutorial completed! That finishes the final nail polish challenge. I might put together a collective post of every single week just like a re-cap. It will depend on how much free time I have. Anyways it has been an interesting and fun ride and I thank you all for sticking with me. I suggest you guys try this out. Obviously I have no nail art skills at all, but doing this challenge has really shown me new and creative designs that even I can do. You would be surprised at how easy some things are. Thanks again for everything guys!

Nail Polish Challenge Week 29: The Supernatural

It's Supernatural Week!

    Woot ! The theme for this week is right up my alley! I love anything to do with the horror or fantasy sides of things so it took me forever to finally decide what I wanted to do for my nails this week. Originally I was going to make alien nails, but I sadly do not have a bright neon green that I would have liked to have for their skin color so I scrapped that idea. Then as I was looking at all of my green polishes I thought about doing a Frankenstein nail scheme, but I remembered I already did that on green week since it was near Halloween at that time. Eventually I decided to put away my polishes and go watch a movie instead. What movie did I end up watching? Cabin In The Woods, which for those who haven't seen it, has just about every movie monster under the sun in it at one point. Finally after much deliberation I decided on doing a zombie inspired nail design. Zombies have pretty much become the new vampires this year so it is only fitting that I pay homage to that this week. Here is how it turned out...

Graveyard nails with a zombie hand on the middle finger.

    For the base I used two coats of my China Glaze Harvest Moon from the Hunger Games collection. Then I just used China Glaze's Liquid leather and created little downward strokes to crate the bases of the gravestones. Then I used a toothpick dipped in the Liquid Leather to create the crosses, grass, and of course the entire zombie hand coming out of the ground. My zombie hand got a little wonky looking, but I didn't think it was too bad since I have never drawn a hand with just a toothpick and polish before. So I'm happy with it. I realize that somewhere along the way my ring finger got smudged and some of the polish came off. My guess is it happened when I was trying to draw the hand. But what can you do it is too late now. Only two more weeks left of the 31 week nail polish! I can't even believe it. We are in the home stretch now and the ending is in sight! Please look forward next Monday for the next installment. Until then guys take care and enjoy my CBV Slap Yo Momma Smoothie Candle review.

Nail Polish Challenge Week 27: Artwork

It's nail polish challenge Monday!

     Hello again all my beauties! Despite my usual hatred for Mondays in general, today has been a very good and productive day for me today. I woke up early and found out my CBV order that I placed during a busy sale last week should be here by Wednesday. That is a week and a half turn around time and let me tell you I ordered quite a few scent shots. So I was very happy with that. Another thing that has made today great is that spring has finally arrived here in my hometown. Yesterday it was up in the seventies and today it has been in the sixties with the sun shining. I have been waiting for spring since Christmas ended.  An another note I was really nervous about what to do for this week's nail polish challenge because if you haven't already noticed my nail art skills are still in the beginner's level. I scoured the net for pictures of nails that are artwork inspired just looking for something that would be possible for me to even attempt at doing. Luckily I found a cutepolish tutorial on Youtube and it didn't turn out too bad if I do say so myself. Without further ado here is how it turned out...

Not too shabby if I do say so myself.

     After searching awhile I saw this City Skyline tutorial and it reminded me of all the landscape paintings I have seen depicting the New York skyline. It was perfect for this week's theme. For a base coat I used only one sheer coat of Zoya's Bela just to give the gradient polishes something to stick to. Then I with a make-up sponge I used Sally Hansen's X-treme Hard As Nails polishes in Blue It and Deep Purple. I sponged the two over my base coat to create the gradient effect of the night sky. Then using my China Glaze Liquid Leather I created the buildings by using short downward strokes. I then used my LA Colors Art Deco nail striper in black to add little satelites and pyramid tops to a couple of the buildings. With a toothpick dipped in Avon's Sunshine I added little windows in the buildings to create the lights of the city. Next I just used my cheap dollar store white nail striper to create a tiny crescent moon on my middle finger and a tiny airplane on my thumb (which sadly you cannot really see). To top it all off I just used my NYC Long Wearing Extra Shiny Top Coat to seal it all in and add some shine. I would say this is probably my favorite look I have done so far in the nail polish challenge. It is so hard to believe we are already at week 27! Look forward next week for the next nail polish challenge. Until then see you next time!

Nail Polish Challenge Week 25: Fashion

It's fashion week darlings!

   Hello again all of my lovely internet friends. This week's nail polish challenge theme is fashion. I will be honest and say I facepalmed myself when I saw that. I live in a very small country town where fashion is pretty much useless. In fact if you showed up here wearing something labeled "Haute Couture" you would probably get a lot of funny looks. Because of this I have never taken much interest in fashion or brand names. I haven't the first clue what is considered fashionable at the moment. Anytime I think I have figured it out it ends up being "so last season". So I gave up and stopped caring. For this challenge I had to do a little research and ended up just typing in fashion nails at Beautylish. I managed to find one really simple Kate Spade design. Because I am too lazy to do anymore research then that, that is exactly what I did for this week's challenge. Here is the results...

Kate Spade inspired nails.

My take on them.

      For the base coat I just used two coats of my China Glaze Liquid Leather and then for the dots I just used my cheap white nail striper. The dots are a little messy because I sadly do not have a nail dotting tool. I admit I got a little lazy this week so this might indeed be "so last season" but eh, I don't really care. I will just leave it at this for now. I'm too busy with other stuff at the moment to re-do it. Mabye I will try this again for the final challenge, maybe not. Until then please just look forward to more Candles By Victoria hauls and reviews and also for my Spring Fortune Cookie Soap Review. See ya next time guys!

This will just have to do for now.

Nail Polish Challenge Week 24: Inspired By A Book!

The Disney equivalent to Valentine Morgenstern. LOL!

    I read a lot of books, at least three a month minimum. The most recent book that I have finished is City Of Glass, the third installment of the Mortal Instruments series by author Cassandra Clare. I have to say I have enjoyed this series so far. I feel young adult romance/fantasy novels are either usually really good or really terrible. It is hard for a series to capture my attention in that genre, but this one has managed to excite my brain. The story thusfar has had lots of twists and turns that I didn't see coming. A rare quality which I greatly appreciate. So this week's nail polish challenge theme is inspired by a book and I knew that I really wanted to do something based on this book.

The cover of the book.

    I will not spoil anything for those of you who have not read the series yet. However I will explain a little about the nail design I chose and what inspired it. In the books there is a fictional city called Idris which is where the majority of Shadowhunters (warrior humans with angel blood) live. It is kind of like their Vatican City. It is holy and ancient. It is famous for having tall clear glass looking pointed towers that glow faintly red and act as a barrier to keep demons out. The demons play a BIG part in the book. I knew instantly that I wanted to incorporate that factor into my polish choices. That is where my Essie Shine Of The Times comes in. The polish itself is a duochrome flakie top coat that adds different colors and dazzle to any manicure. It instantly reminded me of these demon lizard things, especially since when placed over darker colors the flakes are tinged with red, gold, and green with a luminous irradescence to it that reminded me of reptile scales. I decided to use my China Glaze Liquid Leather as a base coat because it is this deep ink black color and a lot of the demons themselves are mainly said to be black in color. So here is the finished look.

Note the green undertones in certain light.

    I think as far as a lizard demon inspired manicure goes this one does pretty well. Lol! I love my Shine Of The Times, but I don't use it as much as I like since I don't like how it looks over lighter polishes. Still it is a staple and one of the most unique polishes I have in my nail collection. Next week is fashion week so please look forward to that. Honestly I know nothing about fashion so it will be interesting to see what I can come up with. Until next week guys!

Nail Polish Challenge Week 23: Inspired By A Movie!

And I said what about Breakfast at Tiffany's...

      Hello again all my lovelies! This week's nail polish theme is Inspired By A Movie. So it got me thinking about all the movies I've seen. Let me tell you I thought all week about it; going over the movies I love and also trying to come up with a design that my polish collection and shoddy painting skills could do justice to. That knocked a lot of my ideas out of the running. In the end I decided to do a design based off of the classic Audrey Hepburn film Breakfast At Tiffany's. Meanwhile while I was painting my nails I listend to the song "Breakfast At Tiffany's" by Deep Blue Something to further get me in the mood. I decided to keep the design very simple and chic. 

Audrey inspired nails.

       For the base coat I used China Glaze's For Audrey which is in a beautiful Tiffany's mint color. I decided to do a french tip design and I used China Glaze's Liquid Leather because I thought the black brought to mind Holly's iconic little black dress with her sophistacated gloves. I really like how the colors contrast yet still compliment each other. So that's it for this week. Next week is inspired by a book. I already know the exact book I am planning to draw inspiration from so please look forward to that!

Nail Polish Challenge Week 20: Water Marbled!

Yay! Work is finally over!!

      Happy Monday everyone! I know it's kind of an oxymoron isn't it? But today didn't drag on for me like most Monday's do. I think it's because I only got about two and a half hours of sleep last night and I'm running on pure adrenaline and green tea right now. The theme for this week's nail polish challenge is water marble and I have to say I was not looking forward to this one too much because it seemed a little daunting and I knew it was going to be time consuming. Still its always good to try something out of our comfort zones right? So this is how it all turned out. 

Yet another addition to the #failnails collection...

      As you can see my instincts turned out to be dead on. This was a total disaster!! The Youtube videos make it looks so easy, but if you are like me and have no hand eye cordination, and are prone to spilling things, this is a total nail nightmare. Let me tell you how this all went wrong. First thing that failed was that the white base coat I put on turned super streaky and thus making my white nail polish completely useless. So I had to substitute a lighter base color. So I decided to go with my China Glaze For Audrey. The next thing to go wrong was the fact that the water you use has to be EXACTLY room temperature otherwise the polish will not spread; so I had to wait for it to round out. Then it turns out my Zoya nail polishes that I originally wanted to use, do not work for water marbling. So that took out half my nail polish color choices. In the end I ended up just using my cheapo Avon polishes in Sunshine and Viva Pink. So here is where my lack of grace turned out to be water marble kyrptonite.You have to work quickly with the polishes otherwise they will dry on the surface. And the polish dries within about 30 seconds. So in my haste to try and put the drops of polish in then make a design with a toothpick then dip my nail in the water I ended up spilling globs of polish all over my dresser. Ugh... I ended up getting so frustrated with the process that I called it quits with just one hand and left my other one blank. After posting this I'm going to remove these fail nails pronto! Still while this was a complete mess to do I'm glad I tried something new although I think it's safe to say I wont be doing much water marbling in the future lol!

Nail Polish Challenge Week 19: Galaxies!

It's Galaxy Nail Week!

           Hey everyone! I'm back for this weeks nails challenge and the theme as you could already tell is Galaxies! Galaxy nails are really pretty, but I have to say a little tedious. This was my first attempt at trying galaxy nails and I'm pretty happy with the results. I just wish my glitter would show up in the pictures. I need a new camera... Anyways here is how it all turned out.

        For the base coat instead of using a matte black like most people I decided to use my China Glaze Smoke And Ashes polish from the Hunger Games Collection. I like that it looks mostly black but when you see it up close and in person you see these tiny micro-flecks of green and teal glitter. With a small torn off piece of a make-up sponge I first used Avon's French Tip White and then layered on Avon's Sunshine followed by Avon's Viva Pink to create the galaxy gradient. After it had fully dried I added on Pure Ice's Don't You Wish which is just a clear coat that has lots of really fine raibow colored micro-glitter in it. I wish you could see the glitter in the pictures because it really adds that pop effect when the light hits it and makes it look like stars. 

\And another view...

       In the end I am really satsified with how it all turned out. I was honestly expecting a huge mess, but it wasn't that bad or that hard to create. I have a feeling when this nail polish challenge is over I will be wearing a lot of galaxy nails, playing with different colors and glitters. Anywho that's it for this week's nail polish challenge. I hope you enjoyed it and look forward next Monday for the next one. Bye guys!

Nail Polish Challenge Week 16: Tribal Print!

Nope, Its Monday again...

              Hello again everyone. Sadly the weekend is over and Monday has once again arrived to torment us all. Why is Monday never a good day? Anyways this week's theme is tribal print which is another form of nail art I had never tried before. I looked at a lot of reference photos online and then looked at my own nail polish collection and made do with what I had. Overall I'm actually quite happy with it since I figured it would turn out much worse than it did. So here is how it turned out.

Shown with me holding a NYC top coat.

And another for a better look.

        So for the blue base coat I used Zoya's Tahlula which actually turned out a tad bit darker than I had expected but still turned out pretty good I think. Then for my thumb and half of my middle finger I used China Glaze's Harvest Moon from the Hunger Games Collection. Then for the black detailing I just used LA Color's Art Deco nail striper in black and for the white details I just used my cheap dollar store white nail striper. To top it all off I used my always present NYC Long Wearing Extra Shiny Top Coat. Tribal prints can really range to so much but given my level of nail art talent (or lack there of) I decided to keep it simple with mainly stripes and dots patterns. I also stuck to just two colors instead of a lot more like I see alot of people do. It's nothing too fancy but I'm proud of myself for trying it and what I had accomplished when I put my mind to it. That's all for this week. Next week's challenge will be Glitter!! Now the hard part is to pick which glitter polish I want to wear. Seriously about 70 percent of my nail polish collection is juts plain glitter. Anyways see you guys next week!




Nail Polish Challenge Week 14: Flowers!

Keeping up with New Year's Resolutions still?

      Happy Monday everybody! The first week of the year has officially ended. Are you guys still sticking to those New Year's resolutions? I know I've been excercising every day of the week so far and I can already tell that my flexibility is getting better. I can do lunges now much better than before so hurray for progress! Let's hope I can keep the motivation going though. Anyways the theme for this week's nail polish challenge is flowers!

I tried for Daisies.

       So for flowers I wanted to do something a little bit different and tried to go for something like Daisies although they look more abstract than I had wanted I am happy with them. It was my first time doing something like this on my own. For the base color I used two coats of China Glaze's For Audrey and for the yellow center's I used Avon's Sunshine, then for the petals I just used a cheap dollar store white nail striper that has no name, and as usual I topped it all off with my trusty NYC Long Wearing Super Shiny Top Coat. That's it for this week's nail polish challenge. I don't know if Blogger is being buggy or if it has a really glitchy update or what, but for some reason it won't let me upload pictures straight from my computer anymore. I had to upload them on Photobucket and then paste the url link to get them. Am I the only one having this problem? Whatever it is I hope it works itself out and goes back to the simpler way it was before. Please look forward to next week's post!

The Hunger Games Nail Polish: Harvest Moon



It's time to add some more pretty to this blog.

       Hello again my lovelies! So Ulta had this sale going awhile back where if you buy 2 China Glaze nail polishes. you get 1 free. So seeing their sale and also seeing that they had the Hunger Games collection for half price I decided to make a purchase. So I bought 5 nail polishes total. Three from their regular line and then 2 from The Hunger Games series. Today in honor of Thanksgiving I have on Harvest Moon. This color is inspired by The Hunger Games movie/books and is supposed to represent District 9 which is I believe is the grain district. (It's been awhile since I've read the books) Now I know I'm a little late in the swatch game for this one, but the color is perfect for fall so I wanted to mention it on here. 

     As you can see this one is a really pretty metalic bronze/copper/rust color with matching shimmer. The color in the bottle is the color that you get on your nails. The color becomes opaque with only two coats and the shimmer in it isn't gritty which I like. What I like most about these polishes though is that they dry a lot quicker than most nail polishes I've tried. The brush is decently long two which is nice because I feel it gives me better control than say my Essie nail polishes. I really love this for fall, I feel not only is the name perfect for it, but the color as well. 

Just now realized I had the bottle backwards lol!

    I am still doing the 31 week nail polish challenge and this has nothing to do with it, I just kind of wanted a break to paint my nails a more fall appropriate color. Also I felt like re-doing my nails for Thanksgiving and this little baby was just calling my name. So that's all for this little random post. I have a winter Fortune Cookie Soap haul and review coming up for you very soon as well as next Monday's nail polish challenge. So please look forward to those. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!!

Nail Polish Challenge Week 7: Black & White

This week is Jack Skellington inspired!

        Welcome back internet pals did you enjoy your weekend? I spent mine cleaning and getting ready for Thanksgiving since I wont have time to do it later this week because I work everyday until Thursday. I still have to go to the store and stock up for the Thanksgiving feast, although feast isn't really the right term since it will probably be just my parents and me. My oldest brother has to work and his wife and my niece are going to her mom's house for dinner and my other brother is going to his girlfriend's for Thanksgiving so it's just going to be us three more than likely. Still that means more food for me in the end. Anyways it's Monday again so that means another installment of the Nail Polish Challenge. Can you believe we are already on week seven? It doesn't feel like I've been doing this for seven weeks.

       The theme for this week is Black & White so I decided to try a Jack Skellington pinstripe motiffe. The Nightmare Before Christmas has always been one of my all time favorite movies and since the holiday season is right around the corner I thought this would be a neat idea. Here I painted my nails two coats of China Glaze's Liquid Leather and I just took a cheap white nail art polish that I bought at the Dollar Store and added verticle stripes. It isn't as clean as I would have liked, but it still came out alright I think. As always I just sealed it with NYC's Long Wearing Extra Shiny Top Coat. So that's it for this post. Check back next Monday for the Metallic Challenge also I have a winter Fortune Cookie Soaps haul and review coming up so look forward to that too. Until then guys!

Nail Polish Challenge Week 4: Green

It's almost Halloween!

       Happy Monday everybody! Only two more days left until Halloween. I'm so excited. Anyways this weeks theme is green so I painted my nails with China Glaze's Paper Chasing and to give it a fun holiday twist I added little Frankenstein stitches with L.A. Colors Art Deco Striper in black. I just sealed it all in with NYC Long Wear Extra Shiny Top Coat. Since this will probably be my last post until November 1, Happy Halloween everyone! I hope you have a wonderfully spooky fun and safe night. Also I have a CBV post coming up the first week of November so please look forward to that as well.  

Loosely inspired by Frankenweenie.

And a closer look.

The 31 Week Nail Polish Challenge!



          Good after noon everybody! It's a beautiful sunny fall day here in the midwest. As most of you already know by now I am an active member of the Candles By Victoria message board The Pouring Pot. And they had a thread for the 31 Day Nail Polish Challenge, well a few other girls and I loved the idea, but being practical there was no way we had the time to do and redo our nails everyday so we decided to turn it into a 31 Week Nail Polish Challenge. So I thought I would also keep track of the weeks on here. These are the categories for the 31 weeks. 
Week 1 10/8-10/14: Red
Week 2 10/15-10/21: Orange 
Week 3 10/22-10/28: Yellow
Week 4 10/29-11/4: Green
Week 5 11/5-11/11: Blue 
Week 6 11/12-11/18: Violet
Week 7 11/19-11/25: Black & White
Week 8 11/26-12/2: Metallic 
Week 9 12/3-12/9: Rainbow
Week 10 12/10- 12/16: Gradient
Week 11 12/17-12/23: Polkadots 
Week 12 12/24-12/30: Stripes
Week 13 12/31-1/6: Animal Print 
Week 14 1/7-1/13: Flowers
Week 15 1/14-1/20: Delicate Print
Week 16 1/21-1/27: Tribal Print 
Week 17 1/28-2/3: Glitter
Week 18 2/4-2/10: Half Moons
Week 19 2/11-2/17: Galaxies
Week 20 2/18-2/24: Water Marbled 
Week 21 2/25-3/3: Inspired by a Color
Week 22 3/4-3/10: Inspired by a Song 
Week 23 3/11-3/17: Inspired by a Movie
Week 24 3/18-3/24: Inspired by a Book
Week 25 3/25-3/31: Fashion
Week 26 4/1-4/7: A Pattern
Week 27 4/8-414: Artwork
Week 28 4/15-4/21: A Flag
Week 29 4/22-4/28 The Supernatural
Week 30 4/29-5/5: A Tutorial
Week 31 5/6-5/12: Re-create your favorite challenge!

      I know this is a long term commitment so we will see how long I can keep it up. Since this week's challenge was red I decided to do a True Blood inspired simple nail look. I used Zoya's Sooki for the top which is a gorgeous bold blue based red and then on the inside of my tips I painted them black in China Glaze's Liquid Leather. Thought I'd give it a simple edge with the black tips since it is October after all.  

Such a pretty red!

And the inside tips are black and red.

     Well that is it for this post. Please look forward each week for the next challenge pictures. Also I have another new Fortune Cookie Soap haul and review on their Halloween Soap Box coming up so come back soon if you are interested in that. Hope you all are having a wonderful day and I will see you guys next time. Bye! 

Buh Bye!