The Lazy 15 Mani #15!!!!!! Recreate Another Blogger's Mani

So the minute I looked at this prompt over a month ago, I knew EXACTLY which mani I would recreate from another blogger. I have a not-so-secret and pretty serious girl crush on Sarah from Chalkboard Nails and especially her Wizard of Oz mani! Just look at this!

At first I was going to use tape to get the lines straight but then I decided that, in the true spirit of recreation, I would attempt my first freehand stripes! The design got a little crooked on a couple of the nails but rather than stressing about it, I just decided to embrace them! I'm actually pretty proud of the lines, they're mostly straight and the whole thing turned out ok!

 

I was wishing that I had Sarah's awesome nail beds or something longer than my nubs but I had to rock what I had! The white is OPI Alpine Snow with acrylic paint to create the blue gingham. The red is one coat of Sally Hansen Red Velvet topped with two coats of Sephora by OPI Be-Claus I Said So! 

 

 

I can't wait to see what everyone else came up with - go check them out!

The Lazy 15 Mani #14 - Where I'm From!

Happy Monday everyone! Sorry I've been a little MIA this last week! Work has been crazy busy in addition to doing craft fairs and taking care of three small children! Something just had to give and since the kids insist on being fed and clothed, I decided it was my nails! I actually did this mani on Thursday night because I thought it was supposed to be the Friday prompt and shortly after I started I realized my mistake. I could have taken off the base coats but I was already excited about my USA mani and inspiration is hard to come by these days so I went with it!

 

I also want to apologize to all the other participants of The Lazy 15 challenge. I started this whole thing but I think I've missed 3 of the challenges at this point. The reason is simple. I don't like to be told what to do! It just isn't my style to plan and I totally prefer to fly by the seat of my pants! I don't think it would have been so bad if I would have gotten ahead of the challenges but I was doing them late the night before! It will probably be a long time before I do another challenge, if ever!

 I'm really loving this mani, it was a lot of fun and so random! I think my thumb is my favorite!

 

Here is what I used, finger by finger:
Pinkie: Finger Paints - Laugh My Art Off, Sally Hansen Diamond Strength - Red Velvet (one of my faves!) and some tape!
Ring finger: China Glaze - Adventure Red-y, Pure Ice - French Kiss and some silver glequins.
Middle finger: China Glaze - Glistening Snow ( I can NOT get this polish to stay on my fingers! It always peels completely off in one whole piece!), Pure Ice - French Kiss and a paper punch and some painter's tape.
Index finger: OPI - Alpine Snow, Pure Ice - French Kiss, China Glaze - Adventure Red-y, Gosh - Silver and a dotting tool!
Thumb: Pure Ice - French Kiss and striping tape. The tape that looks pinkish was actually a bright red but for some reason, when I added the top coat it changed color a little but I still love it!

I missed you all and I hope to not fall off the grid again any time soon! :)

The Lazy 15 Mani #11 - Fireworks/Bonfire Night

Helllloooooo Monday! I've got a good feeling about this week, how about you? My husbands birthday was yesterday and for a few weeks he is 9 years older than me - tee-hee! Then my oldest daughter's bday is on Wednesday and she is going to be 6! Then my bday is Dec 11th and then Christmas, whew! It's a crazy time for us with all of that and Thanksgiving as well. Neither my husband nor I get birthday or Christmas presents this year as we got ourselves iPhones and that was not cheap! :)

 

This was kind of a crazy mani and I used a ton of different polishes as well as my new nail art brushes I ordered from ebay - yay! It took a month to receive them from China but they finally got here safe and sound as well as some glequins, yay! Okay, without further ado, here is the mani! I'll list the polishes after the pics because there's so many! :)

Here's the list!! Lancome Noir, Revlon Royal, OPI Alpine Snow, Bettina Art Deco Yellow and Glamour Flame. LA Colors Sassy Sparkle and a teal glitter (no label). Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Pronto Purple, Pure Ice French Kiss, Sinful Colors Dream On, Nicole by OPI A Million Sparkles, and Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Celeb City. 8 of those were in my untrieds so yay for that! :)  See you all on Wednesday!

The Lazy 15 Mani #9 - Disney

  I have to admit that I totally lived up to The Lazy 15 on this one! When I saw Disney coming up on the list I shuddered a little. Not because I don't like Disney but because this just isn't an area where my skills lie. You're going to see some sweet freehand from some of the other challengers but from me you get dotting tool Mickey Mouse heads!

 

The cool snowglobe is from my honeymoon. My husband and I spent our honeymoon in Disneyland and I couldn't live without this adorable snowglobe! I don't recommend using a snow globe as a photo prop because I had to get into some really funky hand and wrist positions so that the water bubble wasn't right in front of Mickey and Minnie's faces!

The polishes were OPI Alpine Snow and Bettina Flame. This was my first time using Bettina and it has an amazing fomula! It's totally different than any other polishes I've used. It's not the most opaque but it is incredibly pigmented and very smooth! 

The Lazy 15 Mani #6 - Favorite Color

Oy - I really have to stop leaving these challenge manis for the night before they need to be posted! I really wish I would have had more time to play with this one because I love the colors but I'm not 100% jazzed about how the patterns all turned out - oh well, life and challenges go on!

 

Today's challenge was favorite color. My two favorite colors are really kind of at odds with each other. Most people either prefer pinks and purples or browns and greens. I like pink and brown! Not only are they fabulous together but I happen to really love them separately. I have far more pink polish than any other but I truly love a good brown - I'm just a lot pickier about them!

 

The base coat for this water marble is OPI Alpine Snow. I'm really torn about using white as a base. For a lot of marbles it's a must but I think I could and should have use a pink as the base on this one. The reason I have issue with white is because whenever it comes time to clean up, there is always the tiniest line of white around the edges that is nearly impossible to get rid of and it drives me nuts!

 

I used three polishes to marble with and they are China Glaze Strawberry Fields, Sally Hansen Fuschia Bling Bling and Julep Olivia. I know some of you are thinking, "she water marbled with Julep? What a waste!!!" Not to worry! Someone shared with me the awesome tip of using a shot glass to marble in and it was a fantastic idea! Each finger only took two drops of each polish as opposed to the usual 3 or even 4! Some people dip multiple fingers at once but I really like to try for a different design on each finger.

I really love the way the thumb and pinkie (pinky? I never know how to spell that!) turned out. I think the middle finger would have been my fave if I had more time to play with the swirl design.

 

Make sure to check out everyone else's favorite color mani! :)

The Lazy 15 Mani #5 - Galaxy Nails

Okay, so I have to admit that this challenge had me worried! I have never done a galaxy mani before and it looks so complicated! But with a good video tutorial and some patience, I don't mind how it turned out at all! I will admit, however that this was my second try. The first time I tried to be too "perfect" with my design and you just can't do that with this one. You have to let go and trust that it will turn out right in the end because as I was doing this I didn't think it looked very good. I pushed through anyway and when I was done and stepped back from the process, I was actually surprised that it really looked like a galaxy!

 

Have you tried out this mani yet? You really should, it's fun and you'll be surprised at the cool results you'll end up with!

 

The polishes used were as follows:

 

Maybelline Color Show - Blue Freeze

NYC Long Wearing - French White Tip ( I actually preferred this to my OPI Alpine Snow for this mani because it wasn't as opaque and you don't want big, obvious globs of white on this mani!)

Sally Hansen Hard As Nails - Hard Lemonade

Sally Hansen Diamond Strength - Fuschia Bling Bling

Wet 'n Wild Wild Shine - Tickled Pink (I mixed this and Fuschia Bling Bling together to get the perfect pink!)

NYC In A New York Minute - Water Street Blue

L.A. Colors - Sassy Sparkle

 

Now go forth, check out the other challenge entries and try out this mani for yourself!

The Lazy 15 Mani #4 - Water Marble

This was easily one of my favorite challenges on the list, I really love water marbles! I'm not an expert by any means, I think this is only the third one I've done but I think they are so fun! For this one I wanted to try to do something that I've never done before and I started by painting each nail a different color of glitter and then I marbled over the top with black and clear polish.

 

I do NOT recommend this if you're just starting out marbling as it was quite frustrating! I had to try out about 6 different top coats before I found one that worked well in the water and didn't dry too fast but I managed it! I actually had to dip my index finger twice because the first time there was only a tiny bit of the black on the nail.

 

I think it turned out pretty sweet, don't you?

 

The polishes I used were:

Sally Hansen Hard As Nails - Black Heart

Wet 'n Wild Wild Shine - Clear Nail Protector

Finger Paints - Purple Palette

Finger Paints - Laugh My Art Off

China Glaze - Glistening Snow

Sephora by OPI - G-listen To Your Heart

Orly - Royal Navy

 

I was pretty proud that I used 4 untrieds on this mani, woo-hoo! Please be sure to check out the other wonderful artist in the Lazy 15 and have a fabulous weekend!!!

 



The Lazy 15 Mani #3 - DOTS!!

 I can almost hear Nicole (aka Dot) cheering in the background on this one! I really wish I would have had a little more time to work on this one but work has been crazy so I didn't have too much time to think about it. I started with a base of OPI Alpine Snow and then did the dots in China Glaze Concrete Catwalk and an accent finger and a cute little heart in Finger Paints Pink Perspective Neon. I just had to add the little silver heart, I think he's cute, don't you?

 

Please be sure to check out all the other challenge participants, they're all pretty freakin' fabulous!

 



The Lazy 15 Mani #2 - Gradient

Goooooood Monday beautiful readers! I originally had a subtle purple gradient in the works but it was NOT working and looked like I had just globbed one really ugly color of polish on my nails. So for attempt #2 I decided to throw subtlety out the window and taste the rainbow! I started off with a base coat of OPI Alpine snow so that my colors would really pop! Then I applied three colors directly to a small piece of makeup sponge. I used China Glaze Adventure Red-y and Man Hunt and then Sally Hansen Lightening.

 

I love how bright and cheery it turned out, what do you think? 

 

 

Then, of course, I had to see what it would look like with some sparkle on it! This is just one coat of LA Colors Sassy Sparkle - talk about a glitter bomb, I love it!

Please be sure to check out the other challengers!!

 

The Lazy 15 Challenge Mani #1 - Tape Mani

So I've seen a lot of argyle manis around and I'd had success with a tape mani once before so an argyle should be a piece of cake right? Wrong! It was much harder than I anticipated and I had to redo 4 out of 5 fingers on this hand - ugh! But it's done now and I really like it!! I used OPI Alpine Snow for the white and If You Moust You Moust for the pink. The other two were China Glaze For Audrey and Gothic Lolita (LOVE this!)

 I'm so excited for the rest of the manis on this challenge and to see what my friends have come up with!! We're only one mani in so feel free to join us!!!!

 

*****EDIT!! For the others taking part in this challenge, here is the code to put in your post to display the other blogs taking part! Just copy it and paste it at the very end of your HTML code!!

<!-- start InLinkz script -->
<script type="text/javascript">
                document.write('<script type="text/javascript" src=http://www.inlinkz.com/cs.php?id=206197&' + new Date().getTime() + '"><\/script>');</script>
<br />
<br />
<!-- end InLinkz script --><br />

Calling All Lazy Nail Bloggers!!



Have you ever been tempted to join a challenge but said to yourself, "Ugh, posting every day for 30/31 days? I just don't think I could do that!" Well, never fear, The Lazy 15 is here! Starting Nov 2nd we will be starting a challenge that only includes 15 manis and is only on Monday, Wednesday and Friday! If you often feel intimidated by the art of others this will be perfect for you as well because most of us haven't tried at least a few of these! We still welcome the experienced artists as well, the more the merrier!

If you're interested, just grab this inlinkz code and paste it into your blog or you can also wait and grab the inlinkz code on the first challenge day! I really hope you all give it a try and join us, it's going to be a blast!!!

Inspiration Vomit Mani

 So, today's mani didn't end up as I had it pictured in my head! I think it's because I spend too much time looking at a bunch of other sweet nail art that my brain gets filled up with so many fantastic ideas at once and this is what you get...inspiration barf! For vomit I think it looks pretty good!

I really don't have my own aesthetic figured out yet. I gravitate towards really bright, loud colors but the manis I find prettiest are on the soft, subtle side and the two don't mix. I think that's why I've had success with paint splatter and water marble manis!

This beauty is 3 coats ( I think!) of China Glaze Flying Dragon then a pointless stripe of CG Jungle Queen somewhere under that sparkle. Why you ask? That's all part of not having a clear idea of what I wanted to do before I started! First I was going to add a couple studs, then carefully placed loose glitter then that turned into me painting a big glob of top coat on my nail and then dipping it in a big pile of glitter and voila!

It's pretty for vomit though, right? Do you guys ever have troubles with too many ideas? That's why I really like the idea of a challenge. In fact, I like the idea so much that some other awesome bloggers and I will be doing a challenge in November called The Lazy 15. It's named that because we didn't want to do a whole 30/31 day challenge because...well, we're lazy! Also, we're not doing daily posting but on Monday, Wednesday and Fridays. You are ALL welcome to join in, we will be setting up an inLinkz for the challenge. The more the merrier, so join us!!!

 

Here's the lineup for the challenge and the dates! Start doing these now so you can get ahead!!

Friday Nov 2nd      1)Tape mani

Monday Nov 5       2) Gradient

Wed Nov 7             3) Dots

Fri Nov 9                4) Water Marble

Mon Nov 12           5) Galaxy Nails

Wed Nov 14           6) Favorite Color

Fri Nov 16              7) Feminine Nails

Mon Nov 19           8) Dessert

Wed Nov 21           9) Disney movies/characters
Fri Nov 23            10) Underwater Creatures inc. Water Mythical Creatures
Mon Nov 26         11) Fireworks/Bonfire night

Wed Nov 28         12) Fairy Tale

Fri Nov 30            13) Guilty Pleasure

Mon Dec 3            14) Where I'm from (a mani inspired by where you live!)

Wed Dec 5            15) Inspired by another blogger's mani

 

If you have questions or want details, ask in the comments or find me on Twitter! :)