31 Day Challenge, Day 10 - Gradient with Fall Colors

I'm such a dork - I totally forgot to post this last week.  This is my gradient for Day 10 of the challenge.  It's kind of a cop-out since I did something similar back in October.

Ugh, my poor nail - I hate looking at it.  Must hide it in pictures from now on.

China Glaze - Riveting
Color Club - Berry & Bright
Nina Ultra Pro - Maple Syrup
China Glaze - Fairy Dust
Ulta - Inline for the Crown

31 Day Challenge, Day 8 - Metallic in Jewel Tones

So technically maybe today's manicure isn't truly metallic but I figured I could fudge it since it does include a gold polish and gold striping tape.

I don't know about you but I find metallic polishes kind of difficult to deal with.  For me, no matter how I apply them, they come out streaky looking.  Maybe there's a trick to it that I'm missing or maybe I am just destined to suck at using them.  For today's nails the only real metallic polish is the gold polish and you can tell that it looks different than the other colors.  It's great for stamping though!

I love, love color block manicures.  Sadly I rarely have the patience to actually do them on myself.  I want to tape and paint and stuff way before I should and end up making a huge mess.  BUT, today I forced myself to have the patience necessary and this is the result.

Colors used are:

OPI: Unfor-Greta-Bly Blue
Nicole By OPI:  Keeping Up With Santa
China Glaze:  Agro
Ulta Professional:  Inline For The Crown

Mother/Daughter Monday Manicures

Even though I technically live in a suburb of the same city my mom lives in I rarely see her due to distance.  It's about 110 miles and just over 2 hours round-trip and with 3 children and a full-time job (usually) it's hard to make the drive out there.  With being unemployed and the kids out of school today I managed to make the drive over and even did her nails!  It was a good excuse to use some of my recently acquired OPI Skyfall polishes.  Man, are those just gorgeous colors!

On mom's hands I did a base of Ulta Professional Inline for the Crown.  I've used this before, many times - it's an awesome gold metallic, great for stamping, great on its own.  I then put down a coat of The Spy Who Loved Me, leaving the half-moons gold.  And because she's awesome and I love her I put on a coat of The Man with the Golden Gun.  This was the first time I've used and can I just say, "Wow!!".  So decadent and pretty.

On my own hands I did essentially the same thing, replacing The Spy Who Loved Me with Live and Let Die.  By the way, this is now my new favorite dark green.

Here's a look at both the our hands together.

And the pretty polish bottles.

A First Try at Leopard

I'm starting to gain a little more confidence when it comes to doing my nails so I am trying to make myself take on designs that I find intimidating and leopard print, for all its simplicity, is one of those.  For this I used 2 coats of Inline for the Crown as my base, the center of the rosettes is Call the Coppers (a super pretty copper glitter) and the outlines are Black Expressionism.  I used a small dotting tool to do the spots and outlines.

Despite the bubbles in the gold base which I am going to pretend don't exist I think it came out pretty decent for a first attempt.  I definitely need more practice but in general I am pleased with this.

What do you think?

Colors Used:
Ulta Professional - Inline for the Crown
Nina Ultra Pro - Call the Coppers
Fingerpaints - Black Expressionism

Essie Wicked = pure awesome

The rich almost black red color of this polish is sadly lost with the lame iPhone camera. I'm in love with the color though and I love how Ulta's In Line for the Crown looks stamped over it.