Aly Loves Lacquer

I am back from France and starting up on the Mish Mash Challenge! Prepare for an upcoming post of my haul from all around Europe: France, Italy, Latvia... I went a little polish crazy.

For this week's metallic challenge, I was inspired by one of my favorite current trends: chevron. I've been seeing those preppy zigzags all over the place, and I love the look! To put a special spin on it, I hand-painted the chevron strips in little lines. Believe it or not, all it took was a toothpick and about 15 minutes. Easy peasy and so cute!

The base color is SinfulShine Picante, a really pretty coral-orange with subtle shimmer. It took 2 coats to reach proper opacity. Then I striped with a toothpick and Layla Mirror Metallic Metal Chrome. I love Layla Metal Chrome because it truly is mirror-like! It's so shiny and silvery and just fits the very definition of "metallic."

Hi, guys!

Today I have a really cool review for you of some gorgeous glitter sequins from Born Pretty. This type of sequin was brought to my attention by Sammy at The Nailasaurus. She has many gorgeous manicures using these glitter sequins, which she calls glequins. According to Born Pretty, these are Item 3103 12 Colors Nail Art Shiny Glitter Powder Sheets Tips Tool. What a name!

For this look, I used Illamasqua Lament as a base and did an accent nail using the glequins from Born Pretty. I picked a lime green color because it really pops with the pinky coral base. I hand applied each sequin using a dotting tool. In order to get the glequins to stick to the dotting tool, I put a tiny bit of top coat on it to make it tacky. This technique takes practice but it looks so cute!

Hey there!

Hi, all! I hope you're having a great start to the weekend.

Last Tuesday, I celebrated my 20th birthday! Of course, I had to do a special birthday manicure :) Last year, I did freehand ice cream cones. This year, I decided to go with birthday cupcakes!

Here's a huge picture of them!

I worked hard on these and used lots and lots of different polishes. To see exactly what I used, keep reading!

Here is another look I did with the new Salon Perfect line. At first, I was simply swatching the pink base, but then I felt like jazzing it up with lots and lots of dots. I used a bunch of different Salon Perfect shades and multiple sizes of dotting tools. To me, this look is just so fun and bright and perfect for summer.

I don't have the exact list of all the colors I used, but if you have a question about any of them let me know!

I wore this to a family get together and a bonfire and I got quite a few compliments on it. I love dotting manicures because they are very easy to do, but they look really complex. Plus all the bright colors made this look stand out with very little effort.

- Aly

I know everyone and their mother has a St. Patrick's Day manicure to show today, but here's mine!

I'm wearing 2 coats of China Glaze Starboard, followed by 1 coat of Sinful Colors Green Ocean. The Sinful Colors is a mix of blue-green glitters and flakies, all in a pretty green tinted base. Lovely! On my ring finger, I freehanded a four leaf clover with Finger Paints Black Expressionism. Nothing too fancy, but I still really like the outcome :)

Some people seem to hate on Valentine's Day, but not me! I love all things pink and sparkly, plus I think it is a nice excuse to go on a date. And chocolate is always good!

For this Valentine's Day, I chose to do a very girly skittle manicure. Take a look first, and I'll list the polishes used after the jump.

It's been pretty cold here in St. Louis, so I thought I would do a manicure appropriate for cold weather. Jane, the lovely blogger from Nailside recently posted a tutorial for her cute cloud manicures. I had seen them finished but never knew just how easy it was to do one!

For this wintery manicure, I used Zoya Petra as a base. Petra is a gorgeous purple-infused taupey gray. Creamy formula and applied well in 2 coats. For the clouds I used two foils: Orly Sweet Peacock and Sally Hansen Celeb City. For such an easy mani, the look is very cool! Take a look.

Hi there, and a special hello to all my new followers! The lovely Traci linked to my blog and I am soooo happy to say that I've reached 400 followers with her help! Thanks so much, girls :)

Today for you I have some sparkly Christmas chevrons. The red is Color Club Santa's Cinnamon, which is your classic jelly red with red glitter -- but this one smells delicious! It smells like real cinnamon candies, you know those ones in the red wrappers? Seriously lovely, Color Club did an awesome job with the scent. On the tips, I used China Glaze Glittering Garland. It's a gorgeous deep emerald with green-gold glass flecks. I freehanded the chevron design, but you could use tape if that would be easier :)

The other night there was an ugly Christmas sweater party at SLU. Along with my very tacky sweater, I decided to do a Christmas-themed manicure. I used Holly-Day for the green, Poinsettia for the red, and Twinkle Lights for the glitter. The design was freehanded with a nail art brush, and I used a dotting tool to add Twinkle Lights.

Today's challenge is the galaxy manicure. I was nervous that I wouldn't be able to make a nice looking manicure, because this look comes off as incredibly challenging. Still, in the spirit of the 30 Day Challenge, I was encouraged to give it a try. To those who are going to try this out: be warned! It is beautiful but it is rather time consuming. In the end though, this gorgeous look is 100% worth it.

For this manicure, I used 10 different polishes: NARS Zulu, Essie Going Incognito, Zoya Mitzi, Orly Spark, OPI Planks a Lot, China Glaze First Mate, Sally Hansen Pacific Blue, Sally Hansen DVD, Orly Space Cadet, and China Glaze White on White. The description of how I did this is a bit complicated. Basically, there was a lot of sponging involved! For the spiral on my ring finger, I used the very tip of the sponge so I could aim a bit better. If you want a tutorial, let me know and I'll get to work on one. In the meantime, take a look :)

I've never done a tribal print manicure on myself before, so I was a bit worried about taking on today's challenge. With some patience, a dotting tool, and a steady hand, I was able to do a pretty good job of it though! I wanted to do a darker colored tribal print, so I went with gunmetal, black and red.

For the base, I used China Glaze Awaken, a deep gunmetal chrome polish. For the details, I used Sinful Colors Black on Black and Essie Size Matters. Black on Black is amazingly opaque -- it's amazing how sometimes drugstore polish is the best! Essie did a great job with Size Matters as well. It's very shiny and opaque, plus the name makes me giggle. I did a different design on each finger, just kind of making it up as I went along. Take a look!

Alright, I am getting back on schedule with my 30 Day Challenge! Today I am starting back where I left off, at Day 14. The challenge of the day is flowers, and I decided to try some freehand art for it.

My base color is Barielle Tight Knit, a really lovely rosy brown crème. I freehanded the flower petals using a dotting tool and two different pinks. The lighter pink is Essie Lily Pond, and the darker one is Zoya Jolene. First, I tried just dotting the centers with Orly Spark, a nice light yellow. Then I decided I wanted a little more bling, so I added yellow rhinestones in the middle of the flowers instead.

When I saw today's theme was rainbow, I thought right away that it would be a great time to try some freehand nail art. I decided to do a cute little rainbow coming from a cloud. For this freehand art, I used a dotting tool and several nail polish colors. It took quite some time to do, but the outcome was definitely worth it! I think these nails just look so happy and bright!

My 19th birthday is Sunday, and I had family over for a little celebration a few days ago. Because my mom made delicious homemade ice cream cake, I decided to try a little ice cream nail art. This is my first ever attempt at doing freehanded nail art, and I think it turned out pretty well. One of my favorite flavors of ice cream is mint chocolate chip, so that is what I tried to paint.

I used SpaRitual Living in the Moment, a nice creamy taupe color for the base. Then, I added criss-crossed lines in Finger Paints Sketchy Character, a deep brown, to mimic the waffling on a cone. After that dried, I used China Glaze For Audrey to outline the ice cream shape, and China Glaze Re-Fresh Mint for the ice cream itself. After that, I added dots in Sketchy Character to look like chocolate chips. Then, I topped it all with a coat of Seche Vite.