Freehand Triangle Cutouts with Zoya's Aurora!

As I mentioned in my last post, I've been incredibly sick and had a bunch of down time in the last few days. I spent yesterday watching I Heart Huckabees, A Good Old Fashioned Orgy, and The Dark Knight Rises and before/during/after I felt like I was going crazy from being stuck inside. Regardless of my aches and pains I pulled out my polishes and made an attempt at a new design.

I was originally going to do another entry (plaid themed this time) into the December Nail Art Challenge, and was somewhat inspired by one of my favorite new plaid flannel shirts from Urban, but when I painted everything on I was not impressed.

I restarted and grabbed Zoya's Aurora which is another stunning holo color from their Ornate Collection.  I'm also realizing I'm obsessed with Ulta's Concrete Evidence, which I've used before. I did this design free hand with my striping brushes and I really like how it came out. 

This design isn't too hard to recreate - just a bunch of lines and X's. There were a few nails where my X's made the Aurora triangles too small but that was easily remedied with more Aurora and a redux of the X stripe! Also needed for this mani: lots, and lots of patience! 

Happy Polishing :) 

I was busy! :(

Here are a couple manis that I did over the Thanksgiving break and wasn't able to post.

The first is Ulta's Concrete Evidence with Pinata-Yada in a reverse gradient.

While at home, I ended up raiding my Mom's polish collection and found Sally Hansen's Shell We Dance and...a sharpie! Shell we dance is very sheer and I had to do about 5 coats to get it to this color. I also discovered that Mom does not own a fast dry top coat and because I had to do so many coats of this, I spent about 2 hours waiting for my nails to dry :/ But here's the result!

Happy Polishing :)

Is it too early for a Christmas mani?

Autumn and Winter are by far my favorite time of the year. I love being able to bundle up on the couch next to the fire with my hot cocoa and a great book. Reading and nail painting are essentially tied for favorite things to do so don't make me choose! (Maybe I'll do some book reviews on here occasionally...hmm). Anyway! The past few days have finally begun to be gloomy and cold (only took to the end of November!..but that's what you get in California) and driving home after work with the sun already down and all the Christmas lights up really solidified the feeling that it is in fact winter! My favorite! 

I was feeling inspired by the time of year and landed on PRESENTS! Everyone loves to give and/or receive gifts and I've been slowly finding presents to give to friends and family so it seemed fitting. 

I used, YET AGAIN (sorry!) Sephora by OPI's Mr. Right Now because it is my all time favorite red and I am going to have to go buy more soon. My striping accents (you have no idea how many times I checked to make sure that didn't say stripping accents...) are Ulta's Concrete Evidence and a mini Sephora by OPI called Already Famous that came as part of their winter Tinsel Town Collection. 

Here's my Christmas Present-esque look all together. I ended up using striping brushes that I got off of Amazon. They can be found here. 

When I use nail brushes, I like to make sure that I'm working on a flat surface (table, desk, closed laptop with a towel over it?) and have both hands resting on the table so that I eliminate any shakiness. There are a two basic methods to ensure a straight-ish line. The first is to have the brush do the moving while your nail remains stationary. This one can be a little bit tricky if your brush hand isn't as steady. This method might work best for when your dominant hand has the brush. When you're painting your dominant hand (brush in your non-dominant hand), holding the brush stationary and moving your nail beneath the brush removes the battle of creating a straight line with your non-dominant hand. Through all of this, I make sure my hands are resting on the table to eliminate additional movement. 

 Happy Polishing :)