entry to Kayla Shevonne's nail art contest!

so Kayla Shevonne is hosting a nail art contest inspired by indie polish! i have a drawer full of specifically indie polish, so this was a fun one to figure out.
i decided on using my favorite indie of all time, and two of my newest additions!

for this mani i used my first Gloss n Sparkle polishes in Passion Pop and Cookie Dough. for the base on my art nails i used Lime Crime Milky Ways which is my favorite indie AND my favorite polish of all time in general. i'm on my third bottle of it. it's great.

the point of this contest is to make the indies the star. so for one, i wanted to use entirely indies (with the outlining being the only exception), and two, i wanted to do art inspired by their names! so because passion pop is a bright coral with lots of assorted hex glitter, i created lollipops. and with cookie dough (which is a perfect representation featuring a light brown base with dark brown hex glitters) i created cookies!

i hope this lives up to Kayla's expectations of her theme. i am an indie polish fan forever, and will buy them till people stop making them! (which i hope is never)

if you'd like to enter her contest you can click here!

design re-do & contest entry!

since my first attempt of the "grown up flower" design by mr candiipants did not work too well, i tried it again! and this time was a definite success!

this was also another contest entry in instagram and it was pastel themed. i love pastels, so i pretty much drooled over these until they chipped into nothing.

how cute are these, seriously. also, i am obviously obsessed with Lime Crime and need and intervention. spring is coming and they are bright pastels... so i'm pretty much going to be using them all up. i used Lavendairy for the base and a pink nail art pen for the flowers.

don't really know where my pinky is going in this picture. i also love the stud accents. studs everywhere, all the time, every day. i love them completely.

i have seen lots of recreations of the design online, have any of you taken a shot at it? i'd love to see!
ps. follow me on instagram @ninelions for up to date photos of all the crazy contests i've been entering.

flower pattern that started out cute...

but then got all dragged and blah thanks to a goopy topcoat. i should know better! oh well.

these nails were inspired by mr candiipants. she's great at coming up with cool pattern mixes and color combos. when i saw her tutorial for a "grown up flower print" i had to try it out.

so as you can see, there's some nice red streaks on my pointer finger and some major dragging on my middle finger, but isn't it dang cute!? i put my own twist on the design with some vine-like accents. the flowers were actually easy breezy to create if you have the patience.

i used Lime Crime Milky Ways as my base & some nail art pens for the design.

has dragging ever ruined one of your cool manis? lesson learned, stop trying to use your goopy old top coat to the last drop.

leopard print instagram contest nails!

lately i've been entering in lots of contest on instagram. hundreds of nail art ladies enter these contests and so far i haven't been a winner, but hopefully i will be one day!

in entered these nails in @kellytattoo's blue themed contest! blue is a pretty wide theme so i thought how could i do something funky & fun but simple at the same time?

i started with an extremely messy gradient (haha) because i knew i would cover it up with something. the colors used were Lime Crime Milky Ways, Lime Crime Once In A Blue Mousse and Julep Daphne.

 

then i did some classic leopard print! i used Once In A Blue Mousse for the spots and my trusty black nail art pen for the outlines. then i highlighted and added some accents with white and a blue color. fun fun fun!

have any of you entered an instagram contest before? i love it because i'm gonna put the picture up anyway, why not take an extra picture with a note and enter it for a chance to win some goodies?

since i am wildly inconsistent when it comes to posting here, you can follow me on instagram @ninelions where i post lots of photos of my nails and other random stuff!

robin eggs nails!

i have had this design on my list for a while, so i'm excited to show you guys!
let's get right to it.

i just had Lime Crime Once In A Blue Mousse sitting out and i was thinking, hmm, that looks like a robins egg! this is 2 coats and then just some scattered dots to make the speckled effect! i started with a dotting tool and Julep Otte to make faded looking dots, then did some dark ones with a nail art pen.

these nails make me super happy. i love the idea so much, and it was beyond easy to execute. everyone with a tiffany/robin's blue polish should try this design out!
super excited to show these babies off!

Neon Dot Stripes!

Sorry it's been so long! Suddenly work got crazy because 1, we had a black friday sale, and 2, before Christmas everyone wants their hair done. Regardless I am back and even though I haven't had time to post, I've built up lots of goodies to show you.

Today I'm gonna show you what wonders a dotting tool can create! With my Lime Crime babies (my new favorites) I did some fabulous mix n match dot stripes!

The colors I used were Lime Crime Once In A Blue Mousse, Lime Crime Pastelchio, Lime Lavendairy and a generic black creme. I think the funnest part of this manicure is the different sized dots in each stripe.

Something so simple can look so complicated and funky! Can't wait to try this in all sorts of different colors.

Lime Crime polishes can be purchased on Harlow & Co for $8.50 a bottle.

Halloween Themed Nails! - Bloody Drips

Did everyone have a good Halloween!? I went out last weekend and yesterday I took on my yearly duty of handing out candy. Always a good time!

Yesterday I sported a Halloween manicure to have my fingers participate in the holiday! I didn't do any jack-o-lanterns or frankensteins, but I did do something gruesome & spooky!

My nails are dripping blood! I called these my murderer nails! I wanted to do something fun like this because I couldn't really do a costume related manicure (I was a flapper).

This manicure was created with 3 coats of Lime Crime Milky Ways for the base & Joe Fresh Wine for the drippies. Wine is the perfect blood color, because it's a jelly. So it almost gave my drips a clot look but leaving darker areas. Really awesome!

This is also my first post featuring my camera in it's proper photo-taking glory! I made a lightbox to take my photos in (following this tutorial by Sarah from Chalkboard Nails!). Don't they look so much better! I'm so pleased.

Hope you all enjoyed your Halloween!

Dripping Stripes, Funky Mani!

So I'm still playing with my new striping polishes, and I wanted to do something simple and easy!

This mani literally took me 20 minutes. Super easy for even the newest nail art addict to create! I would love to see if you guys recreated it. I can only imagine the color possibilities.

I am also still on a kick with my new Lime Crime polishes!

I started with 2 coats of Lime Crime Once In A Blue Mousse and went crazy from there, starting with the white stripes and adding more and more colors.

It's really nice & easy because the stripes are meant to be messy, almost like they're dripping. So you can be fast and not worry about them being straight and even.

I think this mani would be so fun with contrasting colors, like pink & green even! I love simple stuff that just turns out so nice & funky!

Nautical Nails!

So i just got a big old box full of new nail art stripers in the mail and I wanted to use them for something fancy, since I've been on more of an artsy kick lately.

I love nautical things, especially pin-up inspired nautical. I was a pin-up sailor for Halloween one year and painted my nails similar to this for my costume!

This mani was a fun opportunity for me to try out my new striper/pens! I bought a set of 30, and they send you random colors. I was lucky enough to get a white & a black which never happens, so I was pretty excited.

The colors used in this mani were Lime Crime Milky Ways, China Glaze First Mate & Zoya Maura. I also used Dollish Polish Toad-ally Awesome on my pointer as a glitter topper! I'll have to do a full mani using this, I love it!

The rest of the art was done using my nail art pens from eBay! They are extremely affordable and easy to use. You can purchase them from this eBay seller (where I purchased mine) for only like $20!

I've been feeling so inspired lately, hope it doesn't die off! Maybe I could finish the rest of the challenge!

Nail Art Inspired By A Polish Box!

So after swatching all of my new Lime Crimes, I wanted to do some funky art! I was looking around for inspiration and I spotted one of my polish boxes.

So hey, why not! Here is some art over Lime Crime Milky Ways.

Here's a shot of my nails over the box, so you can see the design. A cute black & white flower box. I think this is from Ikea or something, but it's one of my many boxes I keep polish in (I need a better storage system)

And here are the close-ups! As you can see I have a better handle on my camera now. I chose different flower designs on the box to create on my nails and this is what I came up with! Pretty neat, huh?

I like my thumb the best! I thought this was a fun way to keep the color from yesterday on my nails, but do something fun with it! I used an eBay nail art pen to do the designs.

Inspiration from the things around you can definitely create some of the best manis!

Lime Crime Les Desserts D'Antoinette Swatch & Review - Part 2!

Here are the last 3 polishes from the "Les Desserts D'Antoinette" collection! Yesterday I started with the warmer colors and now here are the cooler colors. I was most excited to check these last 3 out.

Excuse the blurry photos again, still getting used to my new camera. This is Lime Crime Once In A Blue Mousse. This is almost an exact dupe for China Glaze For Audrey, so it you have For Audrey, you probably don't need this. It is beautiful though. A pastel tiffany blue that applies nicely in 2 coats.

This is another favorite of mine from the collection! Lime Crime Lavendairy is a pastel lilac polish that also covers beautifully in 2 coats. Close to OPI Do You Lilac It? but a little brighter.  I love pastel purples so this is one I'll be happy to add to my collection.

And last but not least, my favorite out of the whole collection! Lime Crime Milky Ways is a light cream polish. You could also call it ivory. This is 3 coats, which I found was necessary for full opacity. But I'm not complaining! It's not chalky, which is hard to come by when searching for white or off-white polishes. Very nice!

I saved Milky Ways for last, so I could do some funky nail art on this color! I will post that tomorrow!

Again, you can purchase Lime Crime on Harlow & Co for all you Canadian ladies, and check out Lime Crime's site for American shipping and their other cosmetics!

Lime Crime Les Desserts D'Antoinette Swatches & Review!

As soon as I saw Lime Crime's polishes I just had to have them. I love pastels and these are almost like neon pastels. Right up my alley!

I will post swatches of half the collection today!

The collection was inspired by "confectionary delights from Marie Antoinette's table." Lime Crime promises the polishes to be opaque in 2 coats, being intensely pigmented. The bottles also come with a wide brush for control.

Here's a photo of the "Les Desserts d'Antoinette" collection on my messy nail table. It consists of 7 pastel polishes; pink, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple & cream. The cream color caught my eye first. I love me some off-white.

Excuse the blurry photos. I'm just getting used to my new camera and for some reason decided to take these in my dark basement. This is 2 coats Lime Crime Parfait Day. It's a pastel baby pink creme that applies really nicely. The formula on this one was great.

This is 3 coats of Lime Crime Peaches & Cream. It is a pastel orange with almost a neon quality to it. I decided to use 3 coats with this one to cover a little bit of streakiness. Since I paint fairly thin coats, you could probably get away with 2 thicker ones.

The brightest of the bunch! This is Lime Crime Creme De Limon. I used 3 coats for this one as well. It's a bright lemon color, not as much pastel as the other colors. It's also a little chalkier than the rest, which is also a fear I have with pastel shades.

And the last for today, Lime Crime Pastelchio (What a cute name!). This is 2 coats of the pastel green polish. This one also has a neon quality to it. It is definitely reminiscent of a pistachio. This is one of my favorites! I'm a sucker for greens.

I have the last 3 polishes to show you tomorrow! This collection was well worth buying. I purchased it off of Harlow & Co (for all my Canadian followers!), but Lime Crime's site also offers shipping to the States.
Lime Crime also offers other cosmetics! Check them out!