NOTD Mar 5/13 - round-studded ruffian with Cinderella

A while back I finally picked up the much hyped Sinful Colors Cinderella, but I hadn't found a chance to use it in a manicure yet! I finally sat down the other night and had no firm ideas for what to paint on my nails, but I knew I wanted to incorporate Cinderella finally!

I started with a coat of Nicole by OPI in "Baby" Blue as underwear, then painted on a coat of Sinful Colors in Cinderella. Then I looked all around my nail painting station (grandiose euphemism for the top of my Helmer drawers) for inspiration, and saw my flat round studs! Then the inspiration came easy - a ruffian made of the studs. A few minutes later I was in business and pretty darn pleased about how the spur of the moment mani turned out! I would definitely try this out again with other colours. I think it's a great way to showcase a nail polish that has a cool and unique colour or finish without covering it up with nail art, but still incorporating some "extra" details.

Unfortunately slightly cloudy photographing conditions didn't do an awesome job of showing the pink micro-flakies in this polish, but trust me, it looks even more awesome in real life!

NOTD Jan 17/13 - Mr.Bubble gradient ruffian

Sometimes you just sit down to paint your nails with no real idea what you're going to do. You just look at your polishes til something jumps out at you and then you go with it.

When I did these nails, Lush Lacquer's Mr.Bubble screamed out at me for some more love - it's such an awesome polish but I've only worn it once. I decided to layer it over white polish (which I'm realizing is my manicure base colour of choice) in a cuticle gradient. But once I did it it just didn't seem like quite enough. There didn't seem to be enough of a fade from cuticle to tips, so it looked like I just painted half my nails with glitter. Not the effect I wanted. So to give the cuticle area more impact I painted on a stripe of Essence Ultimate Pink and turned it into a ruffian.

It was only after I'd finished that I had the thought that someone seeing my hands from a distance might think I had some horrible cuticle infection because of the bright pink colour! LOL But I had lots of compliments at work so I guess that wasn't the first thing people thought when they saw them!

I think these turned out pretty cool and unique looking, I don't think I've ever really seen a manicure like this one!

NOTD Oct 17/11

This started as a simple Halloween themed ruffian manicure, but I felt like it needed something more! So I added some little dots and love how it looks now. An 11 year old girl saw them on me at work yesterday and loved them. :D