Pastel Saran Wrap Glitter Accent Concoction

* Check out my guest post on Refined & Polished yesterday, where I talk about how replicate the saran wrap nail technique. 

I have some secondary birthday nails from last week to show you. I was really proud of these nails! I wore these when I went out to lunch with some of my blogger friends for my b-day.

I started out using Julie G 9 to 5 as my base. I then topped that off using saran wrap technique with China Glaze Tart-y for the Party. I finished it with an accent of Sally Hansen Gems Big Money.

I am in LOVE with this, and really impressed with myself! I love the color combination and the glitter accent. Big Money was perfect balance because the lavender glitters mixed in with the gold match up to the lavender in China Glaze Tart-y for the Party. I think I did good considering nail art isn't my strong suit.

I'm making the most out of this mani. I've had it on since Saturday night and it's still holding strong! I don't want it to chip. This is probably one of my favorite nail looks I've ever done for myself!

What is one of your favorite nail art creations? 

Happy Wednesday!

Dark Blue & Gold Glitter Gradient

I attempted nail art again. Well, my idea of nail art. I didn't paint Raphael's School of Athens on my nails, so don't get too excited! My nail art skills are limited, but I've become somewhat comfortable with three techniques--glitter gradient, saran wrap nails, and water marble. I did these nails a few days ago, and I really like them. Blue and gold is my favorite color combination too.

I used L.A. Girl Disco Brites in Dance Studio as the base. Dance Studio is a deep berry blue. Then I used NYX Girls Gilded Glitter for the gradient. Gilded Glitter is a mix of irregularly shaped small gold glitters. 

This was my result.

I'm really pleased with this! It's not a perfect glitter gradient, but my blog is Imperfectly Painted, so I don't care. I'm proud of it, and I like when I try something different! I used Nailed It blog's tutorial to achieve this look. I love tutorials like this because they're easy to read and all in one graphic. 

Have you tried glitter gradient nails before? 

Happy Tuesday! 

Guest Post: ECKlipsed by Color- Takko Lacquer's We're All Mad Here & Glittergasm

Today's post is brought to you by ECKlipsed by Color. Elena's blog is fairly new to me, but she has some awesome nail art! Thank you for doing a guest for me Elena!

Hello lovelies, I'm Elena from ECKlipsed by Color. First and foremost, a big thanks to Stephanie for letting me guest post for her! Being that Imperfectly Painted is a Florida beauty blog (and I am a part-time Central Floridian), I wanted to share some nail polish originating from Florida. Takko Lacquer is an exquisite and artisanal indie brand created by the lovely Sheryl. They are eco-friendly, carefully handcrafted, and thoughtfully created. Each shade is truly an experience, with a name and pigment selection that makes an impact on the viewer.

I am featuring two colors from Takko with my mani, We're All Mad Here and Glittergasm. We're All Mad Here is from Sheryl's Holiday Collection. It is a tribute to the eccentrically fabulous, Mad Hatter from Alice In Wonderland. The polish is an indigo cream-jelly, with iridescent jade green flakes and luscious orange microglitter. Love at first sight. Glittergasm is from the brand-new Spring Collection. It is a captivating multi-glitter (hexes, stars, circles, holos, opaques, translucent, and squares). This shade is predominately fuchsia and hot pink. I think the name says it all...

My mani encompassed a few trends. I started with a base of Julep's Rebel- a stunning silver holographic. On my pinky, ring, and middle fingers, I rocked the border manicure trend as made famous by Chanel and Tracy Reese at NYFW. Then I did accent nails on my index finger and thumb with a combination of all three lacquers. I couldn't resist free handing a heart to show my love of this brand- it's truly addictive!

I hope you all enjoyed this mani as much as I did! Definitely go on and check out Takko Lacquers, you will be amazed... Takko Lacquer is available at Etsy and Mei Mei's Signatures.

As always... color me obsessed,
Elena

Thanks Elena!

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Guest Post: Haute Lacquer's Clean Nail Art

Today I have a guest post from the lovely Shaina from Haute Lacquer! I absolutely love Shaina's nail art! She's very talented! I'm sure you all know that because I've shared quite of few of her posts on Sundays. Thank you so much Shaina for doing a guest post for me! 

Hello lovely readers! I'm Shaina from Haute Lacquer and I am more than excited to be posting for Imperfectly Painted! I've gotten to know Stephanie through Facebook and Twitter, but only after becoming a big fan of her blog. So of course I was psyched to have my own little space on her blog!

 The design I'm sharing with you all today is one that I find very "clean". I don't exactly know what I mean when I say that. Basically it's simple without being boring and fun without being over the top! You know?

For this manicure I started off with a jelly sandwich of Sation 3 Free-dom / OPI Spark De Triomphe / another coat of Sation 3 Free-dom. After allowing that to dry I created a large middle stripe with the beautiful Zoya Kelly and a nail art brush. I lined that stripe with black acrylic paint and also created the diagonal stripes with the same black. I finished this manicure off with a shiny top coat.

Thanks for reading and thank you Stephanie for having me! I hope you all liked this design. Feel free to check out my blog, Haute Lacquer, if you want to see more of my nail art!

Thanks Shaina!

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Guest Post: Lacquered Latina's Neon Nail Art

Hey everyone! Today, I have guest post from Elizabeth from The Lacquered Latina. Thank you Elizabeth for volunteering to guest post for me!


Hello Lovely Ladies!

So I wanted some cool nail art with my bright neons. As I am sitting at my table staring and staring and I could not think of anything. I went on YouTube and watched a cool tutorial by cutepolish tried it and failed.

Finally I painted my nails white thinking I was just going to add triangles using Scotch Tape. A few days before I was putting nail polish on tape to add color to my phone... Then I thought it would be the perfect way to add stripes.

Make sure your base color has completely dried before you start!

I add 3 different colored stripes to the tape. When your are painting the stripes leave a tiny bit of room in between the polish so if you mess up while cutting you don't have to start again. I did this 10 times and let them dry almost completely.

Once they were dry I cut them in different sizes using tweezers I placed them on my nails, using the tweezers make sure you get the edges down completely. The way I made sure of this was by the tweezers on the edge and pressing down and giving it a few moments to make sure it stuck. Wait a few second and then clear coated the crap out of the suckers! I am more than very pleased with these and already have soooo many ideas and combinations! if you recreate this or have done it yourself I'd love to see it, on twitter or instagram use #lacqueredlatinastripes

Stay Sparkly My Friend!

Thanks Elizabeth!

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Guest Post: Dees Polish Endeavors Tortoiseshell Nails

Today, I have a post by Dee over at Dees Polish Endeavors! She's been blogging since 2009! She's one of the first blogs I remember following when I got into nail polish. Thank you for the post Dee!

Hey everyone!

I'm extremely excited to be a guest blogger here at Imperfectly Painted - if my memory serves me correctly (and it fails me on many occasions) this is my first official go at writing a guest blog.. I hope I don't fail miserably! Cross your fingers for me.

When I said I'd be interested in doing a guest post for Stephanie, I knew I had a special trio of polish on its way over to me - and I also knew that if they made it to me in time, I'd be doing the tortoiseshell nails ala ChalkboardNails. Judging by the title of this post, the polish trio showed up.. and I went with my original idea.

I know, not as good as the original - but, I have to tell you all.. I love these nails! I think my next go round with them, I will have more activity and layering going on. I mean, there is a wealth already, but I feel like more would be a genius way to go about this.

I was able to get my mitts on the polish trio she used, which is created by Elevation Polish. The polish are: Temperance, Cascade, and Tettegouche. They are all jelly formulas, and they are all fantastic!

I can imagine that if any of you happened to nab these gems when they came up for sale - your plan, like mine, is to use them to recreate that particular manicure. My one word of advice: DO IT! It isn't very complicated, and it looks amazing! Even if you don't have these particular colours, you could do something similar with jelly polish - ooh, like a colourful tortoiseshell print! Could you imagine? I can. I like!

Thanks for having me Stephanie, it was an absolute pleasure - and to all of you - thank you for stopping by! Take care until next time..

Thanks Dee!

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Spontaneous Saturday: Pretty Little Bottles Guest Post

Hello! Today, I have a post from one of my friends Alyssa. She's a blogger here in Central Florida, and we've become great friends! Her blog is Pretty Little Bottles. She has an awesome blog with great nail art and tutorials! 

Hey Everyone!

 

Steph asked me a few days ago if I'd like to do a guest post for her and, of course, I jumped at the opportunity! I decided to come up with some simple, yet awesome, nail art to show you guys!

 

Around the same time that Steph asked me about the post, I had just recieved my Ninja Polish purchase which included the coveted Floam! I instantly felt inspired and decided that my mani would have to somehow include Floam!

 

Here's what I came up with:

 

 

Polishes used:

China Glaze Splish Splash (blue)

China Glaze I'm With the Lifeguard (green)

China Glaze Sun-Kissed (yellow)

Nail Venturous Floam

 

How I achieved this look:

 

Thumb & Ring finger: I first applied one coat of I'm With the Lifeguard and then two coats of Floam

 

Index Finger: To avoid having to paint lots of coats, I did one coat of a plain white creme first and then did two coats of Splish Splash

 

Pinky: One coat of plain white creme and then two coats of Sun-Kissed

 

Middle Finger: In order to achieve the chevron look, I used striping tape to tape off the sections of the nail in the design I wanted. I started at the cuticle of the nail and painted the green on my entire nail, minus the part that was taped off (just one coat) and peeled the tape off before it dried. I continued going down the nail with each color! It was so simple and the striping tape gave me nice, clean lines!

 

I hope you all have enjoyed the nail art that I've done for you guys today! Thanks for reading! And, again, thanks Steph for asking me to do a post for your wonderful blog! :)

Thank you Alyssa for doing such a great guest post for me!

Happy Saturday!

Guest Post: Glitta Gloves-Ocean Manicure

Hello lacquered lovelies! I'm so excited to be doing a guest post for Stephanie, I've been reading her blog for a while now and I have a nail crush on her. Which isn't weird at all... anyway! Since Stephanie is going on a cruise, I wanted to go with a sort of ocean-inspired mani using one of my new BM plates!

I started out with three coats of China Glaze Cyberspace, a colour that always reminds me of sand in the bottle. It's from the Tronica collection and it's not a linear holo, but it's pretty nonetheless. Sadly, I couldn't get good light when I was starting this after work, but this is what it looks like most of the time.

Next, I stamped a full nail image from BM-215, which kind of looks like seashells to me. I used Konad white special polish. Then I added some glitter, of course! I used Color Club Sultry, LA Colors Color Craze Goddess and Sephora by OPI Only Gold For Me. Goddess has these circular holographic bits of glitter in it, which isn't much like real sand at all, but who can ever say no to sparkles?

And super macro so you can see the details...

And that's it! Really simple but I like how this came out. I don't often just sit and play around with polishes but I kept looking at that shell image and thinking I should try something with it! I think this would look cool with a gradient base too, different sandy browns, maybe something with some silver shimmer thrown in to look like real sand? I wish I knew of a polish like that! Do you?

What do you lovelies think? Do you like "theme" manis? Have you gotten the new BM plates? I love them, they've improved so much between the last set and this set. The images are larger and sharper and they're still so affordable and a great alternative to Konad plates!

Thank you, Stephanie, for letting me do this! I hope you have an awesome time on your cruise, sugar! And thank you all for reading! Have a beautiful day!

You can find more excellent post by Glitta Gloves on her blog!

July 4th Franken Mani

Happy July 4th out there to my USA friends!

I want to thank you all for your kind comments yesterday regarding my tooth. This weekend has turned out to be pretty awful. There have been some other family things go on this weekend that made things more difficult. Between that and my tooth stuff this weekend has been pretty well....crappy. Bleh. I don't mean to be a downer really, but I can't pretend to be all happy and cheerful when that isn't really how I'm feeling. Everything will be fine though just stressful. No worries :D Nail polish cheers me up.

Anyways here is my July 4th Franken Mani!

I used my red holographic glitter franken called "Firecracker" (1/2 bottle of Pure Ice Siren & 1/2 a bottle of CoverGirl City Lights), my Essie Starry Starry Night franken, China Glaze Sexagon, & Nailene stickers.

It's a bit messy, but oh well. I'm not the greatest at nail art! :P

I used to LOVE 4th of July. It was my favorite holiday. Our family had friends growing up who always threw a great 4th of July party. They always had TONS of awesome toys they gave out to the kids, fireworks, and a great pool to swim in. It was tons of fun. I think that is the only reason it was my favorite holiday was because of those parties! Those people eventually stopped throwing those parties which really bummed me out big time! I guess they ran out of money to buy all those cool toys? Oh well! :P

Happy 4th of July!

Baseball Mani for Father's Day!!!

Hello there! I want to wish everyone's fathers/grandfathers/husbands with kids out there a Happy Father's Day!

I'm pretty sure not many fathers or males for that fact read this blog, but I know my Dad does. I've mentioned him a few times before, he has no interest in nail polish, but I know he reads my blog because he knows how important and special it is to me. I can't express enough the appreciation and admiration I have for my Dad. He has supported me in all my successes, failures, and everything in between. I can always count on him to be my #1 fan and biggest support. I only wish we didn't live over 1000 miles apart, because I miss him so much!

In honor of my Dad on Father's Day I did a special fun manicure for him. My Dad is a HUGE baseball fan. He loves the Atlanta Braves. They are his team since he was born and raised in Atlanta,GA. He loves the Braves I'd say more than I love nail polish and for WAY longer. I decided to do a little Atlanta Braves funky french manicure for him today. I'm not great with nail art, but I tried!


I used dark blue, red, and white their team colors for the manicure. The "A" is a little wonky, but for the most part I like it. It's very team spirited!

Here is what I used...
L-R: Sally Hansen White Nail Art Pen, Orly La Playa, Pure Ice Siren, China Glaze Ruby Pumps, & Nailene French Polish Guides


That's all for today!

Those of you who are celebrating Father's Day dd you get anything special or are you doing anything special for your dad today?

Happy Father's Day!