Checkered

I've been wanting to do checkered nails so I chose to do Nicole by OPI's Make a Comet-ment with OPI's Romeo and Joliet

Start with a coloured coat on the bottom and let it dry completely 

If your hands aren't steady enough then you can use tape to make the pattern

First place one tape length-wise

then another across to make a box

now paint in the box with the colour you want to do the other checker

Now take the tape off carefully while the paint is still wet

another way to tape would be to place 2 squares on opposing corners and painting all over

For the second square I chose to free-hand it

and viola

Have fun

OPI Polishes

My beautiful OPI polishes

This amazing person has written down all the OPI polishes and collections they go into (the ones she can find)

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1sb1dCee1s39sIxJvoDtCR4okiHYfswcSZDhbznoNwkA/edit

I like how OPI has wide, flat brushes for easier coverage

OPI Significant Other Color from the Summer 2005 Brights Collection. I love OPI but it cost more than other brands so I only buy OPI for when my mom wants certain nail art. This one I actually found cheap when I took my Grandma nail polish shopping. This is one of my favorite colours! It is a sheer purple but with the right lights and angles you see green shines which is awesome. So it's perfect when you don't want/need a flashy colour. It doesn't streak either. 

OPI says "Shimmery pink lilac with glints of mint"

 OPI Louvre Me Louvre Me Not from the Fall/Winter 2008 Collection de France. This one I got from a friend for my birthday (even though I told him to get me cheaper ones lol). It's a beautiful deep purple.

OPI says " "Exhibit" your sense of style with this royal purple"

OPI- Romeo and Joliet is from the 1997 Fall/Winter Route 66 collection. It is a beautiful burgundy with red and brown highlights. It's a beautiful colour for toes. This is the first time on my fingers and I really like it. I thought it might be too dark but it's not

OPI says "A deep romantic shade of garnet"

OPI Black Shatter from their 2009 Katy Perry Collection. I'm not a giant fan of shatter polishes, but I do like the black. I lucked out and found this bottle for about $6 at my mall. I think that the best colours for them are blacks, whites, silvers and the sort. The part I'm not a fan of is all the colours since I think crackle works best with stark contrast. The OPI brushes are good and bad. Good for the really small nails and the big nails. The big brushes cover the pinky in one go and the thumb in 2 goes but because crackle shouldn't have any overlap the brush is too small for the other fingers but too big for the brush too do 2 good strokes.

OPI-Alpine Snow from their soft shades collection. It's a great thick, white. It gives full coverage after 2 coats. It's streak free and smooth to put on.

OPI says "Fresh, crisp white, perfect for French-look tips"

So as you can see it dries a little streaky. The chrome dries quickly. It is opaque but it is streaky so spots get missed. I love how shiny it is, they look awesome :) But it has very poor wear time.

OPI says "Do whatever it takes to get your hands on this mirrored chrome"

So this is a nice pale colour. A lot of pictures/swatches I have seen show this colour a lot greener. So either I somehow got a really pale one or everyone is using some amazing camera abilities to make it look more green. Either way I enjoy it. It's a soft pale green in darker lighting and in bright lighting it looks like a very pale baby blue.
What OPI says "Green kissed by the summer sun"

This is OPI's Princesses Rule! from their 2006 Princess Charming. It has now been moved to their core collection under Soft Shades. Its a very soft sparkly pink. Shown is 4 or 5 coats. It works great for wanting polish on but not some bright bold colour. My mom can't wear dark polishes at work so she loves this one because it's durable, its girly and its very light. This colour is a staple for any polish collection.

OPI says "A bright sparkly pink that's tiara worthy!"

Ardene Polishes

My Ardene Polishes. 

I have  a few of these since I always used to go there for polishes since the price was pretty good (and I hadn't really discovered the amazingness of Shoppers Drug Mart and their clearance table haha). One problem I have is that their brushes are really thin and round

 Ardene Ballet Shoes. I like this soft pink. The coats are a little streaky at first but a 3rd coat fixes it all.

Ardene Red Sapphire. It's a nice red but it's really thin. Shown is 4 coats. I need to find a nice deep red that doesn't need 50 million coats

Pink Floyd

I grew up listening to Pink Floyd, being that they are my Dad's favorite band. So I made this one just for him.

I was unhappy with the colours I chose. I thought that they would be good but when I did it the rainbow didn't work with itself :( If I did it again I would have to go colour shopping and play with the colours before I did my nails. Overall I am very pleased with how it turned out. It also got great reception :) I am (sadly) not ambidextrous so I didn't dare try doing it on my right hand instead I wrote Dark Side of the Moon on my nails using a nail art pen :)

Now I need to do Another Brick in the Wall nails

Sephora

Sephora

This is Sephora's beautiful Get Revenge. It's an amazing pinkish red, beautiful shine and opaque.
My mom went to France last summer as a leader with a youth retreat.
After the retreat in Taizé they went to Paris for a few days. Of course the girls dragged the leaders into the largest Sephora in the world. Of course all she gets for herself and me is 3 small bottles of beautiful polish and 2 nail files...Haha. But of course Sephora can be costly.

Pokeball Nails ^__^

So I saw this on a friend's nails and I really wanted to do them since I am going through a very large pokemon phase right now. So pokeball nails...

Start with a white after your base coat.

Using a dotting tool, tape, striping polish and/or a small paint brush colour the top half of your nail red 

Once that is dry using a striping brush or a small paint brush draw a black stripe on the red and white border. The easiest way to make the line straight and uniform is to hold the brush still as you roll your finger

After in the center add a largeish black dot can use a dotting tool, or whatever you like (dotting tool, straight pin on an eraser, tooth pick, bobby pin, pencil...)

once dry add a smaller white dot

And you are done! :)

Water Marbling

So like everywhere on youtube there is water marbling I just had to try it. I tried 2 different times.

This is my second try

 So what you are supposed to do is start with a base coat.

 What I have seen is the colours turn out better if you use a white first

 Next is to wrap the finger in tape to lessen the mess

 

 These are the colours I used

The trick is to do it as fast as possible and if that isn't working as well then make sure you get some slow drying polishes to help. 

 So use as many drops as you want in each ring of colour as well as use as many colours as you want. 

 taking a toothpick, orange stick, sharp pencil or anything else with a point. Drag it through the polish without touching the very outer edge. Create whatever design you want, strips, flowers, anything.

 When you have the desired pattern dip the taped nail into the part you want.

 While leaving the finger in. Let the polish dry a bit (like 30 seconds) and clean it up with a toothpick, q-tip etc. If you try to take out the finger before cleaning up the polish then they stuff on the water could ruin your design.

 Take off the tape

 Repeat on each nail

This is my first try

 So the first nail I did worked out not too bad except there was a bubble on it... :P

 My second nail not too bad either but it went all smudgy.

 I tried 3 nails at once, but I let it dry too long on the water and I put it in with my fingers too close so the polish was all tacky and stuck in clumps to the tape and my fingers :P

Good luck