As Seen on Pinterest: Geometric Lines

 Arden: Hey everyone!  Here's another installment in my As Seen on Pinterest series!

First, the inspiration:

from: http://media-cache-ec0.pinimg.com/originals/ae/3a/77/ae3a7799bae0cdc8040a0f62c9c79c13.jpg

Those are pretty cool, right?  I saw them and had to try them out!

I started with a base of two coats of Julep Bunny.  (Let's be honest, I did this manicure right after I swatched Bunny, and that's why I used it!)

I followed the tutorial above.  I first added the top left section of black lines using our black Color Club striper polish.  Then I did the top right section using Julep Eden (I told you I'd already used it in a bunch of manicures!) and a striper brush from our MASH nail brush kit. 

Up until this point, things were going pretty well.  I was thinking, "These nails look awesome!  I am doing such a great job of making good-lucking, straight lines."

Then the wheels came off the wagon a little bit.  The third section I painted on was the teal quadrant, using L'Oreal Not a Cloud in Sight.  I don't know if it was just a problem with this polish, or if I was getting tired, or if I was just fated to stop making good lines, but this was a little bit of a problem.  It seemed like NONE of the lines were straight-- they all came across thick and goopy.  Alas.  I finished by adding the final black section, but by then I was a little demoralized and so those lines weren't very crisp either.

Now that I can look back with more perspective, I think as a whole these look pretty ok.  They're not the best (and certainly not as well-done as the original post from Pinterest) but I think as a whole they look pretty cool.

I'm going to have to try them again sometime and see if I can do better!

As Seen on Pinterest: Nautical Nails

Arden: We haven't done one of these in a while!  I guess I've been getting my nail inspiration from places other than Pinterest.  Today I recreated this design, which I pinned many moons ago:

from http://thebeautydepartment.com/2012/01/mani-monday/

I didn't have any of those straight across manicure strips to make the white lines with, so I decided to just use regular Scotch tape.  This did NOT work as well as I thought.  It was a major struggle to cut the tape narrow enough to fit a couple of white stripes on my nails without it being too narrow or crooked.

I started my painting my nails with two coats of OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls.  After it dried, I applied the tape and painted on a thick coat of Chanel Blue Satin.  (In retrospect, I should've chosen a different navy blue-- that one looked practically black, even over the white.)  And then I finished up by drawing on tiny hearts with our Color Club red striper polish.

This manicure really wasn't executed well.  The navy polish bled onto the white really badly (you can tell on my ring finger where I had to cover it up with white polish) and in these close up pictures it's pretty obvious none of the stripes are straight.

Oh well, you live, you learn.  Chalk this one up as a "manicure I'll never do again and would advise you not to try either!"

As Seen on Pinterest: Stippling Gradient Nails

Arden: Hi everyone!  Greetings from Florida!  Today I'm sharing a manicure I did a few weeks ago.  I kept running across this style of dotted nails again and again on Pinterest, so I finally decided to try it.  Here's a picture of the original, from Quite Polished:

Super pretty, right?  Apparently, this technique is called a "stippling gradient."  Who knew?  (Until I actually read the post on Quite Polished, I was calling them "scatter plot nails.")

I started by painting my nails with two coats of a white, black, and grey polish. 

Colors used:
OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls
Milani Black Magic
Maybelline Color Show Impeccable Greys

As Seen on Pinterest: Fish Scale and/or Mermaid Nails

Arden here: Today I tried something I've seen a couple of times on Pinterest, a nail design that looks like fish or mermaid scales.  This is one of the favorite ones I've seen:

from http://little-nails.blogspot.com.au/2012/07/picture-polish-blog-fest-2012-pshiiit.html?m=1

I decided I'd try to model my fish scale nails after the most famous literary fish scales of them all-- yes, that's right, I'm talking about The Rainbow Fish.

I started by applying on two coats of Maybelline Color Show Shocking Seas. 

Then I took A BUNCH of colors and dotted on colorful scales!

As Seen on Pinterest: Criss-Cross Taping Pattern

Arden here:  I've got a quick "As Seen on Pinterest" for you today!  I saw this design on Pinterest last week, and knew I just had to try it!

from http://pinnailart.com/note/5602#.UWDQckQsIeN, but I don't think that's it's original home.  If you find it, let me know!  I want to give proper attribution.

I chose to use Butter London Fiddlesticks and Zoya Storm.  I started with a base coat, then two coats of Fiddlesticks (except for my accent nail, which was Storm).

As Seen on Pinterest: Stained Glass Nails

Arden: For today's "As Seen on Pinterest," we're taking a step away from the nail art oeuvre and finding inspiration elsewhere on Pinterest!

I was talking with my mom last week about possible crafts she could make with her friends at a future crafting night, and I rediscovered this painting I'd pinned a while ago:

from http://mariateorien.blogspot.dk/2012/06/tape-painting.html

I looked at it and realized it'd be pretty easy to duplicate on my nails!  I started by painting them with 2 coats of Essie Good as Gold.  Then I used striping tape to tape off geometric shapes.

As Seen on Pinterest: Decorative Squares

Ok, so this idea is kind of pseudo-seen on Pinterest.  I was initially going to try out this design that I'd pinned a few months ago:

from coewlesspolish.wordpress.com

But then, I clicked on the pin, and noticed this design in the header of the Coewless Polish blog, and decided I just had to try it out instead!

from http://coewlesspolish.wordpress.com/2013/03/03/notd-retro-squares-feat-fnug-neglelakker/

I started by painting my nails with two coats of OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls.  (As you can tell, this is my new go-to white polish.  I've been disappointed with Essie's Blanco for quite some time and just picked up My Boyfriend Scales Walls at 40% off.  So far, I've found it to be much more durable than the Essie!)

As Seen on Pinterest: Reverse Dot Manicure

Welcome to the first post in our recurring feature: "As Seen on Pinterest!"  Today, I've got a nail art design that I've been admiring on Pinterest for quite some time.

This design was originally blogged by Emerald Sparkled.  Here's her picture, that I stumbled upon on Pinterest:

from http://www.emeraldsparkled.com/2010/10/notd-bubblegum.html

I don't own that many pink polishes (for some reason, pink nail polish just never seems like it looks good on my nails), so I decided to do mine in shades of orange!