Casa de Polish Returns!

Arden: Hey everyone!  We're back!  Sorry for our long absence, but we're hoping to post regularly again now (in a little more simplified form).  Just so you know, even when we aren't updating the blog, we're always posting our manicures on our individual Instagram accounts, so you should follow us:

Arden: @arden_elise
Lisl: @slisl

Here are some of the manicures I've done recently:

Glitter sandwich using Julep Soraphine & Autumn, with dots of Julep Myriam, Majorie, Karen, & Helen.

Striping tape nails with Julep Roc Solid and Diamond Theory for St. Patrick's Day.

Neon dotted nails using Color Club Double Dare and Love Letter.

 Rainbow nails with a twist: sponged on a rainbow gradient, applied striping tape, painted over nails with black, and then removed the tape!  (Used wayyyy too many colors to list.)

Passion fruit tips with Julep Paige and Veronica.  (P.S. Veronica is an amaaazing color for spring!)

More dots using Julep Diana and Bette.  (I just keep being drawn to dots this spring!)

Bright sponged on colorful nails (again, too many colors to list!)

Blue sparkly chevrons with Julep Joanna, Tracy, & Jordan.  (P.S. Julep reposted these nails in a blog post about spring manis-- check it out here.  How cool is that?)

All right, that's it for now.  Will post again soon!

Ladybug Nail Tutorial

Arden: Hey everyone! Today's prompt in the 33 Day Challenge is to follow someone else's tutorial.  I chose to create these cute ladybug nails, following a tutorial from the blog Swatch and Learn.

And since I haven't done one of these in a while, I decided to create my own step by step tutorial as well!

I started by painting my nails with a base coat, then two coats of Julep Jackie (aka the best red polish ever).

As you can tell in the photo, I didn't get full coverage from two coats, but knew I was about to paint the tips black so I figured it would be fine.

After that, it was really easy.

1. Paint a black line with a striper brush to help mark the face of the ladybug.

2. Fill in the tip with a black polish (I used Sally Hansen Black Out).

3. Paint another black line down the center of your nail.

4. Add black dots on either side of the line using a dotting tool.

5. Add white dots at the tip using a dotting tool.

6. Add small black dots on top of the white to finish the eyes.  (This wasn't in the original tutorial, I just thought it would make the eyes cuter.)

Here's the finished product:

I love these little guys!  They're so cute!  And for a 100% freehanded design, these were pretty quick and easy!  Definitely a good manicure design for a beginner to try.

Let me know how you like them, and check out everyone else's entry in the 33DC today below.

33DC Dots + September Julep Maven Box + 100th Post!!

 
Arden: Hi friends!  This is our 100th post!  So exciting!  To celebrate, we will be hosting a nail polish giveaway soon-- stay tuned for details!

Today we start the 33 Day Challenge, which organized through the Facebook group Crumpet's Nail Tarts.  For the next several months, every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday we will be featuring nail art according to that day's assigned "challenge" theme.  In case it wasn't obvious, there are 33 challenges!

Today's theme was "dots."  Lots of different places to go with that!  I chose to do another fading dot manicure (be sure to check out the original and the sparkly bridal version as well!).  In keeping with my habit of not getting around to posting about my monthly Julep Maven box until the next month's box is almost on its way, today's nail art is featuring the two colors I received in my September box: Julep's Florence (light tan nude creme) and Padma (dark violet creme).

Full disclosure: I previously entered this manicure in Julep's monthly #MyMaven contest, which is why I chose to use both colors from my box together.  I'm not sure I would've otherwise paired these colors.  They don't look terrible, but probably wouldn't have been my first choice.

I started with my trusty L'Oreal All in One base coat, then painted on two coats of Florence.  I realllllly like Florence, guys, way more than I thought I would.  I didn't have anything else like it in my collection, and it really is a great flesh-colored polish.  The perfect neutral!

Then I sponged on a gradient of Florence and Padma on top.  These colors blended together pretty well in the gradient.  Next, I used a dotting tool to add dots on top of each gradient, alternating the color of each.  I love how the gradient base makes the dots look like they fade out.  This is by far one of my more favorite dot pattern to do!

I finished up with a coat of Essie Good to Go top coat, and then, exactly as promised, I was good to go!  (Though I did have some trouble with the dark purple dots streaking--- ugh!  I probably should've waited longer for the dots to dry before adding my top coat.)

Let me know how you like these in the comments, and be sure to check out the other entries in the 33 Day Challenge below!

Julep Maven August "It Girl Box"-- Flower Nails

Arden: Hey everyone!  This month, I chose to get the "It Girl" box for my Julep Maven subscription.  It included the colors Fiore (chocolate brown), Nellie (deep magenta), and Marjorie (shimmery orange).  Since Julep's theme of the month was "Garden Party" I decided to make little flowers on my nails using these colors!

I started with two coats of Julep Fiore.  (Why do brown polishes always photograph so dark?  So frustrating.)

Then I used a dotting tool to make orange center dots on all of my nails using Marjorie, and followed that up by making six smaller pink dots (in Nellie) around each orange dot to create little flowers!

These weren't my most favorite manicure of all time, but they were pretty cute.  It was hard using all three colors together-- maybe that should be my challenge every month when my Julep box comes!

For more information on the Julep Maven monthly box program, see my post here.  If you want to sign up yourself, click here.  (Apparently you can use the code "FREEBOX" and get your first box for only the cost of shipping.  Wish I'd known about that!)

What do you think?  Did the flower pattern work, or would these colors be better suited for a fall manicure?  Let us know!

Readers' Nail Art

Hi everyone!  Today we're trying something different, and are going to show you some of our readers' nail art! 

A couple weeks ago our friends Kathy and Stephanie were over for girls' night, and we ended up all doing our nails together.  Kathy and Stephanie are readers of the blog, and decided to try out some of the nail techniques we've showcased before. We then made them take pictures of their nails so we could show them to you!

Here are Kathy's awesome polka dot nails!

The background color for these nails was Color Club London Calling and the dots were done using Essie Fear or Desire (at least, I assume that's what the orange was.  Kathy or Lisl, can you confirm?).

Look at what a great job Kathy did making those uniform dots!  That's not as easy as it looks, folks!

And here are Stephanie's gradient dots, done using the method from this post. 

The background color was OPI Goldfinger and I believe the red dots were made using Julep Jackie (again, I'm not 100% on that-- can you remember, Stephanie?). 

And now this is where you guys come in.  Have you tried any new nail art recently?  (I know from my Instagram that several of you have!)  If so, snap a picture and send it to us at casadepolish[at]gmail.com!  We'd love to feature more reader nail art in the future!

NOTD: Quick, Easy Dotted Nails

Arden: This manicure is one that can definitely be done by anyone in a hurry, because *I* did it in a hurry.  The day my rose nails spectacularly crashed and burned, I needed SOMETHING to put on my nails before I left the house, so I threw this together real fast.  I actually drew my inspiration from a manicure One Nail to Rule Them All did back at Christmastime. 

When I first saw the post on One Nail to Rule Them All, I thought the dots were in a shooting star pattern, which seemed appropriate all year long.  It wasn't until after I finished mine that I realized she'd originally intended them to be a Christmas tree.  Oops!

I created mine by painting on two coats of Zoya Monica and then adding dots of Sally Hansen Celeb City with my smallest dotting tool.  The first day I wore them glossy:

Please ignore how dry my cuticles are in all of these pictures.  I should've moisturized!

But the next I added a coat of Essie Matte About You.  I can't decide which I like better!  I think Monica looks better glossy, but I like the silver dots better in the mattified version.  With a different background color, the matte version could definitely be better.

And that's them!  These were really quick and easy.  If you're ever looking to make your first foray into nail art, I definitely recommend trying out a design with random dots.  Dots aren't that hard to do (especially ones that aren't in a regular pattern) and you get a big bang for your buck!

What easy manicures have you been trying out lately?

Bridal Nails

Arden here!  As promised last week, here are a couple of bride-specific wedding nail designs I've come up with.

For Design #1, we have this awesome silver cross-hatch pattern:

I started by painting each nail but my ring finger with two coats of OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls and then two coats of OPI Don't Touch My Tutu to give it a creamier, less white-white look.  On my ring finger I painted two coats of Sally Hansen Celeb City.  I painted a top coat of Seche Vite to help it dry faster.

Then I added striping tape in a cross-hatch pattern on all my nails:

And then I painted Celeb City on each nail (except my ring finger) and immediately removed the tape.  On my ring finger I painted a coat of My Boyfriend Scales Walls and Don't Touch My Tutu before removing the tape.

For Design #2, I was looking to go more sparkly, and incorporate some gold as well as silver.

Pink & Black Bridesmaid Nails

Arden here!  Recently, I've been not-so-subtly trying to convince all of my engaged friends to let me play around with their wedding colors and create some possible bridal/bridesmaid nails for them.  (My boss says I should start my own business after I get ordained called "Nails & Nuptials" where I not only provide wedding nail art, but also officiate the wedding.  I secretly think this would be an AWESOME career decision.)

The first person to actually take me up on it was my friend Krystal.  Full disclosure: Krystal didn't actually tell me her colors so I could come up w/ nail designs.  Her fiance mentioned their wedding colors while we were playing trivia one night, and I ran with it.  But I told Krystal what I was up to, so I'm not tooooo much of a stalker.

Krystal's colors are pink and black (plus a little bit of silver as an accent), which are super fun colors to create nail designs with.  I had a bunch of ideas, so I ended up doing something different on every nail.

Excuse this iPhone pic.  It was the only one I had where you could clearly see all 5 nails!

Colors used:
Pink: China Glaze Make an Entrance
Black: Sally Hansen Black Out
Silver: Sally Hansen Celeb City
Glittery Black: Zoya Storm

Quilted Nails

Arden: I've been googling "quilted nails" for a couple weeks now, but have just never really found any manicures I wanted to emulate.  Until now!  I was actually just searching for "nail designs" when I came across a manicure made up of larger dots connected by little bitty diagonal rows of dots and thought they reminded me of a quilted pattern.  (Unfortunately, I now cannot find the picture that inspired me, but if I do, I will definitely update this post.)

I started by painting my nails with two coats of Essie Mint Candy Apple.

Here are the tools I used to make my dots: two different sized dotting tools.  But I promise you can get similar results using whatever tapered utensils you have at home: nails, paper clips, toothpicks, etc.

I then made a uniform pattern of dots using OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls and the larger dotting tool.

Reader Request: Nails with Dots & Dashes

Arden here: This manicure was suggested by one of the high schoolers in my youth group (you know who you are!).  The inspiration came from this manicure on Little Nails.  (I only recently discovered this blog, but I really love her nail art!) 

from http://little-nails.blogspot.com/2012/11/day-15-delicate-print.html

I started by painting my nails with two coats of Zoya Neely.  (This is our newest light green-- isn't it beautiful?)

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

Doily (?) Nails

Arden: Again, I'm not too sure how to describe this manicure.  It's vaguely like lace, but maybe more like a doily?  (When I asked Lisl for her impression, she responded: "They do look like a doily, but doily's a funny word."  You heard it hear first! Lisl also suggested "art deco half-moons" but since I am never really sure what art deco is supposed to look like, I didn't feel comfortable with it.)

I started by painting my nails with two coats of Sally Hansen Hard as Nails Celeb City.  I applied a coat of Seche Vite to dry the silver coat faster, and then I applied hole reinforcement stickers at the base of each nail.  (This time, I cut them in half, which I think makes them easier to apply and remove, plus you only use half as many!)  With the stickers in place, I painted a thick top coat of Essie No More Film.  I removed each sticker immediately after painting the nail.  This gave me some great reverse manicure/half moon nails!

On the Dot: Dotted Half-Circles

Arden:  Goodness, I had a hard time figuring out what to name this manicure!  Curved dotted lines?  Funky dot pattern?  I guess dotted half-circles it is!

I started by painting my nails Essie Mint Candy Apple (one of my favorite light green shades!).

So pretty!

Then I dotted on large dots using the largest end of my dotting tool in Zoya Mira.  I tried to dot them in two opposing half-circle patterns.  Some of them turned out better than others.

Please excuse the smudged dot on my pinky.  I have no idea how I missed that!