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!

Gradient Leopard Print Nails

 
Arden: Hi everyone!  Today I've got this fun twist on leopard print nails!  I promise I saw the idea for these on the internet SOMEWHERE, but of course I forgot to write it down/save it/pin it, so now I can't properly cite my inspiration.  If you happen to see something really similar to these out there, please leave a comment so I can add the original.

I started by painting my nails with two coats of Essie Blanco.  (This isn't my favorite white nail polish ever, but my OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls is running out, so I've been looking to other white polishes in my collection to pick up the slack.)

Then I sponged on a gradient on the tips using the white and a light purple and teal.  For the purple nails I used L'Oreal Royalty Reinvented and for the teal ones I used Zoya Wednesday and then Essie Mint Candy Apple on top of that.  (I originally meant to use the Essie, but had Wednesday sitting on the table next to it and accidentally picked up that and used it before realizing my mistake.)

Then I made some splotches on my nails using Zoya Mira and Zoya Wednesday.  I irregularly outlined those spots using Lisl's black Color Club striper polish.  I tried to make those black outlines in C shapes (so not fully outlining the colored splotch).  In the below picture the purple ones are outlined, the teal ones aren't yet.

Tri-Polish Challenge: July Day 2 or 3 or Something

Sup, it's Lisl. Ok, so this is our third manicure for the Tri-Polish Challenge this month!  Since I missed the first few, we'll only do three this month and next both I will be back in action like crazy. 

So this month I chose these three polishes:

Zoya - Liberty

Color Club - London Calling

Nicole by OPI - Khloe had a Little Lam Lam

I wanted to keep playing around with texture, so I thought I'd try to do a "glitter gradient" but with a texture polish instead.  It should be noted that I have never done a successful glitter gradient, and that may have influenced my ability to pull off this manicure.

Tri-Polish Challenge + Bonus Color Club Wanderlust Swatch

Lisl: Hey y'all!  So I missed the first two days of the Tri-Polish Challenge this month since I was away and spacey, but I am trying very hard to catch up!  Everything you need to know about the Tri-Polish Challenge is here in case you're curious!

Here are the official three colors:
Zoya - Liberty 
Nicole by OPI - Khloe Had a Little Lam Lam (best name for a polish ever)
Color Club - London Calling

London Calling is part of Color Club's Wanderlust Collection which is available exclusively at Birchbox.  I got it in my monthly box and thought I'd add a swatch into the mix today!

London Calling is a neon-y pastel.  It goes on smoothly with really good coverage.  And it's really neon-y! I'm showing it here with two coats.  I kind of love it.  I am a bit of a sucker for minty greens and this is an excellent addition to the our collection.  

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?

Green Worm Nails

Arden: Ok, this manicure is going to require some explanation.  You see, today is my boyfriend Biff's birthday.  (Happy birthday, Biff!)  To celebrate, I wanted to paint my nails with something to honor him.  Biff is a geneticist who works with little bitty microscopic worms all day.  Sometimes, he makes them glow green.  This leads to awesome pictures, like these:

I got this one put on a mug for Biff for his birthday last year.

So, to honor Biff's work, today I am rocking green worm nails!  My method for creating them was basically the same as my colorful feathery nails from a couple weeks ago, except with these I tried to make them more wavy so they could better resemble worms.  (You may remember that that manicure was inspired by a post by the Nailasaurus.  She's now posted a tutorial on how to do her striped nails that's really helpful if you're looking to try these out yourself!)

Ocean Gradient Nails

Arden here!  Today's manicure is in honor of the summer.  My family isn't going to the beach together until October, but I found myself thinking about the beach the other day and decided to try out some ocean gradient nails. 

I started with two coats of Sally Hansen Barracuda (as you can tell from the sticker on it in one of the pictures below, I snapped up this polish when it was recently clearanced at Target).  I then sponged on a 3-color gradient using Barracuda, Nicole by OPI Khloe Had a Little Lam-Lam (guess that one must've been part of some Kardashian collection), and a navy blue from the 3 piece Trendsetter Chic set by Physician's Formula Endless Color (unfortunately each individual polish in this set doesn't have its own name).

I finished by dabbing on some NYC Starry Silver Glitter on the two darker colors (leaving the lighter tips without glitter) and adding a top coat.