Tropical Zebra Ombré Nail Art featuring OPI Brazil Collection Shades

I'm giving you guys a little break from the florals for today! ;) I had the OPI Brazil collection sitting on my desk and all these colors looked so beautiful together that I knew I had to do an ombré with them.

 

I used OPI I Just Can't Cope-acabana, Where Did Suzi's Man-go?, Toucan Do It If You Try, Live.Love.Carnival, and Kiss Me I'm Brazilian for the ombré. I'll have the review of these polishes coming soon, but I'll tell you now that I'm in LOVE with these colors! Especially all together like this.

I thought about doing another floral stamp over this but decided to mix it up and go for zebra print instead. I love how they turned out! This would be the perfect mani to accent a margarita on a beach vacation. ;)

The products in this post were provided for my honest review.

Autographed Book Plate Giveaway for 500 Nail Designs!

I have a special pre-order giveaway for you this morning! The first 100 people who send me their receipt from pre-ordering 500 Nail Designs will receive a signed book plate to put inside their copy of the book! :)

The book plates are like labels that you can put on the inside cover of your copy of 500 Nail Designs, as you can see in the photo below.

To get your book plate, all you have to do is:

1. Pre-order 500 Nail Designs from any of these retailers.
2. Email your receipt and the address you would like your book plate mailed to 500naildesigns@gmail.com. If you don't send both your receipt and the address, I can't send you a book plate so make sure both pieces of information are in your email!

Thank you all once again for being so supportive and awesome!! :-*

Nicole by OPI Special K Collection 2014 Swatches/Review

Good morning everyone! I have a cool collaboration to share with you today. Nicole by OPI and Special K have teamed up to create these three shades that I have to share this morning. Let me show you the shades and then I'll tell you how you can get them for yourself!

Challenge Red-y is a bright red creme. It had a pretty good formula and was opaque in two coats.

Live in the Momentum is a medium royal blue creme. Again, the formula was good and I used two coats.

My Sol Shines Brighter is a lovely coral creme and my favorite of the three. This was a little sheerer than the rest, although two coats was still good for me.

So now you want to know how you can snag these for yourselves, right? If you want the red polish, you need to collect and redeem three separate codes from select Special K products. If you want the blue and coral polishes, you need to collect five codes. All of the terms and instructions can be found here on Special K's website. Also, in case you need a recommendation, the Fruit and Yogurt cereal is delicious!!

The products in this post were provided for my honest review. All opinions are my own.

Coral Floral Stamping Nail Art

Hey everybody! Are you totally sick of floral stamping yet? Me too kinda... but I can't stop myself. This is the mani that I actually wore for Easter yesterday.

I started out with a base of two coats of Nicole by OPI My Sol Shines Brighter and then picked a random floral pattern and stamped it over each nail in white. I picked the glitters out of OPI I Snow You Love Me and placed them in the center of some of the flowers.

Seriously though, are you over the floral designs or could you stand to see more? I need to know! ;)

Polka Dot Easter Nail Art Design

Happy Friday!! I have a half day at work today so I'm a very happy girl! Today I want to share with you one of the designs that is featured in my book for Easter. I picked out four pastel shades that looked good together and painted each nail with a different color. After that was dry, I dotted some pastel polka dots and some smaller white dots in between with a dotting tool. They're like little dotty eggs! :P

Cirque Heritage Collection Swatches/Review

Happy Monday everyone! I have some gorgeous holographic polishes from Cirque to share with you today to brighten up the beginning of your week! The Heritage collection is a seven piece collection of stunning holographic polishes.

Sky Woman is a periwinkle blue with a strong holographic effect. The pigmentation on this one is insane; I used two coats here but you could probably get away with one!

Panacea is a chartreuse green holographic polish. The formula on this one was a little thinner and definitely needs at least two coats for opacity.

Xochitl is a vivid shade of orchid with a super strong holographic effect. This is two coats. I love this one!

Cerrillos is my absolute favorite! I'm such a sucker for turquoise and this one is totally awesome. Two easy coats here.

Powwow is a vivid magenta holographic polish. Two coats here with a great formula.

Sani is a silver holographic. This isn't the strongest silver holo I've ever seen, but it is really pretty and has a great formula.

Luminous Owl is a fabulous warm coral holographic. I loveeeee coral! Coral and turquoise are my very favorite colors and this collection has both! I used two coats of polish here.

The Heritage collection is available now on Cirque's website and at these select retailers. Go grab yourself at least one of these; the colors are so unique and the formulas are awesome! Which is your favorite? Mine is a tie between Cerrillos and Luminous Owl... betcha didn't see that coming! ;)

The products in this post were provided for my honest review. All opinions are my own.

Teal Floral Gradient Stamping Nail Art

Good morning! I had another desire for gradient nails, but this time I decided to do the gradient under the stamping instead of as the stamping. I still stuck with a floral pattern though since I'm so smitten that it's spring!

For the gradient base, I used Essie Go Overboard, OPI Taylor Blue, and KBShimmer A Touch of Glass. I applied two coats of A Touch of Glass and then sponged the other colors over it to create the gradient. Once that was dry, I stamped the flower design over it using Gals plate GA11 and Konad white stamping polish.   

I really almost left it like this. It was so beautiful without the stamping and I worried that stamping over the gradient would ruin it, but I'm happy with how the design turned out. Gradients are my favorite! 

500 Nail Designs Featured on Salon Fanatic Blog!

Good morning! Check out the feature on the Salon Fanatic blog for 500 Nail Designs!

http://www.salonfanatic.com/nail-trends/design-your-nails-2/

Springtime Floral Gradient Stamping Nail Art

Good morning everyone! I finally had the desire to do some nail art recently and once I sat down to do it, I actually had a really hard time deciding on what exactly to do. It sure helps to have the book around to thumb through for inspiration! I decided on a neutral base with pink/purple gradient stamping and a floral pattern.

The base I chose is OPI My Vampire is Buff, one of my most favorite neutrals. I used Zoya Reagan, OPI Antibleak, and OPI Miss You-niverse to create a stamping gradient by painting a line of each shade and dragging the scraper across the stamping plate in the same direction as I painted the lines. I'm usually not into flowers and floral patterns but I really love this! How do you feel about florals? Fun or granny-style?

Zoya Awaken Collection & Monet Swatches/Review

Good morning and happy Monday everyone! ;) I hope you all had a fabulous weekend. I'm in a much better mood now that it's starting to actually feel like spring! I have another beautiful spring collection to share today, this time it's the Awaken collection from Zoya. This collection consists of six polishes and one glitter topper. Unfortunately, my bottle of Brooklyn faced a violent death in transit (you'll see remnants of her golden goodness on the bottles in these swatches), so that one will be missing from my review.

Hudson is a deep lavender shade with silver shimmer. The shimmers in this collection are to die for! Two easy coats, formula is great.

Cole is a beautiful peachy orange shade. The formula here was a little testy... I used two coats, but the first was a little streaky. I'd recommend three thinner coats for this one.

Rebel is an absolutely dreamy sky blue shimmer. Perfect coverage in two coats. This is one of my favorites!

Dot is a pale candy pink color. It shares the same formula as Cole; this is two patient coats. I really, really love this color, so I'm absolutely willing to look over the slight formula issues.

Monet has a bunch of multi-colored cellophane glitters in a clear base. This is two coats over Dot. I didn't have any trouble getting the glitter out of the bottle here and I love how whimsical it looks layered over the light pink.

Dillon is a fabulous shimmery mint green. It reminds me of mermaids! The silver shimmer is perfection and it was easy to apply in two coats.

The Awaken collection and Monet glitter topper are available for purchase now on Zoya's website for $9 each and are absolutely worth picking up. I would at least recommend purchasing Dillon for a fun spring shade or Dot for a manicure staple, but I really don't think you could go wrong with any of these shades!

The products in this post were provided for my honest review. All opinions are my own.

KBShimmer Spring 2014 Collection: The Glitters Swatches/Review

Good morning everyone! Today I have the glitter part of the KBShimmer Spring 2014 collection to share with you. As always, it's amazing! Take a look...

Prism Break is the perfect silver holographic top coat. You could use this on any color to create a holographic polish. The effect seems subtle here, but it truly comes to life in bright sunlight. This is one coat over KBShimmer A Touch of Glass.

Quick and Flirty is a rich, royal purple holographic polish. This is two coats and as you can see, the holographic effect is fabulous.

Rush Hour Flower is a glitter top coat in a clear base. It consists of blue, yellow, green, and pink glitter and teeny tiny micro glitters. This is two coats over KBShimmer Sky Jinks.

Laugh Myself Lily is another one of my favorites, a jade base with pastel glitter and micro glitter for depth. Beautiful, beautiful polish. This is three coats.

Make My Gray is an awesome pale gray base with turquoise, coral, and black glitter. This is two coats.

Belle of the Mall is a squishy crelly coral with silver glitter. This is three coats because I wanted as much opacity as possible, but two was okay if you don't mind a little bit of visible nail line.

Full Bloom Ahead is a white-based polish with a multi-colored mix of glitter. This is two coats and as you can see, it has great coverage.

Daisy About You is a pale green polish with translucent green and flower shaped glitter. This is two coats.

These have fantastic formulas, but of course, that shouldn't surprise you by now. These glitters are available now on the KBShimmer website, along with the creams that I shared on Wednesday. And again, give their Facebook page a like if you want to stay updated!

The products in this post were provided for my honest review. All opinions are my own.

Coupon code for $20 PopSugar Must Have box! & SPOILER!

Hey everyone! I came across this coupon code just now online and had to share it with you! Use code "CHANNEL7" to order a PopSugar subscription and get your first box for $20 with free shipping. Hurry though, the code expires tomorrow, 4/4!

And spoiler alert, there will be a full size Too Faced neutral palette in the April box! That palette costs more than the box if you use the code above!

If you're still on the fence, you can check out some of my previous PopSugar Must Have box reviews below, but honestly, you can't beat $20!

http://www.the-nail-network.com/2013/08/popsugar-must-have-august-box.html
http://www.the-nail-network.com/2013/11/popsugar-must-have-november-box.html

500 Nail Designs Book Giveaway! Enter to Win an Advanced Copy!

Good evening everyone! I have such exciting news for you: the advanced copies of my book have come in and I'm sitting here with an actual physical copy of my very own book on my desk right now. But perhaps even more exciting (for you, anyway) is that my publisher has allowed me to give away one of the advanced copies to one of my very lucky readers!! Keep reading for more information on how to enter!

In case you haven't been around here long, last spring/summer I created 500 nail art designs for this book titled 500 Nail Designs. This was a huge project and came at the time when I was in my last few months of college, so it required a lot of time and commitment. Luckily, the publishing company that I'm working with is absolutely amazing and guided me through the entire process with patience and geniune excitement for the book. Fast forward to today, when I finally get to touch and hold the object that was previously only accessible in my mind. I can't find the words to express how thankful I am for this opportunity or how much it means to me, but I truly am so grateful.

Now for the giveaway rules:
You must be a resident of the United States, Canada, or United Kingdom.
You must be 18 or older to enter, or have parental consent.
You must complete the mandatory entries on the Rafflecopter widget below.
Please note that Fair Winds Press will be shipping the prize directly to the winner.
Good luck! 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

KBShimmer Spring 2014 Collection: The Creams Swatches/Review

Guysssssssssss!! KBShimmer has done creams! I hope you are as excited about this as I am! I've never been disappointed in a KBShimmer polish yet and these are just absolutely awesome. I'll get on with the photos though and stop blabbing. Formula notes will be at the end.

My Life's Porpoise is a lovely medium gray. It leans a little too blue in this photo; it's more of a neutral gray in person.

Chick Me Out is a bright, cheerful yellow. This polish is a testament to KBShimmer's polish-making abilities: it has none of the formula issues that yellow polishes typically have.

A Touch of Glass is my absolute favorite, a dreamy pale aqua reminiscent of sea glass. I wore this to work for four days with only one minor chip on one nail (my manicures usually last less than a day there). 

Honeydew List is a pale spring green. Not really my shade, but a great polish nonetheless.

Pansy-Monium is an amazing royal purple. This is a fabulous, rich color.

Sky Jinks is a saturated deep sky blue. Think middle of the summer, big fluffy white clouds type of sky blue.

Eclipse is exactly what it looks like, the perfect black polish.

Life Rose On is a raspberry shade of pink with a blue undertone. It's very wearable and flattering.

Now, the formula for all of these polishes is fantastic. The yellow goes on slightly streaky on the first coat, but evens out perfectly for the second. Each of these swatches shows two coats of polish and as you can see, they reach opacity beautifully. I'm only hoping that there are plenty more to come!! These polishes are available now on the KBShimmer website. As always, make sure you like their Facebook page to keep updated with all of their incredible new collections! Stop back here on Wednesday morning to see the glitter part of the Spring 2014 collection!

The products in this post were provided for my honest review. All opinions are my own.