Reddit Challenge - Animal Print

I grabbed another clearance polish a while back, this time from a salon. China Glaze Desert Sun. It's a lovely light orange-brown shade.

When I saw an Animal Print challenge was coming up, I knew I wanted to do freehand leopard print, because I had never done it before.

I also didn't just want to do plain leopard print.
I liked this tutorial, but didn't want to recreate it exactly, so I improvised and modified.

First, I started with two coats of Desert Sun near my cuticles. I didn't do my whole nail with it, because I didn't want to wait for too many layers to dry.

Then, I went over it with two coats of Essence Nude It!, leaving the Desert Sun visible to create a ruffian.

Once that was dry, I used Desert Sun to create little blobby dots all over the Nude It!.

Finally, I used  It's So Easy Stripe Rite Black to finish off the leopard print.

Normally, I'm not a big fan of animal prints, but I really like how this one came out!

Easter Nails

Inspired by my jelly sandwich from a few weeks ago, I did some Easter themed nails.
I decided to make it a ruffian manicure to incorporate some chocolate brown into it as well.

I used 2 coats of Revlon Chocolate Truffle to create the base for the ruffian. I only painted it near the cuticles, because I didn't want to create too many layers.
I went over that with a thin coat of Zoya White to create a base for the lighter colours.
From pinky to thumb, I used Zoya White, Fascino Blue, Sally Hansen Mellow Yellow, Sally Hansen Pink Blink and Ardene's Stereo Love. Two coats of each.
Once those were mostly dry, I added Ardene's Paris Nights multicoloured glitter. It's in a slightly green tinted base so it did alter the pastels a little bit, but it's super pale and sheer, so you don't notice it once the manicure is done.
Once the glitter coat was mostly dry, I went over it with Sally Hansen Polar Bare to mute down the colours and matte the glitter.
Topcoat to even everything out and protect it and voila! speckled Easter eggs!

The Ardene's polish and the Sally Hansen Polar Bare both take ages to dry, but it's a super cute effect.

I wore this over to a friend's house and once they saw it they said "you have Easter eggs on your nails! Chocolate ones!"
I think the concept was a success.

Autumn Ruffian

I decided that I wanted to try a ruffian manicure, and the colours were an inspired by a conversation with a friend about how great orange and purple look together for autumn.

I did two coats of Essence Break Through - I have an older bottle, so it's a bright purple with a subtle shimmer. I understand the newer bottles are just a purple creme. It's really pretty! I did get some dragging at the top of the nail, but otherwise, it went on really well.

Then, starting a little lower down, I added two coats of NYC Pumpkin, an orange shimmer. I love this one - I really never thought I'd like orange nail polish, but this is great!

Ta-da! Ruffian manicure.

I think if you want something easy and pretty, this is something you should try.
Learn how to do this, a French manicure and a half-moon manicure, and you can create so many pretty looks.