Nail Art Lately

Hello, February! How is it that we are already into the second month of 2014?
I say that pretty much every time a new month (heck, a new day!) arrives. But I can’t help it…time goes so fast!
The end of the holidays brought with it the end of “easy” nail art. When I say easy, I mean that inspiration isn’t hard to find. I knew around Halloween that my nails would focus on various spooky creatures and dark colors. I knew Christmas would mean lots of red and green and trees and Santa. Going back to normal means thinking outside of the box and trying to find inspiration from the internet. Normally, I’m on fire with that stuff. I slacked off, though, with the holidays.
Here are my nails from the past month.

This shouldn’t really qualify as nail art, but I think that this polish was perfect to ring in the new year with.
I love this super sparkly (holographic blue glitter? not something you see everyday…it’s awesome) Essie polish, called On a Silver Platter. Almost all of the swatches I saw were over a black base, and I feel like that failed to let the glitter shine. So I used a simple base of Wet N Wild’s French White (99 cents and my new go-to white) and it really popped!

I’ve done the Saran Wrap manicure before, but this post on Pinterest inspired me to try this marble inspired look. Very expensive Formica-looking, if you ask me. I love the color combo in the original post, but it felt too springy for me. I still used OPI’s Goldeneye as the base, and quickly removed Essie’s Vested Interest off the top for the green.
Also, I realize it looks a little moldy…hopefully in a good way?

To say that I’m obsessed with this look is an understatement.
I WANT TO MARRY IT AND HAVE ITS BABIES AND DIVORCE IT SIMPLY SO I CAN MARRY IT AGAIN.
Thank you Mr. Candiipants, for making amazing nail art tutorials that don’t often require a lot of tools or scary techniques. Anyone can do this and it will look good! Swear. It’s like having a beautiful piece of abstract art on your nails. I followed Candice’s color scheme pretty closely, but you could do it with any colors you love!
After very neutral and basic (to me) nails, I had a lot of fun staring at this.

I almost forgot about these nails, which would’ve been a shame. I actually got quite a bit of compliments on these, and I never expected that. I used Sally Hansen’s Complete Salon Manicure in Butterscotch as the base color (I LOVE that yellow) and a basic black and white for the blocks down the middle. You can find the tutorial on One Nail to Rule Them All, and I think any color would work as a base, as long as the black and white get to pop!

 
I love Mr. Candiipants’ floral tutorials, and this one is especially beautiful. I wish I had longer nails, like her, for this particular design. They started to blend together after a while. And I definitely could’ve made the leaves smaller.
Still, it’s a great look that utilizes a lot of polishes in a very complimentary way.

And those were my nails in January!