Mint Candy Apple Fireworks

Wendy has been doing some fun nail art designs lately, and with her dental school break coming up soon hopefully she'll be able to do a few picture posts in the upcoming weeks! Until then, I wish her the best of luck on her finals and have a fun new tape mani to share today.

I've been slightly obsessed with tape manicures lately, and while I don't have the technique down perfectly yet, each one is definitely an improvement over the last. For today's firework mani, I started with Essie Mint Candy Apple, which is Annie's most-requested shade when we do our nails together.

Next, I carefully placed pieces of tape and used Sinful Colors Black on Black for the outer part of the firework shapes. With a coat of Seche Vite, I was ready to apply OPI Alpine Snow 10 minutes later.

I would really recommend one-coat polishes, since you want to remove the tape before it starts to dry. One thing to remember though is that if the polish is too thick, you'll end up with smudges and/or heavy pools of polish at your tips.

I think I could have done a cleaner job with the lines, but I'm pretty happy with the design — which would also be great for just an accent nail on a lazy day.

Two-Tone Blue Liquid Sand

I've been a bad blogger lately. In hopes of redeeming myself, I have a couple of new posts coming up, including today's that features a new polish from the OPI Bond Girls collection.

I should probably start out by saying that the texture of the Liquid Sand polishes is the equivalent of nails on a chalkboard to me. The texture when it first dries makes my skin crawl. I literally had goosebumps after running my fingers over the polish.

I powered through though because this color is a-mazing.Yes. So amazing I used it needs a hyphen.

First I started with a standard white (OPI Alpine Snow), layering it with OPI Lights of Emerald City. This is the only color from OPI's Oz: the Great and Powerful collection — I just wasn't feeling those other polishes, especially not the "taco" glitter. Lights of Emerald City is great though; my only complaint is that it's very hard to get those white squares of glitter to stay on the nail. 

You can see the square glitters faintly here, but they don't really stand out against the white.

I ended up layer two shades of blue over the white since it was so "blah." The top is Tiffany Case from OPI's Bond Girls collection, featuring the liquid sand finish that I find so unappealing. The bottom color is a typical creme, OPI Can't Find My Czechbook.

The colors look great together, but I'm not sure if I'll be using Tiffany Case again. Then again ... second chances and all, so who knows!

Pink and Teal Geometric Striping Tape Design

This manicure inflated my ego to about ten times its normal size. It may not be the greatest or most inspired nail art ever, but I've received more compliments on this design than on all of my other nail art put together — maybe that's a sign of improvement? 

I really fell in love with the color combination here and how fun and funky the design looks on my nails. I've had these on for nearly a week, which is practically a lifetime. I used a mish-mash of polishes and brands here: I started with two coats of OPI My Vampire is Buff for the base, which I actually like a lot better this time around. I topped it with a layer of Seche Vite, and once it was dry I used my striping tape to create the design. The black portion is Sinful Colors Black on Black; next was China Glaze For Audrey and Sally Hansen Rosy Outlook.

Take a look and let me know what you think!

White and Blue Chevron Stripe

Sorry (again) for my mini hiatus ... April has been an incredibly busy month so far. This was actually a manicure I did about a week ago, but haven't had a chance to edit my photos and type up a post.

For this design I used striping tape, but it looks more freehanded. I don't think I removed the tape fast enough, so some of the lines got a little distorted.

Pictured below is two coats of OPI Alpine Snow with two coats of OPI Can't FInd My Czechbook for the stripe.

Not a total failure ... I'm definitely getting better at using striping tape!

Sally Hansen I Heart Nail Art Contest Spring Color Block

Press Sample, Purchased by Me

As you all know, I absolutely "<3" nail art. Today I entered the Sally Hansen I Heart Nail Art contest for April, showing off my best color blocking manicure (significantly improved from yesterday's disaster!). The grand prize is a trip to NYC and I'm dying to go back ... so if you have a spare minute and want to help send me to the Big Apple, click here to vote— I promise it's really simple and will just take a second if you have a Facebook.

This color block nail art features some of my favorite spring shades from Sally Hansen. Growing up, I loved the "baby" colors: pink, blue and purple. I wanted to stick with these colors, which in my mind are associated with spring, but make the manicure bolder and brighter.

I started out with two coats of Gilty Party, from the Complete Salon Manicure line, topped off with a light coat of Seche Vite to quick dry.

Using striping tape, I sectioned off parts of my nail to do the color block. The pastel colors used for this nail art were Fuchsia Flare and Blue Away from the Insta-Dri line, and Lacey Lilac from the Hard as Nails Xtreme Wear collection.

The trick to color blocking is to make sure that your base color is absolutely dry before applying the tape; also, when removing the tape, make sure you do it immediately after you apply the colors to each section, or else you'll end up smudging polish.

That's all for today, but please, please, please help me win this trip to New York! Remember to vote once a day until the end of the month — if I don't win, I'll be back next month to a participate in the next challenge!

Products in this post were provided for review (Gilty Party, Fuchsia Flare and Blue Away) and purchased by me (Lacey Lilac). See my disclosure policy for more details; press samples do not influence my opinions or thoughts on the polishes provided.