Neon gradient pattern nails for summah

Oh hey there people who actually read my blog! I've been sick all week so that's my excuse for no posts (I dunno what my excuse is for every other week before this though... crap). But here, have some neon! This week's weekly nail art challenge (WNAC) that I co-host on Instagram along with lovely ladies Kristin of Lacquerstyle and Tracey of MissBellaTracey is neon + tribal. So I went with my strange interpretation of the theme as always.

My most important discovery during this neon adventure was how awesome Models Own 'polish for tans' polishes are!! They are are super neon and they were completely opaque after one coat of SPONGING!!! Which is like amazing, cause if you recall in my Peel Off Face Off video where I used Color Club pastel neons, it took me 4-5 coats of sponging to get the gradient opaque. I highly recommend these Models Own neons, they are amazeeeeballllls.

Models Own 'Shades'

VIDEO TUTORIAL RIGHT HERE RIGHT NOW ↓!

Simple summer tribal with freehanded detail

Today's mani was painted yesterday (wow, this never happens) as opposed to months ago because I decided last minute I wanted to throw an entry into Margaret aka @m_a_tom on Instagram's mani competition she's hosting for reaching 10k followers. Congrats, Margaret! The contest was to create a mani inspired by one of Margaret's nail arts, and as you may recall, I have previously recreated some of Margaret's work and she has similarily re-created mine, so this one is a completely new one for me!

 

VIDEO TUTORIAL AT THE END OF THE POST!

Neon triangles with a touch of tribal

I did this bright neon mani last month (April) when it was basically still winter in Canada and thought I'd save it for a post when there was actually sun outside. That day was today! Just some random triangles painted on with striping tape used as a guide, then outlined with black polish freehand style. My ring finger is accented with tribal just to throw you off a little. 

Random brown triangles over sheer black

Further to the sheer black polish trend that has taken the nail art community by storm a couple months ago (see an old post about my knowledge of its roots), I decided to see what else I could use it for, if not just for emulating the look of black lace. So I went with what I named on my computer as 'Brown amazon triangles' and what I think after mattifying ressembles brown amazonian clay. Like something my grandmother would have made potterty with. But for the sake of this post and making sense to other people, I think 'Random brown triangles' is probably the better name to go with.

Enter-a-nail-art-contest nails

Hi ladies (and gentlemen, perhaps?)! Today I've got some nail art that is an almost exact replica of one of Amber from Armstrong Nails' works as a part of her 3k followers on Instagram contest. The idea was to replicate one of her manis using the same technique, but from what I understand there was a bit of freedom in terms of switching up the colours.

So, obviously I tried to overcomplicate the mani and went for a black sheer look that I first saw used by @badgirlnails (IG) as my base coat instead of a regular nude like Amber went for. Because I don't own such a magical sheer black jelly polish, I made my own by adding about 8 drops of black polish to a mini bottle of clear topcoat (you'll get the jist of it below in the polishes used section).

I'm probably more likely to win the lottery than this contest, but a girl can dream.

Here's Amber's original design:

Credit: Armstrong Nails

 And here is mine!

An attempt at tribal nail art

Here's a popular design in the nail art community - tribal nails! There's many different takes on tribal nail art and it gives nailartaholics a lot of room to be creative and make it their own. There's so many talented ladies out there who have taken one (or way more) stabs at tribal nail art. Some that stick out to me include Polished NZ, Andreitus Nails, Nailaholic, Wondrously Polished and Knailart!

This was my first attempt at tribal nail art, done in August of 2013. Definitely not the best photography (natural light would have been ideal to capture the glitters and the polish colour contrast), but that just means I'll have to do them again soontime :)