Pinwheel swirls

Pinwheel swirls! Super cute, right? Ridiculously time consuming, though. :) The color choice makes it kinda hippy- looking, haha.

If I had had more time before my daughter's candy land themed birthday party, this would have been a cute design for my nails in her color theme!

White: Sally Hansen French White Tip
Blue: Sally Hansen XTreme Wear Blue Me Away
Yellow: Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Lightning
Pink: Cosmetica Fantica Neon Pink
Top coat: Seche Vite

Fireworks!

My birthday is July 3- the day before Independence Day. When I was a little kid, my parents would tell me every year that the fireworks all over were for celebrating my birthday. And of course, I believed them for a few years. LOL. So I've always loved fireworks.

I was torn this year between doing my nails birthday themed or America themed. (I know, I have so many problems, right!?) So I chose fireworks- something that for me, signifies both!

I especially love big colorful fireworks, so that's what I did.
I painted a couple coats of Sinful Colors black on black and then picked out a few colors I thought would pop. I was concerned that the non-neon colors wouldn't be as bright- but they worked so well!

I tried different firework-painting techniques. Some I did long lines, others short. Some bent and falling and others going up and spreading. I played around by drawing fireworks on paper with chalk- a super fun 4th of July craft to do with my little girl.

As you might have noticed, I did this design on artificial nails so that I could take photos for my Etsy shop, Finger Candy. You can buy this design over there, if you want! Check out the link to my shop. :)

Black: Sinful Colors black on black
Blue: Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Blue Me Away
Green: Cosmetica Fanatica neon green
Yellow: Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Lightning
Neon Yellow: Cosmetica Fanatica neon yellow
Purple: Essence Color n Go Passion for Fashion
Orange: Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Sunkissed
Pink: Cosmetica Fanatica neon pink
Top Coat: Seche Vite

Neon polka dots

For a while now, I've wanted to try out neon nail polish. On Mother's Day, my husband, daughter and I went to the local Fruhlingsfest- Spring Festival. There was a cosmetic booth there selling makeup and nail polish (why at a festival? go figure...) so my husband bought me a few new polishes- three of which were neon! Yay!

I also have new dotting tools I wanted to try out...
So I used my new dotting tools with my new neon polishes and came up with this really, really cool mani. I love it way more than I was expecting.

It's pretty awesome, right?!

 And a close up...

I just love the way the color pops! I think if I were to do this again, I'd do fewer dots, but I still think this looks so great.
If I had a blacklight, this mani would be under it ASAP!

The black base is three coats of Sinful Colors Black on Black. I normally only use two coats, but I, forever being the optimist- painted the first two coats while my child was napping and my husband was at work. Duhhh... of course she woke up and you can only imagine what holding a very wiggly baby does to nails that aren't quite entirely dry... but a third coat fixed it no problem.

The neon colors are Cosmetica Fanatica. I also have neon green, which I did not use for this design. These polishes specify that they are for acrylic nails, but I used them on my natural nails.

My fabulous new dotting tools:

Black base: Sinful Colors Black on Black
Pink: Cosmetica Fanatica neon pink
Yellow: Cosmetica Fanatica neon yellow
Top coat: Revlon Base & Top Coat 965