Wallpaper: Quatrefoil

Hey! Happy Thursday night! I have a quick post for y'all tonight. It's another entry for January's theme of the Nail Challenge Collaborative-Wallpaper.
Tonight's manicure is inspired by this:

[source]

Indirect sunlight

Direct sunlight

Macro

I started out with two easy coats of OPI My Dogsled is a Hybrid and a quick-dry top coat. When I say easy coats, I mean easy. This is awesome to apply. It's a great polish to put on if you have to run out the door and don't have a lot of time. It's almost a OCW (one coat wonder) and if I were more careful with my application, it probably could have been. 

To create the quatrefoil design, I followed a really great youtube tutorial from Christabel Nails that you can find here. This was the first time I watched one of her tutorials and I really liked it! Her voice was so relaxing and she is a true master.

I dotted OPI Love. Angel. Music. Baby. in the quatrefoil pattern and then dotted My Dogsled is a Hybrid within the dots. I let everything dry a little bit before topcoating so I didn't smear. I love the gold peeking out from the aqua and I've been sneaking peeks at my nails, all day.

This whole manicure took under an hour; I was able to do everything while I watched Empire, which I love a little bit more with each episode.  Have you caught an episode yet?

Be sure to check out the decorating that the other girls did for their second manicures, below!

xo, ali

An InLinkz Link-up

Deck the Nails!

Happy Monday! I'm finding it hard to believe that it's December, already! With a new month, comes a new Nail Challenge Collaborative theme and this month's theme is dots! Lots of possibilities!

I decided to kick off this month with a holiday design, using gold, green, and red.

Flash

Overcast daylight

I used two coats of OPI Love. Angel. Music. Baby. and topcoated it for shine and to enhance the shimmer in it. Then, I took my large dotting tool and dotted NY&Co Inverness and China Glaze Just Be-Claws from last year's holiday collection. A little bit more top coat and you've got a festive manicure!

Be sure to check out the other ladies and their first December manicures, below!

xo, ali

The Nail Challenge Collaborative-Black and White #1

Happy Monday! I hope you all had a great weekend. I know I did :) Saturday was my busy day-my dude BFF from this post came to visit and we went hiking. We got lost in the woods, but we made it out without snapping or yelling at each other, even once. After he left, I went to my other best friend's birthday party for a bonfire and some snacks. I was happy to be lazy on Sunday, have a Google+ hangout with my mom and play with some legos.

I also did a manicure for June's theme of the Nail Challenge Collaborative, which I was just accepted into. That was a very exciting day for me. I am in some amazingly talented company and I definitely have my work cut out for me. I'm really hoping that this will help me to hone my nail art skills and step out of my comfort zone.

For this mani, I started with two careful coats of NYC French White Tip and topped it with my quick dry Beauty Plus Salon. Once the white dried, I took washi tape and placed it at a diagonal. Then I used Color Club Revvvolution, which is a gorgeous black, linear holo. The finishing touch was a few dots of contrasting color on each side of the diagonal. More top coat and it was a done deal.

I really hope you all liked my very first NCC mani. I have lots of ideas for the remaining three manicures and I absolutely can't wait to see what each month brings.

Let me know what you thought in the comments and be sure to check out what the other NCC ladies did for their first mani of the month!

xo, ali