Dusty Colour Blocking

In a post over at The Nailasaurus last week, Sammy did a cute colour-blocking mani; she also linked to Adobe Kuler, as a source of colour inspiration.  Let's just say, I was hooked for a solid twenty minutes scrolling through all the amazing colour combinations that I would never have thought up by myself!  

Obviously, today's nail art is inspired by one such colour combination.  Specifically, this one.  I also decided to grab inspiration from Sammy's colour-blocked design, because my head was too busy swimming with colours to be able to think coherently about making a design up, (as well as loving her design, of course!) 

Source

Although my polishes don't match the inspiration exactly, these are the colours that it made me think of when I saw it.  The polishes I used are mainly LaCC (you know how much I love those for nail art!).  I've used LaCC 1981 (salmon-nude), 1997 (periwinkle), and 1969 (green), as well as LVX Fantom (white).  

It's been quite a while wince I've done a tape mani, I tend to avoid them because of the ages waiting between drying and taping.  However in this case, I think it was totally worth the patience, because I love it!  I'll definitely be using Adobe Kuler as a source of inspiration in the future as well, it's so useful.  What do you think?  :)

QUO by Orly: Summer 2014 Collection

You may remember back in April I shared the QUO by Orly Spring 2014 polishes, which was my first experience with the brand and I was very impressed.  Today I've got three of the the Summer 2014 polishes to share with you and, spoilers, these are amazing!  

Read on for the full review. 

Dandelion Nail Art Tutorial

As promised in yesterday's post, I've got a tutorial to show you how to do the dandelion nail art that I did for  my guest post at Polished Elegance!  

I started with two coats of LaCC 1997, and a coat of LaCC 2013 top coat.  All details were done with a nail art brush and white acrylic paint.  

(1) Start by painting your stems, and add a little dot to the tip of each.
(2) Add seven equally spaced spokes poking out of each dot; your stem is the eighth spoke.
(3) With an almost dry brush, fill between the spokes with lots of wispy lines; they don't have to be perfect! (4) Using just the tip of your brush, irregularly dot along the edges of the circle.
(5) Clean up your mani with a brush dipped in acetone, and add top coat to smooth out your work.

It's been ages since I've done a tutorial, but I hope this was clear enough for you.  I'm really in love with how this nail art turned out, and I hope to see some of you give it a try too!  If you do, I'd love to see; feel free to comment with a link (only to relevant blog posts please!!) or tag me on IG @emmaclarem.  :) 

Guest Post at Polished Elegance

Good morning!  After an exhausting weekend of shows directly followed by a week of touring for performing and teaching, I'm finally back.  However, I'm moving to a different city in just under two weeks, so not much time to rest.  

I did a guest post for the wonderful Lisa at Polished Elegance which was posted on Monday; I would have shared sooner but I only got home super late Monday night and didn't remember to schedule a post in advance.  Anywho, you can click here or on the photo below to be taken to the guest post!  

I've also created a tutorial for this nail art, so keep an eye out for that (hopefully) tomorrow!  :)

Shimmer Polish: Taylor, Julia, Alice, Alessandra, & Melissa

I've got a pretty awesome group of Shimmer Polishes to show you today, which includes one of my absolute favourite Shimmer Polishes so far!  

Continue reading after the jump!

Seafoam & Magenta

Taking a quick break from our regularly-scheduled Shimmer Polish posts to show you a gradient I wore a few weeks ago on my boyfriend's birthday.  He's got two sweaters that he wears all the time, one for out-and-about and the other as a warm-up for when we're in the studio, which are jokingly called his "seafoam and magenta" (the colours of the sweaters, respectively) by most of our class.  So as a little poke at that, I did a simple seafoam and magenta gradient on his birthday!  

I started with two coats of Miss Ashleigh Polish A Pastel Experi-mint, and then sponged on a gradient with that and OPI Casino Royale.  It's smoothed out with a good coat of Seche Vite, of course.  

I actually really liked how the colours in this gradient worked together, and a few of us got a good chuckle out of it.  ;)  What do you think? 

Shimmer Polish: Cleo, Cindy, Elsa, Amy, & Sarah

Yes, more Shimmer Polish swatches this morning!  

If you want a little more glitter in your weekend, read on for swatches of Cleo, Cindy. Elsa, Amy, and Sarah.