TopCoatIt

Getting your house ready to sell is a lot of work! I feel like it’s all I’ve been doing for months now. I’m ready to be done sorting through junk and painting and caulking. We’re in the home stretch though, so there is definitely a light at the end of the tunnel.
All the home improvement-ing has occasionally made it difficult for me to find time to work on fantastic manicures for you all. This past weekend was one of those times. I thought I was going to have to repost an old mani or just ditch out on it all together today. Then I remembered these gems. I did this mani for a guest post that has yet to be published, so I figured I’d put them to good use and show them to you today. I’ve been keeping my nails quite a bit shorter than this lately. I feel like they look really long here.

For this design I used Julep Vera, Alyson and Brandt. Any guesses as to what blog this mani was meant for? If you aren’t familiar with my argyle tutorial, you can check it out here.

Is that a long enough title for you?  Gradient, argyle skittles for Easter.  This is such a happy manicure.I love how many manicures can be done with the same set of polishes. I’ve been using these same polishes for the past several manicures.

For this mani I used Revlon Cloud, Wet ‘n Wild On a Trip, China Glaze Peachy Keen, Sinful Colors Hazard, Jordana Orangesicle, Essie Borrowed and Blue, Sinful Colors Aquamarine, American Apparel Butter, Sinful Colors Pull Over, Barry M Mint Green, Color Club Edie and Milani Fresh Teal. I used a white acrylic for the stitches.

I love argyle patterns, especially on my nails.  It’s been a while since I’ve done one and I thought an all pink one for Breast Cancer Awareness month would be appropriate.

I started with a base color of OPI Pink Friday.  On my pinkie, middle and index fingers I added the hourglass shape with Sinful Colors Easy Going and stitching with Milani Pink Hottie.  On my thumb and ring finger I did a diamond out of Milani Pink Hottie and stitching with Sinful Colors Easy Going.  I finished it off with two coats of Hong Kong Girl Top Coat.

Argyle patterns are pretty easy to do.  I did a picture tutorial a while back; you can find  it here.  You can also check out my other argyle designs here.

To me, argyle is one of those patterns that can mold itself in to anyone’s personal style.  Whether you are super sophisticated and classy, baggy and grungy or somewhere in the middle, you can pull off an argyle sweater or socks.  I love fun socks by the way.  Too bad I hardly ever wear socks.  I’m a mostly barefoot kind of girl.

I realized that it’s been a long time since I did an argyle mani.    Argyle is such a preppy pattern, but doing it in neon colors spices it up a bit, I think.

Argyles are a little involved as far as nail art goes, but still not too hard to do.  I find the pattern on my ring finger to be a little more difficult than the pattern on the rest of my nails.  I actually prefer the pattern my accent pattern less too.  I just wanted to show both options.  You can find my argyle nail tutorial HERE.

My yellow is NYX Girls Bubble Gum.  I find it very odd that a neon yellow is called Bubble Gum.  My experience with NYX Girls polish thus far is that it’s quite thin and needs multiple coats for full coverage.  To help the process along I started with a white base coat of Nina Ultra Pro ridge filling base coat.  With the white, I still needed three coats.  Not happy about that.  I guess that’s what I get for buying super cheap polish.  The pink is NYX Girls Pink Strawberry.  It had better coverage than the yellow, but I was also just filling things in with a small art brush.  My “stitching” is Milani Fresh Teal.

The pictures should speak for themselves for the most part.

Yes, you could just make an “X”, but I tend to mess that up, so doing each line individually is easier for me.

Don’t worry too much about how smooth things are.  A good top coat will conceal any lumpies.

The above picture is just to show you how I avoid having a large ball of polish on the end of my brush.  Dip and drag.

I used Sally Hansen Wet Cement for the base color, white Stripe Rite (which is acrylic paint, not polish) and China Glaze Liquid Leather for the “stitching.”  Don’t hesitate to leave a comment or message me if you have any question!