Hi!

First, it was my first blogiversary on August 1st! The first year was a blast, the nail art community is so friendly and supportive. I never thought I would make it this far! A huge thank you to all of you guys -- I would have quit by now if it weren't for all the sweet comments!

I thought about recreating some old designs I did, but the first few designs I did weren't too inspiring, so I'm letting my blogiversary pass quietly. If you guys want to go laugh at my first post (it was pretty...well, I've improved a lot) you can find it here. 

I do have something a little special though! Since I haven't been posting very regularly lately (the last couple of months I've only posted 4-5 times?!?), this month I decided to try my first nail art challenge to motivate myself to get back on schedule! I chose to do the "Totally Doable I Have a Life! Challenge" run by Californails. It has a couple prompts for every week, which fits my schedule perfectly!

The first prompt is "classy", but as I hadn't posted my gold summer nails on Instagram yet I decided to cheat a little and use those for the classy prompt. Now it's time for ikat!

Polishes Used
Deborah Lippmann Walking on Sunshine, She Drives Me Crazy, Video Killed the Radio Star, Whip It | Wet n Wild French White Creme | black acrylic paint

I went a little wild with the colors I chose. I did stick to shades in the same collection, though (Deborah Lippmann's 80's Rewind collection). I feel like you can't go wrong with polishes from the same collection -- they were curated so that they all match each other, right?

This ain't my first time at the rodeo -- I've tried ikat nails one other time, 7 months ago! I really liked the colors I used the first time, but I think the ikat pattern came out better this time. And my photo quality has decidedly improved :-)

Thanks again for an amazing first year of blogging! It isn't always easy to balance school, extracurriculars, and nail art blogging, but it is so worth it.

Thanks for reading!

Lucy xx

Ikat Nails

Hi!

It's been so cold and dreary around here. I needed some bright nails to cheer me up!

I've been wanting to try an ikat design for a long time, they're so amazing-looking (and not too hard to do)!

Just ignore the index finger failure ok :)

For the non-accent nails, I used a base of Nails Inc Baker Street (one of my favorite polishes) and Sally Hansen Mellow Yellow for the colored centers. For the accent nail, I used a base of Sephora by OPI It's Totally Karma and Deborah Lippmann Scream & Shout for the colored centers.

All the nails use Revlon Spirit for the white centers and Wet n Wild Black Creme for the black outsides and centers.

My camera did not want to focus on these.

I used Kayla Shevonne's tutorial for these. 

Also, I've switched to a black background in my lightbox (a la Chalkboard Nails). It looks so much better -- I actually didn't have to edit these photos at all beyond cropping/adding a watermark!

And I've finally been catching up on my blog reading before school starts up again. It's been so great to see what you guys have been up to! 

Thanks for reading & be sure to let me know what you think!

Lucy xx