#NailArtMar Challenge: Neon

Hey polishers!

I hope your weekend has been going well! I know I've been a little lacking with my March Nail Art Challenge posts, but I'm going to try and catch up this week! So today I have my belated neon manicure.

I decided not to do this all neon, and just paint the chevron neon. I messed up a little on the chevron, but as a nail blogger, I'll still show you my fails! :)

Even though I messed up on the chevron, I love the colors in this!

Polishes used:
China Glaze Seahorsin' Around
China Glaze Pool Party
Pure Ice Superstar!

I can't wait to start wearing neon a lot more now that spring is nearly upon us and summer will be here shortly! Do you have any favorite neon polishes for the spring/summer?

I hope you have a great rest of the day!

Colleen

#NailArtMar Challenge: Ombre

Hey polishers!

Today is the second day of Californails'  "Totally Doable I Have A Life" March Nail Art Challenge and the today's theme is ombre!

For the ombre theme, I thought I would do vertical stripes using a couple of blue polishes.

Here it is:

Polishes I used:
-a light blue polish by California Colors
-Sally Hansen Blue Me Away!
-L.A. Colors In A Flash
-OPI Love.Angel.Music.Baby

Although this isn't the best mani that I've ever done, I really like the blues in here and I think the little gold hearts really make it. :)


Thanks for stopping by and hope you have a great rest of the day!

-Colleen

#NailArtMar Challenge: Dotticure

Hey everyone!

I can't believe that it's finally March! Hopefully the spring weather will also be coming soon...

Anyway, I decided to join Californails'  "Totally Doable I Have A Life" March Nail Art Challenge!

Today's theme is Dotticure so I decided to do a multicolored polka dot design.

I think I might have used a few too many colors in here, but I love the blues, purple, and sparkly gold polishes together!

The polishes I used were:
-a sky blue polish by California Nails
-a teal polish by Body Central
-In A Flash by L.A. Colors
-Blue Me Away! by Sally Hansen
-Strapped by Sinful Colors
-Love.Angel.Music.Baby. by OPI
-What A Pansy by China Glaze

So what do you think of the color theme I used? Will you be taking part in a March nail art challenge?

Have a great rest of the day!
-Colleen

#HePicksMyPolish September Challenge

I hope you've all been having a good weekend!

I know I'm very last minute with this, but the girl who runs the The Sparkle Queen blog started up a #HePicksMyPolish challenge for the month of September where you have any "he" in your life (brother, husband, boyfriend, neighbor) pick three colors from your nail polish stash with absolutely no guidance from you.

I had my brother choose the three polishes, and unfortunately he choose three very bright and eye-catching polishes. He choose: Nicole by OPI Hit The Lights, a grainy silver glitter by Charlotte Russe (no name), and China Glaze Pool Party (these polishes are pictured below).

With two very bright, neon polishes and a glitter polish, I had no clue what design I should do. So, I decided just to do polka dots so that it would be a little less "in your face." I mean, I love neons, but not neon on top of neon WITH glitter. It's just a little much to me. But hey, these are the polishes my brother choose.

So here's my mani:

It actually turned out okay, but I wish I would have done them all with the yellow base color instead of mixing it up, but oh well.

If anyone else wants to participate, you have one more day!

An InLinkz Link-up

-Colleen

National Day Of...Challenge: National Day of Skyscrapers (3/16)

Hey girls!

I have a short post today (because I'm SWARMED with homework :( mehhhh)

Today is National Skyscraper Day and the 3rd day of the National Day Of...Challenge, so I did a manicure attempting to do the Chicago Skyline! On my pointer finger, there is the Sears Tower (I know it's now the Willis Tower, but being a true Chicagoan, I still refuse to call it that), and the Crain Communications Building on my ring finger (that's the building that's shaped like a diamond).

So here it is:

Polishes I used:
Sinful Colors Tempest (purple background)
Sinful Colors Black On Black (Black)
Delia's Lemon Chiffon (stars)

Hope you all have a great rest of the day!! It is still not too late to join the challenge!!!

-Colleen

National Day Of...Challenge: National Waffle Day!

Hey guys! I hope you've had a great start to your weekend, and Happy National Waffle Day!

It's the second theme of the challenge, so today I've got waffle nails to show you! However, I really didn't get to creative on this one....I just did the checkered waffle pattern.

Here it is:

Sorry about the lack of good pictures, I had no idea the extreme shimmer of the gold polish would be so hard to capture!

To me, this mani sort of resembles whole wheat waffles...especially with the grayish base color! If you want to see some real authentic waffle nails with syrup, butter, whip cream, and the whole nine yards, check out Marianne's waffle mani on her blog the Nail Polish Sleuth! She did a great job!!

 Polishes used:
 -a shimmery gold by Charlotte Russe (no name)
-a shimmery gray by Sephora by OPI   (no name)

Have a great rest of your day, and thanks for reading!

Don't forget, even if you didn't start on the first day of the challenge, you can still participate!!!

-Colleen

National Day Of...CHALLENGE: National Day Of Cupcakes (#1)

Well, Happy National Day of Cupcakes everyone!

I don't think I'll be having a cupcake today, but why not celebrate?! The first day of the National Day of...CHALLENGE is the National Day of Cupcakes, so I have a cupcake mani to show you!

I painted this cupcake mani on my little sister's nails the other day, which was actually pretty hard to do. Her hands definitely aren't full size yet, and are still really small, so I didn't have a lot of room for the cupcakes. I really wanted to add sprinkles, but I didn't have a lot of canvas room :(
And sorry for the lack of good hand positioning in the pictures...we had quite a struggle...

Anyway, here it is:

Polishes Used:
Love & Beauty Pink/Gold (pink)
Sinful Colors Tempest (purple)
Nail-Licious Holly Berry (red)
Nicole by OPI Hit The Lights (darker yellow)
Delia's Lemon Chiffon (lighter yellow

If anyone else wants to participate, that would be super awesome! Have a great rest of the day! If you have any questions about the challenge, let me know via a comment or email!

-Colleen

An InLinkz Link-up

National Day Of...CHALLENGE intro

National Day Of...CHALLENGE (Aug. 19th-Oct. 31st)

Dream It Up Nails By COLLEEN

Hey all,

When I started blogging in late June, I was sort of disappointed to see that I had already missed the startup of most of the summer nail blogging challenges. So, for this fall, I have decided to start up my own challenge.

I stumbled upon this website one day that lists all these crazy appreciation days and National/International holidays, and thought that a lot of them would inspire some pretty cool nail designs.

If enough people are interested in taking part, I will start up an Inlinkz for the challenge. If not, I can always do it by my lonesome :)

I tried to make this challenge so that it’s not everyday, and you can have a lot of freedom with it. Even if you don’t want to take part in all of the days and only want to do a few, that’s cool too.

Here are the days:

August 19th, 2013: National Cupcake Day

August 24th, 2013: National Waffle Day

September 3rd, 2013: National Skyscraper Day

September 10th, 2013: International Makeup Day

September 21st, 2013: International Day of Peace

September 22, 2013: National Elephant Appreciation Day/National Ice Cream Cone Day (your choice)

September 23rd, 2013: International Checkers Day

September 25th, 2013: World Tourism Day

September 28th, 2013: National Fish Tank Day

September 29th, 2013: National Coffee Day

October 2nd, 2013: Guardian Angel Day

October 7th, 2013: World Smile Day

October 19th, 2013: Rainforest Day

October 29th, 2013: National Cat Day

October 30th, 2013: National Candy Corn Day

October 31st, 2013: HALLOWEEN!!!!

So, the challenge will start Aug. 19th and end on Halloween, Oct. 31st. How does this sound? Do you know of any other cool days I could add?

If you’re interested in taking part, send me an email, tell me on twitter, or leave a blog post comment and I will add your blog’s link to the Challenge page on my blog. If you have any other questions, comments, concerns, or suggestions, let me know! I’d love to hear from you!

-Colleen

An InLinkz Link-up

N.A.I.L. Challenge: Sea

Hey guys!

I hope you've been having a great day so far! Today I have for you  a 'Sea' themed mani for the NAIL linkup challenge. When I thought of 'Sea' somehow this is what came to my head: seaweed and Jelly fish. lol.
Here it is:

I wasn't sure which one I liked better, the Jelly fish with or without polka dots, so I decided to show you both... :)

The blue background is L.A. Colors In A Flash; the two greens used for the seaweed were Essie The More The Merrier and China Glaze In The Lime Light;  the light purple of the jelly fish is Sinful Colors Tempest; and the polka dots is L.A. Girl Hustle.

I hope you like it! ;) And by the way, I got a little bored today, so earlier I made a little blog collage that I wanted to show you!

Have a great rest of the weekend!!

-Colleen

N.A.I.L. Challenge: Sun

Hey guys!

Brigits Digits, eeeeknailpolish, and Crafty Nail are doing another challenge, this time a mini August challenge called N.A.I.L. (Which stands for Nail Art Ideas Linkup). You can see the post on the Brigits Digits blog here. And, the theme for Aug. 7th-11th is Sun.

So, here's my mani....it's definitely NOT my best mani, but it's all I could do tonight...I'm insanely tired from walking around all day at the college visit I went to and I'll leaving at 5 am tomorrow to attend another one (yeahhhhh). But with out further ado, here it is:

I didn't really know what to do after I finished the sun, so I decided to do chevron for the rest of the nails. The polishes I used were:

-Nicole by OPI Hit The Lights

-Delia's Coral Cascade

-a grainy glitter polish by Charlotte Russe

-a sky blue color by California Colors

I have to say though, do you remember the Mr. Sun song from like preschool? Because this mani reminds me of it lol :)

I also bought a few new polishes at Sally's the other day, and unfortunately I probably won't be able to get around to it until Monday Night, because I'll be doing some more college road trippin' and visiting family out of town and won't get around to it. 

Thanks for reading!! I'm off to bed....Good Night!!

-Colleen

NOTE: I don't think the link up is open yet, so I'll have to add my link tomorrow morning when it is