Polka Bows

Man, it's been a whole month since I posted...again! As usual, I've still been doing my nails and taking pictures, but I just haven't seemed to have the time or words to write these blog posts.

This mani is a Monkey-See, Monkey-Do based on Radi D.'s gorgeous manicure which you can find here. Even after more than two years, I still cannot copy the tiny, crisp lines that my favorite nail artists manage. I am so in awe of their abilities!! But I was still pretty darned happy about my results, even on my winter-short nails.

I started with a base of Pure Ice Home Run, followed by a angled tip with OPI Jade is the New Black. The dark lines are done in Orly Buried Alive, and Sinful Shine Wisp was used for the white detail work. I think Sinful Shine is too thick of a polish to work for detailed lines, though, but I'm running out of my standard Milani Whitest White. I need to pick up some more plain white and black polish next time I'm at Walgreens.

Magically Delicious

I have no words for this one. I had no plan for it at all. I just felt like green and didn't feel like working too hard on the nail art. The base color is Wet N Wild Stand the Test of Lime, followed by a layer or two of Girly Bits Magically Delicious.

I used OPI Live and Let Die and Suzi Loves Cowboys for the design details, and I was done!

Acutely Angled Rainbows

This one is a personal nail fail, though it came out looking kind of cute. It was a fail because it wasn't the way I wanted it to look when I designed it in my head. This is an example of why I tell people that I'm not creative. I'm good at implementation, not design, which is why so many of my best manicures are copied from other people's creations.

I started with a base of Sinful Colors Cinderella, and then I just drew triangles in the following rainbow of colors: Sinful Shine Devious, Wet N Wild The Clock Strikes Orange, China Glaze Solar Power, OPI Jade is the New Black, Sinful Shine Break Away, and Wet N Wild Who is Ultra Violet? I started with a different color on each nail, so that they layered differently; for example, on some nails the last triangles added were red, while on another nail the top layer of triangles is orange, or yellow.

I think I might try this one again at some point, but instead of doing two triangles of each color, only do one. I think it just came out too busy. And I didn't get the triangle lines as crisp and precise as I would have liked. Ah, well, no one is perfect, and definitely not me!

Dippity Dotty Doo

I needed a green fix! OPI Jade is the New Black and OPI Live and Let Die were the base colors for this manicure, and Sinful Shine Wisp is my current go-to white polish. There's not much more to say about this manicure - I used a larger dotting tool to make white dots, filled in the spaces with smaller white dots, then went back over with the smaller dotting tool in the base color to dot on top of the large white ones. The most frequent comment on this mani was, "Bubbles!"

 

 

Poinsettias

It's the quintessential winter/Yule/Christmas manicure. Poinsettias are almost a requirement for winter nail art. It was also the topic for one of my earliest nail art attempts. Look how far I've come from this mani I did back in December two years ago!

How far I have come! And a concrete example of why I blog my nail art in the first place. It's both a record to me of my work, and hopefully encouragement to new nail artists who might come across this and see where I started and how I've progressed with practice. I'm nowhere near artists like Base Coat, Top Coat or 10 Blank Canvases, but I'm very satisfied with where I am and how I've developed with my skills.

Today's manicure started out with a base of Sally Hansen White On. The poinesttias are done in Zoya Karina and Blaze, and detailed with Sinful Shine Dark Room. The leaves were done in OPI Live and Let Die and detail lines were done with OPI Jade is the New Black mixed together with a touch of White On. The center berries were done with dots of Dark Room topped with dots of China Glaze Solar Power, and I used the dotting tool to press down into the wet black lacquer under the yellow to make texture. I wouldn't often dig into the previous coat of paint when doing a manicure, but for the center of flowers it tends to be a nice effect.

I like to show both my left hand and right hand work, to document how good and how bad I can be in one mani. Or more just to be honest in recording my work over the years, honestly. So here's the art on my dominant hand, for all to see just how badly I draw with my left hand.

I really love this manicure, and my Christmas enthusiastic co-worker literally squealed. I have to say, I'm really really happy with my left-hand thumb. I just love the way it came out. That and my middle finger on that hand are my favorites.

 

Framed Dragon

My most recent package from my polish exchange group actually made me squeal OUT LOUD when I opened up one of the polishes. This has been on my wishlist for nearly as long as I've had one, really. From one of the first indie polish makers (I didn't even realize they were an independent polish maker when I first got into nail art!), I received A-England's Dragon. I really did make my entire family laugh at me because I was opening up each of these pretty polishes in their little bubble wrap bags, and I opened this one up and my first thought was, "Oh, that's pretty!" and then I turned the bottle and realized it was A-England...I checked the label and squealed. Fairly loudly, I'm sure. And then I was jumping up and down like a six-year-old (I have one, so I know whereof I speak!) yelling, "I got DRAGON! I got DRAGON!!" And you know what? It didn't disappoint. In the slightest.

My photography skills just don't live up to the glorious beauty of this polish, so I have to share a picture from The Swatcoholic:

It really is this glorious in real life, especially in sunlight. I tried, but could not capture the beautiful shimmer or the holographic glimmers that made me wiggle my nails off and on all day just to see the sparkles.

I added some swirls with OPI Live and Let Die, and highlighted it with swirls and dots of Sally Hansen Celeb City, and my thumbnails used just dots down the center as accent nails.

Raggio di Luna's manicure here was the inspiration for the design, but I just looked through my Nail Art board on Pinterest to find a design that I could use to highlight Dragon in all its fiendishness.

52-Week Challenge: 4/29 - Inspired by Food

Strawberries! Let's face it - I don't really get inspired by food. No matter how many artists have been moved to paint still life portraits of bowls of fruit, that isn't me. So I typed 'food nail art' into google, clicked 'images', and browsed. Still really not inspired, but I think the strawberries are cute, so strawberries it is! :)

I started with a base of my brand new white, Sinful Shine Wisp. I used Color Club Take Me To Your Chateau and sponged some on the top half of the nail, because I didn't want that stark white as contrast. The base color for the strawberries is Sinful Shine Devious, and then I used China Glaze Adventure Red-Y and Solar Power for the seeds; OPI Jade is the New Black and China Glaze Tree Hugger made the stems.

I was told this morning that they're "cute" and one person said they looked tasty! To which I replied, "No nibblin' on the nails!"

 

MSMD -AND- Weekly Challenge Theme

As the subject line suggests, I'm doing double duty with today's post. This is both a Monkey See, Monkey Do Monday, and it also follows this week's theme for the 52-week challenge I'm following.

I got the idea when I saw this post from Marie's Manicure Madhouse, which in her case was inspired by clothing, but I saw both cobblestones and scaly skin in it, as well. Whichever way you look at it, it's a gorgeous manicure:

This week's 52-week challenge theme is "animal print", so I combined that mani inspiration with this snakeskin print...

...and this is the manicure that came out of it!

The base color is Maybelline Color Show Twilight Rays, and the snakeskin print used OPI Wooden Shoe Like to Know? and China Glaze Kalahari Kiss.

Let me know what you think of my monkey-see-monkey-do snakeskin, and check out these other entries into today's MSMD Monday!

April Polish Days - 7 Deadly Sins

"Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Sloth, Wrath, Envy, Pride. Unless you're a saint there's a chance you're guilty of at least one.  I'm leaving this one up to your imagination though, so however you chose to interpret the theme, it's up to you! Afterall, who am I to judge your sins ;)"

It's Polish Days again, and as you can see, this month's theme is the 7 Deadly Sins. It was hard for me to take this one seriously, though, because I'm not a Christian. As a pagan, I believe that while emotions can sometimes lead to evil actions, it's not the emotions that are the evil. Your emotions hurt only yourself - only your actions can hurt others.

So here's my interpretation of two of the "deadly sins".

There's Pride and the Grapes of Wrath for you. :) I started with a base of Rimmel London's Sage All the Rage, which is such a pretty shade of dusky light green on its own, but when I put these bright colors on top of it, it washed out to nearly gray. The colors used in the rainbow, in order, were: China Glaze Salsa, Wet N Wild Sunny Side Up, China Glaze Solar Power, OPI Jade is the New Black, China Glaze Man Hunt, NYC Purple Pizzazz Frost, and Sinful Colors Snow Me White.

For the grapes I started with a dotting tool and Rimmel London I Lilac You. I then dotted Purple Pizzazz Frost on top with a slightly smaller dotting tool, and then used a detail brush to make light reflection curves with I Lilac You. Jade is the New Black made the leaves, and a good coat of Seche Vite tops it all off. I was really happy with the way the grapes came out - they look almost like decals sometimes when I look at them! :)

Check out all these other interpretations of 7 Deadly Sins today!