Candy Corn at Sunset

And now for something completely different! Oops, wait, that will have to be another day, because this is the obligatory Halloween manicure. ^_^ Actually, I did this mani last week. As I write this post, I have no idea what I will have on my nails for my anniversary. Probably just plain black, as the kids have me dressing up as Death this year. My kids will be Ren & Lin dressed as Black Cats of Halloween. I am apparently officially *old* now, because I thought that this would be an extremely obscure costume...but apparently anyone into anime would know what this is. I was chatting with the clerk at the fabric store when I bought the material to make their shorts and cloaks, and she knew exactly what I meant when I told her. But then, she and her friends are going as the Teen Titans this Halloween. :)

Anyway, the manicure!

Obviously the index and middle fingers are meant to portray candy corn. The remaining three are not strictly Halloween scenes. They're just sunset with tree and bird/bat silhouettes. I didn't even paint any gravestones! And yet, because of the time of year, one immediately interprets the flying beasties as bats rather than birds.

I was really happy with the trees on my thumb. Not so much the one on my pinkie - I was trying for a spreading tree, like an oak, rather than the tall skinny ones like on the thumb - but it just came out blobby, I think. I started with a base coat of Pure Ice Superstar! which is my current white polish. The candy corn was done with Primary Beauty Neon Yellow and Wet N Wild The Clock Strikes Orange, though I touched up the yellow ends with Sally Girl Banana later, as my index fingernail broke and the polish chipped on the middle nail before I could get pictures (it was raining a lot when I had these nails.)

The sunset was done with a gradient of Barielle Jordana's Skinny Jeans, Broadway O! Jessica, and The Clock Strikes Orange, with the ground and silhouettes painted in Sinful Shine Dark Room, which is my current black polish. I didn't take any pictures of my right hand because it was just plain bad. The thumb smudged at some point and while sometimes I can draw decently left-handed, this manicure was not one of those times. :P

Spring Curtains through a Window Frame

My co-worker, L, has decided that she is going to name all of my manicures. I was really just going for plaid with this nail art, but she decided that the blue and light brown looked like curtain fabric behind the dark brown window frame, so the blog title was born.

The base color for the designed nails is Color Club Take Me To Your Chateau, and the plain nails are Barielle Aura Angora. Also used on the designs are Cherimoya Vernis Classique Cappucino and Primark Beuaty Neon Blue.

My left thumbnail decided to smudge the next morning even though it had been dry before I went to bed the night before. It was fine when I woke up, but after getting ready for work, the polish had smooshed itself back. I smoothed it out as best I could, but the closeup pics are tattletales!

Flowers on a Million Dollar Mermaid

I have a few manicures that I did back before Christmas that never got posted for some reason, so you get filler posts for now. One of my polish exchange group sent me a Deborah Lippmann polish. I can't fathom spending that kind of money for a polish unless it was on someone's really high wish list, but I'm certainly not ungrateful! The reason I joined the exchange group was to get polishes that I wouldn't buy for myself, so I had a full range of colors in my palette whenever I wanted to create something new, and Million Dollar Mermaid definitely qualifies!

If I remember correctly, this is just two coats of MDM. I remember expecting it to be sheer and being surprised at how thoroughly it covered. As should be expected from a high dollar polish, the glitter spread completely evenly and no moving it around was required for full coverage. I used Color Club Take Me To Your Chateau and Primark Beauty Neon Blue for the flowers, along with one of my several different white polishes. For some reason, I didn't note down which white I used, so I can't tell you this long after the fact. ::sheepish grin::

More Halloween Water Marbling

As I mentioned yesterday, I had two Samhain-themed watermarble manicures for you. This time I used China Glaze Midtown Magic, Primark Beauty Neon Orange, and Sinful Colors Unicorn for the marbling.

A couple of fingers accidentally got some slight double-dipping when my nail touched down accidentally when I was dipping another one. Oddly enough, those two came out some of the most gorgeous nails due to the depth of the pattern!

The thumbnails came out the most like what I was going for in my swirling pattern, but I can honestly say that I love how each and every nail came out on this mani. It's just gorgeous, and I loved wearing it! I didn't want to take it off, but I wanted more Halloween nails! :)

Picture spam below...

52-Week Challenge: 4/15 - Flowers

I've never been any good at french tips. I love the way they look on other people - very classy and sophisticated. But even if I use a tip guide to get a good line, I'll get one finger too far down or up compared to the other fingers, or something else will go wrong. It's never quite the way I want it to come out. But with this manicure, I was able to cover the worst of the issues!

The two base colors for this manicure are both brand new untried polishes for me. I've been picking up nudes here and there for the last couple of times I was polish shopping, and I've finally found one that actually looks nude on me! NYC Carrie'd Away is the underlying color of these nails, and then I used China Glaze Midtown Magic for the french tips.

After that, I drew the flowers with a detail brush and Milani Whitest White. Then I painted over the white with Color Club Take Me To Your Chateau on some flowers and China Glaze Sugar High on the others. I used more Whitest White to draw little lines for detail on the flowers, then added some Primark Beauty neon yellow for the centers.

March Polish Days - Vintage

VINTAGE

As you can see, this month's Polish Days theme is Vintage! The last time I had this theme, I ended up with what is usually referred to as "vintage roses", even though I took the pattern off of a rug in a very old advertisement. This time I wanted to go with something different...even though I still ended up with some floral elements.

I started by googling "vintage patterns" and after adding six new pictures to my "Inspirations for Nail Art" folder on my pinterest board, I decided on this:

 This picture is from a listing on Etsy (which was sold last summer) for a Super Mod dress from the 70's. I used Milani Whitest White, NYC Black Lace Creme, China Glaze Kalahari Kiss, and Primark Beauty orange neon in my recreation.

It was late at night on a Sunday, I hadn't intended to do my nails until Monday night, but I'd apparently worn my manicure one day too long as first one nail broke and the nail polish didn't just chip, the polish popped off the entire nail. I intended to just repair that one nail but five minutes later when I sat down to fix it, I discovered another (unbroken) nail on the other hand was missing its polish. So here I am, tired and ready to hit the sack, but I have a meeting at work the next day and I want a full manicure. So I went ahead with this one...but I didn't have the time or patience to use striping tape, so those stripes are free-handed.

And then, of course, I had NO desire to attempt free-hand stripes on my dominant hand!! Out come the handy-dandy dotting tools instead! Using the same colors, I made what I think is a very period-accurate floral print to go with the stripes on the other hand.

So that's my interpretation of this month's theme. Now go check out everybody else's gorgeous nails!

Dotted Harmony Blues

Whenever I don't know what I want to do with my nails, or I'm in a hurry but want something playful, I fall back on the ever-pretty dotticure. I started with one of my newest additions to my stash, NYC Midnight. I pulled out the only polish I've had to buy a second bottle of so far, China Glaze Frostbite, along with Primark Neon Blue and Color Club Take Me To Your Chateau, and just had fun on my nails.

I did the dots in a different order on each nail, but other than that, I had no plan. And my nails turned out happy, happy!

"This is Halloween" - Day 1

I'm a late entry to this challenge because I am running behind in reading my nail art blogs and only saw the challenge this morning. I LOVED the idea, though, and decided I was going to start my participation as soon as I got home!

I have to thank Lacquer Dreams for coming up with this challenge. I love Halloween, it's one of my favorite holidays. I'm pagan, as well, so it's like New Year's AND Halloween AND it's my wedding anniversary, all rolled up into one fun day. So of course I'm going to jump on the bandwagon for a Halloween-themed challenge for my first Halloween since I started doing nail art!

So, horror movie. I love horror movies. I love the campy, cheesy ones, and I love the edge-of-your-seat nail biting ones. I especially love supernatural horror rather than the plain old serial killer version. But oddly enough, the movie I chose to base my nail art on is one I really don't care for. It's not that I dislike it, I just don't particularly like it. It does, however, have a certain odd sentimental value in my family because it was the first movie my daughter, Brianna, actually sat still for and watched all the way through. The movie that hyperactive little three-year-old decided was worth sitting still for a full 87 minutes for? Child's Play. There are reasons we call her a cross between Princess Barbie and Wednesday Addams, people! :)

I started with a base layer of two coats of Milani Whitest White on all of my nails, then I used China Glaze Frostbite, Avon Vintage Blue, Primary Beauty Pink Neon, and China glaze Adventure Red-Y to mimic the stripes on Chucky's shirt. I used Sally Hansen Black Pearl Chrome and Sinful Colors Celeb City to make the butcher knife and Adventure Red-Y and China Glaze Salsa to make the blood.

I tried - and failed miserably - to draw Chucky's face on my thumbnail. It's horrible, I know, and after I've let my co-workers see my horrible rendition of it tomorrow, I'll paint over that ugly mug.

I didn't even attempt to do any pictures on my off-hand, of course. I put the same stripes on, though quite a bit shakier drawing with my left hand, and I used a coffee stirrer for a straw to make blood splatters on my accent fingers, again with Adventure Red-Y and Salsa.

I enjoyed seeing all the other entries in this challenge, and I'll do my best to make sure all the rest of my entries are actually on the day they're scheduled for. Thanks for playing! Now, go check out all the other pretties:

Week 32: Needle Marble

Yet another week has gone by, and that means another theme for the Year's Challenge. Head over to Jenna Froggy's page to check out the full schedule and see a list of other blogs participating, but for now, this week's theme is Needle Marble. If you're not already aware, needle marble is a technique where you put drops of different colors of polish on your nail, and use a sharp instrument - toothpick, tiny dotting tool, or needle (hence the name, duh ;) - to draw swirls directly on your nail. I don't remember who it was, but the blogger I first saw using this technique linked to a Robin Moses tutorial for how to do it, so I'll give credit for where I learned how to do this where it's due. You can find the video at the bottom of this post. :)

Without further ado, here's what I came up with!

I had an inspiration for this manicure. I don't know how well I captured it, but I was basing it on a particular painting, Rebirth by Oni Hazarian, which is available in multiple types of prints from Fine Art America. I love browsing their website for inspiration, which you can tell from browsing my "Inspirations for Nail Art" pinterest board. ^_^

To do my best with how this beauty inspired me, I used a base of China Glaze Smoke and Ashes. The various swirls were done with Primark Beauty neons yellow, blue, and orange, Sinful Colors San Francisco, and NYC Broadway Burgundy Frost. This is one of those manicures where I think it really looks much better in person than in pictures. I did manage to get a certain depth to it that I don't think really shows up here. Ah, well. Even if I didn't capture the effervescence of the painting, I still have pretty nails!

And, as I promised, the link to the great teacher of technique - Robin Moses teaching "Marbling Without Water":

Brownstone & Beetle Lace + Bonus Mani

Hello fellow hobbyists and other nail art aficionados! Today you get to look at everybody's hands but mine! :) Well, the first mani is on my BFF V's hands, which are regular guest stars here. The bonus mani, however, is from a first-time guest on my blog, but I'll tell you more about that when we get down there. (Why yes, it is my evil plan to leave you in suspense, why do you ask?)

So, while browsing at Hancock's the other day (though honestly, I was just being a chaffeur for the actual shopper) I decided that I wanted to try doing lace on nails. I've seen others do it, and it looks awesome...but you know what? It's kind of hard to find lace that has small enough details to be worth trying on nails. And I wanted some black, but the black ones were either not tiny enough detail, or too expensive for my post-vacation, pre-payday finances. :P So I found a couple of white choices.

I'll admit to not being terribly happy about this manicure, and not being able to topcoat over the lace (which is why the accent nails got painted over, by the way, because the topcoat soaked in too much and we didn't like the result) meant that they weren't as secure as I would have liked. I thought it would be okay, since when we did a cotton floss manicure (behold, the way waay back machine!) it actually stood up to office work for several days without problems. Alas, this manicure was not so sturdy...though it might have lasted more than half a day if V hadn't accidentally soaked her nails in a kitchen cleaner with ammonia in it while cleaning her office break room...

Well, it looked pretty before then, anyway! We started with two coats of China Glaze Brownstone, and I added a coat of Hard Candy Beetle on the thumb and ring fingers. Then I cut a few little pieces of lace, laid down a layer of topcoat, and stuck them on there. Voila, manicure! Okay, okay, we also managed to get too much topcoat on the ring finger when I was trying to stick down the edges, and it made it look bad, so we painted over the lace with another coat of Beetle. I don't care for the way it looks, personally, and wanted to remove that nail and start over, but V liked it, and since it's her hands...

And now for our bonus manicure! As I said, this is a first-time guest on our blog, and it's likely to be her last time appearance, as well, as it's G, my oldest daughter, and she lives in Kentucky with her dad and other-mom (okay, legally step-mom, but she's been a great mom, no prefix, for my older three kids and she deserves the title.) She was visiting us for a month between her graduation from high school and heading off to the University of Kentucky this fall (with a full ride National Merit Honors scholarship - obligatory proud parent bragging, you know.)  While she enjoyed playing with my nail polish stash while she was here, she limited her manicures to french tips and occasional accent nails...until just before she left! I managed to get the nail art bug to bite her!

I was doing a taped manicure, and she thought the method looked interesting, so she took some and did a basic X-pattern with the tape on her already pink nails, and added purple in two of the four sections resulting. When she was done, she declared it looked like a hazard symbol...and less than an hour later, she was removing her polish, because she'd decided to try a real hazard symbol! She started with a nice coat of Primark Beauty neon yellow, some slightly more complicated taping than her original X, and added a layer of China Glaze Liquid Leather in half the taped sections. She wasn't sure how to go about doing the center of the symbol, so I took a look at what she was going for...

radiation warning symbol

...and pulled out two different sizes of dotting tools. So a large dot of yellow topped with a smaller dot of black later, and she had the following manicure:

Isn't that just awesome for a very first nail art manicure?? It was also the first manicure she sported here that she didn't chip off over the course of the next day. :P She even went so far as to touch it up a bit the next day! And she was looking over various other geeky symbols that she could possibly do on her nails in the future. I showed her the nail art blog, NailNerd.com, and she officially declared me to be the Evil!Mom. She was still browsing that blog a half-hour later...and that evening she discussed with me what she could use for dotting tools, or if she needed to buy some! ::giggle:: I love corrupting the youth of society!