May I have your attention, please...

As I said in an earlier post, I have an announcement to make!

Drumroll, please.....

*cymbal crash*

I'm hosting a new nail art challenge for the month of March! As some of you may know, I get a lot of my inspiration for my designs through Pinterest. Sometimes I try to replicate designs precisely, other times I simply like the general vibe of a design.

Pinterest, in my opinion, has really helped make nail art a popular trend. Most people with at least some interest in nails will try something they see on Pinterest at least once, and most nail art bloggers have a nail art board.

So why not celebrate all of the wonderful designs on Pinterest? We can discover more artists, try something new, and actually recreate those pins we pinned oh so long ago.

The only rule is that you must credit the original designer in each post, as well as link to the original pin.

So, are you interested? If so, please help spread news of this challenge around. I will host a link up so we can stay connected and admire everyone's work. I think this will be fun!

And to add some more pizazz to this post, here's one of three designs I did over the weekend. I'm getting better at using my striping tape!

Happy Painting!

An earnest attempt at striping

As I mentioned in my last post, I recently bought some striping tape. This weekend I decided to try it out for a manicure. It took a LOT of patience and I learned a thing or two along the way.

It's a bit tricky to tell with this lighting, but I used black, charcoal gray, light gray, peach, and white. I'm actually quite pleased with the way this turned out considering how difficult it was to apply the tape with one hand. 

Yeah, I think I ended up prepping, painting, and cleaning up for about three hours. Ridiculous, right? Well, part of that time was me being distracted by Netflix, but I've realized that in general it just takes me forever to paint. Is that true for you guys as well? Any tips to speed up the process?

Stay tuned for an exciting announcement next week! Until then...

Happy Painting!

It's a Manicure Miracle!

You guys, something huge has just happened. My manicure has lasted an entire week without any noticeable chips!!! This has never happened before. I always pick at my nails, and my polish almost always chips significantly by the 4th day since I use my nails a lot for work and they sometimes get beat up when I play music. But besides the small dent that was basically there to begin with, they look stellar!

I probably should have taken better pictures so you could marvel (okay, I'm the only marveling, but still) at how great these still look. But, here's what they looked like right after painting them a week ago:

And here's what they look like now:

So, what did I do differently? Well, I tried out a new product - Chip Skip from OPI. I was skeptical at first, but goodness, it really works! I have a tiny bottle that came in a sample pack, but I would definitely consider coughing up the money to buy a full bottle of this stuff. It would be especially good for giving other people manicures, since I change my nails rather frequently anyhow.

In other news, I finally bought some striping tape. I tried it out for my pedicure and it turned out pretty well for my first time using the stuff, although I don't have a picture to show you. It's a bit tedious and certainly time consuming, but I know I'm going to have a lot of fun with striping designs in the next few weeks.

Okay, last point of business. This floral design was inspired by pinterest, and that got me thinking of creating a nail art challenge inspired by pinterest designs. Would anyone be interested in doing a challenge like this?

Happy Painting!