Wedding Season Nails

Hey there, nail enthusiasts of the net! I have some fun ones today. It's wedding season, and with that it meant it was time to get a new dress. Of course whenever I go shopping for a dress I take into consideration the kind of nail art I can do to accessorize, and I found such a fun dress to inspire my art.
My cousin got married this past Sunday and I did a mani-pedi to go along with my dress:

(I'm the one on the right)

I snapped some pictures quickly while waiting for the ceremony to start, so these are not the best of pictures (and I proceeded to pick of the paint the next day- bad habit, I know), but they turned out pretty great!

Pretty fun, right?

It's a good thing I like my pedicure, since I'm probably going to be keeping it for quite some time.

I have bad news.

I dislocated my right shoulder yesterday and the doctor I saw thinks I tore a ligament or cartilage. I'll find out in a few days when I see the orthopedic specialist. Either way, My dominant arm is down for the count for at least a few weeks. I guess I can work on using my non-dominant hand in the meantime, but unfortunately I won't be able to do any nail art (or anything else I like to do for that matter) for quite some time. You have no idea how frustrated I am about that. But I will try to post sometime in the next month.

Until then-

Happy Painting!

Pinspiration Challenge Day 7: Animals

Gah! Sorry I didn't post this yesterday, although I did paint my nails yesterday. The past 24 hours have been crazy! Anyhow, I decided to take a stab at some owls today, inspired by yet another unknown designer from Pinterest (well, at least the site the pin takes me to isn't in English):

Here is my not-so-amazing attempt:

Ah, well. Can't win them all!

Happy Painting!

Pinspiration Challenge Day 6: Floral

I wanted to give myself a bit more of a challenge today by trying something new. I have done a lot of floral designs, but almost always use a dotter for those, so I wanted to try something freehand. I found this great design, but unfortunately I couldn't track down the original artist. If you happen to know where it is from originally, I would love to know. But here is the original pin:

And here was my first attempt at this rose technique:

They're fun. Messy, but not too shabby for my first attempt I suppose.

Happy Painting!

Pinspiration Challenge Day 4: Colors

Today's challenge was an interesting (and messy) one. I decided to try out a tutorial pin from my board for a blow dryer technique. I got a new scarf over the weekend and thought that the colors would be really pretty for this design. Here is the original pin by the Neverland Nail Blog:

Here is part of my scarf that inspired my colors:

And here is the result:

Not terrible for my first attempt, but they're not the most beautiful thing I've done either. But still, the colors are pretty and I finally figured out how to get the paint consistency so that it will spread right. It was fun to try.

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!

Leaf inspired pattern

I've seen this pattern floating around the blogosphere and thought it would be fun to try. And it was!

I think these are nice colors for the end of fall. It snowed here yesterday and my heart broke a little. I was not ready to put away my flip flops yet.

Happy Painting!

30 Day Challenge: Inspired By Art

I LOVED this challenge! It was so fun to paint paint again, and I found beautiful inspiration in this painting by Pol Ledent:

About 2 hours and a ton of polishes later, here was the result of my inspiration:

I used some sponging and a paint brush technique to replicate the style, and tried to break up different parts of the painting onto each nail.

I'm quite happy with the result. I think it was a pretty great interpretation, but I'm a bit biased. I did a lot of mixing of my polishes in order to get the right smoky colors, which is part of the reason this took so long. Also, I just really had fun painting like this, so I took my time to try to get everything as close to the original as I could. I really wish you could see these in person, as they look so awesome!

Thankfully I already did tomorrow's challenge earlier today, so I can keep these guys on over the weekend.

Alright, ready to see the ridiculous amount of polishes I used for this one?

Polishes used:

NYC In a Minute Sidewalkers

Essie Blue Rhapsody

China Glaze Bahemian Escape

Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Blue Me Away

China Glaze First Mate

NYC French White Tip

China Glaze Kalahari Kiss

China Glaze Lemon Fizz

China Glaze Sun Worshipper

NYC Times Square Tangerine

China Glaze Peachy Keen

Sinful Colors Easy Going

Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Cherry Red

China Glaze Street Chic

Bon Bons Black

My Golden Yellow Nail Art Pen

Seche Vite (top coat)

Happy Painting!

30 Day Challenge: Inspired By Fashion

You guys, I was really looking forward to this challenge and feel like I bombed. I tried using sharpies over a base coat of polish because I thought I could get straighter lines and more details and it kind of backfired. On the plus side, that means that I'm getting better at painting straight lines. Silver linings, people, silver linings.

I dig the graphics and colors in this dress, and thought it could translate well as a nail design.

Yeah, not the greatest. Project Runway is on tonight, and all I'll be thinking is how disappointed Tim Gunn would be in these nails. It's okay though, he'd be disappointed in a very supportive way, because he's awesome like that.

...they look better from a distance, I guess.

Happy Painting!

30 Day Challenge: Inspired By a (wibbly wobbly) Color

Okay, I'm backtracking to catch up from the weekend, so hopefully I'll be able to post two of these challenges today.

When I saw the prompt for a color, of course my first thought was Tardis Blue. Doctor Who nails have been done before, but I thought I'd take my own little stab at them.

I could only fit "Police" and not "Box" but you get the idea. Aww, a cute little Tardis. Not too shabby for my first try. It doesn't look amazing when you see it this far up close, but trust me, from far away it looks pretty cool. But I'm really proud of how the rest of my DW inspired nails turned out:

Starting from left to right we have the BBC Doctor Who logo, the Silence, a Dalek, and a Bowtie, because bowties are cool.

Isn't the Dalek super cute?? And I think the blue I used for these nails is actually pretty close to the Tardis Blue, but maybe a smidge darker.

Polishes Used:

Pure Ice French Kiss

Sally Hansen Hard As Nails Blue Me Away

Wet n Wild Metallica

China Glaze Concrete Catwalk

NYC Sidewalkers

Wet n Wild Red Red

Black and White Stripers

Happy Painting!

30 Day Challenge: Inspired By a Movie

I'm back! I know I missed two days, but I was so excited about today's prompt that I decided I'll go back and do color and song later this week. Although this design is inspired by my favorite song in my favorite feel good movie, Mary Poppins.

Sometimes when I'm feeling blue I'll watch this clip. It always makes me so very happy! Mary Poppins actually had a pretty profound impact on my life. It was the movie that inspired me to strive to be a filmmaker as an adult. It's a movie I only let myself watch once a year so that it never loses its magic and charm.

"What did I tell ya? There's the whole world at your feet. And who gets to see it but the birds, the stars, and the chimney sweeps."

I must confess, to this day I have a bit of a crush on Bert. And chimney sweeps. And this still shot in general: 

So I tried to recreate this shot, but it was SUPER hard. I mean, for my first attempt to do something with this much tiny detail, I really can't complain. I don't know how some of you can get tiny details so perfect. Anyway, here's what I came up with:

The pictures today aren't really showing the colors well. There's actually a very nice purple/blue gradient for the background. So yeah, not my best work, but I had a really good time painting these.

Ever since I was a kid I would get really sad when the song Step In Time ends, and I think I'll feel similarly sad when I have to take this manicure off. 

Oh, and in fun news: I got a pedicure with my sister this weekend, and my pedicurist asked where I got my manicure done, so that was a really fun compliment to get :)

Polished used:

NYC Cashmere Creme

China Glaze First Mate

NYC In a Minute Battery Park Purple

Bon Bons Purple

Kiss Nail Art Striper Black

Happy Painting!

30 Day Challenge: Galaxy Nails

This was my first time ever doing galaxy nails, so I went with the traditional sponged look. It was really fun! As you'll see at the bottom of this post, I ended up using a TON of polishes. I'm pretty sure I didn't need that many, as it ended being about a fourth of what I own, but I pretty much went crazy with every shimmer polish I have.

Not bad for my first attempt. I really like how the orange/yellow one turned out. I certainly didn't need to use as many polishes as I did, but now I have a better idea of what looks best for whenever I try these again. I'll also be able to get through them a bit faster.

The glue protector took off the edges of my index and middle fingers, but otherwise I'm finally starting to get better at painting inside the lines. If anyone has tips for not flooding your cuticles other than, well, be careful, please let me know. I always appreciate advice.

Tomorrow is water marbling, which might be awful. The two times I've tried it have not been successful in the slightest. This could be interesting. But I do think I'm improving by doing these challenges, so perhaps it won't be as bad as I'm expecting. We shall see!

Polishes used:

NYC In a Minute Quick Dry (base)
Bon Bons Black
China Glaze First Mate
Petites French White
Bon Bons Yellow Shimmer
Bon Bons Pink Shimmer
Bon Bons Purple Shimmer
NYC Broadway Burgundy Frost
Essie Nothing Else Metals
OPI Dutch Ya Just Love OPI
Pure Ice Hot Tamale
Pure Ice Magic
CQ Rustic
NYC Cashmere Creme
Essie Blue Rhapsody
Pure Ice Calypso
China Glaze Shower Together
NYC Big Money Frost
Kiss Nail Art Striper Silver Glitter
Seche Vite (top coat)

Happy Painting!