Sling Manis

Well, it's been three weeks now since I dislocated my shoulder and let me tell you that it is boooring not being able to use both arms. Especially in the summer. So I attempted a couple manicures while keeping my arm in the sling.

This design matched my dress for another wedding. I'm actually pretty proud of this considering I had to keep my right arm stable the whole time.

This one turned out cuter and was a good summer design. The colors also matched my outfits for most of the week which was quite fun.

It sounds like I can finally get out of the sling and back into the normal swing of things. Well, I should really avoid swinging, but uh, you know what I mean. 

I did a pedicure last night and spent way too long trying to remember how to do water marbling for a manicure today. Both turned out decently, and I'll post pictures soon.

Until then...

Happy Painting!

Pinspiration Challenge Day 10: Pop Culture

I was short on time today so I just did a quick and simple on for this  challenge that's been done many times before - The Hunger Games fire. Here's the original pin by Kayla Shevonne
:

And here's my rendition:

Only one day left of the Pinspiration Challenge!

Happy Painting!

Pinspiration Challenge Day 9: Pedicure

Wow! There's only one week left of this challenge! Today's was wonderful, since I started doing nail art exclusively on my toes. I found this cool pin by elle-memo and thought it had a fun feel to it. Here is the original pin:

And here is my version:

I thought it would look good in green and possibly give the snow around here a hint that it's time to finally melt.

It's a bit tricky to see the dark green next to the black, but in optimal lighting (or in person) it shows up much clearer. I really like these! 

Two more challenges left! Time to browse my Pinterest board...

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!

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!

January Nails

So, as you may have noticed, I am not the greatest at updating this blog regularly. I am, however, still painting my nails fairly often, so today I have two of my recent manicures to share with you.

For the first time in a long time I decided to do a splatter manicure. Those can be a bit exhausting, but it looks pretty awesome when you're done. These pictures aren't the greatest since I just randomly took them on my phone, but you can get a pretty good feel of what they looked like.

My roommate got me Essie's Lilacism for christmas, and I love it! I saw a design similar to this next one on pinterest and wanted to give it a try. You'll notice some weird striping/smudging which was unfortunate, but I really liked them overall. They were also a hit among friends.

Not too shabby, eh? Right now I have a random manicure with the new OPI polishes I got. They were half off at TJ Maxx! I couldn't pass up a deal that good. Apparently they look like some classic rock album cover. I don't know. I may end up taking a quick picture of them, but they're pretty chipped at this point.

Anyhow, I shall try to post more often! I pinky promise.

Happy Painting!

Happy New Year! 2014 Nails.

Last night I decided to do an impromptu manicure to celebrate the new year. I don't know about you, but I am quite glad that 2013 is over. Here's to 2014!

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 a Tutorial

We did it! Well, maybe. I'm perplexed. Some people think this is the last day of the challenge and others are going with 31 days. I don't know.

I'm getting this out a day late since I ran out of time after finishing this design yesterday. I was going to do an apple tutorial but then pulled out my China Glaze Peachy Keen and decided I wanted to used it, so I did my own take on this tutorial by Jennifer Marcus.

Kind of cool, right? It's sort of like a tribal print, which I'm generally not too great at, but I like a few of these. It's hard to tell, but the light color is a pink from Sinful Colors.

Because I was going out in public and didn't want to look weird with only one hand painted, I went for a full on manicure. With the exception of my pinky (which was basically a lost cause), I actually think I like how my right hand turned out better than my left.

The lines are far from perfect, but compared to some of the earlier challenges, I think I've come a long way. This challenge has been difficult and tiring, but awesome practice and really fun as well. So, perhaps in a few days I'll throw in the 31st challenge, but until then, I want to thank those of you who have liked my posts and commented. The feedback means so much to me and has been very encouraging. I'm excited to see what everyone comes up with post-challenge!

Happy Painting!

30 Day Challenge: Inspired by the Supernatural

I wasn't really looking forward to today's challenge, but figured that an alien from another planet that has a bunch of crazy powers probably qualifies as supernatural.

Superman is all about primary colors, and I threw in some kryptonite green as an accent nail. Definitely not my best work. Oh well. 

Happy Painting!

30 Day Challenge: Inspired by a Flag

So originally I thought this challenge might be kind of boring. That is, until I remembered that football teams have flags! As a true Wisconsinite, I of course had to honor my beloved Green Bay Packers.

You can see the flag these nails were based off of here.

I know we've had a bit of a rocky start this season, but Packer fans never lose hope. We own our team, we love our team. I mean, how can you not love Aaron Rodgers, or Jordy Nelson, or Clay Matthews?

We don't play this week, but I think I'll have to do these nails again next week for the game. Gotta support my team any way I can! Green and Gold forever! Now, where's my cheesehead...

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 a Pattern

I've always enjoyed brick walls. I'm often doodling them or have them as the background on my laptop, so I figured this would be a great day to paint my nails like bricks.

It's a little hard to see, but I went in and sponged over the red with a deep reddish brown color to give it some more texture, which looks really cool in person.

Wobbly lines aside, I think this is a pretty fun design. I would definitely do more with the sponging next time.

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!

31 Day Challenge: Inspired By a Book

Okay, so I'm catching up again. I had a rough day, so the two designs I did today (especially the fashion one) are not up to par. Oh well. This one is pretty cute.
I'm more of an article girl than a book girl, and I wanted to do something fun, so I went with Dr. Seuss.

Not too bad, I suppose. I used glue as my base today so pretty much five minutes after I took these pictures I peeled these guys off and went on to the next challenge. I already put away my polishes and don't really feel like getting them out again so no polish list tonight.

Happy Painting!

30 Day Challenge: Inspired By a Song

Well, we're going back to the 90's for this challenge. Remember that catchy song "Blue" from Eiffel 65? Well, let me remind you of some of the lyrics:

Yo listen up here's a story
About a little guy that lives in a blue world
And all day and all night and everything he sees
Is just blue like him inside and outside

Blue is his house with a blue little window

And a blue corvette

And everything is blue for him and himself

And everybody around

'cause he ain't got nobody to listen

I have a blue house with a blue window.
Blue is the colour of all that I wear.
Blue are the streets and all the trees are too.
I have a girlfriend and she is so blue.

Have fun trying to get that song out of your head!

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!