Pinspiration Challenge Day 11: Tutorial

We did it! The last day of the challenge is finally here! And I'm happy to say that I'm going out on a strong note. I wanted to do something fun and graphic for the tutorial inspired challenge, and this particular design by @myawesomebeauty kept coming back to me:

I got a buy one get one free China Glaze deal today, so I used my two new (gray and For Audrey mint) polishes to accent the Shower Together base. Here's what I came up with:

I really like how these turned out! They're fun, and a satisfying end to this challenge. I'm glad it's over, as I'm pretty tuckered out, but it was good to challenge myself, and who knows- maybe others will be inspired to try the challenge at some point. Thank you to all of you who stopped by to see my designs! 

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 8: Food

I decided to go with something quick and simple for today's challenge. I found this pin a while back and decided to give it a go. Here is the original pineapple design by poppingnails.tumblr.com:

And here is my version:

They're kind of cute, right? I'll have to try them again this summer.

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 5: Grayscale

Today's challenge was quick and simple. I like this simple pointillism design by Quite Polished, so I did a literal interpretation as it was already in grayscale. Here is the original pin:

And here is my version that I did on the fly:

(sorry for the blurriness, I was in a rush)

Simple, easy, fun - I love them!

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!

Pinspiration Challenge Day 3: Geometric

I'm excited about this one, you guys! My nails turned out really well for today's challenge!

It was hard not to just do my own thing for this on since I love color blocking, but I found a cool pin to take inspiration from here. This is by a French blogger, it seems: La Paillette Frondeuse. Here's the original pin:

And here is my interpretation:

I added some more stripes and changed the colors to match my wardrobe this weekend. I love them! I'll be sad to take them off.

Happy Painting!

Pinspiration Challenge Day 2: Stripes

Day two of the challenge is upon us! I decided to give my fingers a break and give myself a pedi for stripe day. The pin that inspired me is actually the first pin I pinned to my nail art board! This is the original pin credited to pshiiit.com:

And as you'll see, besides making this a pedicure, I also changed the colors to pastels, and changed the number of stripes.

I got impatient and put on striping tape before the base was dry, which actually hasn't happened to me yet, so I unfortunately had some leaking.

I like them, though! I'm glad I finally got around to trying this design out. I mean, that is the point of the challenge after all...

See you on Friday for the Geometric challenge!

Happy Painting!

Pinspiration Challenge Day 1: Dots

It's here! The Pinspiration Challenge is finally here! I'm excited to get this thing started and I hope you are too.
Well, let's get to it- for the first day of the challenge, we needed to pick a pinterest design inspired by dots. I saw this cute pin a while ago, and thought that this prompt would be the perfect time to do my own take on it. Here is the original pin by Waki Laki:

And here is my rendition:

It turns out my nails are far too small to fit the original design! But I still think this is cute, if not a bit sloppy. And I got to try out my new goldish-green OPI polish!

Make sure to add your designs to the linkup below.

Happy  Painting!

An InLinkz Link-up

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!

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!

Noteworthy Nails 09.09.13

Hey there, internet. Well, today I was planning on doing the animal print design for the 30 day challenge, but as I mentioned in my last post, I'm suffering from a pretty bad back injury. I only got as far as filing my fingers and toes and then realized that even that was probably overdoing it. So, while I'm on a paint delay, I thought I'd try something new.

I'm a big fan of lists, discovering new blogs/designs, and giving people the props they deserve. So, every week (or so is the plan) I'll make a list of my favorite nail related posts from around the blogosphere. Let's get started!

Funniest Polish Pin:

The Little Mermaid and Polish

It's just oh so very true!

Favorite Pop Culture Design:

The Nailasaurus's "Paint All the Nails"

I love memes just as much as I love nail art, so this homage to Hyperbole and a Half wins me over.

Favorite Red Design:

Fashion Passion's cherry nails. You know I can't resist a good cherry print!

Favorite Orange Design:

I adore this Fall Pumpkin mani! I am certain I will try to recreate this soon.

Most Delicious Looking Design:

I wish I knew who to give credit for this pin, because this Granny Smith Apple manicure is totally adorable.

Best Tutorial:

This Lace Like design from stylemotivation.com has been a popular pin on my pinterest board lately. This is one of those designs that actually does look pretty easy to recreate, even for someone with unsteady hands like myself.

New Blogger to Follow:

Considering she was my first follower (thanks!) and is just starting her journey into nail art blogging, I must give a shout out to Bnasty Nails. It's great to find someone else that is also just getting started (or in my case, re-started) with this type of blog.

Favorite Florals/Stripes:

This is a two in one! I love this awesome design by Jax Nails. The colors are great and the stripes and flowers go surprisingly well together.

Favorite Pedicure:

I'm loving the colors in this Beautiful Floral design by...ameblo? I found this on pinterest and the site is in Japanese, so I apologize if that's the wrong name of the site.

Most Popular Post (of mine) on Pinterest:

Pinterest Inspired Flowers which currently has over 100 repins!

Favorite Non-Nail Art Pin of the Week:

Adam Scott breaks down the lyrics of Ice Ice Baby.


Well, that's it for this week. Let me know if you'd like me to continue with these types of posts and/or leave a comment with some of your favorite designs as of late.

Happy Painting!

Pinterest Inspired Flowers

After a long leave of absence, I'm back to practicing nail art and blogging about it!
I'm pretty sure the sudden popularity of nail art is due in large part to the wonderful website Pinterest (check out my nail board here ). I love gaining inspiration and trying my hand at more difficult designs, and although I've been doing nail art for about 6 years now, I'm definitely not a pro. So I decided to try two great designs I found on Pinterest and tried to replicated them as best as I could.

My first attempt was inspired by this fantastic design by A Girl and Her Polish.

The flowers remind me a bit of pansies and the colors are good for summer. I didn't have that off white color she used, made smaller flowers, and added purple ones. Here's what I ended up with:

The dots are a bit messy, but overall I was quite happy with how they turned out. My roommate said that she thought they looked like wallpaper, which I think is a good thing? The way she said it made me think it was a high compliment.

I also decided to paint my fingernails, which doesn't happen often, but my nails are in great shape for it. I actually had to cut them quite a bit since they were interfering more than they were helping, but I still had a lot of room to work with the length I made them.

Unfortunately, the link to the website for this next design I found on Pinterest didn't work. If anyone knows who this belongs to, let me know so I can give them credit.

This just seemed like a really classy design and it works well for the summer. My version is definitely not as clean...

The pictures are a bit blurry, so it actually looks a bit better. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. I went with something slightly different from the original and kept it simple. Far from perfect, but not too shabby. I also think it's kind of funny that my right hand turned out so much better than my left, since I'm usually pretty shaky painting with my non-dominant hand. 

I think I might make a tutorial for my next post, since I find those to be really helpful for those of us who are at the beginner-intermediate skill level.

Give Thanks for Paint

Over the holiday I offered to paint a few family members' nails. My cousins searched my pinterest nail art board and picked two designs they liked. I hadn't tried either of the designs, but thought it would be a nice challenge and they both seemed pretty realistic to do in an hour (I have slow hands).

First up, my lovely cousin-in-law Lyssa's design:

The color accuracy and photo quality aren't the greatest, but this is pretty close to how they looked. This was my first time using tape to get straight lines. I only taped the middle triangle section and hand painted everything else. I think it turned out pretty well and I can definitely see the advantage of taping but I think I'll try to find thin strips of tape so I can have better lines. I used 3 China Glaze paints- Lemon Fizz, Peachy Keen (it's less orange in person), and Shower Together. The color combination is pretty pleasing. This was my first time painting someone else's fingers in a LONG time. It was rather enjoyable.

This morning before we left I quick did my cousin Hannah's toes with this gradient stripe design. It's different from the inspiration photo (which is angled, all one color family, and has much straighter lines), but considering I did it in a rush and entirely freehand, I think it turned out really well.

Again, I apologize for the photo quality/color

Hannah seemed to like the end result, and this design is really perfect for her, given her love for the ocean. I did realize while doing this that I could really use some new tools. If you have advice for brushes or other tools that hold paint well and can do striping and very intricate details, please leave a comment. 

It was really a pleasure to do these designs this weekend! I'll have to find more people back home that would like a free manicure/pedicure, since it's really great practice for me and I find it really relaxing and fun.