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 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!

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!

30 Day Challenge: Flowers

My good friend and recent roommate Kelly is visiting for the weekend. I noticed that she has lovely large nail beds and she was happy to let me paint her nails.

I had been browsing google for pictures of flowers to use as inspiration, I showed Kelly a few options and we both really liked this colorful dot design. It literally looks just like this. I think it turned out quite well!

I have to say, I think this might be my favorite or second favorite design of the challenge so far. It was pretty easy, since all I needed was a dotter, but it was time consuming. I think it took around an hour since there were a lot of colors and a lot of waiting around for colors to dry. 

Kelly seems to really like the end result as well. I like this so much that I think I may have to use it for myself after the challenge is over. Or maybe for the recreate a design day- that's the last day I think, right? I think the only thing I'd need to change is to apply a second coat of the base brown. 

Kelly is also trying to convince me to start a little business painting nails and doing makeup and other beauty related things. I'm pretty sure I can't do any of those things fast enough to be really successful, and I'm a bit sloppy yet, but it's something to consider. Getting paid to do something you love is the best, right?

Colors used:

China Glaze Street Chic

Sinful Colors Snow Me White

China Glaze Bahamain Escape

China Glaze Lemon Fizz

Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Lacey Lilac

Sally Hansen Insta Dri Lickety-Split Lime

OPI Kiss Me On My Tulips

Seche Vite Top Coat

I'd love to hear your thoughts on this manicure. 

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.

Cool Dots

I was planning on starting the 31 day nail challenge this week, but I decided to push it back a few days. I just got my new dotting tools and seche vite this past week and wanted to try them out. Chalkboard Nails is having a nail art contest where you create a design using only cool or warm colors. I just bought this pretty new polish- Sally Hansen's Xtreme Wear Mint Sorbet. I decided it would be a lovely base color for a cool tone flower design made up entirely of dots. I'm still getting used to the different dotting sizes, but I think these turned out pretty good for my first attempt. Commence many pictures!