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!

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: 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!