A Long Overdue Update

So I think I might need to take a short break from blogging. It's been at least a month since my last post. I am still painting, but not like I used to be. It's just hard to find the time!

   Here's what I've done since I last posted.

   It's not much, I know. I hardly have time any more for painting detailed designs, and when I do, I'm often too tired to think clearly about a pretty design. :(

   I'll try to post at least a photo update every now and then.

   In the meantime,  I should be able to keep my instagram fairly up-to-date, if you want to check there periodically.

  Hopefully I'll have more time soon!

  I hope you all have a great week/month/year!

Client Flowers

    I've had my first nail art client! It's so exciting to be coming closer and closer to what I want to do with my career.

   She loved the flower nails from my last post, so I painted a variation of it on her nails. Like mine, I had not base color. Hers were made with a gel base. The pink flowers were made with an OPI color almost the same shade as Revlon Colorstay Cardshark (I forgot to write down the name for you guys). After adding the glitter, I added two coats of the gel topcoat, to make sure all of the glitter texture was smoothed out.

   I hope you all have a wonderful week!


  (If you're in the Louisville area, come see me! I work at Classique Nails and Spa on Westport Rd.)

Spring Flowers

    Now that we are officially out of winter (the season and the weather!), be prepared to see a lot flowers from me. Probably every other week... :D

   This was inspired by babynail_nagoya on Instagram. I loved the look!

    I didn't really have a base color. I painted one layer of Essie Mademoiselle to give it a very slight tint so that any lines or imperfections on my nail bed were evened out.

   The flowers were painted using thinned out white polish. I added a slight pink tint to the centers to make it a little more interesting. The pink was a very thinned out Revlon Colorstay Card Shark. Then I ended with a bit of gold glitter, concentrating it in the center, but spreading it out a tiny bit.

   I have my first client photo for you next! I had my first nail art client today; it was so exciting.


  I hope you all have a fantastic week!

Bird Locket

   This week was inspired by a pretty vintage locket. I loved with white and red look. Having some quirky little bird helped too.

   I changed it up a little and used a holo base, Girly Bits January Morning. Have I ever mentioned that I love this color? The red was OPI Got The Blues For Red.

   I used my thinnest brush for this design - Born Pretty's striping brush - and my smallest dotter. Then I added some gold glitter dots using ?????

   I hope you all have a wonderful week!

Spring Daisies

   I'm working in a salon now!! If you're in the Louisville area, I'm working at Calssique Nails and Spa. Come see me! I'm not doing everything yet; I'm still in training since I'm freshly out of school (there's a lot that is done differently in salons that isn't done in school). I'm sure it won't be long before I am a full fledged technician though.


   Anyways, on to nails! Last week I had some cute daisies on my fingers.

   I started with a pink base. OPI something-another, I think (it was from work and I forgot to write down the name). Then I painted on the daisies; starting with black, and then painting white over top to get the outlined look.

   I originally didn't have any polka dots in the background. This design evolved oddly; I thought I was only going to paint an accent nail, so the daisies on my ring finger are much closer together than the other nails. Then the next day, I looked at it and it cried out for dots and a matte coat.

   I hope you have a fantastic week!

Flower Pillows

   No, this isn't a post about pillows. Not really. My inspiration this week was a cute embroidered floral pillow I found on Etsy.

   Aren't they cute?

   I started with a cream base, China Glaze Oxygen. To make the flowers, I used a light and dark shade of pink, purple, and blue. The leaves and vines were made with Revlon Parfumerie Balsam Fir and L'Oreal New Money, layered on top of each other.

   I hope you all have a wonderful week!

Flower Wreaths

   This design was inspired by this cute design painted by @mananails (Instagram).

   Back in February, even in Alabama, I was ready for Spring!

   I modified the design a bit, and it ended up looking a lot more wreath-like than I wanted. But it still looks close enough to what I planned. I started with a nude base, Essie Back in the Limo. The leaves were made with Revlon Parefumerie Balsam Fir and L'Oreal New Money.

   The flowers were made with 2 shades of red, purple, blue, and pink.
   The thumb and pinky nails were my favorite, I'll definitely have to come back and revisit this design sometime!

   I hope you all have a wonderful week!

3D Acrylic Flowers

   My friend at school wanted me to give her some pretty nails before I left, so I gave her some 3D acrylic nails.

   We found a pretty picture on Instagram that she wanted on her nails. (I won't show you the original, mine looks nothing like it!)
   I'd love to explain the process to you, but it would probably take too long, and I'm not sure if I'd be able to!

   I started with a base of black polish, and then put the acrylic flowers on top of the polish. I used blue and white premixed acrylics. I've mixed my own, but it's a lot of work to get the color just right!


   Have a fantastic week!

Pumpkins

   Still a week late, but oh well. I'll get there! These are my Thanksgiving week nails.

   They were inspired by Cotton Coney. She creates some of the most detailed and intricate designs. It's crazy what she can do!

  It's very detailed and I used lots of polishes, so I won't go into a lot of detail. I'd have a super long post!

   Suffice to say, I started with the pumpkins and went out from there. Pumpkin shape, detail, grassy stuff, detail, flower, etc. You get the idea! If you ever have questions about a design, you can always email me.

   My Thanksgiving this year was busier than years past. I learned what it was like to be a responsible adult that had to help prepare the house and food before everyone came over! It was still fun though. Seeing and visiting with the family is always good.

   I hope you all have a fantastic week!

Chalkboard Sunflowers

I found a really cute pin of some sunflowers a few weeks ago. I loved the chalkboard feel of it.

   I started with a base of Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Black Out. Then I sponged on varying amounts of China Glaze Recycle.

   To make the sunflowers, I started with Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure Butterscotch to make the petals. Then I used Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure Branch Out for the sunflower centers. To make the stems I used L'Oreal New Money.

   I topped it off with a matte topcoat.

   I hope you all have a fantastic week!

Halloween Part II

   To continue with my belated Halloween designs... (Eventually I will post them on Halloween if not before!)

   Here are a few designs I created at school on fellow students and clients.

   First up: Saw-themed nails. This student was dressing up as Jigsaw for Halloween, complete with the tricycle. I've never seen any of the Saw movies (I like to sleep at night), so I had to do a little research for this one.
  For the accent nails, I used Revlon Colortsay Sure Thing as my base, and red acrylic paint for the hand print and swirl. The other nails were painted with OPI Midnight in Moscow, a neat seemingly black base with a red shimmer when it's in the light.

   Sugar skulls and spider webs! This girl was dressing in a skeleton/sugar skull/Day of the Dead themed costume. To make this set, I started with a white base for the sugar skulls. Then I used a combination of red and black acrylic paint, as well as a green nail art pen. The webs were made with OPI Midnight in Moscow and white acrylic paint. The set was topped off with a matte topcoat.

   I'm a little bit proud of this one... I've always loved calligraphy, so it was really fun to combine my love of letters and my love of polish for this design! I'm not sure what the costume idea was for this one, but I'm just happy I got to paint pretty letters.
   I started with a black base, and then used acrylic paint for the letters. It was topped off with a matte topcoat as well. She had broken a couple of nails, so I sculpted those out. All in all, I think it took about 3 hours, including a quick smoke break for her and a wiggle break for me. :)

   I have one more installment and then I'm done with Halloween and back to trying to catch up.. I think I'm only 1 week behind. Surely I can catch up from that! :D

   Have a fantastic week!

Happy [Belated] Halloween!

  Still behind... Nothing new!

   I hope you all had a great Halloween! We dressed up at school and had kids come in to trick or treat, it was lots of fun!

   I was Dorothy! I'm all about being cheap and using stuff I already have. I had recently bought this dress online and it worked perfectly!

   And of course, I had nails to match.

   I started with a white base, Revlon Colorstay Sure Thing. To make the blue plaid nails, I used some thinned out Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Blue Me Away. I made the darker shadowed squares with Revlon Colorstay Indigo Night.

   To paint the poppies, I started with a bit of red, Revlon Colorstay Red Carpet. I used some thinned out OPI Midnight in Moscow to create the darker interior on the poppy petals, and then finished the flower out with some small dots of Revlon Colortay Buttercup.
   The stems and leaves were made with Studio M On the Field.

   And, despite not being able to find cheap red glitter shoes ANYWHERE (they are always in abundance at Walmart the years I don't need them...), I did put red glitter on my right hand. My feet just had to make do with plain, boring, un-glittery, red heels. :)


   I painted some other Halloween-themed desgins, I'll try to get them up soon. I might just have to go out of order for a week so my Halloween designs are posted at least near Halloween...  I really need to get my blogging life together!


   I hope you all have a fantastic week!

Fall Branches

   Last week (I seem to be perpetually a week behind) I found a neat graphic that I just fell in love with.

   I couldn't resist painting it! I love the colors and the design.

   I started with my favorite base, a creamy off-white (China Glaze Oxygen). I painted all the branches first, so it would be easier to decide where to put all the foliage. I made the branches with a thinned out brown base layer (Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure Branch Out), and then painted a couple stripes of a lighter brown (OPI A-Piers To Be Tan) here and there to act as highlights and give it more dimension.

   Next I painted on the flowers. I used a burnt orange (L'Oreal He Red My Mind) and orange (Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Sun Kissed) as the bases for the two flowers. I painted them on with a smaller dotter, making three dots to make it more petal-like. Then I used either He Red My Mind or a lighter orange (L'Oreal Orange You Jealous) for the highlights/shadows on the flowers.

   To make the berries/flower buds, I used He Red My Mind, Sun Kissed, and a yellow (Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure Butterscotch). Then I made the leaves, using light and dark greens (Revlon Colorstay Spanish Moss and Jungle), and used a very light green (OPI That's Hula-rious) for the highlights.

   I finished the design off by making the acorns. I started with a darkish tan (Nina Ultra Pro Beige A Vu) and then made the acorn cap with Branch Out.

   I think this is definitely one of my favorites this season. And it's only begun! It will be hard to top this one for me, I think.

  I hope you all have a fantastic week!

He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not....

   Did any of you ever grab a flower and pull off the petals to see if someone liked you or not? You would alternate petals with 'he loves me' and 'he loves me not,' and whichever one you ended with would give you the answer. I'm not sure about you, but I'm pretty sure I cheated many a time with that game to get the answer I wanted!

   Last week on one of my fellow classmates I painted a cute design based off that game, inspired by this cute design by ann_li on Instagram. And I painted words! I'd never done that before and had them look decent. So of course I was super proud of them.

   I started with a gel base, a brown Gelish. I don't know the name, sorry! Then with my white striper I made the flowers and the floating petals. The black outlines were made with my black striper, and the yellow flower centers were made with Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Mellow Yellow.

   To make the words, I used my smallest, thinnest brush and some white acrylic paint. I find that I can control acrylic paint better for fine detailing like this. It took a long time! I was so worried I would mess it up.


   I hope you all have a fantastic week!

Fabric Inspired Flowers

   This week I found a really neat piece of fabric on Etsy.

   I loved the flower design! I didn't notice the birds hiding out in the middle until later, so they aren't in my design. I might just have to make this one again!

   I started with one of my favorite bases, a pretty cream color. This time it's China Glaze
Oxygen. To make the flowers, I started with Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Coral Reef, and then made a thin stripe inside the flower with OPI Aloha From OPI. The flower stems were Coral Reef as well, with a very thinned out Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure Dark Huemoor in the middle of the stem. I used Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Mellow Yellow for the flower centers and the dots on all the stems.

   To make the leaves I used Coral Reef, Dark Huemoor, and Mellow Yellow again for the leaf stems. Then I used OPI That's Hula-rious for the leaves and OPI My Dogsled Is A Hybrid in the middle of the leaves.

  In other news, I've started cosmetolgy school! I'm going for nail technician (that's a suprise, right?). So I might be a little inconsistent for a few weeks while I try to balance school, my shop, and my own nails. But inconsitency with me is nothing new, sadly.


   I hope you all have a fantastic week!

Vintage Roses

   Sorry I've been so silent, I've been of vacationing and then working on a boat load of orders. Hopefully now that I'm done with summer vacations and getting ready for school, things will quiet down and I'll be posting and painting more regularly.

   This week I painted an old Etsy set.

   I wasn't a fan of this set originally - I like my flowers and things to be more realistic usually. But after painting it recently for an order, it started to grow on me.

   I started with a base of OPI My Dogsled Is A Hybrid and Revlon Colorstay Sure Thing. I used a white striper to make the dots and stripes. To make the roses, I started with Finger Paints Far Out Fuchsia. Then I swirled on various amounts of Revlon Colorstay Card Shark and Finger Paints Plum Perspective.


   Have a great week!