Disnrey Princess Challenge #8: Jasmine

    Once again, I've fallen behind... But like I said in my last post, I probably won't be consistent again for several more weeks, so bear with me!
    This is last week's design, but only by a little; I just repainted my nails yesterday. Jasmine was next in line! While scrolling through Pinterest when I first started "researching" for this challenge (I have to have it all planned out in advance, you know), nearly everyone had the same thing for Jasmine - some variation of her headband/tiara/jeweled-thing and tiger stripes. Which is great and all, but I wanted to do something different. Then I realized that there's not much to draw from with her costume. After digging a bit more I remembered a lady over in deviantArt who made historically accurate Disney princesses. I really liked the bodice design on Jasmine so I made that into my 'different' element.

    Fittingly enough, I dived into a "whole new world" of nail art - 3D nails. For the headdress I used some little sparkly gems. I couldn't find a blue that I liked that was small enough, so I deviated from Disney's design and made it silver instead.

   I used 3mm gems and attached them with nail glue. I also put a topcoat over top it all just to add another layer of protection. My mom and I were running a bet to see how long the gems would last. Neither of us were very optimistic and thought a day, maybe two. I did lose one on the second day, but all the others stayed on for four days! They probably would have stayed on longer except that I had a fidgety spell and picked them all off one night. Oops.

   My base color for the majority of my nails was a new color and a new brand I had never seen before - Studio M Blue Ming. I don't know how the rest of the brand is, but I was very pleased with this color. It wasn't too thin, I only needed two coats. I'd buy more of the brand, except that they have pretty much only super bright colors. Which is great if you're into that, but I'm not.

   The gold band was made with Maybelline Color Show Bold Gold. On my thumb, the darker teal vines were made with a thinned out Flower Good Bud-dy. I made the flowers with a thinned out Finger Paints Paper Mache.

   For Rajah's tiger stripes I used a base of Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Sun Kissed. After studying several different tiger stripe designs and giving myself a good pep talk, I made the stripes with my black Stripe Rote striper. I know animal stripes and patterns are super in and done by so many people, but they just make me nervous! I know it's silly, and this wasn't too hard, but they just always seem so difficult to me!
   So I ended up crossing two new milestones with this design - 3D nails and animal prints!

   As usual, this is available in my shop! You can find it here. No options for this design, although I loved the vine nail so much that I made it into its own set! you can find that set here.

   As I said in the beginning of this post, I've already painted my nails again. Belle is next! She's my favorite princess, so I was super excited for this one to come around. I really, really like how it turned out and can't wait to show you guys! I think she is my favorite design so far.

   I hope you all have a fantastic week!

New Listings!

   I have a ton of new listings to show you guys. I have 8 new listings - 5 accents and 3 full sets. It sounds like I've been really busy, but most of these came from doing some cleaning out. I keep all of the nails that I experiment on, so it makes a huge pile! I was going through them to see if found anything to recreate and I found several that I wanted to do more with. I made accent sets out of 5 of them and kept some others out to make into full sets. The only things I actually painted were the 3 new full sets.

Accents first!

   This first design started with a beautiful dress. As you might know, I have a ridiculous amount of clothing pinned on my Pinterest. I was looking for some nail-spiration quite a while ago (a year? more?) and I came across this lovely thing in my boards:

   Isn't it gorgeous?! I could never wear such a thing (I like to feel more clothed than I would feel in that), but it's just so pretty.

   I'm not sure what colors I used then, but if I made it now I would use Finger Paints Sketchy Character as the brown base and my creamy striper for the detail. Here's the listing.

   I'm pretty sure this one was inspired by a dress too - I kind of think somewhere around 1850-69, but I could be wrong. In my quick look I didn't find the dress. Whenever I have more time (and if I think of it) I will do a more thorough search.

   I have a little more of an idea of what I used for this one. I know the base was Sally Hansen Hard as Nails Sheer Vanilla over white. I don't have that color anymore though, so if I made it now I would use Revlon Colorstay Pale Cashmere, which is a very similar color. For the 'spears' I would use Finger Paints Sketchy Character and Nina Ultra Pro Beige-A Vu, with Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure Butterscotch, probably. You can find this set here in my store.

   This is a somewhat more recent design - recent enough to be in this blog. It was part of my Doll Challenge, where I painted designs based off of the clothing of my American Girl Girls of Many Lands dolls.
   It was based off of this doll from Tudor England.

   They are such pretty dolls. Very detailed and pretty darn accurate, from what I know of fashions.

   For this design, I used CoverGirl Boundless Color Plum Pudding for the detail and on my other nails. For the base of the accent, I used my cream striper. That proved to be super time consuming and annoying (it took forever to cover my nail, forever to dry...), so I think I'll use Revlon Colorstay Pale Cashmere. It's a really close match to this as well. Here's the link to the listing.

   This is another older creation. I think it was inspired by a nail pin. I don't know which one, but if you ever look through my Pinterest boards you'll probably find it.

   For this one I originally used a white base (which would currently be Finger Paints Paper Mache). For the vine stem and flower petals I used a pink acrlylic paint. The leaves were made with a Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear (Mint Sorbet?). I don't have that color anymore, so I'd use Revlon Brilliant Strength Entice. You can find the set here in my shop.

   This one is a super recent design. I made it a few weeks ago for a customer to choose from in a custom order. She chose a different design, so I decided to go ahead an put up this design. (If I want to put a custom design up in my shop permanently, I like to wait a while before I do that since they have to pay so much extra for a custom set. It seems a little fairer that way to me.)

   I got this idea from some pins we both collected for design possibilities. ...Which I conveniently can't find to show you guys. I think I searched "triangle nails" or "geometric nails," I don't remember which.
   I used L'Oreal Walk on the Beach as the base. For the triangles I used Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Cherry Red, China Glaze Recycle, China Glaze Pelican Grey, and Pure Ice Bikini. Then I outlined the triangles with my white striper (Stripe Rite). Here's the link to the listing.


   For the sake of space, I think I will quit here for now. This is all of the new accent sets. I'll blog about the new full sets tomorrow. I also have a fun new Easter design to show you guys too! I'm super excited about it and can't wait to blog about it.

   I hope you all have a fantastic Easter!

Final Doll Challenge And Fall Nails

   I've finished up my doll series (for now). There are two more dolls, but I don't own them. If I can find some decent pictures, I'll probably make some nail designs from them. Probably. We'll see. I've been in a fall mood ever since the leaves started falling. Fall is kind of my favorite... I just had to do some fall designs!
   I have to go in chronological order, so here's my last doll design from forever ago. She's from India and has a pretty sari! Unfortunately, there wasn't a ton of embroidery or any other designs, so I kind of had to make some stuff up. It fits good enough though!

   You can't tell, but my nail color is actually pretty close to her sari color. It has a little more red, but not as much as it looks like in the picture. For some reason it kept getting blown out and I couldn't fix it. :( Other than the colors, not much else came from her dress... You could say that the little flower-y thing in the middle of my nails is based off her shorter necklace, but I didn't really plan it that way. It just kind of happened. And it's not really that close...

   Have I mentioned yet that I LOVE fall? It's definitely my favorite season! I had never been able to pick a favorite season, but now that I'm not in marching band, I've come to realize that fall is amazing. Before last year I had been busy with marching band during the fall, so all I really did was run around, sweat, toss some flags, sweat, perform, sweat... So I never really got to enjoy fall. I loved marching band, don't get me wrong, but I like being able to enjoy fall now! It's so pretty and the weather is PERFECT!
   So, as you can understand, I might be trying to make up for lost time. I have been out in the woods a ton this year, just soaking it all up. And taking a million pictures (they're all on my deviant art, if you want to check them out). And in honor of fall, I have made up my toes and fingers accordingly.
   My fingers are super simple right now, but I like them. I just poured a ton of orangey-yellow glitter on them. Apparently it's kind of Halloween-y (I've had 2 or 3 people at work compliment my Halloween nails), but it never really crossed my mind, I was so caught up in fall! Fall leaves was more what I had in mind. You can choose whichever makes you happy though!

(This picture isn't mine... I stole it from google)

 

   For my toes I made a pretty little flower design that's really not all that fall like except for the colors. Sort of. Mostly it just is because I'm in that fall mood.

   See, they're kind of fallish!

   Since I just talked about all of my fall pictures, that really made me want to show you guys some of my pictures... I don't want to make this post ridiculously long though, so I'll make a separate post.

   I hope you have a lovely weekend!

Doll Nail Art Challenge: #5

   Hooray for new nails! I really like this one, for multiple reasons. It was super easy, so that's always great. And the doll is from early 18th century France! The clothing from the 18th century was one of my first loves and was what got me addicted to historical fashion! The opulence and extravagance of that era always astounds me, but it's so pretty! I probably would have never been able to afford any of it if I had lived back then... But hey, I get to look at it all now, so I'm happy!

   Isn't her outfit gorgeous?! I'm such a sucker for pretty clothes.... Especially old ones! :)
   I drew my inspiration from her bodice, mainly from her stomacher. That flower pattern was just irresistible! And it was super easy to recreate, which is always a bonus. The picture of my nails is kind of terrible... The lighting has not been great lately; it's been super overcast. I'll try to get a better picture and upload it for you guys. No promises though, because work at JoAnn Fabrics is brutal on my nails. I'm always knocking them on thing when I'm reaching for scissors or putting away fabrics! :( Overall though, it's a pretty good job and I like it so far.

   That's about all for now. I should be back sometime next week with a new design. I'm not sure when because I work a lot this next weekend, so it might be close to two weeks before I'm back.
   Have a good week in the meantime guys!

Doll Nail Art Challenge: #4

   I've finally had a chance to paint my nails! I'm continuing my doll series, but this one is a little different from the others. I had little to work with for this design, so I ended up having to look up some stuff to make the design. This doll is an Inuit girl from 1890's Alaska.

   I was going to make a design from her earrings, but they were just stripes. So I looked up some Inuit beading and I found lots of cool stuff! I didn't get to do the design I wanted (it was too complicated), but I did find a design that worked. It might not be an exactly traditional design, but it's close enough!

   As I was looking, I also came across some beautiful parkas that had a mix of white and brown furs, which I loosely used for the design on my middle finger.

   I was planning on putting designs on all of the fingers, but it was a bit much (it looked a little over crowded) and I might have been a little bit lazy yesterday...
   At any rate, here are my nails. I like the design from my ring finger best on my left hand, for once. I thought I would like the design outlined, but when I outlined it on my right hand, it didn't look as nice. It's not bad, but the other looks better.

   I will be super busy this week, so I won't have any updates of any sort most likely. Hope you guys have a great week!

Doll Nail Art Challege: #3

It's been forever since I posted. I just started a new job and I've had a million other things going on, and I just haven't had time!

This week's (well, it's actually from last week... That shows you how far behind I am!) design is another from my doll series. She is a doll from Tudor England, about 1590s. Her bodice has a beautiful design on it! I tried to recreate it on my middle finger, and it worked for the most part. It's just such an intricate design...

For the majority of my nails, I used Cover Girl Boundless Color Plum Pudding and made the dots with Maybelline Color Show Bold Gold and Stripe Rite Cream. For my middle finger I used Stripe Rite Cream for the base and Cover Girl Boundless Color Plum Pudding with a thin layer of Sally Girl Pink (EH2901) to make it a lighter shade than the other nails.

On another note, if you remember my last post, I mentioned some embroidered cards I was making. Well, I decided to sell them on Etsy! If you want to look at them, you can go here.

Have and awesome weekend/week!

Doll Nail Art Challenge #2

   A couple weeks ago, before all of the wedding stuff, I started a nail challenge for myself. It doesn't really have a name. I guess I should come up with one. But they're so hard! So it will probably forever be "that nail challenge/series about dolls." And I say challenge/series because I can't decide if it should be a challenge or a series! :)
   You might remember that the first design was based of the Turkish doll. This week my design is based off an Ethiopian doll! She's also from American Girl's Girls of Many Lands collection. She's from the mid-19th century (1849?). Her dress is simple, but very pretty.

   For my design I looked to her hems! And the rest of her dress. :) I did a combination of french tips and solid covering (I'm not sure what you would call it, other not-french-tips...). For the tips I copied a bit of the geometric design on her hemline. Than for my ring finger I made up a version of the design traveling down the middle of her dress.

    It didn't quite turn out as I had hoped. I had planned on having just the flower, but it looked so goofy and out of place! So I added in the red geometric design hoping it would make it fit better. It worked for the most part, but it's still not quite right. I think it's because the nail is nearly stark white next to somewhat darker colors, so it kind of sticks out. And not in a good way.  Oh well! It works good enough! :)

   You'll also have to pardon the state of my fingers; they're quite a bit more scuffed and warped than usual....  You'd never believe it, but I only painted these yesterday! And then I helped my dad paint a room in our house, so I scraped a bunch of polish off putting down painter's tape, and then what I didn't scrape off I got green paint on! My pinky was the worst on my right hand, so that's why you can't see it very well. You should be glad you can't see my left hand, though. It looks like my nails usually do near the end of the week!

   I start a job this week at a craft/fabric store (JoAnn Fabric and Crafts), so I'm super excited! I hope I won't be too tempted to spend my whole paycheck there!! :)

   Hope your week is wonderful!



Polishes:
   Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Cherry Red
   Sally Hansen Salon Manicure Butterscotch
   Stripe Rite White
   Essie Sugar Daddy
   Cover Girl Outlast Snow Storm
   Revlon Multi-Care Base+Top Coat

Curious Kittens

   I think I have created my all time favorite design!! I feel like I say that somewhat frequently, but this time it's totally and completely true. I won't keep you in suspense any longer, so here's my all-time favorite!

   Aren't they just so cute!? Cats are my absolute favorite (I am definitely a cat person, without question), and these are definitely my favorite cat design I have created, and maybe even seen, although I have seen some awesome ones. Like these. Or this one. And this one, which inspired the design. And lots of others. :)

   I made these for my Etsy store, so if you really like them, you could go buy them here! Or you can just go look at them. Or just look here. Whatever floats your boat! 

   I also made another set for Etsy, which you might recognize. It's a design I painted a couple weeks ago, based off of the Turkish doll. This set is available here, if you guys care to look. :)

   Hope you guys have a great weekend!

4th of July

   Happy 4th to all of my American readers! I hope you all have a good one. I'm not doing much this year, but my neighbors have been shooting off fireworks all week!

   In honor of Independence Day, I of course have to make some sort of nail design. I didn't want to make the usual flag nails or anything though, I wanted to do something a little different. So I researched American Revolutionary War uniforms and found on that would be easily recognizable (the background picture here on Colonial Williamsburg's website is perfect!). Then I added fireworks and, as a last resort (my creativity was running low this week), I added some flags. But they aren't the usual flags! I wanted to make some older looking flags, but I didn't have the right color red. So instead I just made two flags that were shaped in a way that we don't usually see.

  

   And my pointer finger's nail is left blank, because I was a mess that day and my creativity levels were really suffering... Oh well!
  
   I used very few colors this week and they're pretty easy to pick out, so I'll just list them today.
      Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Cherry Red
      Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Black Out
      Covergirl Outlast Snowstorm
      Maybelline Color Show Bold Gold
      Maybelline Color Show Fierce N Tangy
      L.A. Colors Color Craze In A Flash
      Stripe Rite White
      Revlon Multi-Care Base+Top Coat

"Turkish" Nails

   Sorry I haven't posted in forever! I've been super busy these past two weeks. I've been traveling some more, doing some design work for my church, and a billion other things. I didn't even have time to do anything more than put one color on my nails last week!
   Last week I was sitting in my room and I realized that I have a lot of dolls. Not a ridiculous amount, but a fair number. So I decided that I'm going to try and do a series based off of the dolls! I think it will be a good challenge for me; some of them are pretty easy to decide what to do, like this week's, but some of them will require some thought... So for this week I used a doll from American Girl's Girls of Many Lands collection. She is from 18th century Turkey (1720, I think). Her clothes are just gorgeous! Here are a couple pictures of her:

   Isn't she pretty?! For my nail design I mostly used the brocade as my inspiration. I pretty much just used Maybelline Color Show Bold Gold and Sally Hansen Hard As Nails Chocolate, with my usual base coat, Revlon Multi-Care Base + Top Coat. Here are some pictures:

 

   I tried to reproduce some of that faint gold design on the brocade, and it kind of worked. It's super hard to see though. In the second picture you can see it better than in the first, but the first has the more accurate color scheme. The dots on the other fingers were supposed to be the pearls that are in her hair, but white dots were super distracting, so I guess her white pearls were transformed to gold! :)

Hope you guys like it!

Medieval Nails

    I lied, yet again. In my last post I promised last week's nails almost a week ago, and I'm only just now getting to it... Maybe I should stop trying to make promises in the blogging world; nearly every time I do, I get ridiculously busy and everything happens at once! Oh well! I'm getting to it now, right?
   These past few weeks I must have just really been in a fashion mood, what with the two shoe nails, the chevron nails and the dress project. Last week I was cleaning out and reorganizing my pins on Pinterest and came across this awesome detail of a medieval dress in a painting! So of course, I had to paint it on my nails! Here is the pin:

   I wanted to do something with that awesome trim on the neckline (isn't
it amazing?!). I was going to put it on one side of my nails, but it looked kind of goofy, so I put the design down the middle instead! I wanted to make the base/background coat some sort of blue, so I used L'Oreal Club Prive. Then I made the wide stripe in the middle a creamy color (Stripe Rite Cream) and used Maybelline Color Show Bold Gold for the golden design. Here are the pictures of my nails!

Random Updates

   No new nail stuff yet. I've been busy creating graphic designs and reorganizing impossibly stuffed cabinets. I'll probably have a new nail post for you guys tomorrow or Thursday. Or maybe later...

   As you might already know, I absolutely love period clothing! If you've been on my Pinterest page, you know that I have about a billion boards dedicated to it! I just love to look at it, and if I was allowed, I'd love to feel the fabrics too! I think mostly what I like about them is that they are so elegant and detailed. They are just the coolest things to look at! I also like to sometimes wonder about who wore them and what they did...
   In light of that, I have a new project I'm going to start! I don't know if any of you guys have seen some of the amazing works of Isabelle de Borchgrave, but she is amazing! She makes life-sized period dresses out of paper! She is absolutely amazing! Here are some examples of her work:

   I'm thinking about making something like it except on a much smaller scale. It would probably fit on a Barbie or something.  I'm planning on making a dress from the late 1860s. I was hoping to make on from the 1880s, but I think the 80s will be a little too complicated for my first paper dress. This is kind of what I'll be basing my dress design off of:

   I literally have no idea what I'm doing with this project... I have never done anything like this before! So it might look decent or it might be absolutely terrible! We'll find out!
   I also have no idea when this project will be completed, but I'll keep you guys posted!