Paradise

   I've had my toes "newly" painted for a few weeks now, I just never got around to taking pictures of them for some reason! They were inspired by this pin form Nina Nailed It. I really like it; it's very summery! I haven't quite figured out the flowers yet, but I'll get there eventually!

   I started with a base of Revlon Colorstay Jungle. Next, much as in the pin, I sketched out the basic shape of everything with a white striper. For the palm fronds, I used a mix of L'Oreal New Money and a small amount of Studio M On the Field over top New Money.
   For the flowers I used Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Mellow Yellow, and OPI Aloha from OPI as the bases. For the insides, I used Nina Ultra Pro Tangerine Dream (over top Mellow Yellow) and L'Oreal He Red My Mind (over top Aloha from OPI).

   Sorry for only the one picture, but the light was being fickle today.

   I hope you all have a fantastic week!

Candy Canes and Snowflakes

   I know I've been a bit quiet the past few days. I've still been painting, but I've had no time to blog! My mom had some surgery last Wednesday and I've been busy running around caring for her. She's doing pretty good now and can do a lot of basic stuff on her own now, so I've got more time to myself now.
   Last week I painted another Christmas set from my Etsy store - candy canes!

   This one is super easy to make! I used Revlon Colorstay Red Carpet for my red nails and Nina Ultra Pro French White as the base for my candy cane accent. To make the stripes I used a red striper and a silver striper. Then I just topped it off with my base coat. Super easy!

   Forgive the terrible picture quality... The lighting was terrible the day I took this and then the polish started chipping before I had a chance to take another picture.
   I picked up a gorgeous new red glitter polish at Meijer a few days ago and I just had to try it out - Wet 'N Wild Fergie No Place Like Home. It's so pretty, and very festive. I think it's a limited edition polish, unfortunately. I told my mom that I need to go and buy another bottle so I have it when mine runs out!
   I think I'm going to offer this glitter as another option for the candy cane set. I think it looks fantastic!


   In other polish news, I finally painted my toes again! It's been forever, I know. I've really been slacking with them. But I guess it doesn't matter since it's cold and no one sees my toes this time of year anyway.

   I of course had to use No Place Like Home again. I think it's officially my new favorite glitter polish! I also used Finger Paints Wrapped in Ribbon for the gold glitter accents. For the snowflakes I just used my white striper.

   I have a bunch of new updates for this week, so stay tuned!

   I hope you all have a fantastic week!

Faux Watercolor

   I have a new design on my toes, and this one is share-worthy (unlike my last one!). I was inspired by a tutorial from The Nailasaurus. It was super easy, and turned out a lot nicer than I thought! Now I can do two types of gradients! Sponged gradients are still a mystery to me though...

   It reminds me of the ocean. Its really made me want to go to the beach! I haven't been in ages and I miss it. After going at least once a year (if not more) during your childhood, you really miss it after not being able to go for almost three years.

   This was so easy to make! I thought I would need my polish thinner, but you really don't need it. It made it easier to use one slightly goopy polish, but this is definitely something anybody could do, as long as you have a smallish brush. I used the largest of my small brushes:

   It's the size 0 of my three Wistonia brushes.
   I only used three shades for this instead of 4 like in the tutorial. I didn't have three blues that went together well enough. I don't think you can really tell though.
   I also made this into an Etsy set! I have three colors available - blue, pink, and purple. I think the blue is still my favorite though, followed by purple, probably. I did have four colors for the pink and purple, so they're more like the tutorial in that sense.

   I don't have a link yet though, I'm going to be on vacation for a week so my shop is on hold - no one can purchase anything at the moment. So it would be silly to post a new listing when no one can see it! When I get back I'll post a picture of the full set and a link to the listing.

   I'll see you all in a week! Maybe sooner, who knows! I plan on painting my nails before the trip, but I'm not sure I'll have time. This is a hectic week!
   Have a wonderful week guys!

New Listings Part II

   Yesterday I started showing you guys some of my new listings. I have a ton, so I split it up in to accents and full sets. I did the accents yesterday, so today I'm going to show you all the full sets!

   This is an older design. It was one of the first I made after I started becoming a little more consistent with nail art. I've always really liked it. It's kind of simple, but it looks nice.

   I didn't really have the yellow I wanted (I wanted something a little paler and a little less lemon-y), but the one  I have works fine. I painted the base with CoverGirl Outlast Lemon Drop, and painted one layer of white (Finger Paints Paper Mache) over the yellow. I only did one layer so that a little of the yellow would come through. Then I painted the bow with my black Stripe Rite striper.
   I go the idea for this design from a tutorial I found on Pinterest. It's a really easy design to make, especially if you have a smaller brush to use for the bow. I don't know about you, but I can't manage small/tight curves with the long bristled brushes. I just make a huge mess!
   You can find the listing here. You can also look at some more pictures of the original design if you want.


   This is another old-ish design, but I have blogged about it. This design was originally painted on my toes. It was inspired by a pretty pair of heels (which I could never wear, I'd fall on my face with heels that tall and skinny!).

   Pardon the state of my toes. I never put lotion or anything on them enough, so they often get pretty dry in the summer and winter.
   I've been wanting to transfer this to fingers design for a while, I just never got around to it. I like the full-scaled nail, but I think the one line of scales is my favorite. I think it looks really nice!

   To make this design I needed a lot of patience. The scales took forever! What I did to make them was to start off with painting a wide white arch, which I repeated as many times as necessary to make the basic scales. Then I started with the red (Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Cherry Red) and outlined the bottom of each scale. Then I went on up the line with yellow (CoverGirl Outlast Lemon Drop) and then orange(Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Sun Kissed). To finish it off I got out my white Stripe Rite striper and outlined the top of the scales in a thin white line to help define them. For the base I used Flower Good Bud-dy.
   You can find the listing here in my shop.


   This next design is pretty recent. I painted it back in February.

   It was inspired by a sweater.

   I used Revlon Brilliant Strength Entice as the base, and then various acrylic paints for the chevron stripes. I've found that it's much easier to do a lot of detail work with acrylic paints. It's not always the best, but it generally works a lot better than polish for me. I did get some nail polish thinner last week though, and that makes the polish a thousand times easier to work with.
   You can find this set here in my shop.

   That's all of my new listings for now! I do have some other older designs that are waiting to be made into full sets, but who knows when I'll get around to them.
   I've still got my Easter nails to show you guys too! I'll probably post about them tonight or tomorrow.

   I hope you all have a great Easter and a great week!

Tribal Toes

    Here's another of the designs I told you about yesterday! I finally painted my toes again. I had broken one about halfway down at a diagonal. :(  After a wait that seemed like forever it finally grew out enough that I felt like I could paint it and it not look terrible.

   For this design I was inspired by a pin, like I often am. I found this one on Pinterest a few weeks ago.

    I really liked that she not only had your typical triangle like you often see, but that it had the smaller design inside it. And it isn't your usual design either.

   I mainly just copied the triangle, as you can see. I couldn't decide what color to use as my base, so in the end I just grabbed something. I ended up using Revlon Brilliant Strength Entice as the base. Then I used my white striper (Stripe Rite) to make the triangle, and my black striper to outline and create the inner design. As a last minute detail, I added Maybelline Color Show Bold Gold as an outline for the two larger triangles. I wan't quite satisfied with no outline, but again, I didn't have any great ideas for the color, nor was I sure I would have the space.

    Here's a close up if you want to see. I normally don't do this because feet always seem so private to many people, but this is such a detailed design I thought you all would forgive me. :) You can still see a little where my nail had broken. It's not completely grown back out, but it looks a ton better than it did!

   That's all for now. I'll have more news for you Tuesday or Wednesday, I think. I have a some commissions to do that should be finished by then!

   Have a great week!

Birds and Stripes

   It's been a while since my last update. I kept my last design on so much longer than usual because I had quite a few orders, and they were all on different days, so I couldn't do it all at once like I usually do! But I eventually got around to it.
   After a very long break, I finally got around to painting my toenails again. I think the last time I painted them was back in October, or something ridiculous like that. Back at Christmastime I painted the ornaments on my fingers. I had been debating back and forth between two designs before I painted them - ornaments and birds. I had kind of forgotten about the birds until earlier this week.

   I got my inspiration from a few different pins, all with the same basic idea, birds in a winter scene of some sort. I used Pure Ice Bikini as the base, and then a mix of acrylic paints and polishes for the birds and evergreen branches. I think it was brown and green acrylic paints for the branches, and Nina Ultra Pro Tangerine, black, grey, and white paints for the bird. White acrylic paint for the snowflakes.

  On my fingers I painted some chevron stripes. I got my inspiration from a knit sweater I saw online.

   I really liked how it turned out! I used acrylic paints instead of polish, so it was a little easier to paint thin lines (in my opinion, anyway). The base was a new polish I got a few days ago, Revlon Brilliant Strength Entice. I got it thinking it would be a close match to a polish that I ran out of (it's no longer made), but it turned out not being as close as I had thought. Oh well, it's still a pretty color! I used one of my new Wistonia brushes to make the stripes.

   That's pretty much all the news I have. I thought I would have some new sets for Etsy to show you guys, but I was majorly distracted this week by some fun new projects. You'll probably hear something about them later, once they're complete.

   I hope you all have a great week! Stay warm, to those of you who are like me and stuck in this freezing snowy weather!

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!

Hooray for Shoes!

   Apparently I really liked shoes two weeks ago or something. The design on my toes was inspired by some shoes too! I'm also apparently a big liar. In my last post I promised this post would be about a week ago, but I didn't post it. I really was going to post it, but I was down in Alabama for my cousin's graduation, and then my laptop battery decided it would die and threaten to burst into flames at any moment. Hooray for technology! :) Luckily my dad could fix it for way cheaper than Apple could!
   Anyways, as I mentioned earlier, my toe nails were inspired by shoes as well! The are a much more modern pair of shoes with a really cool design on the heel. I found them here on Pinterest.

   Aren't they cute?! If I wouldn't kill myself wearing heels that high and I had the money to waste, I'd buy them! : )

   For the toes, I had totally planned on providing a list of the polishes I used. But it's been so long and It's so late... (well, kind of. It's only 9:40pm, but I'm exhausted!) So we'll just skip that part for now. I might add it later, who knows. I can't promise anything though, I'm really good at forgetting things.... So onto pictures!

     There's only one picture for now. This weekend I added some more to make it a little lighter and somewhat more like the shoes. I really will upload more pictures tomorrow!!

Well I hope you enjoy! I'll try to put up some pictures from the wedding tomorrow too!


**Edit**
   
    As promised here are the other pictures! On one side I added a white outline and on the other is a gold outline, more like the shoe. I couldn't decided which I liked better at the time, but after staring at it for a few days, I decided I probably like the white the best. I think it lightens up the design some.

Roses, Lavender, and Toes

 Weird title, I know... It makes sense, I promise! :)

 I just had to revisit that rose from last week's Easter nails, so here they are! I added a bit more to them because I saw this pin on Pinterest and really liked the dots. :) I put the purple-y blue dots on there and called it lavender! (It kind of works...) There's a difference in the two pictures (obviously! :P ). The top picture has the more accurate colors, but the second shows the details a bit better.

 And now for the second part of the title... Toes! These are something you won't see very often. I nearly always have a design on my toes, but I don't usually post them unless I really really like the design. Toes are just... well, weird. I don't really know why, they just are.
 Anyway, I'm not really sure what kind of design this is, but I like it!

 This is some more Pinterest inspiration (I love that site)! Pinterest is probably my one downfall with nail art. I rely too much (in my opinion, anyway) on 'inspiration' instead of my own creativity. I don't blatantly steal a design that someone else has created (usually, anyway; I think I might have once at the beginning), but I do take bits and pieces quite often. Maybe one week I'll just not look at Pinterest.... :P

Enjoy!


Here's my list of polishes again!
  Fingers:
       Covergirl Outlast Snow Storm
       Sally Hansen Hard as Nails Sheer Vanilla
       Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Cherry Red
       Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear  Mint Sorbet
       L. A. Colors Color Craze In A Flash
       L'Oreal Royalty Reinvented
       Nina Ultra Pro Tangerine Dream
       Revlon Multi-Care Base+Top Coat
  Toes:
       Essie Sugar Daddy
       Covergirl Outlast Snow Storm
       Stripe Rite Black
       Nina Ultra Pro Tangerine Dream
       Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear yellow
       Revlon Multi-Care Base+Top Coat