"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!

Chevron Nails

   We're back to nails! I bought some new polish earlier this week (Sally Hansen Salon Manicure Butterscotch and L'Oreal Orange You Jealous) and I just had to use it right away! So this week I made a spin off of chevron stripes. My design isn't your typical chevron design; mine is a little more colorful and there are a few more stripes then you typically see. It's not my favorite, but I'm pretty satisfied for the most part. 
   Here are some pictures!

These are the polishes I used:
      Sally Hansen Salon Manicure Butterscotch
      Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Mint Sorbet
      L'Oreal Orange You Jealous
      Stripe Right White
      Stripe Right Black
      Pure Ice Bikini

Wedding!!

   No nails today, just fun and exciting wedding stuff!!

   Here are some of the pictures I promised from the wedding last week! I think I should warn you - there are going to be a billion pictures in this post!
   As I mentioned about a week and a half ago in this post, this is from one of my best friend's wedding! The venue was absolutely gorgeous! It was in the backyard of one of the ladies from our church. Her yard and house are absolutely beautiful!

   Isn't that wonderful?! I would absolutely love to have a yard like that!
 
   Her decor was beautiful too! She didn't have much in the backyard (who needs to add anything to that?), but the reception was up the hill and her decorations were amazing! Here are a few of the pictures I took:

 

Lavender was her flower for her bouquet and everything else.

  

  These had wedding pictures from the older generations.

  This is a few of her table decorations! They were all so pretty!

Isn't this cool? She had a magnifying glass on one of the tables and I just had to take this picture!

Her cake platter! It's an old drawer - isn't that neat?!

Her guest book was one of my favorite things! She used a tall cage thing and had people sign in on tags and tie them to the cage! 

   Here are two of my favorite pictures of their rings! Her ring boxes were full of moss and were so pretty!

 
   And last but not least, here are some pictures of the lovely bride (and groom)!

Some pictures from before the ceremony

This is one of the first look pictures we took

Another from before the ceremony. Aren't they cute?!

The first kiss!! 

 Just after they were officially married!

   Hope you guys like it! It was a fun experience for me even though it was extremely nerve wracking!

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.

1920's Inspired Nails!

   And before you think it (ok, maybe after), this is not associated with any of the Gatsby hype. Sorry guys, but I'm not actually sure that I want to see the movie. The costuming looks great, but it kind of looks like it's a lot more... umm... (how do I say this delicately) adult? than I care to see. That's just what I think. We'll see. Maybe.
   ANYWAYS, here are the nails I promised the other day! I didn't have time to post yesterday like I had planned because I was running around trying to pack for a trip today and going to my cousin's graduation party.... this has been (and will continue to be!) a crazy couple of weeks!
   This design is based off of this awesome 1920's shoe I found on Pinterest! I'd love to tell you the site where the shoe originated from, but the link leads to a tumblr account that I didn't feel like rifling through! :( All I know is that it is awesome and from the 20's.

   Isn't it awesome?! I think it is... :) I tried to use the same colors, but my orange-y light brown didn't turn out quite right. Oh well. My pinks are a little different too. As I'm sure you can tell, I mainly used the design on the heel as my inspiration. Mostly because I couldn't see the toes design!

   Hope you liked it! This is probably one of my favorite designs so far.

   Here's my list of polishes:
         Nina Ultra Pro Tangerine Dream  the darker part of the flowers
         Stripe Rite Cream  the stripes, zig zags, and the bottom half of flowers
         Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear  Mint Sorbet  the leaves
         Finger Paints Sketchy Character bold thick stripes
         Revlon Multi Care Base+Top Coat  topcoat
         Folk Art Acrylic Paint Baby Pink  the top half of the flowers
     To make the lighter brown in the background I mixed:
             Finger Paints Sketchy Character
             Sally Hansen  Hard as Nails Sheer Vanilla
             I'm not sure about the proportions though, sorry!

Etsy Listing and Some Exciting News!

   Sorry for no posts in forever! I've been swamped with finals and moving all my junk back home and reorganizing, so I hadn't had time to do anything more than put one color on my nails!
   I've put up another listing on my Etsy store! I've got a new set of nails up for sale now! It's the same design I did a few weeks ago (the triangle manicure). They're only $10! You should go buy some from me! :P I have two color options (as you can tell); grey like the original design I made, and also a pretty blue!
   Here is a picture:

  I've also got some new designs on my toes and fingers! I don't have time to upload them yet though. I should be able to soon though! Here's a sneak peek of my fingers:

   As for my Exciting News: I'm taking pictures at my first wedding! I'm super excited and super nervous! My best friend, Ammie (the author of this blog) is getting married today and has employed me as her photographer! Luckily, I'm not alone; a lady from our church is taking some pictures too, which makes it a ton less stressful (especially since she's photographed weddings before!). It's an outdoor wedding in one of the most beautiful backyards/gardens I've ever seen. Seriously. It's amazing! If I could take you there I would! I'll have to post some pictures of it so you guys can see it for yourselves. We went to the rehearsal yesterday and took some pictures, so that made feel a lot better (I'm still nervous though!). :)

   Well, that's about all I have time for! I've got to go run around and get ready!

Book!!

   I managed to find time to post them today! Hooray! I'm still super excited about this! :) Here are pictures of the second section:

   Like I mentioned in this post, basically this section is Jo scribbling away. Coming 'out of her head' are a bunch of ideas. The ideas are made up of some of my favorite illustrations and some snippets from some stories that I've written.

   Hope you guys like it!