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!

Orange Flowers

   I've made some more nails for Etsy! Well, indirectly for Etsy, anyway. I painted them for a friend of mine who is going to Hawai'i next month. She wanted some beachy/tropical nails that weren't too cutesy, so I made her this set. (You can find them here on Etsy)

   She's going to be there for two weeks, so I made her this set, and the a set like the ones I made for the bridesmaids at my brother's wedding. To make the flowers, I used my own version of the one-stroke stuff, which isn't really one stroke at all... But it works!

   In other nail news, I haven't really been doing much with my nails. I've been busy with work and other junk, so I've been slacking on nail designs... Hopefully I'll have time this weekend, but it might not be until next weekend... :(
   I will be continuing my Doll series though! I've got about 4 or 5 more dolls I want to design some nails after!

  Have a great rest of the 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!

Embroidered Cards

   This is yet another off-subject post. I really do try to keep focused on nails, but I just can't help myself!
    My newest artistic endeavor is embroidering cards! I had these blank card-shaped bits of card stock lying around my room, and they were pretty lonely. I had been trying to think of how I wanted to decorate them and yesterday it hit me! I wanted to embroider them! But I had no idea how.... So after lots of research I finally figured it out! I found this awesome post about how to embroider cards (apparently you have to poke all of the holes before hand, which makes it super complicated if you want to do anything more than a regular stitch!). It was super helpful! I also found this amazing site that shows you step by step (with awesome, helpful pictures) how to do millions of different embroidery stitches! It's awesome!
   So far I've made three cards and am thinking up a fourth. I think I'm probably going to put them up on my Etsy to see if people like them. If they seem to do good, I'll make more and maybe open up a different shop for them so I don't have this random mish-mash of stuff in my current store. :)

   Here are some pictures!

 

  In other fun news (still not nails, sorry), I have a new (to me, anyway) old fairy tale book! Fairy tales are my weakness, and so are old books, so I absolutely can't resist an old book of fairy tales! Last week I bought an old book full of French fairy tales (it's written in English though, so I can read it!) from 1869. 1869! My oldest book yet for sure. Before this one my oldest was 1896 or so. And it's in pretty good condition. The front cover is barely held on by a bundle of threads on the inside, but other than that and one loose page the binding is great! It's amazing! 
   It's interesting though, because instead of the fairy tales being 5-15 pages like you usually see them, they're lots and lots of pages and have chapters! In my book there are only around 5 tales, but it's a decently thick book. I haven't started reading it yet (I'm waiting to finish my current book), but I can't wait! I'm so excited!

 
   I got so sidetracked raving about its awesome-ness, that I forgot to tell you guys the name! It's called (predictably) French Fairy Tales and was written by Madame la Comtesse de Segur. I absolutely loved her dedication! It reads:

To my Granddaughters,

Camille and Madeline de Malaret

My very dear children:

Here are the tales with which you were so well pleased, and that I promised you to have published.

In reading them, dear little ones, think of your old grandmother, who, to please you, has left her seclusion, and offered to public criticism the name of 

Comtesse de Segur 

   Isn't that great? She loved her grandbabies for sure! :)


   That's about it for now. And I might be getting a little sleepy...

   Have a wonderful night! (Or day, depending on where you are)  :)