Purple Stripes, Purple Dots

   I made two different designs this week - one on my left on on my right. I started out with a tape block on my right hand. ...But it was late. And I was getting tired. So I painted some dots on my left hand to make it quick and easy.

  I also got some new supplies last week! I ordered some brushes, dotters, and tape from Wistonia. I really love them!

   The new things are the 3 brushes on the far left (with the interesting handles), the colorful dotters (they're double ended), and the tape farthest on the left. If you care to see more of them, you can find the brushes and dotters here, and the tape here.

  The taped color block was inspiration from a pin that I found a while ago. I absolutely loved it, but I just never had the right supplies to make it happen. The tape that I got in the mail was the perfect color - holographic silver, so I was finally able to paint it! 

   The original pin used these pretty shades of teal. I really like purple though (it's tied with green for my favorite color). It was a little obnoxious getting the tape onto my nails. I ended up up wasting a lot of tape. :(   I really like the end result though! I hope to put up a set in my Etsy eventually, in at least purple, but I was thinking maybe blue and pink too. Maybe. We'll see! My to do list for Etsy is sooo long and is always growing!

   This is my left hand! It's getting almost common - two posts in two weeks! As I mentioned earlier, this was an unplanned design. I was looking for something easy late at night, and this is what came up with! I wanted to use my new dotters, so what better to do than make dots!

   I also have a really old design (well, not super old, it's only from Christmas) to show you guys too. I painted a sweater design on my friends nails a week or so after Christmas.

   I painted a similar design two years ago on my toes for Christmas. It was a lot more difficult on finger nails instead of toe nails.  I think it turned out pretty well!

   That's about all the news for now! I'm only just now watching the new season of Sherlock, so I'm kind of distracted! :)

   I hope you guys have a wonderful week!

**UPDATE**

   So I was obviously severely distracted by Sherlock last night... (It was a fantastic episode!!) I should've just waited to type this until today! Blogging in the middle of Sherlock was obviously not one of my best ideas. This ended up being a super brief post! I went back through the post this morning and fixed all of my typos. Sorry guys! :)

   The one tidbit of opinion I left out that I really wanted to put in was about the tape. It looks fantastic, but if you knock your nails around a lot don't expect it to stay on for more that 3-4 days. It started peeling off my nails around day two and half or so. I'm really bad about knocking my nails around a lot at work, so it probably would have lasted a lot longer otherwise. Other than that and the application (which I'm pretty sure was at least partly due to my being impatient and not letting the polish dry quite long enough), the tape is really great!

Have a good rest of the week!

Galaxy

   I've finally joined the galaxy nail trend! I had been wanting to make some for a while, I just didn't know how, and didn't want to spend the time messing around with it and looking up different tutorials. Because, you know, that just takes so long... But I finally got around to it yesterday. I'm pretty satisfied with the result so far! They turned out a lot better than I thought they might. I'm not sure why, but I just didn't have high hopes for this design. It's not even that hard! But that's me for ya!

  I also am going to show you both hands for once! This is a rare thing, because I usually paint a dumbed down design on my right hand so my left hand can manage it. But sponging is kind of hard to mess up. Don't get me wrong, you can definitely mess it up (I've done it before!), but it's harder to make a mess of.

   To make my galaxy nails I started out with a dark base coat. I didn't want to use solid black, so I used a really really dark purple that had a bit of a glimmer to it - Sally Hansen Lacquer Shine Spark. I have no idea if you can still buy this polish though, it's pretty old.
Then I sponged on some white in some random 'nebula' shapes. Then I layered on (sponging still) some reds, oranges, greens, some more white, etc until I got something that looked sort of space-ish.
After that I painted on some small glitter (I used a small bottle of some Orly glitter that has no name....) to act as distant stars. I just painted it in the dark purple spots. I tried it on the entire nail, but I didn't like the effect.
Then I added some small white dots for close stars with a small paint brush.
I topped it all off with a matte coat. I used to use Essie's Matte About You, but I ran out and for some reason bought a different brand this time... It's Revlon's Matte Topcoat. It's alright. Essie's is definitely worth the money if you want to spend it! Revlon's isn't bad though, it's just not as good....  (It's a little streaky and you have to put on a couple of coats before everything is matte-ed).

(At some point I really need to start doing picture tutorials instead of word ones... Pictures are so much more helpful!)

  I also got all of my Valentine's set finished up! I put up one more full set:

   You can find this on here in my Etsy.

   And I put up the other two accent sets I showed you all the other day:

   You can find the balloon set here, and the heart flower set here. I just love that last set! It's so cute!

   Speaking of accent nails, I almost forgot to show you guys a set! I also made some galaxy accent nails. I plan on making them into a full set too, I just haven't gotten around to it yet.

   (The nail on the right is where I tried to put glitter over the entire nail. I thought it was too shimmery.)
   You can find them here in my store.

   That's about all for now! I hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

Etsy Valentine's

   I've been working to get Valentine's sets up on my Etsy in time for people to look at them and want to buy them. It's been lots of fun, although I'm almost stressing about it. I'm not sure why, because I only have a few more to make and it's not even February yet...
   I've put up two new sets so far, with plans for 1-2 more.

   I really like this one! The heart is so cute with the lace (I think, anyway)! I'm not a huge fan of the glitter gradient. I've never really done one before, so it was an experiment! I don't think it's quite thick enough on the bottom, but that's easily fixed so I'm not worried. You can find it here in my shop.

   I think this one is so cute and whimsical! I got the cloud effect from sponging on some white polish (specifically, Finger Paints Paper Mache). I used a dotter to get the tops of the hearts, then went back with a small brush to finish them up. You can find them here.

   I've also started a new "line" of nails - individually sold accent nails (a set of 2) and solid nail sets, to either be paired with the accent nails or worn separately. As of right now I only have up (and am working on) Valentine's accent nails. I have all the solids up for now; more will be added as I get new polishes! So far I have 3 accent nail sets available, and have plans for making 3-4 more. I'm really excited! I've had this idea since November, but I just never got around to making it happen until now.

  I am not a huge fan of this one. I'm sure some people will love it, it's just not really my style. It was inspired by and Pinterest pin, which might or might not look better than my creation.... The set is available here.

   This one is my mom's favorite. I really like it too, but my favorite is yet to come. Literally. I haven't quite painted the set yet... I've painted it on my nails, but not the set for Etsy. At any rate, you can find this set here.

   This one didn't turn out as originally planned. It was supposed to be the cursive love design that you always see. Instead it ended up being a more 'modern' (ha!) typography-ed love. You can find it here.

   These are two that I have yet to offically make. The one on the left is my favorite so far! It is so cute! I think I'm going to make it into a full set as well as the accent set. The one on the right you've already seen. I figure that someone might like it batter as an accent than as a whole set. Maybe. Who knows!

That's about it for now! I'll have more updates later, probably next week or so. I hope you all have a wonderful week!

Dots, Leaves, and News

   I hope you all had a fantastic Christmas and New Year! I really enjoyed my time with the family!
   A few days after Christmas I had the wonderful opportunity to do and art trade with the lovely Anjuli over at Digital Designs on Etsy (https://www.etsy.com/shop/digitaldesignss). It was tons of fun! I made her some red snowflake nails and she made me this awesome 'R' that has the names of my relatives on the Roberts side of my family.

   She does fantastic work, so if you're into this sort of thing you should definitely go check her out!

   I also got to paint several people's nails over the past few weeks. While this isn't something I normally do - I don't know much about anything except painting; I don't do any of the prep work you get at a salon (mostly I'm just not to that point yet and don't want to get into that to often. Yet.) - I really enjoyed doing it!

   Top left: Some cute little wintery penguins with bows on their heads
   Top right: Christmas minions
   Bottom left: Snowman, glitter, and snowflakes
   Bottom middle: Santa's belt
   Bottom right: Santa's face

   I hadn't done anything on my own nails until this week! Partially because of the gel polish that stayed for two weeks, but mostly because I was busy running back and forth between work and visiting with family. This Christmas was so much busier than the last (for me, at least), but it was still just as great. I was going to do the winter birds like I had originally planned, but lack of time and design distractions made me paint something else! I found this cool design when I was looking through some business card templates at moo.com.

   I fell in love with it! So I painted my own version of it on my nails a few days ago. I knew I only wanted it as an accent nail, but I didn't want to leave the other nails completely plain. I couldn't really think of anything great, so I slapped some dots on there!

 

   I also had this glitter that I was dying to use, so I put some of it on my left hand.

   I used Sally Hansen Salon Effects Butterscotch and Revlon Colorstay Jungle for the base coats. For the leaves I used Loreal New Money and Tea and Crumpets, then Revlon Colorstay Jungle for the stem. For the dots I used the same as for the leaves, plus the Butterscotch. On my left hand the glitter was an Orly  Mini Glitter. I've yet to find a name on the bottle, but the number is 0125112.

   That's it for now. I have a ton more to show you (I've made up some new sets for my Etsy!), but I don't want to make this post ridiculously long. Hope you all have an wonderful day!