Pastel Watercolor

    In my last post, I reviewed some pretty gold stickers. I didn't tell you much about the base, so I thought I'd revisit it.
   The great thing about this design is that it doesn't need to be neat, so it's something you can more easily recreate on your right hand.

   Ignore my dry fingers; I soaked them in acetone to get rid of some glitter polish and forgot to put lotion on them before I took this picture!

   To make this 'base' I started with two coats of a thinner cream base (I used Revlon Colorstay Embody). You can also use white or a more opaque cream (or no base). Once that dried, I thinned out pastel pink, blue, and purple. With a smallish brush, I dabbed on the three colors in random patterns until I had the coverage that I wanted.

   I started with pink, then moved to purple, and ended with blue. You can also put drops of all three on at once and then swirl them together. Use whatever method works best for you! 
   If I have time, I'd love to make a tutorial for you guys. I haven't made one in ages...

   I hope you all have a wonderful week!

Review: Gold Stickers

   I have another review for you all! This week it is some cute gold floral stickers. You can find them here from Born Pretty.

   I forgot to take a picture before I used them.... Sorry!

   Pros: It is super cute and goes with just about anything. It's also easy to cut out whatever portion you want (the design isn't so close that you can't cut out just a flower, like I did), as well as easy to remove from the backing, even when you cut out a small portion. 

   Cons: Overall, it sticks to your fingers very well. However, there is a tiny bit of lifting on the edges, especially if you have a more curved nail. Luckily, this can easily be fixed with a tiny dab of nail glue.

   Consensus: This is a great product! It's a super easy way to quickly add a design to your nails. If you have some nail glue handy, it ought to last as long as your polish. Even if you don't, it will still last for a few days. Plus, the sheet is big, so you can reapply as often as you want!

   I'll go into more detail about the base in my next post. Suffice to say that it is basically a pastel watercolor. I'm ready for Spring!

   I hope you all have a fantastic week!

  

Hearts

   Happy super super late Valentine's Day! Ha!

   When I was in high school, I was in color guard (marching band). I like to think that I had the best guard instructor. He was an excellent teacher, wrote excellent routines, squeezed in an occasional life lesson, and secretly liked us all, not matter how crazy we got. He also designed all of our show flags. And they were all so beautiful! (You can see some of them in an old DeviantArt post here.) This design was inspired by one of them (that took a while to get to the point!).

   This isn't the best picture, but you get the idea.

   I think Girly Bits Cosmetics January Morning is my new favorite base... It goes with everything, and it is subtly sparkly. To make the heart, I started by making a basic heart shape with red acrylic paint, and then refining it to the shape I wanted. Then I added the gold accent with gold acrylic paint. The outline and scroll work were made with black acrylic paint.

   I hope you all have a fantastic day!

New Sets!

   I have some new sets available in my shop! I've taken way too long to put something new up. I've had several fall and Christmas sets ready for a while, but I just got busy and forgot about them. So they'll just go up next season instead!

   This first set is one I've been wanting to remake for months. I didn't like my first version of Pocahontas nails, but it was the best I could come up with at the time. This version has 1 similar nail, her turquoise necklace. The others are new. Her tattoo on her arm is the other accent nail, and the other three are based off the Colors of the Wind song.

   You can find it here in my shop.

   My Sleeping Beauty inspired set has been a long time coming. When I made the Disney Princess sets, I never could get the design right. Six months later, I finally got it! And, yes, you can get it in pink.

   You can find the set here in my shop.

   This is my first new Valentine's set! I have plans for another one that will be neat... 

   You can find this one here in my shop.

Merry Christmas!

   Merry Christmas Eve!

   This year, as usual, I couldn't pick just one thing to paint. So I made a Christmas collage, Cotton Coney style.

   I started with a base of Girly Bits Cosmetics January Morning. Then I added on stockings, candy canes, presents, and a tree.

   To make the tree, I used some striping tape to mark off the space for the tree. (I used a great tape dispenser that I'll have to tell you all about soon...) The green I used was Finger Paints Sketch N Etch, and I added a very thin layer of Zoya Pixie Dust Vega over top to give it some sparkle. I topped the tree off (literally, ha!) with a tiny gold stud.

   The candy canes, stockings, and presents were all made with either my red striper or Revlon Parfumerie Balsam Fir. The white stripes and stocking tops were made with my white striper, and the gold ribbon on the presents was some polish I got as a gift (Love brand, with no color name).
   I also added some tiny iridescent hexagon glitters in the empty spaces ...so it didn't look so empty. And to make it glittery.  (Man, I am excelling at writing today....) Then I topped it off with a matte coat!

   I hope you all have a good time this Christmas, but I know it's not always as fun for some as it is for others. :/

   Merry Christmas!

Christmas Ornaments

   I'm so excited that it's December and I can officially start Christmas and winter designs. Especially since I have a beautiful new holo from Girly Bits Cosmetics, called January Morning. It is the perfect winter polish!

   I've been wanting to paint some ornaments for a while. I based these of old retro ornaments.

   I made the ornaments with black and red acrylic paint, and a green polish pen.

   I hope you all have a fantastic week!

Thanksgiving Turkey

   I'm still behind, but only by a week this time! Here's a Thanksgiving design I painted on a fellow student.

   Aren't they cute? We even gave them crazy eyes.

   The majority of her nails were painted with OPI Lincoln Park After Dark. The turkey was made using Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure Branch Out. His tail feathers were painted with Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure Butterscotch, L'Oreal He Red My Mind, and L'Oreal Orange You Jealous.

  I hope you all had an enjoyable Thanksgiving (those that celebrate it, of course). Have a fantastic week!

Sugar Plum Fairy

   A few weeks ago (1? 2? I don't know...) I bought some awesome new polish from Noodles Nails. It's a pretty cream crelly with purple and pink glitters, called Berries and Cream.

   I love the color combinations and I think it will be a perfect winter polish. Getting somewhat ahead of the seasons, I made a (sort of) Nutcracker-themed design. Since there are some purple glitters in the polish, I thought I'd try and paint the Sugar Plum Fairy.

   I loosely based my design off of some images of the ballet costume, and added some fairy-wings on the other two nails. I had high hopes for this design, but I think it needs a bit of tweaking before Christmastime comes around...

I used mainly pinks and purples for the design. For the wings, I started by painting the basic shape with white paint. I went over the white with thinned out Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure Don't Be Leotardy on the wing ends, fading into Nina Ultra Pro Plum of the Earth. The dark purple stripes were made with OPI Vant to Bite My Neck.

   The ballerina was made by (again) painting the basic shape with acrylic paint. I used Don't Be Leotardy and Plum of the Earth again for the Sugar Plum Fairy's leotard and tutu. Her skin color was made with an extremely thinned out L'Oreal Doutzen's Nude, and her hair with a thinned out Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure Branch Out.


   I hope you all have a fantastic week!

Halloween Part III

   The final installment! These are manikin hands and nail wheels.

   I made a werewolf! Isn't it cool?? There are a couple things I would fix (aren't there always?), but overall I'm satisfied.
   I used my manikin hand to make this one. I applied various shades of brown to the skin to darken it up (it was a very pale hand, completely wrong for a werewolf). I used hair from some curly hair extensions to make the furry hands.
   The nails were made with a cream base and a white crackle layer over top. I thought that gave it a nice bone-like texture. Then I sponged on various shades of brown and a bit of black at the base of the nails and the surrounding skin. One of the girls at school had some fake blood, so to complete the effect, I gave it some bloody nails.

   This is my Halloween-themed nail wheel. Some of them glow in the dark! I wish I had a picture for you... I'll need to bring it home, take one, and update this soon. The cemetery has ghosts that show up in the dark. The glowing forest glows in the dark, as well as the green part of the Evil Queen's poison apple. Oh, and the skull/ghoul faces!
   I think the Snoopys are my favorites though. I've always liked Charlie Brown so I had to try and paint some characters. They'll probably be back for Christmas too....

  That's all of my Halloween designs this year.

   Have a great weekend!

Halloween Part II

   To continue with my belated Halloween designs... (Eventually I will post them on Halloween if not before!)

   Here are a few designs I created at school on fellow students and clients.

   First up: Saw-themed nails. This student was dressing up as Jigsaw for Halloween, complete with the tricycle. I've never seen any of the Saw movies (I like to sleep at night), so I had to do a little research for this one.
  For the accent nails, I used Revlon Colortsay Sure Thing as my base, and red acrylic paint for the hand print and swirl. The other nails were painted with OPI Midnight in Moscow, a neat seemingly black base with a red shimmer when it's in the light.

   Sugar skulls and spider webs! This girl was dressing in a skeleton/sugar skull/Day of the Dead themed costume. To make this set, I started with a white base for the sugar skulls. Then I used a combination of red and black acrylic paint, as well as a green nail art pen. The webs were made with OPI Midnight in Moscow and white acrylic paint. The set was topped off with a matte topcoat.

   I'm a little bit proud of this one... I've always loved calligraphy, so it was really fun to combine my love of letters and my love of polish for this design! I'm not sure what the costume idea was for this one, but I'm just happy I got to paint pretty letters.
   I started with a black base, and then used acrylic paint for the letters. It was topped off with a matte topcoat as well. She had broken a couple of nails, so I sculpted those out. All in all, I think it took about 3 hours, including a quick smoke break for her and a wiggle break for me. :)

   I have one more installment and then I'm done with Halloween and back to trying to catch up.. I think I'm only 1 week behind. Surely I can catch up from that! :D

   Have a fantastic week!

Happy [Belated] Halloween!

  Still behind... Nothing new!

   I hope you all had a great Halloween! We dressed up at school and had kids come in to trick or treat, it was lots of fun!

   I was Dorothy! I'm all about being cheap and using stuff I already have. I had recently bought this dress online and it worked perfectly!

   And of course, I had nails to match.

   I started with a white base, Revlon Colorstay Sure Thing. To make the blue plaid nails, I used some thinned out Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Blue Me Away. I made the darker shadowed squares with Revlon Colorstay Indigo Night.

   To paint the poppies, I started with a bit of red, Revlon Colorstay Red Carpet. I used some thinned out OPI Midnight in Moscow to create the darker interior on the poppy petals, and then finished the flower out with some small dots of Revlon Colortay Buttercup.
   The stems and leaves were made with Studio M On the Field.

   And, despite not being able to find cheap red glitter shoes ANYWHERE (they are always in abundance at Walmart the years I don't need them...), I did put red glitter on my right hand. My feet just had to make do with plain, boring, un-glittery, red heels. :)


   I painted some other Halloween-themed desgins, I'll try to get them up soon. I might just have to go out of order for a week so my Halloween designs are posted at least near Halloween...  I really need to get my blogging life together!


   I hope you all have a fantastic week!

Halloween in... Disney World!

  ...Unfortunately, I'm not the lucky lady who gets to go. Somehow, my parents have neglected to ever take me there... Which I might or might not be slightly upset about. But hey, it's not like I didn't get to go to lots of other really cool places most people don't get to visit. So I guess it evens out.
   Anyways, I had a customer contact me about creating a couple custom sets for her trip to Disney World around Halloween. Super cool, right? It's got to be so much fun to go there on any holiday, but especially Halloween.

  The first set was a Hocus Pocus themed set. I've never really been a huge fan of that movie (I know, blasphemy!), but it was still really fun to create. She wanted four accents; the black flame candle, Thackery Binx (in cat form), the spell book, and Billy Butcherson.

   To keep it short, the main colors I used were purple with a glitter top coat (OPI I Vant to Bite Your Neck and Finger Paints Glitter Top Coat), green (L'Oreal New Money), and a really neat black with a slight red shimmer (OPI Midnight in Moscow).

   The other set she requested was a Mickey Mouse inspired set. For the thumbs, I used a base of CND Vinylux Grommet and my red striper. The black glitter is Nina Ultra Pro Glam Rock. The red glitter is Wet 'N Wild Fergie No Place Like Home (and one of my favorites!).


   I hope you all have a fantastic week!

Memorial Day

   I'm going to go a tiny bit out of order this week, so that Memorial Day's design is still somewhat close to Memorial Day. I know I've been quiet recently; I've been moving out of my apartment, unpacking, working, making a quick weekend trip to see family... Hopefully things will quiet down after this week!

   Anyway, I didn't plan on having a Memorial Day design, it just happened that what I painted ended up looking patriotic!

   I was really struggling this weekend with making a design work. I was in one of those fidgety moods where nothing turns out right.

   Using one of my favorite bases, Orly French Manicure Pink Nude, I painted some stripes with varying widths using OPI Aloha From Hawaii and Orly Teal Unreal. After staring at it and thinking it looked a little plain, I added some white dots to the widest of the stripes.

   There was no way I was going to attempt this on my right hand, so I used Aloha as my base and used my dotter to add on some white dots down one side of each nail.

   I hope you all have a great week!

Glitter and Rudolph

   Like I said in my last post, despite not posting much recently, I have been busy painting! I have two new sets to show you guys.
   Back before I left for home, I painted my roommate's nails with a cute Rudolph design.

   I started with my favorite base, Orly French Manicure Pink Nude. Which still isn't pink. Ha. I painted the dots using Revlon Colorstay Red Carpet and Studio M On the Field. To make Rudolph, I started with his head an ears, using Nina Ultra Pro Beige-A Vu. To make the nose I used Red Carpet again,  and Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure Branch Out for the antlers. The eyes were made with white and black.


   This next set I think I painted around Christmas. Maybe as an interim between whatever I had before and the design I painted for Christmas? Who knows, it's been too long!

   The red glitter is one of my favorite glitters! It's so pretty and perfect for Christmas! It's Wet 'N Wild Fergie No Place Like Home. I love it! The gold is pretty too, I'm just a little besotted with No Place Like Home. The gold is Finger Paints Wrapped in Ribbon.


   I hope you all have a fantastic week!

Christmas Lights

   Merry Christmas! A little early, I know, but what's a few hours?

   Today I have another Etsy "re-paint" - I have a bunch of Christmas/winter designs that I've made throughout the year, so I figure now it the perfect time to paint them!

   This design uses real thread! I found the idea at least a year ago on Pinterest. The trick is to get good, tightly wound (?) thread that doesn't have many (if any) little fibers sticking out. If you look at the next picture and make it larger, you'll see what I mean. The thread I used the first time was not great.

bad thread

good thread

   I started by cutting off a longish length of thread. I used Nina Ultra Pro French White as my base. When my second coat was about halfway dry (still a little sticky) I put on the thread, carefully pushing it into the white polish with my nail (or something thin). Be careful not to press your finger into the paint, I had several partial finger prints on a couple nails!

   For the lights, I used Revlon Colorstay Red Carpet, Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Mellow Yellow, and Studio M On the Field, and a small brush.
   I've found that it sometimes helps to paint a top coat layer before painting the lights to help keep the thread in place. It just kind of depends on how dry/moist the white polish was at the time of applying the thread, as well as how curved the nail is. You'll know if you need it, the ends of the thread will start lifting up.

   You can find the set in Etsy here.

   I hope you all have a fantastic weekend!

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!