Thanksgiving!

   Despite being way ahead of seasons this year, I am super excited for Thanksgiving! I love all the food, and of course seeing my family. I don't get to see my cousins enough. My roommate and some friends had our own small Thanksgiving this past Saturday and it was lots of fun! We didn't burn the turkey or anything, so we were happy. I don't think any of us ate any supper that night, we ate too much at lunch!

   Anyway, back to nails. I of course had to paint some Thanksgiving-themed nails for this week, in honor of the holiday. I found the perfect inspiration on Pinterest!

   Aren't they so cute?! I found them a couple weeks ago and knew I had to paint them!

   I started with two different bases; the Indians/turkeys have an Orly French Manicure Pink Nude base, and the Pilgrims have an Orly FX Starburst base (although you can't really tell...). I thought the glitter in Starburst would be really cute, but the minions are too big! Oh well, you see it on my right hand -

   To make the minions, I started with Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Mellow Yellow.
   For the Indians/turkeys, I painted the turkey feathers next, using Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure Butterscotch, Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Sun Kissed, L'Oreal He Read My Mind, and Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure Branch Out.
   For the Pilgrims, after painting Mellow Yellow, I painted the hat next, using OPI A-Piers to Be Tan. To make the buckle I painted a yellow square (over top white, to make the yellow pop), and then used my black striper.

   Next I painted their faces, starting with China Glaze Pelican Grey for the goggles, then white and black for the eyes and mouth. To make the teeth I used the tip of my smallest brush. It works really great if you leave a bit of the previous polish on and let it dry so it makes a firm point (you can clean it off later). I used OPI A-Piers to Be Tan for their shirts and black for the buttons. Then I topped it all off with a matte top coat!

   After tomorrow at 12pm, I am done with class and officially on Thanksgiving break! I'm so excited! I won't have any new posts until I get back, I don't want to mess with carting polishes home this week. Besides, when I'm not at work, I'll be to busy visiting with my family!

   Have a wonderful week and a great Thanksgiving to those of you celebrating!

A Long Overdue Update...

   I've made some more designs the past few weeks. I've had a fair amount of orders through my Etsy, so that combined with work and Christmas present wrapping has left me little time for blogging! :(
   I've finally painted the long-awaited (at least to me) Thanksgiving owls! I was super excited to finally get to paint them on my nails.

   How do you all like them? It was a lot harder to paint them on my nails. I have tiny fingers so it's sometimes difficult to paint a design on my own small nails when I've first painted them on larger fake nails! The Etsy set is available here, if you care to look, although it is a bit late in the season for Thanksgiving nails....

   And of course I had to paint my snowflake design on my nails. That design has become one of my favorites! If you care to look, they're in my Etsy here. I offer it in both red and blue.

   I was trying to think up a new Christmas design the other day and I came up with this idea:

   It's a Charlie Brown Christmas design! It didn't turn out quite like I hoped, but I'm still happy with it. I've got the pitiful tree, the other outrageously colored trees, Snoopy's decorated dog house, and Charlie Brown's shirt.

   For other news, I made a new Christmas card a few weeks back! I have to show it off, you know.

   It was inspired by some fabric I found at work. I'd been dying to do something with it, whether it be a card design or a nail design. I'll probably still do a nail design if I can manage it. We'll see....

   Well, as I'm sure you've noticed, once again I haven't been overly chatty. And I'm trying to muti-task, so that doesn't help!
   That's all the fun updates I have for now! Hopefully I'll be back with another post next week. Maybe. I'm supposed to be getting my wisdom teeth taken out next week so we'll see how much gets done; I might be too loopy to do much!

   Have a great week guys! Merry Christmas if I don't post again before then!

Christmas Listings!

   I've been making a ton if new nail sets for my Etsy store! And I've already sold some! I've had 14 sales since I opened my shop a little over a year ago, but each new sale is just as exciting as the first! Or nearly so, anyway. I guess nothing beats the excitement of your first sale!
   I have mainly been focusing on Christmas nails since I'm a little late for the Halloween rush. ...But I couldn't resist painting two Fall/Halloween sets. They called to me and practically begged to be made! They might've bullied me a little...
  

   I hadn't planned on making this set at all. The others were pretty much all planned. And had been for a while. And been put off. And avoided. And put off again... These were very last minute and inspired by some ribbon my mom bought on a whim. I like the ribbon better, but the nails turned out fine! You can find these here in my store.

   This set is one of my favorites. I'm not convinced that the webs are right, but the cat and the fog (especially the fog) looked so nice I kind of over look them. For now. I did a ton of sponging for the background and it took me forever to be satisfied with the mix of greys, blacks, and whites. I'm so picky! I can't wait to do these on my own nails! My only dilemma is whether I should do these on Halloween week or the week before. I have some Halloween owls that I want to do too. You can find this set here in my store.

   This is the first of three Christmas sets I made up last week. I had done up one nail like this last Christmas in a Christmas montage of sorts. And I apparently used different thread. The thread I used for this one was such a mess! I'll definitely have to find something different if someone orders a set. You can find these here in my Etsy.

   You might have noticed that I have this problem with either loving or not loving every set I make. There usually isn't anything in between. These, I really like. A lot. I will definitely have to paint these on my own nails come winter! I saw two snowflake sets on Pinterest that I liked, but didn't really like on their own. So I combined them to make my own version! (You can see them here and here if you like.) You can find this set here in my store.

   I made these last year too. They are so cute! I love these too! (You can find a picture of my first version here if you want to see them. They don't really look any different.) Don't those penguins just look so cute all bundled up in scarves and muffs?! I'll stop now so I don't gush too much... You can find them here in my Etsy store.


And that's about it for now. I do actually have some more nails to show you guys, but I don't want to make the post too long. Besides, I haven't put my watermark and everything on there either. Because it takes so long to do that... Mostly I'm just tired and lazy!

Have a wonderful week guys! I should have more time to blog and create; at work the corporate people messed up our hours, so we had to have our hours cut a lot so I'll have a ton more free time this week and the next!

New Etsy Listings!!

    And they're so cute!!! I think one of these ties with the cat nails I did last month (and maybe even passes them up, I'm not sure yet...). I am a little bit infatuated with this set right now....

   Aren't these guys just so adorable?! If you love them as much as I do (and even if you don't), you can find them here in my Etsy. I found this cute fabric at work (JoAnn Fabrics) the other day and I knew that I had to make a design from it!

   To make this set I did a lot of sponging. I sponged the grass, trees, and leaves with a little makeup sponge. For the rest of it I just used my usual tiny brushes. To make the owls, I used the color for their bellies as a 'base.' Then over top of that I painted in the darker color for their heads, then I painted on their eyes, beaks, wings, hats, etc.

   To spare you from my gushing, I'll go ahead and show you my other set I made. :) I think they're really cute too, but it's a different sort of cute...

   These are loosely based off of yet another doll I have in my small-ish collection. She came from my great-grandmother. I'd hazard a guess that she is at least based off of 50s fashions, if not actually from sometime around there. But I really have no idea. These are terrible pictures (I'm rushing around trying to get ready for work and write this at the same time), so I'll try to take some better ones when I have a chance.

   I didn't notice until later that the 'dots' on her dress were actually hearts... That would have been so cute on the nails! Oh well.. they still look cute anyway!

Well, I've got to run to work! Hope you guys have an awesome week!!