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!

XOXO

   I have a new set up in my shop! And I must say, I really love it. I keep hoping I'll find time to paint it on my own nails this Valentine's Day. (I haven't been posting much recently because I'm down south helping my mom clean out her parents' house this month and last month.)

   I started with a white base, and then added a layer of Girly Bits January Morning. I just love that polish!

   I used a new black water-based paint that I bought from ?. I really like it so far; it's nice and thin, but not too thin. I used my favorite super thin brush from Born Pretty Store.

   For the thumbs, I outlined the heart, and then placed red glitter inside of it.

 
   This set is up in my shop, so check it out! I don't have time to deliver to you by this Valentine's Day, but you can always keep it in mind for the next! :)

   You can find it here in my shop.


   I hope you all have a fantastic week!

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.

New Listings!

   Hey guys! I've been busy this week creating new listings and working on orders, so I've got lots to show you all. Hopefully I'll get a true day off on Saturday to do other stuff. I don't know what I'll do yet, but it won't be nails or JoAnn's! Don't get me wrong, I love nail art, but everyone needs a break! I feel like I've been working on orders non stop lately! Which is good really, since it give me some money. :) 
   Speaking of orders, I'VE HIT 100 SALES!!!! It's so exciting! I think I've had about 56 actual orders, but I've sold 109 individual sets.

  I've added two new sets and have started changing my listing pictures, so my shop is starting to look a little different. It's exciting! Just because I can, here are some screen shots:

   I'm about halfway through painting all my sets! Hopefully by summer (or at least the end of it) I can start painting other stuff on my own nails again.
   This was my project this morning, getting all the solids photographed.

   I've finally gotten around to putting up a polka dot set! It's been on my to-do list for ages, I just never got around to it, like usual.

   I have several different color options:

   Wouldn't want to give you too many choices... :)  You can find the listing here.
   The colors I used are:
         Pure Ice Bikini
         Orly Teal Unreal
         Loreal New Money
         Loreal Royally Reinvented
         OPI Vant To Bite My Neck
         Finger Paints Paint Me Happy
         Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Cherry Red
         Finger Paints Paper Mache
         Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Black Out

   I also listed a version of my Valentine's nails. I made all the nails the same checked design instead of having the lace heart accent.

   I absolutely love this design! I think it's so cute. You can find the listing here.
   To make this design I used Finger Paints Paper Mache as my base. Then with a small brush I painted on the green 'stitching' with Revlon Brilliant Strength Entice. After that I used my dotter to start the hearts and a brush to finish them. Then I covered it all with my top coat - Revlon Multi Care Base+Top Coat.

   That's about all my news for now. I still have earrings to blog about, but I have to take pictures of them first... Maybe I can do that Thursday or Saturday. We'll see how that goes...

   I hope you all have a fantastic week that isn't too crazy!

Valentine's Day

   Valentine's Day almost snuck up on me this year! I had been thinking about designs, but I thought I had plenty of time to finalize and paint. Well, yesterday I realized that it was already Valentine's week! I've been a little off schedule lately... I painted yesterday before work, so I can have them on for at least a few days before!

   I wasn't really sure what I wanted to do this year. I had already painted a bunch of designs for Etsy and I didn't really want to paint them again. Not yet, anyway! After scrounging around on Pinterest for inspiration, I found this design and fell in love! I combined it with this design from my Etsy sets and ended up with this:

   I think this has become one of my favorite designs! I feel like I've said that a lot lately, but it's true! I really like the last few designs I've made.
   To make this design I used Finger Paints Paper Mache as the base, and Revlon Brilliant Strength Entice as the base for my ring finger. I used Entice for the dashed diagonals as well. (I used a tiny brush to make them.) For the hearts I used Finger Paints Paint Me Happy, with a small dotter and the same small brush. To make the lace heart on my ring finger I painted the half heart shape with white acrylic paint. Then I painted over it (leaving a small outline) with Finger Paints Paint Me Happy. After that I painted on white dots with the dotter, then painted on green dots with Revlon Brilliant Strength Entice.

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