Showing posts with label art nails. Show all posts
Showing posts with label art nails. Show all posts

Friday, December 28, 2012

Pinterest Day

There were some awesome holiday manis floating around in the blogosphere this week. Here are a few of my favorites:













Source: nightskynaildesign.deviantart.com via Sophia on Pinterest

I hope you all had a safe and happy holiday, regardless of what you celebrate, or just a nice few days off from work. See you Monday!


Monday, December 17, 2012

Santa Claus is Coming to Town

I can't believe I just used that as a post title. They've been playing that song twice an hour at work, and it makes me want to hurt someone now. Still, it's pretty apt for today's manicure:
 

I can't claim the idea for the Santa hats. Another nail blogger did them last week, and I thought I'd saved the image to Pinterest, but evidently I've been lax in my pinning. I only have one holiday manicure up.





I used Pure Ice "Siren," Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure "Ivory Skull," and a nail art pen for the black details. Since I used a Halloween polish on a Christmas manicure, does that make this the Nightmare before Christmas?
 

I'm so excited because all of my photos before now were taken in artificial light. But, with our new place we have so many more windows all over the house, and there's even a nice big yard, so I could use natural sunlight for the first time! Now if only our dryer would stop tripping the breaker, everything would be dandy. :)





















Monday, October 22, 2012

A New Kind of Inspiration

It's been a few months since I did an "Inspiration Shots" post, hasn't it? I started doing those as a way of sharing and remembering awesome nail art that I'd seen while perusing the interwebs, but then I discovered Pinterest and have been saving everything over there. I've got boards for knitting and crochet, home decor, and even food I have no intentions of ever making, since I don't cook (don't ask). And of course, nail art.

Here are a couple of favorites I've found recently:










What are some neat manis you've found lately?


(P.S. You can follow all of my boards here.)

Wednesday, September 19, 2012

The Silver Lining

Here is that manicure I wanted to do last week, before I got distracted by my stamping kit:

Colors used:
Brash "Blue Dream" (light blue)
Wet n Wild "Metallica" (silver)
Pure Ice "Touch Me Here" (black)
Essie "Luxedo" (purple)
Maybelline Color Show "Porcelain Party" (white)

I put on a base of "Blue Dream," then covered it with SV. The other colors are sponged at semi-random on top. If I ever do this one again, I might add a lightning bolt to the thumbs.

Happy hump day--Remember, you can see the silver lining from here!

Monday, August 20, 2012

Geek Nail Challenge: Games and Gaming


Well. I kind of fell off the blogging wagon the past couple of weeks, didn't I?

I've been working on several projects lately that are just not polish friendly, even with Seche Vite to speed things up (I'll have more about that on my personal blog in a couple of weeks). In addition, I've been having some nail problems. As I've mentioned before, I've been battling peeling nails all summer. I've tried vitamins, nail treatments, diet changes, everything I can think of. I've had a little bit of improvement, but I think that what they really need is to not be coated in varnish for a while, so I'm giving my nails a couple of days every week where they can breathe. I did find a base coat/treatment that seems to be working pretty well, but I want to give it another week or two before I talk about it, just to make sure it works in the long run. Hopefully, I can kick this soon. I miss my long nails!

This week's manicure is actually a redux of my very first nail art, the one that sent everything else downhill. Back then I was just fooling around with polishes and pens, I had a very limited pallet, and the idea of not flooding my cuticles was a foreign concept, but I had so much fun doing it and even though the white wasn't nearly as opaque as I wanted (that was about thirty layers with a Claire's Nail Art Pen, by the way), I was very pleased with it.

Colors Used:
White: Maybelline Color Show "Porcelain Party"
Yellow: Sally Hansen Insta-Dri "Lightening"
Blue: Sally Hansen Insta-Dri "Blue By"
Green: Sally Hansen Insta-Dri "Just in Lime"
Black: Claire's Nail Art Pen
Red: Pure Ice "Siren"

I started playing Mario when I was eight or ten on a black and white gameboy pocket that belonged to a friend, and have been hooked ever since. It is still not only my favorite game, but one of the few I actually play (other than Arctic Thunder, Mortal Kombat, and Twisted Metal). I actually have a collection of the candy tins you see around gaming stores and Hot Topic, but they are at my parent's house currently, since shelf space is at a premium in our place.
Can I just say that you ladies do awesome work? I am continually floored by the designs I've been seeing as part of this challenge. If you haven't yet, check out some of them below.




Tuesday, July 31, 2012

Inspiration Shots

Let them have Polish did an awesome spun sugar mani, based on the tutorial found on The Polish Well. I really want to try this using blues and purples!

Poliship did a lovely palm tree manicure as part of the Summer Fun Challenge.

The Anglophile in me is completely enamored with this Union manicure from Nailasaurus, and the accompanying tutorial.

Chit Chat Nails added a tutorial of her own for a saran wrap mani.

Over on Chalkboard nails, there's a great example of galaxy nails. If you want to try your own there's a (unrelated) tutorial right here.

Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Inspiration Shots

Wow, this post is so out of date. I've just had so much other stuff to talk about! But I still wanted to share with you some of the awesome stuff I've seen around the internet in the last few weeks:

Awesome underwater manicure from Chalkboard Nails.

Peace, Love, and Polish has two manis that I'm absolutely loving--this patriotic themed manicure, and a tropical one!

This black and white mani by Kayla Shevonne is just stunning.

Over on Deviantart, there's another tropical manicure I adore, and these beach scenes are so detailed.

Devart has just been tickling my geeky bone lately, what with this Fururama mani, Wolverine, and Superhero manicure. And then there's this sweet little Mary Poppins inspired one, and Gir!
There's even one inspired by Jack Sparrow!

This Alice in Wonderland manicure is one of the more visually complex designs I've seen lately, and I love the water color look of this one.

As a travel addict, I want to copy this map-based nail art so bad!

Tuesday, July 17, 2012

Summer Fun: Favorite Summer Memory


I want a manicure.

I'm not talking a, "Oh, look, I put pretty pictures on my nails." I mean a hand over hard-won cash so the cute Asian man with the indecipherable accent will massage things that smell nice onto my hands, make the peelies go away and give me pretty nails with pictures on them that I don't have to paint myself and won't break/tear/chip off in twelve hours. That kind of manicure. (Yes, it's a stereotype. Must most of the manicurists in my area are Korean. The one I went to when I had money was an engineer before the economy tanked, and he did lovely work. He's also one of only a handful that I've been to that I could understand more than one word in three.)

I kind of destroyed my hands at work today. I was moving fixtures and merchandise all day, and tore up my knuckles. At the moment, it's not too visible, but I sure felt it when I was washing dishes. My hands are so bad right now that I took that Burt's Bees Lemon Butter I talked about last week and rubbed in all over my hands in the hope that it would help with the dry skin, hang nails, and cuts and scrapes. And the peeling nails I've been fighting for about two or two and a half months have decided to come back with a vengeance, despite all I've been doing to prevent them (cuticle treatments, nail hardeners, conditioners and strengtheners). I actually can't cut my nails any shorter. I've tried. But they just keep peeling.

So I paint them to cover it up.

My favorite summer memory is an internship I did as part of my undergrad. I was a struggling art student, feeling lost and depressed at the end of my second year of school. I didn't like my major and had realized that art--as the administration defined it--wasn't how I wanted to spend my life, but in the back of my head I just kept hearing my dad's voice telling me what a mistake art school was, and what a waste of money since changing majors (and by definition changing schools, since mine only taught art) would mean starting from scratch as far as classes, loans, and grades, not to mention I had no idea what exactly I would major in instead.

At that point, I'd been knitting for about a year and a half. I had discovered knitting blogs, though I didn't yet have one of my own. I'd been designing my own projects, though at that point I don't think any of them were actually written down as patterns. I was scouring the web for more information about knitting--my one creative outlet that didn't involve a critique and a bad grade.

On my way out of printmaking class one day, I saw a flier for the TNNA PiPN Internship Program, which allowed students (primarily fashion majors, but others as well) to intern for various fiber arts companies doing things like sales, making samples, and sometimes even design work. I applied and was sent a list of participating companies. Lo and behold, at the bottom of the list was a single international opportunity: CNS/Mission Falls in Montreal, Quebec Canada.

I'd been dying to go back to Canada since my grandmother's funeral a few years before. I spent several weeks with crossed fingers, waiting to see where I'd be assigned.

The internship began with three weeks of training in Akron, Ohio in knitting, crochet, embroidery, cross stitch, and needle point before we were sent off to our designated locations.

My boss was kind enough to let me stay in his "winter" house, a duplex in the Plateau area of Montreal (very nice neighborhood).

That was my first time truely being on my own and away from home. I fell in love with the city. I learned so much about the world and about myself. I wrote 3/4 of the first draft of what would eventually become my first novel. I picked up sewing and haven't truly put it down since, and I absorbed every knitting technique I could find.

I could time the buses to the second. Public transport was affordable. Produce was fresh and delicious, everything was within walking distance and the things that weren't were easily accessable through the metro.

And then there was the underground city.

Google it. Seriously.

Festivals every week, international culture, buildings from the 1600s, and my favorite uncle an hour away for the only time in my life. I improved my French, met some amazing people, and spent every Sunday on the Mountain, watching LARPers, listening to drum circles, dancing, and shopping handmade goods.

Colors used:
Revlon #460 "Mysterious" (blue, thumb)
Maybelline Color Show "Porcelain Party" (white)
Essie "Exotic Liras" (pink)
Sally Hansen Diamond Strength "Diamonds and Rubies" (red)
Miliani Neons "Rad Purple" (purple)
Sally Hansen Insta-Dri "Just in Lime" and "Blue By"
Sinful Colors "Happy Ending" (green, sponged on top of "Just in Lime")
Cityscape done by blending S•X•Y "Dreamy Cocoa" with "Porcelain Party" and Pop Beauty "Black"
Claire's nail art pen for details (black)
Seche Vite for a topcoat

I tried doing an alcohol transfer like this one for the map, but none of the maps I had were printed using the right ink. So instead, I took the piece of map I'd softened with alcohol, tore off a small portion, and laid it over top a fresh coat of white polish. I sealed it in with 2 coats of Seche Vite. I used manicure scissors to neaten the edges and trim it to shape.

This happens to be the only time I've wished for those ridiculously long talons that are absolutely useless for everything but nail art. I wish I could have printed more of the map and shown a little more detail with the cityscape.

Just a break down:
thumb: Quebec flag
index finger: one of the yarns I was promoting, Mission Falls Tricolor (it's really hard to see with the topcoat, but there's red and purple on a pink base. The yarn is very pretty and I wish I still had some)
middle: map of the city
ring: cityscape and the mountain
pinky: maple leaf
Fini. Merci de lire.




Monday, July 9, 2012

Summer Fun: Fruit

This probably isn't the cleverest or most unique fruity manicure out there. In fact, I fully expect there to be at least half a dozen others.

But is there a more iconic summer fruit than watermelon?

Colors used:
Sally Hansen Hard as Nails Xtreme Wear "Fucshia Power"*
Sally Hansen Insta-Dri "Just in Lime"
Brash "Green Machine"
Pop Beauty "Black"

*If you're going to do any taping techniques over an Xtreme Wear color, make sure that you've got a really good base coat underneath, make sure all layers are dry, and use a top coat between the base and the details, because it will peel off very easily.



Saturday, July 7, 2012

Summer Fun: Palm Trees, or, The Bad Day Manicure

I love palm trees and all things tropical. I collect flamingos. Up until last year my Christmas tree was a seven foot light up palm tree normally seen on kitchy front porches that I dangled sea shells and glass flamingos from.

So it was kind of a surprise that I didn't know what to do for this manicure.

In the end, I decided to swipe the silhouette at sunset look that I've been seeing around the blogosphere and on Deviantart.
Colors used: Two coats Maybelline Color Show "Porcelain Party;" two coats Color Zone florescent pink; sponged application of Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear "Sun Kissed;" sponged application of Sally Hansen Insta-Dri "Lightening;" freehand design in Pop Beauty "Black."

I was just about to put my top coat on this, when I kind of freaked.

There were ants in my bed.

I'm a pretty tidy person. I'm not a neat freak, and sure, we have dishes in our sink from time to time. But I don't store food in my room and I try to vacuum at least semi-regularly.

Now let me preface this: earlier this week, I found some ants in the seams of the linoleum. Not in the kitchen, mind you.

In my bathroom.

So I promptly washed the bath mat, swept the floor, wiped the whole thing down with Clorox, and, at the advice of my mom, started spraying the baseboards and the floor with a 50/50 vinegar/water mix.

As of this morning, I thought they were mostly gone. I still spotted one or two, but dispatched them in short order.

Then I picked up my laptop to start this blog post, and found half a dozen on the keyboard and screen.

They were on the sheets.

They were climbing up the wall.

They were in my damn bed.

If that's not an invasion of privacy, I don't know what is.

So, instead of photographing my mani and writing out a nice, detailed blog post, my roommate and I pulled all of the furniture away from the wall, swept, sprayed the vingar mix on the baseboards and along the edge of the carpet, and then set it all back up. Four times. Because I have my bed on stilts for extra storage, and it kept falling off for some reason.

And it's hot. It's bloody hot, even with the A/C running.

During one of the falls, my mattress knocked the plug for my alarm clock out of the wall, cracking the plate cover in the process.

And then the full glass of water on my night stand was knocked off and spilled all over everything.

And did I mention that my mac mini also got knocked off my makeshift desk in the process? (Appears undamaged, so far.)

So once I got everything back in place, I went to take my manicure pictures, only to discover that it had been chipped an damaged during all of the hullabaloo. I thought briefly about starting over, but...

You know what? It's a manicure. The Polish Police aren't going to come after me for posting pictures of a sloppy or damaged mani (that I also forgot to do clean up work on).

While I like the way it came out (pre-damage), the colors just aren't really me, so I was thinking of taking it off anyway.

And since it's that kind of a day, I decided to just do a straight up swatchy mani. This is a new polish I got the other day at the Sally's sale. It's my first Orly polish, and I found it on clearance. I love the colors.

Orly "Mysterious Curse" $3.99 at Sally's.

This polish is a sheer, plum colored base with bright turquoise sparkles in it. It reminds me a lot of another favorite polish I had in high school--"hologlam," which was a Mary Kay color. I used it on it's own and layered it over every color I owned, and I think that this polish might suit better layered over a blue or black.


Shortly after these pictures were taken, I discovered that the airport card on my laptop is officially toast, and managed to scratch the polish on four of my nails in an unrelated incident.

It's just that kind of day.







Sunday, July 1, 2012

Summer Fun: Bees; Sally Hansen Insta-Dri


It's that time! Day 1 of the Summer Fun challenge, hosted by Red Hair and Black Nail Polish and Glitter Obsession.

Day one is Bees.

Bzzzz...

For my base on this, I used the Sally Hansen Insta-Dri in Just in Lime and Lightening. There's two coats of each, though in retrospect I probably could have used just one of the green since it mostly got covered up, and the yellow (especially on my right hand) would have benefited from three. I wish I'd remembered to take pictures before adding the flowers. I always forget to snap in-progress photos.
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Can someone tell me what the heck is up with the Insta-Dri brushes? I love the formula. Can't stand the brushes.

The brush I have for Blue By is nearly triangular. It holds way too much polish and tends to flood my nail, even when I scrape of the excess, and it's such a weird shape that it's nearly impossible for me to get a good, neat, line with it.

Lightening is slightly better, but I still had some difficulties with the application and flooding.

Then there's Just in Lime, and it was nearly perfect. The brush is almost flat, and gave me a similar application to my Wet n Wild On a Trip--1-2 strokes is all it takes to cover the entire nail, and it went on nice and clean.

Is this just a batch thing? A color thing? Or did they realize how screwy a triangular brush is and decide to fix it?
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For the flowers, I used Hard as Nails Xtreme Wear in Fucshia Power and White On, and Insta-Dri in Blue By and Lightening. I used Pure Ice Touch Me Here for the stripes on the bee, dabbed some White On for the eyes, and used my nail art pen for the stripes. I topped it all off with my quick dry top coat.

I love this manicure; I think it's my favorite one in a while. I thought about taking it off because my right hand was chipping pretty badly, but the left still looked really good. I'd just stare at those flowers and think, "Well, I can leave it be for a little longer." (Ha. Bee. I slay me.) I got so many compliments on it at work, and at least three people asked me where I got my nails done. It was very satisfying to be able to say that I did them myself, and they weren't all that hard!

Stay tuned for the next installment of the challenge!



Thursday, June 21, 2012

Heroes vs Villians #4: Teen Titans, GO!

Because I'm a geek:

I couldn't decide on one Titan to illustrate for this manicure (that'd be pretty boring, wouldn't it?) So I decided to do all five.

Colors used:
Sally Hansen Hard as Nails Xtreme Wear #300 White On
Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Fast Dry Nail Color in Blue By!
Pure Ice in Touch Me Here
Pure Ice in Siren
Maybelline Color Show in Plum Paradise
Wet n Wild Megalast #213C On A Trip

I used BlueBy, On a Trip, and Siren as my basecoats. I didn't have a light enough blue for cyborg, so I mixed equal parts of Blue By and White On.

I used a few different techniques for the detailing. Scotch tape masking, dotting for the circular elements, some refining with my nail pens, and a whole lot of freehanding.

Unlike the other base colors I used, the Wet n Wild On a Trip didn't bubble thanks to the heat and humidity we've been having, and I didn't have any trouble getting it to dry.

That humidity is the reason I think I'm going to be swatching for a few weeks instead of doing nail art. It's been nearly impossible for me to get regular colors to dry and dry well. *sigh* I might not be able to do the summer challenge after all.

But! I've still got one more week of Heroes v. Villians, so stay tuned for that!

Thursday, June 14, 2012

Heroes vs Villains #2: The Rogue and the Celtic Sun

The X-Men cartoon premiered in 1992, when I was five years old. Searching for reference shots for this week's challenge, I started watching it again on Netflix, and oh my god. This explains so much about me. The propensity for quoting things, the "accept everyone" attitude--and my love of strong female heroines, leather jackets, multi-color hair, hip belts that have better things to do than hold up your pants, and knee high boots.

It's that later bit that inspired this manicure: Rogue.

(I'm so glad my nails aren't magnified like that in real life. They look so much neater when they aren't two inches from your face.)

For this one, I used three coats of China Glaze "Celtic Sun" for a base (more on that in a minute), and Sinful Colors Professional in #946 Happy Ending (x2) for the green stripes. For the black accents I used my black Claire's Nail Art Pen. For the accent nail, I used Pure Ice "Siren" with a streak of Sally Hansen Hard as Nails Xtreme Wear in #300 White On. I topped it all off with Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Anti-Chip Top Coat, and can I just say, it's my new favorite top coat?

I think Rogue and Mystique make great foils for this challenge, since Mystique was once Rogue's foster mother (at least in the mythology of the original cartoon. With all of the revamps that have happened in the last twenty years, I don't know if this is still true).

This was my first real introduction to comics, and I really feel that the X-Men story is one that we need right now--the message that no matter what our differences are, we can still live together in peace, and that a little tolerance can go a long way.

This was my first time trying anything by China Glaze. Here you can see my nails before I added the accents:


That's two coats of Siren and three of Celtic Sun. My camera doesn't like bright things very much, so it really doesn't show that this is a highlighter yellow. It's also very sheer, even with three layers, and I had some trouble applying it. It was difficult to get an even coat, and when the brush passed over a previously painted area there was an issue of balding. I'm glad I used it as a base, since covering it with the green made the unevenness less noticeable. I think this is another color that would benefit from having a white basecoat.

I also had some issues with the brush. One of the strands hadn't been cut, so I had to do that myself.

I know that everyone else really seems to love these summer florescent, but so far I'm not crazy about them. I guess I'm more into the dark, iridescent colors, and those are the textures I tend to go for.

Tuesday, June 12, 2012

Heroes vs Villains #1: Mystique

So I'm sure that by now everyone has heard of the Heroes vs Villains challenge Nailasaurus posted about yesterday. As soon as I saw that post, I had to take part.

Week 1 is Marvel themed. When I was a kid, one of my favorite cartoons was X-Men, so for this one I picked two of my favorite characters from that world.

I started with my usual prep work* ( Natural Nail Growth Activator and Diamond Strength Instant Nail hardener), with one addition. My cuticles have been driving me nuts for the last few weeks, so I broke down and got something to help treat them. Target didn't have a lot of options, though, so I went with the Maximum Growth Cuticle Pen. I've only used it once so far, but I'll let you know how I like it once I've had it a little longer.

For the base of the nails, I did my pinky, middle, and thumb with Insta-Dri in Blue By! (1 coat), and my ring and index fingers in Hard as Nails Xtreme wear #300 White On (2 coats). On my ring fingers, I used a watermarble technique to illustrate her transformative power. It was my first time trying it, and while it didn't come out the way I wanted I still think it's pretty cool. Clean up is a bitch, though.



The eyes are the tiniest dabs of Hard as Nails Xtreme Wear in Mellow Yellow, Mystique's hair is a coat of Pure Ice "Siren" over a coat of White On, since I forgot to mask that bit off at the start. I just used Scotch tape cut to size for the masking. For the details on her dress, I used a Claire's Nail Design Pen (black). I finished everything off with a coat of my Diamond Strength clear coat (two, on the index fingers. The nail pens don't have a lot of staying power, even with a top coat).

I really loved the Insta-Dri polish. This was my first time using it and I really like the way it came out. It was a great, fast drying, single coat polish, and it was exactly the right shade for what I wanted to do.

Overall, I'm pleased with this manicure, but I wish I'd been able to come up with two more designs to replace the stripes with. I might still change out the pinkies once my brain isn't fried from being at work all day.

*All of the products I used for this manicure are by Sally Hansen, except for the Pure Ice "Siren."