New Year's Eve

Simple silver, stripes & sparkle for New Year's Eve.

Happy 2013, Everyone!

Blue Roses for Winter

I wish I could claim this as original, because it's such an awesome design. I wish just as much I could remember where I saw it so that I could give credit to the creator of this fantastic design for winter. If anyone stumbles across a blog showing this design being created, please let me know so I can give credit where it's due! In the meantime, I'm just going to enjoy my beautiful blue blooming nails :)

Edit: Thanks to Kelly for the tip! These nails were were first seen here: http://www.rina-alcantara.com/2012/09/nail-art-blue-wave.html

Christmas Time again

Christmas patterns come in all shapes & colors :)

(Inspired by Robin Moses)

Winter!

Shimmer and sparkle. Here's mud in your eye, all you wearing drab browns and deep dark reds!

Last month I had falling leaves - here we see what's left!

Fall-ing Leaves

Well, it took until the middle of November, but it's finally autumn in Houston. Hooray!

To celebrate, I've decided to decorate for the season with fantastic falling leaves.

A rich orange background with some cheap sparkle overcoat makes a splendid background.

And leaves plenty of room for the leaves!

And for the extra touches of gold glitter, of course. There's always room for extra gold glitter.

Stress

And here's my current manicure after a week of calls, forms, & paperwork involved in trying to buy a house.

Heck, there's still nail there and no bloody cuticles, I'm downright proud of myself!

Halloween

Some simple shimmery nails for the season. Deep dark green & gold for goth or goblin girls, pretty pearly pinkish purples for princesses.

"Autumn or Halloween Nails" request

Well it wasn't super specific, but I had a request to do a Halloween or autumn design. So lacking further direction (and pretty much all inspiration. It's been a tough week), I grabbed what I had in front of me and set to work. I think for a gray scale design, they turned out pretty all right!

 Firstly, Halloween. It doesn't get much Halloween...-y? -ier?... than skulls, bats, witches, & spiders. And they work beautifully in black, white, & silver.

I went ahead and kept the palate I had (pardon the pun) at hand, and did some digging for autumn designs. Falling leaves for fall. Success! One complete manicure, matching in color even with two vastly disparate design schemes. Mission Accomplished!

And also, look how well they go with my new cup. How awesome is THAT? :D *giggles*

In other nail news, earlier this week I was sporting a simple hounds-tooth pattern in gold & black. It was fun, but actually ended up being dressier than I anticipated. I'm thinking I may come back to that idea closer to New Year's Eve.

Today, I went by Sally's Beauty supply. We were in the area. It called out to me. I occasionally just have to go and browse the clearance bins. And the new releases. And poke around for anything else that sparkles.
Don't Judge Me!

So anyway, I grabbed a bottle of Cast A Spell out of this year's Halloween collection by China Glaze. It's a green so dark it's almost black, with microglitter flecks of green and gold suspended in it. I'm in love.

And at Target, found a Revlon double-ended polish stick on clearance, with one side in a dark green camouflage green and the other a clear-coat with suspended gold flecks. Pretty! Clearance rocks.

Dots & Doodles, and Terrible Cuticles

I think the title says it all.

Apologies for the cuticles. I have some excuse - my hubby & I just made an offer on a house!

Autumn elegance

Summer is finally drawing to a close, and with it tank tops and t-shirts are getting packed away to make room for wool and flannel. Or evening gowns. Whatever it is you wear to the grocery store.

Either way, it's sure to go great with a matte or satin finish polish, tipped with just a touch of sparkle. Bring on the fall!

Velvet

With fall come dropping temperatures, changing leaves, and warmer clothes. This fall, nails are wearing their own fur coats with a fantastic new look- velvet.

Flocking provides the furry feel and sleek slink to this season's new nail fad. While a full-nail covering is a great look all its own, the combination of a glittery shimmer with the matte finish given by the look of velvet was just too great too pass on.

Ivy

It's not easy being green, but it sure is stylish.

Having this much fun with nail polish can't be healthy.

I think it's safe to say I'm approaching the end of my summer blahs. And with it comes the stir-crazy creativity! I really wonder if having as much fun playing with nail polish & polymer clay as I've been having is entirely healthy. Oh, well. It's non-toxic. That means it's good for you!

I'm in a really good mood. Today is my wedding anniversary - 8 years. Once you figure in the time we dated, I've now spent well over a decade with the most wonderful man in the world. 

As a special anniversary present, I made him a charm for... well, I'm not really sure what for. His phone doesn't have anywhere to hang a charm, and he hates key chains. Maybe I'll have to buy him a charm bracelet. I'm sure he'd like that. 

And then, as an extra-special anniversary present to him, I painted my nails to match the shirt I'm wearing. If he notices, I'll be super impressed!

And now I'm playing around with new techniques - using striping tape to pattern color overlays. Oh and I just got a new idea as I typed that! OK moving on!

This design turned out incredibly gorgeous, and now I'm trying out variations on a theme. This one was a pretty simple idea - stripes of color down the nail. Once they're totally dry, striping tape went across the nail, cut long enough to leave plenty to easily grab. Then a solid coat of glossy black (I used Wet 'n  Wild Wild Shine in Black Creme). While it's still wet, grab one end of the topmost strip of tape, and just peel it back, showing the colors hidden by the blackout on top.

Trying variations is going to take some time & experimentation. This one turned out interesting, but not great - I used a solid color base, then added pattern using a stamping plate. I top-coated to keep the stamped image secured (sometimes they can peel up, otherwise), then striped & coated in black. It turned out interesting, but not as great as I hoped.

And last but not least, a definite must-do design next time I'm at a heavy metal concert. Or possibly a motorcycle rally. Matte black, with 3D spikes in silver, made from polymer clay.

In conclusion, I have a bit more energy than I have in awhile. Could you tell?

I'm going to have a sister!

My baby brother is engaged! Wedding plans are proceeding nicely, and I'll be a bridesmaid. Or matron. Or possibly just comic relief in a matching dress. Who cares? I'll be doing nails for the bride!

We're still hashing out a plan for dresses to go with various body types, and all the fun that is planning a wedding. I, for one, am just worried about the nails. ;)

The chosen wedding colors were inspired by a bouquet. As an Aggie, I'm VERY glad the chosen shade for our dresses is the purple, not the burnt orange. Otherwise, I might burst into flame. Then it'd be burnt Aggie, and I doubt that'd fit so well into the color scheme. It'd just be bad.

So, the bride's nails will be conservative and understated and traditional. She's beautiful to begin with, and all brides are beautiful, and she's going to be breathtaking. However, with the bride going with such an incredibly polished and reserved look, we need some pop of color on the bridesmaids. Gradient to the rescue!

Well, it was a fun gradient & I think the colors match pretty well, but I get the impression the other bridesmaids aren't quite as willing to push the envelope as I am. Oh, well ;)   So, now that that look is boring, we have orange to purple gradient, upcycled!

Snake skin

Slithering your way today - snakeskin nails! I've seen actual snakeskin nails - trimming shed skin meticulously to the size of each nail, attaching, and sealing to last a few weeks. Evidently, many nail salons offer this look for the everyday-low price of ~$300. I think I'd pass on that price tag and just do it myself... and I had snakeskin laying around and had nothing better to do with it, I might've tried that. Unfortunately, I'm fresh out of snake bits laying around the house, so I'll just have to mimic the pattern with paint.

I achieved this look by mottling greens and browns, then stamping a sheer silver over them with one of my Bundle monster plates.

Border / Outline Nails

I must admit, I was NOT a fan of this look when I first saw it. Simple concept: a thin border all along the edges of the nail. It looked strange, and pointless - it'd require a new manicure once a week, just due to that line moving as the nail grows!

And then it occurred to me that I redo my polish at least that often anyway, so that really wasn't much of a reason to avoid it. I also think the color scheme when I first saw it was a bit of a turn off - a very light cream/fleshtone, with a black outline. Just looked like dirty nails.

Yuck. No, thank you.

As I thought about it a bit, though, I realized it really wouldn't be that hard to turn it into something I'd like. Apply a palette shift, break up that stark, solid line with a little filigree, and voila! You have a frame for whatever picture you want to feature on your fingers today.

It is, after all, nail Art!

Freehand filigree is always a great way to fill up an empty space. This look, I think, I could get used to.

Here's a closer look at the detail on those fingers - each is a bit different, which is both fun to do and keeps it looking hand-drawn, since you're not going to find a press-on pattern or stamp that's just a little bit different for every finger: