Celtic Knotwork

I think this is from St. Patrick's Day 2015? or 2016? I don't think the color is my beloved China Glaze "Running In Circles". I'm pretty sure it's Wet n Wild's "Emerald City"? I'm pretty sure it's layered over another green, but I'm not sure. It could just be several coats of "Emerald City.  Stamped with a black, probably Cosmetic Arts "TGIF" and a gold that might be Maybelline's "Bold Gold". A lot of this is guess work. It's been a long time since I did these nails.

Halloween Spiderwebs 2014

This isn't the best mani I've done, but it's been 2 months since I've posted anything on this blog. This was my Halloween mani. A fit of depression has kept me from doing much nail art, but I'm starting to get interested in it again. This is Hot Topic's no name purple, Essie "5th Avenue", Sinful Colors "Clementine" and Orly "Black Vinyl". I stamped with Cosmetic Arts "TGIF" and MoYou Pro XL 05. I used a different sponge for the gradient than the usual cosmetic wedge and I'm really happy with the smoothness of the transition. It came with a Halloween make up set and I'm gonna try and find more like it. Maybe I'll do a comparison post on different sponges for gradients. I was running late for work so it's not my best cleanup. My topcoat is getting thick as well. Time go thin it and get more before I run out :D

Quick Galaxy

So a new season of Doctor Who is upon us! I really wanted to do something, but inspiration was a bit lacking at the moment, so I settled on my go-to mani for SciFi shows. A Galaxy Manicure! I started off by painting my nails with Wet n Wild "Black Creme". I got 4 no name metallic polishes from a dollar store that I was itching to try. I sponged the metallic purple in random places. On top of that went the metallic blue, then green, and then copper. The copper really didn't look right in the nebula, so I sponged over it with Sally Hansen "Red-io Active" a metallic red. I wanted the TARDIS to stand out on the nail, but I think using the stark white Cosmetic Arts "Picture Day" was a mistake. It just was too bright. The stamp is from MyOnlineShop MJ XII. I topcoated the whole thing with Out The Door "Northern Lights" a diffuse holo glitter fast dry topcoat.

Ingress ~ Enlightened

I've mentioned it before on my other blog, but I'm a big girl. I don't mean grown up, I mean I got more than a little meat on my bones. As such I've been keen this year to loose some (or alot) of weight. I took up jogging which, on its own is fine, but I just discovered a video game that ties very nicely into my wanting to get up and work out. It's called Ingress and it is a world wide, GPS based, capture the flag type game. You capture points (called portals) for your team. The catch is these portals are actual sculptures, interesting buildings, or works of art in your town. You have to physically go to these locations. This game gave me the excuse I was looking for to go for a long walk or jog. You can procrastinate when you're just listening to music and walking, but when you get a notification that the portal you captured yesterday is under attack today? You grab your shoes and try and get it back now! Its way more fun and addictive than you would think it would.

Anyway, there are 2 teams and I play for the green team (my fav color) called the Enlightened. The blue team is the Resistance. The idea behind the game is a new energy is leaking into our world called Exotic Matter (XM for short). The Enlightened want to study it and see if it can be harnessed for good. The Resistance believe no good will come of it and it was sent to control human minds. The theory is XM has been leaking for a long time and has shaped mankind's will for generations. It even has affected our minds and made us shape our art in a manner that will allow it to leak thru faster (hence portals are usually art sculptures. We unknowingly made them into patterns that will allow XM to come thru).

To do these nails, first I painted them all black using Orly "Black Vinyl". Then using a striper brush I painted white lines and free handed the enlightened symbol using Cosmetic Arts "Picture Day". I used the water color technique to make the foggy field areas (when you connect 3 portals in a triangle it makes a field between them and gives you lots of experience points.)

Then I painted over all of it with Sinful Colors "Irish Green" a bright green jelly. I hoped you wouldn't see the green over the black, but it did show up somewhat. Next time I'll have to be more careful with the jelly.

Some XM just floats around, that's the white dots I added after the green jelly. I am adoring this mani even tho very few people will understand it. If you get a chance, check out the game. And join the Enlightened! :)

Check out this great commercial for it! *Note: I am not paid for this. I wish I was, Google has deep pockets. I just really enjoy the game and like to talk about it.*

*Technical Difficulties* apparently I can't access YouTube on the mall's WiFi. I'll try and add the vid later.

Draven

I was gonna do Doctor Who nails for the beginning of the new season, but this past week I lost one of my beloved cats. So he gets nails this week instead. Orly "Mirror, Mirror", Cosmetic Arts "Picture Day", Sally Hansen "Presto Pewter". The stamps are BundleMonster BM412 and MoYou Mother Nature Collection 02. I painted my nails the light grey, stamped the white wings (removed the body of the bird before stamping the wings) and then stamped the grey cat over them (removing the 2 paw prints from the stamp first as well).

Draven helping me take pictures from my Nabi post.

RIP Draven

Negative Space Bridal Nails

Stamped with Cosmetic Arts "Picture Day"

This manicure came about as an accident. I was doing my mom's nails using 2 images from MoYou Pro XL 06 plate and I accidentally picked up the wrong image for the finger I was working on. Lucky I realized my mistake before I stamped her finger, but I still had it on the stamper and as a joke just stamped it on my own naked nail. I finished her nails and was gonna take it off mine when I looked at it. It really was very pretty and so simple. I've never done a "Negative Space" mani before. Having naked nail peek thru my art never really interested me before. But this time it worked. I did the rest of my nails and added a few half pearl rhinestones to accent the ring finger and called it a day. I think I would also consider this my first bridal nail art. Think it's good for a wedding? Never done Bridal before too. So simple, but for me? Groundbreaking.

Birthday Mani

My birthday mani for this year. I didn't have much time to do it this year so it was just a quick plastic wrap on index, middle, and pinkie. I did a graidient on ring and thumb of the same colors (China Glaze "Snow" and "Escaping Reality" and Cosmetic Arts "TGIF") with a Bundle Monster stamp BM307 in Pure Ice "Silver Mercedes"

Dragonscales

I am so in love with these nails! The mottled look of the scales is stunning! On Messy Mansion's facebook page a fan posted dragonscale nails and I fell in love with them I just had to try them myself. I don't see a blog post from her but I will link to the facebook post here. I don't know what polishes Jae K used, but I painted my nails first with 2 coats of Sinful Colors "Clementine" I then sponged a little bit of Sally Hansen "Lighting" in patches. Where I didn't put "Lighting" is sponged just a teeny tiny amount of Essie "Fifth Avenue". Then I sponged all over it again with "Clementine" to blend all the edges. I went over the top of the red and yellow to make them not so bold. This way it all looked like shades of orange.

Satisfied with the base colors, I then stamped over it with MM21. Scales on all fingers, but a dragon for the accent nail. I used Cosmetic Arts "TGIF". To give you an idea of how big the stamps are, here is my nails before clean up:

More than satisfactory for my nail length.

Here is Jae's picture:

And mine again:

One of my better Monkey See, Monkey Do mani's if I do say so myself.

Koi Fish.

I almost named this post "Jelly Fish" for no other reason than it made me giggle. After my fail of a seahorse, I still wanted to try making an image go across all my nails. Other than a little mess up on the middle finger (it's a bit twisted) I really like it! I painted my nails white (when my bottles of white get low I pour them all into one bottle, so this is a mixture of Sally Hansen "White On", Wet n Wild "French White Creme" and Milani "White On The Spot") I then stamped with Cosmetic Arts "TGIF" using Messy Mansion plate MM29. I colored in the Koi using OPI "Y'all Come Back Ya Hear?" making sure to leave uncolored white patches. Then I filled in the water with a frankened blue jelly I made. I love this so much more than my seahorse from the other day!

And here is the Koi fish for comparison in-case you're not sure what a real one looks like.

Police Nails

My Uncle just celebrated 30 years with the police force and will be retiring soon. I just got Messy Mansion's plate MM28. Coincidence? I think not. The universe is obviously telling me I need to do a crime and punishment mani so here it is. I rushed the stamping a bit because I was running late for work, but over all I like how it turned out! Index, middle and pinkie are all painted an unnamed grey from Fingr's and stamped over with BundleMonster's BM414 using Wet n Wild "Black Creme". I then used MM28 again and Cosmetic Arts "Picture Day" to add some fun images. Oh, the DNA strands are from MM25. The ring and thumb are Sally Hansen "Lighting" stamped with MM28 again in "Black Creme". I really do like it. The grey fingers remind me of fingerprint dust. Many people don't know this, but I started taking classes thinking I wanted to get into forensic science. That was the vague plan anyway. Then one semester I took a microbiology class as just a prerequisite and fell in love with micro. So Forensics fell to the back-burner as Micro took front stage, but it still holds a soft spot in my heart.

Green Gradient with Claddagh

This gradient I both liked and didn't like. The transition between all the colors is amazing, but the colors themselves look gritty and spotty. I liked the over all color tho. This is a 4 color gradient. The darkest is China Glaze "Holly-Day" then "Starboard", Sinful Colors "Pistache" and finally Cosmetic Arts "Picture Day". "Picture Day" is a stark white, but as I was sponging on the colors I kept going up and down the nail to mix the colors well. I like it, but again I'm not sure why it came out gritty looking. I couldn't decide what to stamp over it. I was gonna go with some clover from a MoYou plate. However when my new set of BundleMonster plates showed up yesterday morning I just HAD to stamp the Claddagh image! I suddenly like the mani a lot more! Stamped in Maybelline "Bold Gold" using BundleMonster BM418.

I love green, but I'm starting to burn out with it. 6 Green manis in a row (some didn't turn out all that well so I probably won't post them). I'm starting to crave other colors. I'm sure it's possible to do a St. Patrick's Day mani with other colors... I just gotta figure out how.

Fan Brush Shamrock

Another attempt at fan brush art. Better, but I'm still learning. I started out by painting all my fingers except my accent ring finger in Revlon "Rain Forest". The accent got a coat of white (Cosmetic Arts "Picture Day") before I added, in this order,  Sinful Colors "Pistache","Envy","San Francisco", and "Innocent". Then I outlined the shape of the shamrock using "Rain Forest" and filled in the outside. I went over the outline again with Sinful Colors "Pot o Gold" striper polish. Not bad for a freehand attempt as well. I'm quite pleased with this!

Purple Roses

My Valentine's Day didn't go quite as planned. In fact it went quite wrong. But even tho it ended with me alone, a french silk pie, and season 2 of American Horror Story, my nails were still pretty! The white lace didn't come out very sharp, but I am super proud of the purple roses! The base purple is Sinful Colors "Tempest" and I stamped with "Enchanted over the top. I LOVE that combination! The rose stamp is from BundleMonster BM323 and the white lace is Cosmetic Arts "Picture Day" and a Fing'rs unnumbered plate. The lace may have been too much, but the purple roses are fabulous! Time to move on to my fav holiday of them all...St. Patrick's Day!!

Purple Hummingbird

Another new month and my nail group World of Nailcraft has posted a new Monthly Pallet Project picture. Each month they post a picture and we have to do a mani based on the colors in the picture. Sometimes we even have to include certain elements, like stamping or dots or gradients. This month it was a Monkey See, Monkey Do meaning, using the colors of the pallet, we had to do a mani based off someone else's manicure.

This was the picture chosen for Febuary. Lukily I had already done a purple gradient hours before the picture was posted and was just trying to decide what to stamp over it. I chose Wacky Laki's Winter Hummingbird mani to mimic. Here's her mani :

Funny thing is we both used MoYou plates, but while she used the Pro collection, I used Suki 1 and Mother Nature 2.

I took progress shots of my gradient because I thought of maybe writing a post on clean up, but I'm still not very good at that, so here is my messy fingers from the gradient.

Yeah, its a mess. Then here is the picture I was gonna use to write about clean up methods, but I'm still not very good at clean up, so I'll wait to write a post on that when I get better.

It may not be perfect, but it's the best clean up I've ever done and I'm super proud! The camera kept wanting to turn my purple into blue so I grabbed the bottle hoping to force the camera to realize how purple the polish is.

And another shot of the finished mani. The colors I used were Cosmetic Arts "Picture Day" Sinful Colors "Tempest" and "Enchanted". The stamping is MoYou Suki 1 for the  blossoms and branches and Mother Nature 2 for the hummingbird. I used Cosmetic Arts "TGIF" for the stamping and added dots of Sally Hansen "Lighting" for the centers of the flowers.

Sherlock Wallpaper

The season finale just aired last night for Sherlock season 3 and wow! I really enjoyed it. Shame there is only 3 episodes a season. So here is my new Sherlock inspired nails. Not the best job, but fun none the less. Orly "Mirror Mirror" as the base with Cosmetic Arts "TGIF" as the stamp. I used Color Workshop's stamping plate. It was tricky, Color Workshop's stamps are narrow so I had to double stamp many of my fingers to get full coverage. I freehanded the smiley face in Sally Hansen "Lighting".

Oh, and for those that don't know, here is a pic of the wallpaper in question. In one episode Sherlock paints the face on the wall and shoots at it because he's bored.

Audrey's Lace

I had some fun with new stamps and new polishes! This is China Glaze "For Audrey", a very popular color of theirs, but the first time I've gotten a bottle of it. I got a tiny bottle because I wasn't sure I would care for it, but I am thrilled! I'm gonna have to get a full size soon. I put an under color of white (Wet n Wild "French White Creme") so the teal would show up better, but I'm not sure I had to. The I stamped using Fing'rs Heart 2 Art stamping plate kit. They don't number their plates, but so far there are only 2 out there and they come in the same kit. Then on advice from some girls in my nail polish group I picked up "Picture Day" by Cosmetic Arts. It is now my very fav stamping white, beating out Claire's unnamed white and Milani "White On The Spot" and cheaper than all of them at 1.98 a bottle.

Flakie Fun!

Cosmetic Arts, China Glaze "Luxe and Lush",

 and Color Club "Snow-Flakes"

My love of Flakies all started with a missed opportunity that I am still kicking myself over to this day. I was cruising my local Sally's Beauty Supply looking for new polishes to add to my budding collection. There was a display of Finger Paints Special Effects polish. Well I was new to polish and the words "Special Effects" made me think there was some process needed to make your nails like the picture. I had just learned of Gel nails and how UV lamps were needed for them, so I avoided the polish. I figured I'd go home and do some research to figure out what it was before I bought it. Seems like a logical thought, right? So later that week I finally get around to looking it up and OMG it was beautiful and just a glittery topcoat. I go back to Sally's with my next paycheck and they were SOLD OUT! Everywhere it was sold out. I should have bought it that day. I really should have. *sigh* Anyway, still smarting over missing the boat I decided I NEEDED a flakie.