Thursday, December 20, 2012

Christmas Holly, inspired by Nailside:

I saw this lovely idea from Nailside & had to give it a go. It also gave me an excuse to go pick up OPI's Goldeneye from the James Bond collection that I'd been wanting since it came out :)

I used Goldeneye on all my nails except the ring finger, for that I used OPI Jade is the new Black as my base color & made the little "clouds" with OPI Live and let Die. Acrylic paint was used for the accented holly berries.

This is probably my last Christmas design & I'm very happy with it. I want to wish you all a very MERRY CHRISTMAS and a HAPPY NEW YEAR!




Monday, December 17, 2012

My picture is featured in Seventeen Magazine!!!

So today I'm checking out my twitter & notice that Seventeen has featured my nail art on their online mag...how cool is that?! You can see my picture in Seventeen magazine here, and also my original post here where I give credit to the inspiration behind the nails.

It's so cool to be noticed for a talent & I feel blessed to be able to share this with other ladies who have a passion for art & beauty!

Thanks everybody!

Wednesday, December 12, 2012

I'm dreaming of a white Christmas...

...but if the white runs out, I'll drink the RED! Actually, I would probably drink the red first as I do prefer it. Anyways, this is not a white Christmas manicure, but a red one & I had just found that joke the other day on Twitter so I thought it would be funny (insert giggle here)! In any case, it did inspire this simple red & gold mani so I figured I should post it.

I used my Butter London Pillar Box Red as my base color. I then did a side swipe of this pretty gold I found a long time ago, the brand is Pastel & the color is 400, but I can't find any reference to this online so I added a picture. It kinda has the same effect as the luxeffects do, just a light gold glitter. To enhance a little better added a gold line using acrylic paint.


Outside sunlight


Indoor lighting

Add caption


Monday, December 10, 2012

Cardinals in the Snow!

Another Christmas nail design. This one I found on a site called the best fashion blog, I'm not sure who the artist is, but I fell in love with them & had to give it a go.

I used Butter London Lady Muck for my base color & used acrylics for the detail.


Currently featured as #7 in Seventeen Magazine

Thursday, December 6, 2012

Christmas Movie/Nail night

It's been so long since I held one of these & what better time than Christmas! It was so much fun, I enjoyed every minute as I got to see each lady light up when their nails were done & that was my little bit of Christmas Cheer!

The Movie of choice:


Who doesn't love this movie? It's full of fun & love, the kind of movie that makes you feel warm & fuzzy & touches you at your core. (It also inspires you to try out your British accent all night, heehee!)

The following are pictures of everybody's nails, in no particular order. 

Polishes used were:

Sally Hansen "Sent me to Green Heaven"
Sally Hansen "Celeb City Silver"
Zoya "Sara"
Zoya "Blair"
Butter London "Fishwife"
Orly "Royal Navy"
Nicole by OPI "Follow me on Glitter"

Designs were created using acrylic paints & a fine nail art brush. Some pictures didn't come out as I had hoped, it was late at night & the lighting was bad, so I'm sorry. You will notice that the last pictures look much better, these were retakes the next day at the office & I could only do that with the ladies I work with. I also got creative with my snowmen, lol, so don't laugh. Overall you get the feeling of Christmas Joy!


Leslie's abstract c'mas tree

Tara's blue Christmas snow

Melissa's presents

Linda's snowflakes


My Christmas Tree


Corinne's snowflakes



Yesenia's Holly & Snowflakes.














Monday, December 3, 2012

Where in the World Challenge: Denmark


#7 Denmark: Hmmm, what can I do for Denmark....GOOGLE "what is Denmark famous for?" oh goodie, Hans Christian Andersen FAIRY TALES, this is going to be FUN, now I just have to pick one.

Well it was a tough choice, but I went with Little Mermaid because I just love that story, both  the original & the Disney version. And the colors I get to use are stunning:-), hehe! One of the other girls picked the same story as well, you can see her design here.

For my Little Mermaid I decided to do just one accent nail to look like a mermaid tail. I used OPI Catch me in your Net for my base color on all my nails, it's a beautiful teal glitter polish that looks a lot more green in person. I then outlined my tail pattern with black acrylic paint on my accent nail & filled in using various blues & greens.

Indoor bright light

Outdoor Sunlight

I took another pic inside with bright light but at an angle
so you can see the green tone to this polish, it also looks better
with the white background too, I think.









Thursday, November 29, 2012

Christmas Candle inspired by Robin Moses

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas! Our Christmas tree is up, our wreaths are up & everywhere you go you can see little bits of Christmas popping up everywhere. So, what does this mean to a nail artist? OMG, lets sketch Christmas nail art patterns all over every piece of paper you can find, right? Naturally!

I've got tons of pictures for inspiration & one of those is a pretty candle that Robin Moses did a while back. Since I already had been wearing this dark green color, OPI Live & let Die, for a few days I figured it would be the perfect background for my candle! I used acrylic paints, a thin detail brush & a sponge. After creating the candles I thought the rest of my nails could use a lift, since it had already been about 3-4 days since first applying my base color, so I added one coat of Essie's luxeffects in Shine of the Times that I absolutely adore & it worked like a charm! So here's the first of many MERRY CHRISTMAS designs.







Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Butter London Swatches (picture heavy post)

Ok, here are the greatly anticipated Butter London swatches, yay! Now this post is going to have a lot of pictures so I'm just going to give you a quick explanation first about the basics. All colors are 2 coats with Sache Vite top coat. The application was lovely on all of them, however I did find the small brush took a little getting used to because I'm accustomed to OPI's larger application brush, but the formula on all were just a dream. So here they are, in no particular order. You will see that some required a few more pictures than the others as they were more complex.


Pillar box Red

Outdoor sunlight

Lady Muck

Indoor bright light

Outdoor overcast

Bossy Boots

Indoor bright light

Outdoor overcast

Two fingered Salute

Outdoor sunlight

Indoor bright light

Tea with the Queen

Outdoor sunlight

Indoor bright light

Fishwife

Indoor bright light

Outdoor Sunlight

Indoor soft light

Indoor bright light

And another outdoor Sunlight picture for you to oooo & aaaaa  over.

(I thought I had grabbed all my framed pictures, but I guess I didn't, oopsy!)

Monday, November 26, 2012

Butter London goodies, yay!

My very first Butter London purchase ever, super excited to swatch, here are the colors I chose:

L-R: Tea with the Queen, Pillar Box Red, Bossy Boots, Two Fingered Salute,  Fishwife & Lady Muck

Wednesday, November 21, 2012

Fall colors to be thankful for!

Just a simple post with a simple combination of fall colors that make me smile, so I put them in a row. Starting with W7 Metallic Saturn, then OPI Every Month is Oktoberfest & finishing off with W7 Metallic Saturn. I took lots of pictures because it was kinda hard to capture the colors just right, so you will see some  indoor lighting, outdoor & direct sunlight. These colors are very rich & make my fingers look expensive, hehe :-)...ENJOY!!!

Indoor

Outside, some sun


Outside indirect sun


Direct sun

Add caption