Summer Fun Challenge, day 4: We like it Hot Hot Hot

For day 4 of the Summer Fun Challenge by Neverlandnailblog, design your nails to match the summers scorching temperatures...

I grabbed my inspiration from the very source of the heat, the sun. You know those pictures of the sun up close & it's on fire & looks like a big ocean of hot & hotter?

I wanted to portray the fire sizzling off the sun & filling every space with it's scorching hot glow. For the center of the sun I put 3 dots of acrylic red, yellow & orange & used a toothpick to swirl into a circle, for the rays I piled the colors on top of each other & used the toothpick to drag from the center out. For the rest of the fingers I made a messy dotted gradient so it looked like to sun is so hot they are melting together, I wanted it to look like it was in motion, like the sun was alive. Here is my summer hot hot hot design:

Summer Fun Challenge, Day 3: Pool Party!

For day 3 of the Summer Fun Challenge it's Pool Party time!!! yay, I love pool parties, especially living in Houston where it's terribly hot in the summer, yesterday hit 102 degrees, this is what we in H-town refer to as "F*#k!" cause it is just so beyond hot.

I didn't have a lot of time for this one, but the first thing that popped in my head for today's pool party was that song about a yellow polka dot bikini, we all know it, we all love it:

MY INSPIRATION

My Pool Party Mani: (I did this really fast & didn't take note of the colors, I used acrylic paints for the details)

Antique Newspaper/Vintage Floral, inspired by RobinMoses

So, I've been dying to try the newspaper trend for the longest time & I finally got around to it. I found this lovely tutorial by Robin Moses where she did a beautiful design on top of her newspaper background, & I just had to try. Mind you, my nails are considerably smaller than the lady who's nails she's painting in the video, so getting the design to fit on my short nails was a bit of a challenge, but I'm happy with the result.

First picture is just the newspaper nail backdrop without the art on top, then with the vintage flowers added after. I used my trusty Sache Vite base & top coats, the color I used is Desert Haze by E.L.F., hope you like it, thanks to Robin Moses for the inspiration:

Appreciation Award!

This is so sweet, I got an Appreciation Award from Kelsie's Nail Files, it's exciting to know that other people appreciate & enjoy my little blog that I love doing so much. Thank you Kelsie!

 

How cool is that?! So I'd like to, in turn, pass this award along to some lovely ladies that I have learned a lot from & that have given me inspiration to cultivate my passion for nail art. So here they are, in no particular order:

1. Jenny - 10 Blank Canvases

2. Anonymous - Copy That Copy Cat

3. Robin - Robin Moses Nail Art

4. Iris - Nail Art by Iris

5. Lindsey - Neverland Nail Blog

6. Leslie - Polish Art Addiction

7. Priscilla - Queen of the Polish

8. Rina - Simply Rins

9. Sonoma - Sonoma Nail Art

10. Sammy - The Nailsaurus

I very much appreciate every one of these ladies who have sparked a fire in my imagination & given me hours of enjoyment. Thank you!

Summer Fun Challenge, Day 2: Summer Lovin'

For day 2 of the Summer Fun Challenge, we are to show off our "lovey dovey" design, I knew exactly what I wanted to do. I had seen this super cute valentines design by Copythatcopycat, it's so adorable. Nothing says summer like yellow & nothing could be more lovey dovey than a couple of sweet kissy birds!

For the base color I used my favorite yellow cream from China Glaze called Lemon Fizz. I then used various blue & pink acrylic paints to make my lovey dovey birdies.

Summer Fun Challenge, Day 2 "Summer Lovin' ", my Lovey Dovey bird design:

Summer Fun Challenge, Day 1: Grill Master

Neverlandnailblog has come up with another nail art challenge, this one is called Summer Fun! I got so excited as I was reading each day inspirations started popping in my head like crazy, thank you Lindsey! 

Day 1: Grill Master

For this challenge I took my inspiration from a cool apron I found called "License to Grill" giving my inspiration a James Bond feel to a casual affair. I used a basic white base nail color on all my nails. Then used black acrylic for the tux, bow ties & the little grill. For my thumb I used red acrylic paint over my white base to form the circle, outlined with black & hand wrote my Tittle in the middle. Here is my Grill Master design: (queue James Bond music here: "dadada, dadada, dadada, da da")

Inspiration

Girly-Girl Challenge, Day 8: Girls just wanna have FUN!

It's the final day of the Girly-Girl challenge & today, in honor of Cyndi Lauper & her famous song I took inspiration from the pajamas she's wearing in the song while telling her dad that she's just havin' some fun!

It's perfect also because when I think of a fun art design I always fall back on leopard print, it's cute, it's daring, it's girlie & most of all FUN! I also took color inspiration from this design done by Robin Moses.

Inspiration, Cyndi Lauper, quintessential FUN GIRL!

I used Revlon Gold Get 'em for my gold base color. Then painted the leopard print with acrylic paints & topped off with acrylic paint red tips:


Here is my "Girls just Wanna have FUN!" nail design for the 8th & final day of this fantastic Girly-Girl Challenge, created by Neverlandnailblog:

Girly-Girl Challenge, Day 7: Sugar, Spice and Everything Nice

Day 7 of the Girly-Girl Challenge: Sugar, spice, & everything nice, it's what little girls are made of. For this design you can choose between something sweet or spicy. Not wanting to pick a side, I decided to incorporate both! So here is my design with a little of everything that's makes us girly-girls:

For the base nail polishes I used: Wet N Wild "Sugar Coat", Spoiled hot pink called "Tip Your Waitress" , & a chocolate brown from Zoya called "Angelina". On the pinkie I went over the soft nude pink with Spoiled glitter called "Jewelry Heist", I used a striping brush with Zoya "Sarah" over the hot pink on my ring finger to make it look extra SPICY! I then used various acrylic paints to do designs on all my other nails: Some white lace on the middle finger, multi-colored dots to look like MM's or candy on my chocolate nail & a pretty pink bow on my thumb. There were a lot of ideas I had of all things sugary & spicy, but I like how this turned out with a little of both, hope ya'll like it too.

I really love how the bow turned out :-)

Girly-Girl Challenge Day 6: Who inspires You?

For day 6 of the Girly-Girl Challenge you must create a design in honor of the person who inspires you the most. Well that's pretty straight forward for most ladies to choose their Mom & I have to go along with that. My mother was everything to my sisters & I, she had 7 daughters & we all love her so very much. She taught us everything a woman should know, even if some of the things didn't quite stick, it was her goal to turn us into great women one day. She could sew, crochet, draw, sing, do arts & crafts, but most of all she was a fantastic cook. Sadly, my mother got sick with brain cancer when I was about 15 or 16. She fought so very hard & went through 2 major operations & chemotherapy, but after 2 years of fighting she lost the battle & left this life while at home surrounded by family, she was 42 years old. It was the hardest thing my sisters & I have ever had to endure & a pain so deep it never really goes away. But we carry on knowing that she would want us to be happy in life & not pine over losing her. We try our best to find peace in our hearts & joy in our memories.

I have done other nail art in honor of Mom, like this design called "Mom's English Roses", she really did love roses. I found this lovely design created by Simply Rins that was just perfect, since she has a much more steady hand than I do, her rosebuds are way better than mine but I think they turned out alight.

Here are a few pictures of life with Mom:

My Inspiration. Mom, at about 37 years old, about 2 or 3 years before being diagnosed. 

This was taken in Portugal, I'm the one on her lap, I'm about 1 1/2.

This was the last time we took a picture together as a family.
 I'm the one in the back at the far left with my eyes closed, lol.

Mom doing what she did best, baking, I'm the one on the far right that is actually doing something besides drawing or eating, lol.

Christmas '84, I'm at the far right holding little sister Tina on my lap.

So here it is, my Girly-Girl day 6 design inspired by Mom:

Girly-Girl Challange, Day 5:Gotta love Chick Flicks!

Day 5 of the Girly-Girl challenge, Gotta love Chick Flicks: Truth be told this was the first design I did, I was so excited for this day I could hardly contain myself! I immediately thought of the one quintessential chickflick/book that melts my heart when I see it & makes me think of my sisters & that is "Little Women". My sisters & I have loved this book for the simple reason that it's about the close bond of sisters & their Mom. Our Mom used to read this to us when we were little & it's become even more precious to us since her passing away about 18 years ago. To this day I will watch every version of it when it's on TV, I've read the book so many times, it's just one of those things that makes me smile:

Here are my inspirations:

Amy & her clothespin on her nose

Beth playing piano at Christmas

Jo, writing her book

Meg in her pretty blue dress, before the girls "fixed" her up.

I love how each one had something specific that made them all memorable & unique individuals. Like I mentioned, I did this awhile ago so I don't remember what polishes I used, so sorry, but I guess it won't matter too much, if you really want to know just ask & I'll look in my polish stash & let you know.

Here's is my "Gotta love Chick Flicks" nail design:

Amy's clothes pin, Beth's piano, Jo's fountain pen, Meg's blue dress

Girly-Girl Challenge, Day 4:Inspired by the Runway

Day 4 of the Girly-Girl challenge: "Inspired by the Runway"

I love this idea & I immediately started Googling fashion runway looks that I wanted to imitate on my nails.Take a look at all the lovely colors & styles of fashion on the runway & you are literally overflowing with ideas one after the other until you have to narrow it down to your absolute favorite & which you feel expresses the most inspiration for you. This is so hard to do. I found this pretty color block dress that was just lovely, I really liked the color combo, so I figured "why not!"

My inspiration.

Once again using Sache Vite for both my base & my top coats. I then painted my entire nail a pretty pale gold shimmer from Revlon called Gold Get 'Em, for the other block colors I used a greige color from e.l.f. called Desert Haze & a bright orange from the brand "Savvy" that I found @ Sallys called Orange You Happy. And for the tip I used Zoya Cynthia to tie it all in.

Here's my Girly-Girl challenge, Day 4, Runway inspired look:

Girly-Girl Challange Day 3: Delicate & Elegant

Day 3 of the Girly-Girl challenge asked for a delicate & elegant design. So many ideas ran through my head, I'm surprised I could settle on one. I was looking through all the pictures I have of nail art I've googled & want to try, I found one that's very simple & yet intricate at the same time making it a perfect pick for "delicate & elegant".

I used Sache Vite for my base, then painted all my nails with a very light kinda pearly tan from CQ called Halo Beige. Using a black acrylic paint, detail brush & striper brush I painted the crisscross netting, dots & roses. I added a layer of Sally Hansen Disco Ball  for a little sparkle & topped with Sache Vite top coat.

Here's my "Delicate & Elegant" design: (BTW, isn't my phone case just lovely...got it on ebay for like $4, thought it was perfect for something to hold while taking pictures of my nails & especially went well with this design!)

Girly-Girl Challenge Day 2: Gimme that Bling!

Day 2 of the Girly-Girl challenge: "Gimme that Bling". In the description it says, " Diamonds are a girls best friend, so put some bling on those nails". Immediately I had Marilyn Monroe stuck in my head with her singing that famous song, so why not honor the queen of girly-girl glam & make the nail design all about Marilyn.

Here are some of the pictures where I got my inspiration...

After applying Sache Vite, ridge filling base coat, I did a couple different designs to capture everything girly & glamorous about Marilyn in the movie Gentlemen Prefer Blonds. Red Carpet from Sally Hansen  & a pearl from Zoya called Angella were used as my background colors. I then added some pink curves over the red base using Spoiled nail polish called Fuzzy Dice to look like Marilyn's lovely hourglass shape, I also used a silver acrylic paint for some outline dots. A whole lot of glitter is what went on my ring fingers, I used a silver glitter, a pink one & a white one over the pearl base, to look like the sparkle of diamonds. For the thumb I cut up a very small picture of the lovely Marilyn herself to size &, using just some regular white glue, placed the cut picture on my nail & held it there for about a minute pressing it down so it would stick. I then topped with Sache Vite top coat & viola! I still have to see if the picture will actually stay on & for how long, I'm especially concerned about showers, lol. I will let you know how that goes, but I really just wanted a picture of Marilyn & i'm too busy to paint it & didn't want to wait to search for an actual sticker, so I just used paper :-)

So without further ado, here is my girly-girl "BLING" design:

These first 2 show the best view of the design

Then I got a little creative with picasa & made a couple artsy versions...

Comic Book style

Cinema Scope

Girly-Girl Challenge, Day 1:Think Pink

I grew up a tomboy & would not be caught dead in pink. Not until I reached my 20's did I actually even attempt to incorporate pink into my closet. Now I can't imagine not having pink in my closet, in my polish collection, makeup, etc.

Day 1 of the Girly-Girl challenge, created by NeverlandNailBlog, is to wear your favorite pink polish & nail art. So I combined my favorite pink holographic with another fav. pale pink & my love for flowers to create this design.

For my "Think Pink" design I used a light pink creme polish from China Glaze called Something Sweet for all my nails except my ring fingers & topped it with a clear glitter from Sally Hansen called  Disco Ball for a little girly sparkle. On my ring fingers I used China Glaze QT which is a beautiful holographic polish that took me forever to find because it's discontinued. I then used acrylic paint to make some dainty little flowers & here is the final result: