Where in the World Challenge: Ukraine

#18 Ukraine: More Googling was required for this one, another country I have never been to & needed inspirational help. I found the traditional clothing to be very pretty & full of potential so I chose to go with that.

Inspiration

I used OPI My boyfriend scales walls as my base & the rest is acrylic paint.

Inspired by Jewelry

Today is a short post as I was inspired by a piece of jewelry. During spring & summer the Aqua/Gold look can be seen in fashion everywhere & so why not on my nails?

Inspiration

I used OPI Goldeneye as my base & hand painted the aqua pattern with acrylic paint.

indoors

outdoor sunlight

Where in the World Challenge: Singapore

#17 Singapore: One of the largest bird parks is in Singapore, Jurong Bird Park, so my manicure today is inspired by one of my favorite birds...PEACOCKS!

I used W7 Metallic Venus, which is one in a beautiful collection of duo-chrome polishes, the color changes from purple to blue in different lighting, very pretty & perfect for a peacock mani. As usual, acrylic paints were used for the detail.

Where in the World Challenge: Finland

#16 FINLAND: I gotta say, I struggled with this one a bit, Googled my butt off trying to find some inspiration. First I was thinking I'd do something related to the landscape, but all the pictures I pulled up were pretty much snowy, which is quite lovely but doesn't really give much to work with except white & blue...oh hey, I guess that's why the flag is white & blue, interesting! But no, I wanted something a little more colorful, so I started looking for famous Finnish artist & found Lauri Ahlgrén who is a graphic artist/painter famous for colorful abstract lithographs. You can find some of his art here & a little bit about him on this blog (it's in Finnish but you can translate) Anyhow, I found his art to be very inspirational & picked one to design my nails after.

Inspiration: "Lady of Rank"

I used Zoya Blu, China Glaze For Audrey, OPI My Boyfriend scales walls & CND Anchor Blue as my base   colors & acrylic paint for the stripes.

Where in the World Challenge: Germany

#15 Germany: Today we travel to Germany & I found out some pretty cool things in this article called 15 Things you Didn't know were German. Found out the song "Here Come's the Bride" & "The Wedding March" were both written by German composers. Here's a quote from the article: First known as the “Treulich geführt”, the song that is forever linked to women in white gowns, was composed in 1850 by Richard Wagner for his opera, Lohengrin. Although the song is now traditionally played as the bride makes her way down the aisle, it was sung (yes, it even has original words to go along) in the Opera after the ceremony by the members of the bridal party. Oh – and by the way, the OTHER wedding song (the recessional) is also by a German: Felix Mendelssohn – it is called the Wedding March and it is from A Midsummer Night’s Dream 

So I decided to base my design off my own wedding day & the orange/yellow roses from the bouquets. I'll always hold that day dear to my heart, it was one of my happiest memories! Here are a few pictures:

And now the nails...

Polish Days April: 7 Deadly Sins

This month's Polish Days takes a look into the 'dark side' of the human condition, requesting for us to create a design that showcases the 7 deadly sins; Wrath, Sloth, Greed, Gluttony, Lust, Envy & Vanity. Even though we strive to live a good life, lets face it, we've all been guilty of each one to varying degrees so there's no need fooling ourselves. I used the color scheme portrayed in this picture, depicting the 7 Deadly Sins, that I found in a Google search.

Picture will take you to the source of where I found the artwork. I have just been informed that  this person was the artist.

I used black polish as my base, with acrylic paints & my fan brush, I then swiped various combinations of the different colors for each sin as portrayed above.

Index=sloth & gluttony, Middle=greed, Ring=lust & wrath, Pinky=envy

Thumb=vanity

Pale Pink Daisy

Click flower for link to source

My inspiration, for this delicate spring design, is this pale pink daisy I found. I used one coat of Wet N Wild Sugar Coat & one coat of e.l.f. Fairy Dust. As usual, acrylic paints were used to do the detail. It's raining out today, but there's something about a pretty spring floral that brightens up the day!

And Spring arose on the garden fair,

Like the Spirit of Love felt everywhere;

And each flower and herb on Earth's dark breast

rose from the dreams of its wintry rest.

~Percy Bysshe Shelley, "The Sensitive Plant"

I couldn't pick my favorite picture, so I've added all of them, Enjoy!

Mini Cadbury Eggs

I saw a post on 10BlankCanvasas & loved it, she featured her take on mini Cadbury Eggs. I was planning on doing the exact same effect but found myself terribly short on time, so I chose a faster route & cheated a little with some large glitter polish over my pastels. Although it's definitely shinier than Cadbury Eggs actually are, the result was still quite lovely & I'm glad I can share just how simple it is to recreate something that looks both professional & authentic.

I used various polishes for my nails & alternated: China Glaze Lemon Fizz, Zoya Blu, OPI Rumple's Wiggin', Zoya Neely & China Glaze Something Sweet. The glitter polish I used to top it off is from Sinful Colors Jewelry Heist, it's different size glitter in it, I just swiped one thin coat so the glitter looked spread out. Thankfully they turned out just how I wanted & resulted in many compliments.