Absent blogger returns

Hello old friends, we meet again! I have been so very busy, remodeled and sold our old home, bounced around 2 rentals and had our new home built and bought and just moved in! I foresee some new nail art coming very soon and I'm excited about it. In the meantime, here are some designs that never made the blog since my absence! You will notice I had a brief fling with at home acrylics, it was fun but I'm glad that's done and I'm back to natural:

31DC2013 Day 17: Glitter

Yay glitter! One of the funner sides of being a woman is being able to wear glitter & get away with it! I got my inspiration from one of the ladies I follow on Tumblr: Freestyle Nails for the Masses, she did this very pretty design that kinda reminds me of stained glass windows a little, just some abstract lines that form little pockets that can be colored in different shades.

Inspiration

A couple of bad days...

...in which I tried a few manicures & wasn't happy with any of them. They were ok, but I just wasn't feeling it & took them off right after I finished. But I figured I'd go ahead & post a couple of them up here anyways just to let y'all now, I too have bad days where I'm just not feeling inspired or my mani's just aren't' living up to my standards of what I would like them to be.

My first mani was inspired by ChalkboardNails, I used a few polishes & in the future I will attempt this design again taking more time & layering better, but here is my result:

The second mani was inspired by Pshiiit, a lovely idea, but it didn't turn out how I wanted. I will not give up & I will try both of these again.

St. Patty's day abstract

A little late in coming but here is the St. Patty's day design I did this year. Feeling artsy once again I veered away from the traditional clover designs & went with the basic color scheme of the holiday but challenged myself to come up with something new & different. I found a pretty abstract painting & using my long striping brush I made thin little strokes in each color building up a sort of ombre faded look until the entire nail was covered. Here is the result:

I used both acrylic paint & nail polish for this design...

Here are the step by step pictures I took to show how I applied the color using only the thin striping brush:

I hope everybody had a great St. Patty's day celebration this year.

"May the Irish hills caress you.

May her lakes and rivers bless you.

May the luck of the Irish enfold you.

May the blessings of Saint Patrick behold you."

The Dotting Tool Pollock painting

My Entry for the Dotting Tool contest, that Chalkboard Nails is hosting, was inspired by this Jackson Pollock painting called Full Fathom Five:

Here are the polishes I used, L-R: Sally Hansen white tip, Santee Black, Zoya Cynthia, Zoya Dove, Sally Hansen Blue-Away & Santee Neon Orange.

The finished design...

For my base coat I used Sache Vite ridge filling base coat & for my top coat I used Sache Vite fast dry top coat. First I applied the base coat, followed by 1 coat of white, then I painted some random swipes of blue-away using the brush that came with the bottle. Next, using my dotting tool I dragged & pulled the various other colors so as to look like the dripping technique mastered by Pollock. For the finishing touch I topped it off with my Sache Vite top coat, here are pictures of the art step by step: