Clockwork Tape Mani

Some of my polish buddies decided to do tape manicures today, and I sighed because this is another of my NOT strong suits. The tape usually pulls up whatever base polish I have on, and if it doesn't, then it is not sticky enough to actually keep the secondary polish from seeping under the tape edge. Ah well. So here is my attempt at a tape manicure.

The idea was to have this be a sort of 'behind the scenes' glimpse manicure, where you see a glitter mani and peek behind it to see the cogs and gears making it work. Meh, not really successful.

I started with a base of OPI San Tan-tonio and then taped off the upper half of my middle and ring fingers on a diagonal. Then I painted on my Sonoma Nail Art polish called 'Clockwork', added some cogs with acrylic paint, and then hand painted the black stripe following the tape line. That black stripe makes it look like I didn't use tape at all in this mani. Ug. But I did this last night at midnight, so dang it, it will have to do. 

Here is a look at Clockwork, one of the 4 polishes in my Great Handcar Regatta themed set. I really love this glitter polish because it creates gorgeous instant artwork. No tape required (HALLELUJAH)!

Frog Eats Cupcake and a Giveaway

Hello! I am cramming a bunch of stuff into this post so I hope you have a minute or two to check it out. First of all, the Frog Eats Cupcake mani. What the.... okay, so my friend Amber is having a nail art contest and you can  create a mani using her favorite things as themes. Her favorite things include: frogs, pink, cupcakes, animal print,  and stars. I crammed almost all of those things into this mani. :D

See!? It's a frog on a pink background eating a cupcake. There's even a little fly buzzing next to him and he don't care, he just wants the cupcake! And really, who doesn't love cupcakes?! (This is actually the first time I have even done a cupcake mani and it was kind of fun!) I did not take any pics during the painting of this manicure, but I started with the frog, then did the cupcake, and finally added his little tongue zipping out, and the fly on my pinkie. The base of the cupcake is China Glaze For Audrey, but everything else was done with acrylic paints.

I started the mani with this bright pink shade from Sally Hansen. It is called Speedy Sunburst. This is two coats and it has great coverage and is easy to apply. (And look, I am just like Sarah of Chalkboard Nails. She doesn't own this hand pose you know, so I am rockin' it! Moo hoo ha ha ha ha! I kid, I kid. I love Sarah, so I have to give her a hard time.)

And to seal the deal and hopefully help me win Amber's contest, I added stars. What the heck, why not?!? Now I have to win. :D This was with a Bundle Monster stamp and Konad special white polish.

Here are the polishes I used in this manicure: Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Speedy Sunburst, and China Glaze For Audrey. Ok, now for some fun! Every 20 posts I make a donation to a local women's shelter as a way to give back to my community and make my blog do some good. We all know a little makeup or a nice manicure can really boost ones self esteem. And for women transitioning out of substance abuse, a little boost in self esteem is so important. With my 100th post I am donating another $10 to Women's Recovery Services. I encourage you to find a way to make your blog help your community. 

And to celebrate my 100th post even MORE, I am giving away one bottle of my Sonoma Nail Art custom polish: Sister Sparkle The Exalted One! I just did my first sale of polishes on etsy and it was an overwhelming success. Thanks to everyone for your support. To win this bottle of polish, you need to follow my blog. You can also enter by following Sonoma Nail Art on Facebook. Entry deadline is Tuesday, May 1st at 9:01pm Pacific Time. Open to everyone, international entries welcome! 

You could win this! ^^

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea

This manicure features one of my new Sonoma Nail Art polishes called 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. It is inspired by a wonderful event we have had here in Santa Rosa for the past 4 years (it will not be happening this year, but hopefully next year) called the Great Handcar Regatta. It's a super fun steampunk themed event with entertainment, food, shopping, demonstrations, and amazing handcars that race each other in heats on the railroad tracks all day long. The costumes at this event are AMAZING. This polish is inspired by the Jules Vern novel that really seems to epitomize the steampunk aesthetic.

I made a fun/creepy octopus slinking along the ocean floor with splashes of sparkly water all around him. Captain Nemo would kill these nails, like literally. 

This is a new polish (new to me) that I picked up at Rite Aid yesterday. Color Club Age of Aquarius. I had to do some extreme color correcting to this photo and it is still not quite right. This is such a gorgeous shade, but really hard to photograph!

I started with the octo-body on my ring finger, then added tentacles on the middle finger, and finally on the pinkie finger. All of the artwork here is done with acrylic paints, which I find SO much easier to work with than nail polish when it comes to nail art. Check out my FAQ section to see more about the tools I use.

Next I continued shading and added his evil eyeballs. I used a bit of neon green acrylic paint to really make certain parts stand out. Once you topcoat your design, somethings will fade a bit and blend together, so it is best to try to add a lot of depth in the highlights and the shadows. 

Finally I added little dots to suggest his suckers (eek, I am creeping myself out!) and dabbed on my sparkle polish to indicate water splashing and swirling here and there. I like how the sparkle polish continues to tell the story in this manicure with the different shades of blue and green and the occasional white hexagon (my hint at bubbles in the water).

On my right hand I painted a few bubbles using white acrylic paint, and surrounded it with more of my polish, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. I want to give a shout out to two amazing nail artists who helped to inspire this manicure. Attacked Astoria made an AMAZING Kraken manicure that I wish I could do. Her talent is incredible and you need to follow her blog for sure! And I absolutely love this mani done by Fez Baker. She is an incredible graphic artist in her own right, and these creepy octopus nails are the bomb.

This is as close to the actual color of Age of Aquarius that I was able to get. It is really vibrant and I love how glowy it is with this lil sea monster. :-)

And here is my baby: 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. I am selling this polish and some others this evening through my etsy store online. I will replenish stock of my polishes again in June (hopefully earlier if I can get more polish base). If you like this polish, I really hope you are able to get it during my sale today! If not, don't fear, I will make lots more. :-)

Sonoma Nail Art Polish Sale

I am super pleased to announce my first etsy sale of Sonoma Nail Art Polishes! This will be a small sale of about 50 full sized bottles. The polish will go on sale on Thursday, April 19th at 6pm Pacific Time. Here is a preview of what I will be selling:

Steampunk and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea are part of my Great Handcar Regatta series. These are polishes inspired by a really cool steampunk themed event that has been held in Santa Rosa for the past 4 years. Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence has actually been renamed and is now Sister Sparkle The Exalted One (same polish, new fabulous name!). This polish is inspired by the Russian River Chapter of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. They are so awesome and have lots of heart. :) And Sonoma County Gazette is black and white and 'red' all over, ha ha.

Mustard Fields is inspired by the gorgeous cover crops of mustard that pop up between the vines each spring. The vineyards look amazing when that happens.

Here are swatches of Sister Sparkle The Exalted One over China Glaze Happy Go Lucky and over WnW Ebony Hates Chris. Mustard Fields is swatched on its own and over OPI Fiercely Fiona. 

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea is swatched over CQ Creme Blue. Sonoma County Gazette is swatched on its own and over Zoya Dove. And finally Steampunk over WnW Black Creme, over Zoya Ciara, and on its own. 

Here is a shot of what my bottles look like. The labels for the Great Handcar Regatta polishes are slightly different than the labels for my other polishes. Each are full sized 15ml bottles. I am selling them for $10 each and I will ship to US and Canada only. 

Here is my etsy shop link. The store is on vacation now, but I will open at 6pm on Thursday, April 19th (Pacific Time). I apologize for not having more stock at this time, but I hope to have plenty in June. Thanks so much for your support and encouragement with this line of indie polishes. I just love them and I am having a blast making them. Now I just need more polish base, ha ha!

Tax Day Water Marble Newsprint Mani

For the dreaded tax day, I created these multiple technique nails to show my frustration with dotting the "i"s and crossing the "t"s on a 1040 tax form. Blech, it sucks. I dread taxes only slightly more than doing a water marble, so I figured they would go well together. Hee hee. And just to make things more difficult, I added in a newsprint technique as well.

My index and middle finger on both hands features a water marble (not really fancy, but it did the trick), and on the other nails I used some clippings from a Korean newspaper to make a newsprint mani, before adding numbers and symbols with black acrylic paint. 

I started with a base of OPI Skull & Glossbones. This is such a pretty shade! Sorry about the weird shape of my thumbnail and middle nail. I have had some breakage lately due to work, so my nails are looking a little worse for wear. :(

My right had features more water marble, newsprint, and numbers and symbols. Why did I use Korean newsprint to do this manicure? Because I can't read or understand Korean, so I though it made as much sense to me as tax code. I WISH I could understand Korean, but I think I will pass on ever figuring out tax code. 

Here are the polishes I used in this manicure: Wet n Wild Black Creme, OPI Skull & Glossbones, and OPI Who The Shrek Are You?

There are some other blogging friends of mine who also did water marble manis today, and they are far better at it than I am. Be sure to check them out!

PS I plan on doing a mini sale off my Sonoma Nail Art custom polishes this week, so if you haven't yet, be sure to add my etsy store to your favorites. I will let you know which day they polish will go on sale. Probably not til Wednesday or Thursday. Thanks!

My First Starry Night Nails

Many people have been inspired by Vincent Van Gogh's Starry Night painting. There are some really great manicures with this theme out there, like here, and here. When I agreed to do my coworker's nails and her daughter's nails, I didn't know what she wanted me to paint. So when she pulled out Starry Night, I was pretty excited to give it a Gogh. (Ah hahaha! Sorry, bad pun).

Kira had her nails already painted with OPI Russian Navy when I arrived with my box of nail art supplies, so this was a good foundation to start with. I painted all five nails on her left hand with stars and swirls inspired by Starry Night. On a few nails I dotted a bit of Sally Hansen Nail Prisms Diamond to give it a little bit of holographic shine.

On her right hand, I only painted her ring and middle finger. I think it turned out really pretty and definitely pays homage to Starry Night. 

Here is the inspiration for the manicure. :) Now I have to say, that I did not go into as much detail as I might if I do this on my own nails. I was doing nail art for two people and we started at 6:30pm, plus I stopped for some dinner. I really didn't want to keep them up until midnight. LOL! That being said, I still think this is a really pretty manicure and Kira loved it. 

21st Bday in Vegas Nails

Last night I went to a coworker's house to do some nail art for her and her daughter. They have the same birthday and are headed to Las Vegas to celebrate! Her daughter is turning 21 years old, so we wanted to do something with Vegas/21/and of course BOOZE. So here is what I did!

A 21 with a bit of sparkle on her middle finger, and the Queen of Hearts and an A (for Ace) on her ring finger. Of course, the Queen and an Ace add up to 21! I used a bit of Sally Hansen Nail Prisms Diamond along the smile line and in the sparkles to give it some holo-y goodness.

On her right hand I painted a cocktail with a straw and sparkles on her ring finger, and a pile of poker chips on her middle finger. Again, there's a bit of Sally Hansen Nail Prisms Diamond to bling it up. 

She had already gotten her nails done with the french tips, so it was fairly easy for me to add some nail art on a few fingers. I hope they are lucky for her in Vegas!!