So in the world of radio, it is not uncommon to work with someone for years and never meet them face to face. One of my colleagues works out of San Francisco, and I have worked with him for probably 6 years. We finally met today. He knows about my nail art and I promised I would do something fun for him. Here you go, Larry!
I painted Larry on my ring finger. I also added a bit of stamping with the mug of beer from a MoYou London plate, but I could have left it plain and I probably would have liked it more. The base color is China Glaze Electric Pineapple. I used acrylic paints to do the portrait.
I used Larry's Facebook profile as my model. He's a bit of a weirdo, but then, so am I. And after I painted this, I realized that I chose one of my sister-in-law's favorite colors for the base. It wasn't a conscious decision. She passed away two years ago today, and she would probably have busted up laughing at this. :)
I am going to attempt the 31 Day Challenge again this year, which I tweaked in 2011 with my own Halloween themed nails. So here goes!
Day 1 is Red. I did these on October 1st, but got too busy to post them yesterday. I used OPI Comet Loves Cupid as the base, then topped with OPI The Show Must Go On. I hand painted the spider web with black acrylic paint, then stamped the spider with BM13 plate. I added a dot of red acrylic paint to the spider so she would be a Black Widow, baby. (BTW, I always mishear the lyrics to that song as "I'm gonna love you like a black little baby." I need my ears checked.)
My friend Sarah of Chalkboard Nails is also my official swatcher and photographer for my nail polish line, Sonoma Nail Art. I have created a nail polish inspired by her blog name and it will be for sale this Friday in my etsy store. I played with it this weekend and tried it with a matte topcoat, so fun!
Here are three layers of Chalkboard Nails by Sonoma Nail Art on my index, middle, and pinkie fingers. On my ring finger I painted two coats of OPI Nein! Nein! Nein! OK Fine! and then sponged on some of the same polish that I lightened with white polish. Then I topped it with a decal I made of Sarah's blog logo. And THEN I put on a coat of Hard Candy Matte-ly In Love. Whew!
As you can see, OPI Nein! Nein! Nein! Ok Fine! is a really close match color wise to Chalkboard Nails by Sonoma Nail Art. If you wanted to use that as a base color with one coat of my polish on top, it would work well.
Here is the ring finger after I sponged on the lightened polish. All I did was drop a few drips of polish on a piece of card stock, then mixed it with a toothpick, and used a cosmetic sponge to dab it on. It is supposed to mimic the way a chalkboard looks.
And here is the mani before I added a matte topcoat. I think it looks nice either way! Chalkboard Nails will be available in my etsy store this Friday, January 18th, and will sell for $10.50 per bottle. Keep an eye on my facebook page for further updates. You can also WIN a bottle, by entering Sarah's contest here.
Here are some Rubber Duckie nails I have entered into Chalkboard Nails nail art contest. Sarah said we couldn't use acrylic paints, so I didn't, but DANG it is a lot harder to do nail art with nail polish. Sarah's contest is for either warm colors or cool colors, so I went with warm. :)
My technique for this art was similar to working with acrylic paints (but more of a pain in the butt), and I used the same small nail art brush I normally use. I painted white silhouettes of duckies on my nails first to make sure the colors would pop.
Here are the polishes I used in this manicure. The base color is Essie "Orange, It's Obvious!" Love that color! And I don't remember the names of all the others, but there you go.
I just hit my ONE YEAR BLOGIVERSARY for Sonoma Nail Art. Yay! So to celebrate, I am giving away one set of my Halloween Nail Art polishes. :) I will do a simple Rafflecopter giveaway. This is open INTERNATIONALLY, so everyone can enter. I do ask you to be a follower of my blog, and you can get an additional entry for following my facebook fan page. Deadline for entry is 9/19/12 and winner will be announced on 9/20/12. Please make sure you leave an email address so I can contact you if you are the winner.
And finally! This is also the 120th post on my blog. Every 20 posts, I make a donation to Women's Recovery Services in Sonoma County. They help women transitioning out of addiction, and I think this is a great way to have my blog do a little bit of good. We all know that a pretty manicure can really boost your self esteem, and I want to help empower woman in my community to feel good about themselves and improve their lives. If you would like to make a donation, click here to find out more about Women's Recovery Services.
Here is another polish in my Handcar Regatta set of custom nail polishes. This is a delicate glitter polish with light pink, pale gold, and white glitters in a creamy base. It looks great over pink polishes! I present: Parasol.
This is one coat of Parasol over Color Club Blushing Rose, with a bit of artwork on my ring finger done with acrylic paints.
Here is Color Club Blushing Rose on its own, and you can see that Parasol kind of mutes the pink a bit and makes it look a little more romantic with sort of a sepia effect. :)
Here is a progression of the artwork I did on my ring finger. I use acrylic paints from Michael's craft store to do my artwork. Always thin down your acrylic paint with water to make it easier to work with and be sure to seal the artwork with a good topcoat.
Here is a pic of Parasol, part of my Handcar Regatta themed set of Sonoma Nail Art polishes.
Side shot of Parasol, so you can see the pretty lady with her paper parasol. Hello Pretty Lady!
Macro shot of Parasol. It actually took me a while to finish this polish, the fourth and final one in the Handcar Regatta set. Special thanks to Sarah of Chalkboard Nails for brainstorming with me to get the right mix of colors and glitters. :)
Parasol is one of six colors I will be putting up for sale on Friday, June 1st in my etsy shop! Here are all of the colors I will have for sale, starting at 2pm Pacific Time (that's 5pm Eastern). I will have at least 100 full sized (15ml) bottles available during this sale, which is twice the amount I have had in my previous sales. So hopefully that will make it easier for you to get the colors you want. And yes, I will bring back colors I had in previous sales, but this is the selection for my sale on June 1st.
Here is my entry for the Chalkboard Nails Dotting Tool Contest. Sarah's rules are that you can only use a dotting tool (and the brush on your nail polish bottles) to make your entry. No acrylic paints, no tiny nail art brushes. Boo. But it was a great way to challenge myself. Here is what I came up with:
It's a Greek 'key' design! It looks kind of like mosaic. I like it!
I started with a base of Essie Borrowed and Blue. I really love this shade. I've used it before on one of my first blog posts when I did the raven mani. Check that out here.
I used my smallest dotting tool to make a sort of french mani with dark blue polish and a sort of teal blue polish. This mani on its own would look pretty cool.
Then I did the Greek key design. There was actually quite a bit of counting and plotting to do this. Grrr.... I was told there would be no math! :)
Here is the Greek key design completed. Seeing as this was kind of a pain to do, I just did one more key design on my ring finger and called it a night.
Even one accent nail is still fun!
Polishes used in this manicure: China Glaze Happy Go Lucky, China Glaze Aqua Baby, Essie Borrowed and Blue, and Pure Ice French Kiss. I used OPI Nail Envy for my base coat and Seche Vite for my top coat.
You still have time to enter Sarah's contest! Check out all of the fun entries, there's some great talent out there. :)
Today's manicure features a few of the beleaguered snowmen from the Calvin and Hobbes cartoon. Bill Watterson's amazing cartoon strip had some really twisted snowmen created by Calvin. Often the snowmen made his dad's life more difficult, by blocking the driveway, or embarrassing the family. Click here to see a few of the great snowmen comic strips, as well as some real life recreations.
This nail art is a combination of two different comic strips. On my thumb, I have Calvin walking along in his snow gear, quite satisfied with himself. On my middle and ring fingers you see two melting snowmen holding signs and warning of the coming Spring.
One of the strips I based my manicure on.
I started with a white polish base using Sinful Colors Snow Me White. And lookee at my hand pose, inspired by my polish buddy Sarah from Chalkboard Nails. :-)
Here are the snowmen up close before I top coated. I was hard to write those small letters on their signs, so I had to truncate the messages. Artistic license.
Here's the manicure before topcoat. I think it turned out well!
On my right hand I painted a little bit of Lynnderella glitter polish on the tips to give it a cold frosty appearance. This could be a very pretty winter themed manicure on its own.
Polishes used in this manicure: Lynnderella Thank Blue! and Sinful Colors Snow Me White. I also used Essie All In One Basecoat and Seche Vite topcoat.
I made a quick video of these nails to include it in Robin Moses' Let It Snow collaboration. Any snow inspired art work is welcome. I think this is pretty fun. :-)
Ok, just to warn you, this is a VERY SILLY manicure. It may not make much sense to you. I was playing with my nail polish last night and tried a combo of a pretty shimmer green with a glittery topcoat, and I showed the base color to some of my polish friends. I asked them what I should paint on my nails as artwork. My friend Sarah Waite of Chalkboard Nails said, "my face" which of course is a very silly thing to paint on ones nails. I got a few other fun suggestions including one from Laurie Nievin to paint the Loch Ness Monster. So I decided to do both: I give you Sarah Waite vs. The Loch Ness Monster!
Bwahahahaah! So in case you couldn't tell, that is Sarah on my thumb and Nessie is swimming along the rest of my fingers.
Here is the beautiful base polish. I will tell you which colors I used to make this base mani at the end of this post. Hint hint, one of the colors I used is up for grabs in my 100 follower giveaway! You still have time to enter. Just click here and scroll to the bottom to get your name in the drawing.
I started by painting Nessie on my nails. I made her look kind of cartoony and fun. This was a fairly easy design to do. You could do it with acrylic paint like I did, or try it with nail polish. I think this design would be easy to do either way.
Here is Nessie pretty much finished, and before topcoat. Also, no Sarah Waite yet.
By the way, this is a pic of Laurie Nievin who suggested the Loch Ness Monster design. Thanks for the great idea, Laurie! :-)
This is my nail polish BFF, Sarah Waite. When I decided to paint her face after she pretty much begged me to do it, I chose this picture of her. It is black and white, and fairly stark, so I thought it would be easier to duplicate rather than a color photo.
Here is how I started with acrylic paints. I used only black and white acrylic paint for Sarah's portrait.
Here she is without her glasses on. I also made more adjustments to her hair before finishing the portrait.
Before topcoat. I think I got pretty close!
Here are the nails together. I added some little bubbles to Nessie. Of course, when discussing this nail art with Sarah and Laurie, we knew that the two designs would have to duke it out, and thus the nail art on my right hand...
It's Sarah Waite vs. The Loch Ness Monster! (I was tired after that portrait of Sarah, so this was a lot easier design to paint using my non-dominant hand.)
Polishes used in this manicure: Wet n Wild mini color icon in a shimmery aqua green, Sinful Colors Nail Junkie, Essie All In One Basecoat, and Seche Vite topcoat.
This manicure demanded an epic video to showcase all of its awesomeness. I give you the Battle of the Ages!!! Sarah Waite vs. The Loch Ness Monster:
I am SUCH a nerd! And no, I am not going to paint your face on my nails. LOL
In space no one can hear you scream. Ok, I am pretty dang proud of these nails. I totally followed Sarah's advice from Chalkboard Nails on how to do galaxy nails. If you want to do galaxy nails, read her blog post about them. It was so helpful. I guess I can say she boldly went where I had yet to go. Seriously, she paved the way and has posted really useful tips on how to do great galaxy nails. Then I added my creepy Halloween twist...
It's the alien from Alien! Does this thing have a name? I showed this to my husband and he said, "Shut up. You did not paint that." But in fact I did, and I told him to shut up himself.
Here are my galaxy nails before I added the alien. Sorry I did not take any pics before this shot. But really, Sarah's post on this says it all, so go there to learn how to do these.
Here is the other hand. Besides adding the galaxy nail design to these, I did not add any more aliens. One is enough to do serious damage on a spaceship stranded in the middle of a galaxy.
I started the alien by painting a dark silver shape, and then began to add highlights and shading to give it definition. And you gotta have the second mouth shooting out.
I continued the design by mixing silver acrylic paint with white and black as needed to get the right shading and highlight the ribs on the chest, and the various parts of his ginormous noggin. I even added teeny tiny teeth with white acrylic paint.
Here's a side view of the nails before I added the alien. This pic shows you how the glitter polish really lights up and makes these galaxy nails fun.
Ok, that is just awesome. Sorry, I have to say it. I made a freaking awesome set of galaxy nails.
Polished used in this manicure: Wet 'n Wild Black Creme, Sinful Colors Pink (it's a hot pink), Borghese Paradiso Pink, China Glaze Happy Go Lucky, and China Glaze Fairy Dust. Also Essie All In One basecoat and Seche Vite topcoat.
Tomorrow: water marble nails! After tomorrow, I am really looking forward to the rest of the challenges. There should be some fun ones. :)
