Eggshell Nails

I wanted to make a delicate nail design that would reflect the gorgeous colors of egg shells. We are so lucky to have lots of farmers markets in Sonoma County selling farm fresh eggs. They are not only beautiful on the outside, they are also gorgeous on the inside, with richly colored yolks.

I painted each nail with a different egg shell hue, then used MoYou London Explorer plate 03 with Konad White. The base colors are OPI A-Taupe the Space Needle, OPI Did You Ear About Van Gogh?, Orly Decades of Dysfunction, and Color Club Factory Girl.

31 Day Challenge: Gradient

I was trying to figure out what the heck to do for today's prompt that might have something to do with Halloween. I've done the spooky graveyard gradient before, so I decided to try a water colored gradient and attempt a "bobbing for apples" manicure!

The gradient is Color Club Blue-Ming, Color Club Age of Aquarius, and OPI Fly. Okay now, let me tell you that the water ripple effect was a pain in the a$#. I have seen the video tutorial by cutepolish, and I've seen many others do this effect, but it is NOT easy. I tried spray hand-sanitizer, a mix of water and vinegar, and finally tried using a spray leave-in conditioner. It was not consistent and that is why all of the nails look different. If you have any tips, let me know.

Click here to see my gradient nails from 2011. 

The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou

I am a HUGE fan of Wes Anderson. His films are wonderfully weird, and characters so earnest and flawed. The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou came out in 2004. It features Bill Murray as a bumbling Jacques Cousteau-type character, intent on seeking revenge on a shark. The sea creatures in this film are fantastical and mostly not-real. There are fluorescent pink schools of fish who appear on screen right before Steve Zissou's best friend Esteban is eaten by the above-mentioned Jaguar Shark. And Steve gets a Crayon Ponyfish from a fan during the screening of one of his films. I've combined these creatures in a tribute manicure to Wes Anderson's fourth feature length film.

I started by painting a base of  Sally Hanson Complete Salon Manicure in Fairy Teal. Then I sponged on a gradient of Color Club Age of Aquarius, Ulta The Jungle Book, and Ulta Dance Teal Dawn. After that I stamped on a mixture of Konad White and Ulta The Jungle Book using Konad plate M16 for the bubbles. Finally, I hand painted the school of fluorescent pink fish and the Crayon Ponyfish using acrylic paints. I topped everything with Seche Vite topcoat.

Here's Esteban about to be eaten by the Jaguar Shark:

And here is Steve Zissou getting a Crayon Ponyfish from a fan:

Besides my love for Wes Anderson movies, this manicure was also inspired by a stamping group challenge. Our choices for the week were to either 1) stamp on a green background, 2) stamp wildlife images, or 3) stamp an homage to a favorite movie. I did 'em all. 

Goldfish Nail Art

Today's manicure is for the Adventures in Stamping challenge: Under the Sea. I sadly found that I don't really own many aquatic stamping plates. Note to self: remedy that! I do however have this gorgeous stamping plate from MoYou London which has a pair of goldfish swimming around each other. An infinite circle of koi. So I combined that stamp with a water technique that I have used previously on another manicure.

I started with a base of Color Club Factory Girl, then used a cosmetic sponge to dab on some OPI Fly in areas. After that I used acrylic paints to add little veins of blue-grey, and light blue to indicate little waves. I used a stamping decal technique and MoYou London plate Suki 09 and Konad Black stamping polish. I filled in the fish with orange and yellow acrylic paints. The stamp decal was a little messy, but I like the effect. It feels lived in, like it's been there a while.

Enjoy!

Blue Gradient Dots and WINNERS

WOWEEE! I cannot believe the amount of entries in my 1000 Facebook likes contest! You guys are so cool, thank you for your awesome support. Here are the winners who will each get 1 bottle of "1000 FB Likes" the commemorative polish I made to celebrate my big milestone:

Lori Hill Shadow
Shalon Bell
Molly T
Paulina Mayhem
Nicole Drong

Each of these winners has until Friday to get me their mailing address info, or I will select another person as a winner. Congrats to all the winners, and I can't tell you ALL how much it meant to me to read your awesome comments about where you live. It made me feel really connected and happy about how we are spread all across the globe, but we can all have this great connection. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for sharing with me!!! GROUP HUG!

Here is a manicure I did a while ago as an entry for a Rite Aid contest. I didn't win (click here on the winner tab to see the winning manicure), but I do really like how this turned out. It is fairly simple and works with just stripes and dots. I used mostly Color Club polishes to make this design. Have a great day polish friends!

1000 Facebook Likes Giveaway!

I am excited to announce that I hit 1000 facebook likes on my Sonoma Nail Art facebook fan page this week! So I am having a giveaway to celebrate! This is a limited edition polish. I will only make 55 bottles of this polish, five are for this giveaway and 50 will be for sale in my etsy shop. I will split the sale of these bottles into two parts. The first lot of 25 bottles will be in my etsy sale tomorrow and the remaining 25 bottles will be for sale in about 2 weeks from now. And now, here is the special commemorative polish, cleverly called "1000 FB Likes!" LOL

TAADAAAAA!

"1000 FB Likes" is a glitter top coat with a mix of periwinkle, blue, white, and purple glitters in a shimmery blue base.

This is one coat of "1000 FB Likes" over Color Club Hydrangea Kiss. You can see the silvery blue shimmer as well as the fun mix of glitters.

Here are the polishes that will be for sale on Friday (tomorrow) July 20th, 2012 at 5pm Pacific Time (that is 8pm Eastern). Here is the link to my etsy shop.

One of these could be yours! All you have to do is enter my drawing below. Each of the bottles (the ones for giveaway and the ones for sale) will be numbered, so this will truly be a fun limited edition polish and a collector's keepsake. :) This giveaway is open to everyone, including international fans. The winner will be announced next Wednesday, July 25th, 2012. Good luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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. :-)