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. :-)

The Great Handcar Regatta 2011

This past weekend was really busy! I went to the Halloween and Vine art show on Saturday, and on Sunday it was the Great Handcar Regatta. This is an insanely awesome event. It's a steampunk/utopian extravaganza featuring all sorts of cool handcars that are raced along tracks in downtown Santa Rosa. People dress up in great costumes and there are fun performers all over the place. This is the Regatta's 4th year in Santa Rosa, and hopefully not the last. We are supposed to be getting high speed rail soon, and that may mean no fun on the old railroad tracks in downtown next year. My outfit was fun (I can't believe I didn't take any pictures of me wearing it!) and of course, I did steampunk nails to match.

Here are the finished nails. I did these based on a design by Robin Moses, but changed up the colors to match my outfit (which I didn't take pictures of, grrr!). Watch Robin's great video to see how to do these nails.

I used Revlon Creme Brulee for the base and then sponged on Orly Glam Rock (which has a matte finish) on the tips to give the nails a slight gradient. This design on its own would look great, if you didn't want to steampunk it up.

I added the first set of gears and cogs using a small nail art brush and a copper colored acrylic paint by Folk Art.

Here's the second layer of gears in a gold acrylic paint. I like how the Orly Glam Rock is peaking through the design.

And finally I added some white paint to the gold acrylic paint to create a lighter gold and did a final set of gears and cogs to finish the design. I topcoated with Revlon Quick Dry Topcoat.

I found these lacy cuffs at Hot Topic. Gotta love goth kids for their cool accoutrements! It cracks me up to shop at Hot Topic, where kids are trying to find their own style at a corporate clothing and accessories store. "I'm so different, just like everyone else!"

Here are the polishes I used in this mani: Revlon Creme Brulee, Orly Glam Rock (matte finish), Essie All In One Basecoat, and Revlon Quick Dry Topcoat.

WARNING! The next picture may offend some people! Part of the fun at the Great Handcar Regatta was demos by cheesemakers, sauerkraut makers, Ask a Vegan (LOL), and this next one: Butchers. Sonoma County is foodie central, and our local food blogger actually raised and slaughtered this pig, to understand the whole food chain. Many of us like to know where our food comes from, and some of us raise our own food in gardens and such. But few will actually raise livestock and harvest it. So this was really fascinating to see.

I watched this butcher take this young pig apart using just one knife. And it wasn't a big knife. He was quite expert at removing each of the cuts. What was so interesting was the amount of waste that is left over after getting the meat from the animal (about 40%). I guess that is a good argument for eating less meat. Choose high quality sources, and eat it sparingly. Meat is much more wasteful than vegetables. But tasty!

Here are a few of my friends at the Great Handcar Regatta. They had a booth where kids could make small cars from zucchinis and such and race them on a track. I love that little Jackson made his own little car from wine corks. Who needs a freakin zucchini?? Hilarious.

And here is my antique beaver skin top hat that I gussied up with ribbon and feathers. The pink matched my blouse. I am really bummed that I didn't get a picture of my whole outfit. Ah well...

If you want to see some of the fun of the Handcar Regatta, check out this video montage. I will have to try to take more pictures next year, besides tons of pig butchering photos. LOL