Hello Kitty Nerd

Sorry about the gap between posts, I was covering for a coworker and I also had a polish sale, so sadly I did not have time for fun manicure. But I am making up for it with this cutie patootie mani! Hello Kitty Nerd!!  I was able to use a new technique I have never tried in this manicure, and I am thrilled with how it turned out.

This is a combination of an amazing gradient technique which I learned from The Nailasaurus, some hand painted nail art with acrylic paints, and my very own glitter topcoat called "My Three Glitters!"

I started by painting my nails light pink with Butter London Teddy Girl. It was a little bare in spots with two coats, but I didn't mind since I was going to do a gradient over it anyway. Click here to see a great tutorial by The Nailasaurus on how to accomplish this easy gradient technique. I was able to do this on my very first try!

Here are the colors I used for my gradient, and oops, they are in the wrong order. Butter London Teddy Girl, Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Speedy Sunburst, and OPI Elephantastic Pink. I actually used them in this order: Teddy Girl, Elephantastic Pink, Speedy Sunburst. This made for a very gradual gradient with lots of oomph!

Then I started on HK herself. Here you can see the white and black parts filled in on her head and body. Using acrylic paints makes it much easier to get smooth lines and to fix errors. 

Next I added facial features (the few she actually has), whiskers, and her little buttons on her dress. Then I turned her into an adorable little NERD!

This is a sticker of nerdy/1950s era Hello Kitty. She's got big ol glasses on and cute tenny runners. I found this sticker at the Sanrio store in San Francisco's Japantown. I LOVE that store, and I have to be careful when I go there or else I come home with an empty bank account, LOL.

Finally, to add dimension and fun to this mani, I topped all of my other nails with my Sonoma Nail Art glitter topcoat called "My Three Glitters". It is a black and white topcoat with white squares and black diamonds and has a fun retro feel to it. Then I topped everything with Seche Vite. 

My Three Glitter is inspired by one-time Sonoma County resident Fred MacMurray who had a ranch here. One of his most popular roles was the dad in the television series My Three Sons. My friend Sarah from Chalkboard Nails helped me design this label and I really love it! I do have more bottles of this polish available from my last etsy sale. You can buy them here if you haven't picked up this color yet. I like the way the fun squares and diamonds in this mix make the polish a little different than the other black and white topcoats out there. Have a great week polish friends!

Hello Kitty Valentine Nails

My polish friend Rebecca of Rebecca Likes Nails is a HUGE Hello Kitty fan. She was rather peeved at me when I made my Hello Kitty Zombie Nails. So to make up for it, and to celebrate the season of LOVE, here are my Hello Kitty Valentine Nails.

See, Rebecca? No fractured skull, no oozing blood. Just a pretty Hello Kitty with wings, floating around in heaven while picking the Valentine hearts that are growing out of clouds. 

My inspiration for this mani came from this adorable wallpaper I found at this site. 

I started with a base of Sinful Colors Cinderella. It's a beautiful shimmery blue with a bit of pink flash to the glass flecks in the polish. It's exactly what a Cinderella polish should look like. Sadly the Walt Disney Company tried to come out with a line of polishes inspired by Disney Princesses last year and they were a big disappointment. 

I painted Hello Kitty by using acrylic paints thinned with water. I made some minor adjustments to her after I took this pic, but this is how she pretty much ended up before top coat.

Then I added clouds and the basis for the Valentine flowers using more acrylic paint. Acrylic paint is easier to work with and gives you much more control than polish. Always start with a base of nail polish on your nails, then apply acrylic paint on top of that for the art work. Seal it with clear top coat. 

I finished by adding color to the Valentine hearts and a few random hearts on my other nails. I also painted a few random heart on my right hand, just to give the design a bit of continuity through the two hands. I am not as skilled at painting with my non-dominant hand. 

Here are the finished nails before topcoat. 

By the way, Rebecca is having a cool giveaway now (there may even be Hello Kitty items in it) so be sure to check it out before Valentine's Day.

I am really close to 500 followers, which is super exciting. I have a fun giveaway planned when I reach that milestone. Thanks to everyone for your kind support and great comments. I am having a blast doing this blog. 

Hello Kitty Sans Kitty

I needed to change my manicure last night and I was a little short on inspiration. It is hard to come up with fun, original designs, and especially ones that are not going to take me a few hours to do. I started this mani way too late to do something more elaborate, but I really like how this turned out. This design is similar to the one here made by The Nail Bank, but I just took the kitty out of the picture.

Hello Kitty's bow shape is so iconic, that you can pretty much recognize it even without the Kitty herself. I used a (relatively) easy polka dot pattern (made with a dotting tool) for an accent on the ring finger.

I started with a base of Monsooner or Later from OPI. As you can see, I ended up taking this base color off of my ring finger to do an accent nail. When I painted this color and took this picture, I still didn't actually know what I was going to do for nail art yet. :)

My right hand has white polka dots on a red background for a contrasting accent finger. It was also done with a dotting tool. 

The polishes I used in this manicure: OPI Monsooner Or Later, Sinful Colors Snow Me White, OPI Nail Envy basecoat, and Seche Vite topcoat.

My birthday is coming up this weekend and I am super stuck for ideas! What should I paint on my nails?!?!

31 Day Nail Art Challenge: Inspired by a Tutorial

The reason I started this blog is because of one woman: Robin Moses! She is the most incredible nail artist I have seen. Her designs are innovative, fun, and she is brilliant at sharing those designs with the rest of us. Robin's videos are really great to get ideas from, and to learn new techniques. I rarely copy one of her designs directly, instead use techniques or a part of a design to springboard and try a hybrid or something new. The one thing Robin asks is that she is credited if you copy one of her designs. I feel like almost everything I do is connected to Robin, so I guess all of my posts are Inspired by Robin Moses! She is a doll, so please go check out her work. I guarantee you will learn something new. This manicure is Inspired by Robin Moses' Pink and White Zombie French Manicure. (I love how Robin loses it at 5:15 in the video. So hilarious!) I changed it up a bit, and swapped out the sinister zombie face for an equally sinister Hello Kitty zombie face.

Bwahaahahhahaha! Oh this kills me, it is sooo funny! Hello Kitty had her little skull ripped off by zombies, and now she needs to feast on kitty brains. And maybe a Keroppi or two. 

I started with this very pretty base color, which is sort of a mauve-ish brown. Great for BRAINS!

Then I added in a dirty pink color for the twists and turns of the brain. Random shapes are best, with each nail a little different. 

As Robin does in her video, I added a lighter pink to make the brain lobes more 3D, and topped with little bits of white paint to make it look juicy. You see why I love Robin?! She's so macabre! 

Next came a black jagged line, and I topped that with white paint to get the bone fragments up close to the brains. Once that line was in place, I painted white nail polish down the rest of the nail to make the french manicure. Robin's video illustrates this so well. 

Here is why my design veers from Robin's. I decided to go with a Hello Kitty zombie. I added her eyes, nose, and bow. 

Finally, I topped the white in her nose with yellow paint (this helps the yellow color really pop), whiskers, blood in a few areas, and the red of her bow, as well as a little bit of glitter on her bow to make it blingy. Cause even Zombie Hello Kitty needs bling. 

Polished used in this manicure: Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Expresso, Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Whirlwind White (this color is SOOO gloppy, does anyone have a better white that they like to use? I even tried thinning this with NO luck. Blech!) and China Glaze Ruby Pumps. I also used Cult Nails Get It One basecoat and Seche Vite topcoat. 

Tomorrow is Halloween and the final day of this challenge. The original list says that on Day 31 I am supposed to recreate my favorite challenge. Um, I think I would rather just do another rad Halloween manicure. So that is what I am going to do. I haven't decided what to do yet, and will probably get on it tomorrow morning. Any suggestions?

Thanks to all of my followers and those who are commenting. I love your encouragement and enthusiasm. This has really been a FUN challenge!