MoYou London Stamping

I am having SO MUCH FUN with my MoYou London stamping plates. The quality of these plates is far superior to any other stamping plates I have used. The etching is perfect, and the images are unique and well thought out for use on the nail. The landscape style of plates are beautiful and seem like little pieces of art on their own. I have been posting a few manicures on my Instagram account for the MoYou 10K challenge. Here are my manis so far:

MoYou 10K Challenge Day 1: Art 

MoYou 10K Challenge Day 2: Nature

MoYou 10K Challenge Day 4: Fantasy

MoYou 10K Challenge Day 5: Shadows

MoYou 10K Challenge Day 7: Red

MoYou 10K Challenge Day 8: Food

MoYou 10K Challenge Day 12: OOTD (I chose to go nudie for this challenge, ha ha!)

MoYou 10K Challenge Day 14: TV Show

As you can see, I am having a blast with this challenge. Please follow my Instagram account for more challenges this month. Also, I am sure you noticed a new color in my Kermit manicure! Yup, my new collection is out and available in my etsy shop. Click here to view the collection and pick up a few bottles. They are Muppet inspired colors, yaaaaaay! *Kermit arm flail*

Chalkboard Nails by Sonoma Nail Art

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. 

Turtle Submarine

I admit that historical military weapons are not normally the "go to" topic for nail art, but I was fascinated by this bit of American history, so I wanted to share it with you!

My hubby and I recently watched an episode of Weaponology from the Discovery Channel about submarines. And apparently the first military submarine was built to attach British Naval ships off the New York Harbor during the American Revolutionary War. The 'Turtle' was designed to be operated by one man who would use pedal power to propel the craft, and hand pump water in and out of a tank on the bottom of the craft to lower and raise the submarine. They intended to go underneath a British ship, bore a hole in the hull and place explosives there. Unfortunately, the hull was reinforced with copper plates and they couldn't drill through it. The submarine was designed by David Bushnell with help from Benjamin Franklin. Isn't this crazy fascinating?! So I present... The Turtle!

It's so cute, and also terrifying to think of actually being in it. LOL I added a bit of my Sonoma Nail Art polish, "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea" to give it some bling and to indicate the dangerous current and cold waters off of New York Harbor. 

I started with a base of Cult Nails Manipulative for the base color. This is two coats. It is a really pretty polish, but tends to give me lobster hands in photographs. 

And here is the artwork of Turtle before top coat. I used acrylic paints to make the artwork of the little submarine. If you want to see what the sub looked like and read more about it, click this link. 

And if you would love to own your own bottle of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, you can purchase it now from my etsy shop. Click here to see the polishes currently available!

Gradient Graveyard

I've been a little bit behind on the Halloween Challenge posts. Sorry about that! I have been covering for coworkers and just did a major broadcast from Napa that required three trips to the site to get it done. I would prefer not to drive to Napa again any time soon, LOL.

Today I am combining two of the challenge topics together: gradient (today's challenge) and graveyard. They really work well together!

Creeeeeepy! It is supposed to look like the mist on a an overcast day in a sinister graveyard. And who is that specter amongst the tombstones?!?! Run! Save yourselves!!!!

I started with Essie Blanc for my base, then did a gradient using Essie Blanc, Zoya Dove, and a franken of Wet n Wild black and white. I searched through my stash to see if I had a dark grey that might work, but realized I only had light greys. And like 5 bottles of basically the same grey color. Don't tell my husband, ha ha.

Then I used white and black acrylic paints to make the graveyard and spooky ghosty guy. Making the items in the background lighter makes them appear to be further away. Be sure to check out the other people who did a Halloween Challenge today too! 

My next etsy sale is coming up this evening in about 2 hours, so if you were looking for my Halloween collection of polishes, this will be your last chance! Here is the link to my store. The sale will be at 6:30pm Pacific Time (9:30pm Eastern) today, October 22nd.

Eeeeek! A Water Marble

Today's Halloween Challenge is water marble. yay. i just looooove water marbles. not.

But I did them anyway, and my first nail tricked me into thinking that it just might not be so bad this time, but no, it turned out bad. Sighhhh. So I only did three nails, and I turned them into monsters and put a little scream on my pinkie to show my frustration with water marble nails. Oh and to be afraid of the monsters.

Yeah, not so great. I like the index finger, but of course, as soon as I finished it, and went to do the middle finger, I totally bumped it and took a little gouge out of it. Arrrrg!

I started with a base of China Glaze Electric Pineapple. Great color! And this was light enough to act as a good base for the other colors. At least I got THAT right.

Then THIS happened.

Without the monsters and the scream. But it needed the scream, trust me. LOL The other polishes I used in this manicure are OPI Funky Dunkey and Tangerine Scene, Wet n Wild Black Creme, and Sinful Colors Snow Me White. Be sure to check out the other challengers who are WAAAYYYY better at water marble nails than me. :)

Also: my next etsy sale is today. The Halloween collection and Scooters 4 Hooters will be for sale at 1pm Pacific Time, 4pm Eastern. These usually go fast, so good luck!

Halloween Collection Winner and Swatch

Congrats to Ina of mynailpolishonline.com. Ina won a set of my Halloween Collection in celebration of my one year blogiversary. :) And here is a quick swatch of one of the Halloween colors: Halloween In The Vines.

I painted my nails with China Glaze No Plain Jane and then added three coats of Halloween In The Vines to my ring finger with a black french tip. It is a fun way to wear this polish!

Don't forget: my next restock of the Halloween colors is tomorrow, September 20th, 2012 at 4pm Pacific Time (7pm Eastern). There will be full sets of the Halloween Collection available for $38 and there will also be individual bottles of the Halloween colors as well. The sets are one per person only. Here is the link to my etsy store. 

Deadly Zins and Danke Shiny Red

Today's nail art is a quick manicure I did before my recent trip to Seattle to visit family.

I painted my nails with this awesome OPI color called Danke Shiny Red, and then added a bit of nail swirly stuff (a la Robin Moses), and then dabbed my new Halloween color Deadly Zins on the tips. Hotsy totsy!

Here is a shot of my new Halloween polish Deadly Zins. This pic was taken by Sarah Waite of Chalkboard Nails. Deadly Zins is one of four polishes I am releasing for Halloween. The labels for these polishes are super fun, like they are oozing down the side of the bottle, LOL.

Here are the polishes I will be selling on etsy tomorrow! Sale time is 5pm Pacific (that's 8pm Eastern). My polishes are $10 each, U.S. shipping only. I am really excited about these and I hope you are looking forward to them too!

http://www.etsy.com/shop/SonomaBento

Sonoma Nail Art Parasol

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.

Thanks so much!

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!