Oh YEAH, It's My Birthday Nails

As my young niece Molly yelled at her 3rd birthday party, "HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MEEEEE!" Today I am wearing nails to celebrate my 41st birthday. I thought about something with balloons, or cupcakes, or stars, but they didn't seem right. So instead, I grabbed my Konad Coraline stamping plates and did THIS:

I love the pose of this image. It's got ATTITUDE. and if you are painting nail art on your nails with goofy characters, you gotta have attitude. I painted my nails with Love and Beauty Glow In The Dark polish in Neon Pink (the color is rather chameleon like... soft pink in indoor light, neon pink outdoors), then used the decal technique to create the image on my ring finger.

First I stamped this image from Konad Coraline plate CO4 using Wet N Wild Ebony Hates Chris. Then I let the image dry on the stamper for 5 minutes, before coloring it in with thinned down acrylic paints. After that paint had set, I coated the image with Sally Hansen No Chip Acrylic Top Coat and let it dry for about 30 minutes. I then gently peeled it from the stamper and applied it to my nail, pressing it down to conform to my nail. Then I top coated with Seche Vite. Coraline looks like she is saying, "Oh snap, girlfriend."

And yes, these nails DO glow in the dark, however my camera sucks at taking pictures of glow in the dark stuff, so this was the best I could get. :)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MEEEEE!

Reinventing the Half Moon Manicure

Ok, so I am not really reinventing the Half Moon mani, but I did try something I have never done before and I did it using only nail polish, no acrylic paints, which is usually what I would reach for with something like this.

I present the Apple Half Moon Manicure! Yes, it is very simple but I like the way it turned out. I used Essie Adore-A-Ball as my base color, then added a tiny half moon of Sinful Colors Innocent, a beautiful apple green colored polish. I modeled this after the Sebastopol Gravenstein Apple, which has lovely red, green, yellow, and white stripes along its skin. Using my nail art brush and tiny amounts of various other nail polishes, I added the stripes. I think I used Sinful Colors Snow Me White, OPI Big Hair Big Nails, and Orly Fresh for the stripes. 

Next I mixed a tiny bit of Wet N Wild Ebony Hates Chris with the Sinful Color Innocent green shade. Again using my tiny nail art brush, I carefully applied it to the top of the apple to give the impression of shading where the stem sits. Then I mixed Wet N Wild Ebony Hates Chris together with OPI San Tan-tonio to make the stem. I added highlights to the top of the apple using Sinful Colors Snow Me White mixed with Innocent, and also a tiny bit of pure Snow Me White. I topped it with Seche Vite quick drying top coat. 

I think this is a fun, unexpected way to wear a half moon manicure. I was inspired to try this reinvention manicure by The Lacquer Legion. Each month there will be a new theme for a nail challenge. This one was really fun! Be sure to check out The Lacquer Legion on facebook.

Have a great day!

Grimace Nails

This is a manicure I did for a challenge in a stamping group. It uses 3 (well, actually 4) different shades of purple polish. And since I love hand painting art, I added a fun little character. Who is more purple than Grimace? Well, maybe a certain dinosaur, but we don't need to bring him up, do we?!

Here are my Grimace Nails! What the heck is Grimace anyway?! Scary giant triangle who likes milkshakes. Thanks for the heebie jeebies, McDonalds!

First I painted my nails with OPI Rumples Wiggin'. Then I used a gradient technique (see the Nailasaurus for a great tutorial on this technique) to add two more shades of purple (Essie DJ Play That Song, and Lime Crime Lavendairy). My base color was not quite dry, so I kind of messed up my index finger. Oops.

Then I used Nailz Craze plate NC02 to add the fun swirlies. I stamped with OPI Funky Dunkey. So if you are counting along at home, that is the 4th purple. And I used acrylic paints to hand paint the Grimace on my ring finger. 

I hope to do a lot more stamping as I have an event coming up soon that I can't wait to share with you! I've got to get my skills back up! 

And this is my 140th post, so that means another donation to Women's Recovery Services. Every twenty posts, I like to make a donation to help my community. Women's Recovery Services helps women get back on their feet after dealing with addiction. I encourage you to find ways to give back with your blog!

See you again soon!

Hunger Games: The Nails On FIRE

Today's nail art is actually inspired by the swatch that my buddy Sarah of Chalkboard Nails did for my new polish "Pumpkin Hurl". She did a coat of it over black and then used a matte topcoat. It looked so much like glowing embers, that I had to work it into a mani! So I present: Hunger Games, The Nails On FIRE! (I totally just said that in my head as if I were Stanley Tucci playing Caesar Flickerman!)

I started with a base of Wet n Wild Ebony Hates Chris (my favorite one coat black) and then added the Mockingjay artwork using gold, brown, white, and black acrylic paints over that. I mixed the other colors into the gold to add highlights and shadows.

It looked pretty cool this way, but I wanted to extend the artwork onto the other nails, and that is where this polish comes into play. I originally developed this color to illustrate the summer fire danger we have in Sonoma County, and I called it Red Flag Warning. But then tragedy struck Yosemite with massive wild fires, so I changed the name to Pumpkin Hurl. The new name is inspired by all of the pumpkin themed contests and fun we have in Sonoma County during the fall. Things like growing giant pumpkins, carving them, eating them, and yes, hurling them through the air with a giant trebuchet.

So here is the mani with one coat of Pumpkin Hurl. You can get a bottle of it in my etsy store this fall! Click here to check it out (and to see the swatch Sarah did that inspired this mani!)

Then I had to top it all with Hard Candy Matte-Ly In Love matte top coat. I am so happy with how these look! I'm totally gonna do this look again for the Catching Fire premier. Happy Hunger Games! 

OH PS (Am I the only one who was totally disappointed that they didn't give Jennifer Lawrence cool fire themed nail art in the first movie? I mean C'MON! That was gonna be EPIC!)

Tribute to Erin

Today I am posting the first nail art I have done in a while. Two months ago today, my dear sister-in-law Erin passed away suddenly. She leaves behind her new son, born just four days before she died, her 2 year old daughter, and my brother. Things have been really rough and we are all having a hard time adjusting to this loss. Last night I decided to make this simple design to honor her memory.

I painted my nails with Sinful Colors Gogo Girl. The bottle I used belonged to Erin. She was not big into painting her nails, and when I was with my brother right after she died, he gave me her one bottle of nail polish. (I would give all of my polish to have her back...) It was a really nice gesture and I wanted to do something with it to remember her. 

I painted a Gerbera Daisy on my ring finger. This was Erin's favorite flower. I actually did two versions of this flower. The first one was like 7 layers of paint and getting crazy big, so I took it off. Then I looked up techniques for painting a Gerbera Daisy and I was able to do this version. I do like how it turned out. And I learned that it is actually Gerbera not Gerber! (Gerber is the last name of the botanist who found this daisy, but the Latin scientific name is Gerbera.)

Here is a closeup of the artwork. Instead of 7 messy layers, there are about 3 layers of petals painted with acrylic paints. I topped it with my favorite: Seche Vite. 

This is my brother, Erin, and her little girl from a trip I took to visit them in 2011. There aren't many pictures of Erin with her son. But we do have a few and they are precious. I miss you so much Erin!

Prince Nails

So I am going to see Prince in a club in San Francisco tonight. AAAAAAAG! I am so excited, I am almost crying. Had to do Prince nails, natch.

I actually like my right hand better than my left! It's the Prince symbol (done with acrylic paints) over OPI Dutch Ya Just Love OPI and Candeo Colors Anochi Kai.

Here is what I painted with my right hand on my left hand. It is more detailed, but I still like the other hand better. That rarely happens. Alright, time to get my funk on! LATER!!!

One Fish Two Fish

... Red Fish, Blue Fish! Dr. Seuss would have turned 109 years old this coming Sunday, March 2nd. He was a brilliant artist and children's author. His impact is evident around the world. Many of us learned to read with the help of Dr. Seuss. He is so inspiring to me personally as an artist, I really can't put it into words. Here are my nails celebrating one of my heroes:

One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish

I started with a base of Lime Crime Once In A Blue Mousse, then applied acrylic craft paint in red, white, blue and black. 

After I added the rad body and white eyeball, I completed the details using black paint. This was not easy!! The lines are so tiny, but I am really happy with how the red fish turned out.

Next I added the blue fish. This little guy is very Seuss-ian, in that he doesn't look like any real fish, but has sort of a fishy quality. 

Finally I added some little white bubble on my pinkie fingernail and topped everything with Seche Vite. Side note: one of my German professors in college was named Dr. Suess. Ha ha!!