Day 62 - Neon Paint Splatters

I dont know exactly why but I love these nails! I think this design is really fun and the great part is that it is so easy to do!! I got the inspiration from a cake believe it or not, I was on pinspire and saw the multi tier black fondant cake with neon splatters and around each tier was a different color neon band. When I saw the cake the first thing I thought was that would be really cute on nails.

After painting the nails in my favorite black nail polish I took an old tooth brush and splattered blue, yellow and pink over the nails. The splatter was very fine so I decided to take the striping paints and do random flicks of paint all over the nails. For the french I painted alternating colors on the tips I used Orly instant artist paints in hot yellow, hot pink and hot blue for all of these steps. these paints are acrylic based so the neon color really pops. Before I finished the nails with some top coat, I decided to go over the tip with matching nail polish to give it a more pearlized polish look.

Polish: China Glaze Liquid Leather base, Sexy in the City, Pool Party and Sunshine Pop on the tips

Day 61 - Viva Las Vegas!

In one week I will be on vacation in one of my favorite cities Las Vegas. I cannot wait, even though I usually go two times a year it never comes soon enough!! These are not my Vegas nails but I just had to paint a set since I have Vegas on the brain. I will be posting my actual vacation nails in a couple weeks after all the valentines designs have been posted. I have been super busy painting and preposting nail art so I am on schedule while I am away, I must say I am very excited to get a new set of acrylics and not have to worry about painting them for a whole week.

Even though I am horrible at gambling and refuse to play more than $20 on some slots, these nails kinda took on the casino games theme. But either way I think they are super fun! Most of it is painted using acrylic craft paint and a variety of brushes. To finish off the martini I used a rhinestone as an olive, after that I decided it needed a little more bling so I used some star shaped stones sporadically over the nail just to fill up the voids.

Top no flash bottom with flash

Polish: China Glaze Gaga For Green

Day 60 - Stars and Stripes

Sorry if you check my blog in the am, this is a late post. All the girls from the salon went out last night for dinner, one thing led to another and I wasn't home until after 1:30, so this morning I slept in...

When you hear stars and stripes you probably think of the American flag but this design is definitely not US themed. For this design I went a little 80's pop.  I painted the nails in a creamy grey polish a color that I love!! But because this polish is so dull I wanted to add some bright nail art. Using my turquoise, hot pink and yellow paints I painted horizontal stripes across the nail. I painted the blue line the thickest and went smaller and smaller with the pink and yellow. After that was dry I painted the stars and little dots in alternating corners.

Considering my hand was a little shaky this morning I think they turned out pretty good!

Polish: China Glaze Recycle

Day 59 - Tiger Print

I went with something super simple for today's post, I've had a super busy couple days and I really needed to have an early night last night. Not much to explain here, I painted the entire nail orange and painted the diagonal black French tips. I then used a black striping paint to paint the tiger stripes. I wanted to go in with a complementary color so I painted a blue glittery stripe under each tip. Even though they are a little boring I think they are pretty cute! I am really happy I did go with the blue because blue and orange look great together

Day 58 - Rooster Feather Nails

For these nails I wanted to use my striping paints and paint random ribbons of color in bright tropical shades. First I drew out the shapes in black all over the nails, I then colored them in using an assortment of my instant artist paints. I decided to do some strping over a few of the ribbons to add a little more detail but after painting a couple nails I realized they looked a lot like rooster feathers so I went with this theme and finished the nails.

I really like the look of rooster feathers but I definitely think they should stay on the rooster!! I wore some faux ones in my hair for quite awhile in hopes I would encourage people to go with cruelty free, as an animal rights activist I am strongly againt the real thing and what those poor roosters go through!! And if you can't find synthetic feathers just wear them on your nails ;)

The top  picture is with flash, above is without and the picture below is a picture of rooster feathers

Polish: Just China Glaze Strong Adhesion Base Coat the rest is Orly Instant Artist Paints (acrylic striping paints)

Day 57 - Super Mario Bros 3

 It was a huge challenged painting this design on myself, I tried to make it look as detailed as possible but I am sure you already know the 2D video games back then had very poor detail. Instead of sharp, crisp lines I had to make it appear pixelated and out of focus. But it was definitely worth the challenge, this is one of my favorite video games of all time, I cant even imagine how many hours I spent playing this game. It would usually take 10 minutes of shaking and blowing into the game cartridge but once it was up a running it was an awesome game. For all the gamers out there, I know this is not an accurate screen shot but I wanted to fit everything in so I just made it up

.I am really happy with how these nails turned out!! I think I will have to paint another Mario design in the future just with the newer more detailed characters

China Glaze: Electric Beat

Day 56 - Wonder Woman

These nails were so much fun to do!! Ever since I was a small child I loved wonder woman. I remember having these wonder woman pyjamas and my mom had made me the matching tiara, I would wear them all time thinking how awesome they were. But who doesn't love Wonder Woman, she is pretty kick ass!

I got the inspiration for these nails this morning when I was applying my Wonder Woman MAC bronzer. If you did not see this line it came out last year, all the products were over sized and decked out in WW colors. I bought a few items just because they were so cool. For the nails I just went off google images, it was a bit tricky because there are so many versions of Wonder Woman but I am really happy with these nails, this is another design I will be sad to take off.

Polish: China Glaze First Mate, Red Pearl, Blue Iguana, Salsa & Bahamian Escape

Day 55 - Charcoal Leopard Print

After a few days of theme nails I wanted to do a design just for me, these are definitely nails you would see me wearing out on the weekend. I loooove glitter (who doesn't?) and I really enjoy an animal print nail.

I knew wanted to do a monochromatic color scheme with a leopard print. I had bought this fabulous charcoal glitter before christmas but I have been stuck on what design I could do on it. It is on the darker side so I was not sure if the leopard print would even show up but I thought I would give it a shot. I think the colors worked perfectly together, it is subtle enough that from a distance it appears to be a solid color but up close under some light you see the detail. However I did want to add a little pop of color so I went in with a purple glitter striping paint and devided the black polish from the leopard print.

Polish: China Glaze Tinsel Town and Liquid Leather

Day 54 - Chinese New Year

Happy New Year!! to all my Chinese friends, clients and blog followers. I wish you all happiness and good fortune in 2012!

I am not going to lie when I found out it was the year of the dragon it made me very nervous, I had no idea how I was going to pull this one off. But I always love a challenge so I took to Google images and searched forever for some usable dragon pictures. After saving three to my iPhone for inspiration I knew I wanted to paint a red and yellow dragon wrapping around the nails but I wanted to paint in some of the red oval lanterns as well. In order to fit everything I alternated where I painted the dragons body from top to bottom. this entire design was painted Orly instant artist striping paints which are my favorite!!

After all that,  In the end I worried for nothing. I could not be happier with how these turned out and my client is beyond delighted with her nails.

Polish; China Glaze Thunderbird

Day 53 - Red Plaid French

Today is the Eve of Chinese New Year. I've already done a bunch of red and gold designs for the holiday but this is my favorite french so far. Sticking with the color scheme of the holiday I wanted to use red and gold. At first I was thinking of using white but I am glad I went with black in the end, I'm thinking the white would have made the nails look too christmassy (that is a word, I looked it up, lol)

This manicure was done on a client so I used gel polish rather than regular nail polish so the design would last 3 weeks, after the tip color was cured I wiped it with nail cleanser and painted in the design using striping paints. I have had no issues using nail art paints under Gelish top coat.
This design is on the simple side but I really like it and by changing the colors you really could wear this any time of the year. For Chinese New Year I wanted to have nails on both end of the spectrum this design is clean and classic, stay tuned for tomorrow when I will be posting one of my more challenging designs...

Day 52 - Aquarius

We are now in Aquarius, It is considered an air sign so I wanted to paint the nails in grey and blue shades. Not too sure what color air should be but I liked the color combo and thought it worked so I went with it. I want all the zodiac nails to match so I stuck with the black and white outline around the lettering and symbol. I must say I am sooo happy that the next nine signs have six or less letters, it was quite tricky squishing the word Aquarius over three fingers. As frustrating as it was I like the color contrast of the dull creamy gray base and the pop of bright silver.  This sign is the symbol of the water Carrier, in ancient Greek mythology Aquarius poured water from the heavens for days on end, which is quite suiting for our current situation, for those of you not in the Vancouver area the rain is just dumping down with no end in sight, but anyhow back to the nails... to represent the water carrier I painted a jug pouring large amounts of water over the thumb. I am really happy with this whole design, If I was an Aquarius I would definitely rock these.

Polish: China Glaze Recycle

Day 51 - Silver Filigree

I used this polish on a client today, she she also got silver nail art (forgot to get a picture) I just loved the color combo together I had to do it again. I wanted to do filigree type swirls on my nails, I think they turned out pretty good. This one is very simple but I like the contrast of the two colors together. I've posted two pictures the top is no no flash bottom is with flash.

Polish: China Glaze Stella

Day 50 - 80's inspired

I had a fun day at the salon today, a bunch of my cowokers  wanted some nail art so I was quite excited to play on nails other than my own.  This design is 80's inspired. Even though I was born in 1984 and I was only a small child in the 80's, I love this decade!!! Everything about it! The bright colors, the crazy fashion and most of all the music.

For this design I wanted to try color blocking, I love randomness so I painted every nail different. The nails were already painted in a dark blue gel polish so I use my orly instant artist paints. These specific striping paints are acrylic based which make them completely opaque, so the colors still pop on the dark background. I painted in the blue, purple and pink and then defined the colors by drawing in the black dividing lines. To finish it off I painted in gold chains on the ring finger and thumb.



Polish: Nail Harmony Gelish Deep Sea, Orly Instant artist  hot pink, hot blue and grape

Day 49 - Purple Abstract

I love going abstract designs, I like the idea of just painting a nail with no plans and then just going to town with your striping paints. I find at first the design does not look so great but you add more and more and then it seems it just takes one last line or set of dots and voilà  its complete! Originally this was going to be black and silver but I decided to add in some white detail as well. The striping paints I used were Orly instant artist and the silver is a new paint I am using, the brand is silkline which I quite like for a striping polish.

Polish: China Glaze Señorita Bonita

Day 48 - Hello Kitty

I was in a super girly mood so I wanted bright pink nails. The color in the photo is another from China Glaze's Electropop collection for spring, if you have been reading my blog you already know I am a big fan of all these colors.

 I love Hello Kitty and thought this would be a cute idea for nails. I will be honest I did have a little oops on this one. I painted the bows in the wrong corner, luckily I had not painted the Hello Kitty yet so to fix the problem I just flipped the design over so that the bows on the bottom corner instead of top. Typically you would not see a purple bow but I just love these colors together.

First picture is with flash, second is without. Please excuse the dry cuticles, I forgot to oil before taking the picture

Polish: China Glaze Dance Baby

Day 47 - Louis Vuitton

Hope everyone had a great weekend! Mine was pretty relaxed, but I did get a bunch of nail designs done which will give me a few days off :)

This design does not need much explaining, Its a pretty known print. I wanted to use this brown polish which I have never worn and the design went from there. When I thought brown, the first thing to pop into my head was Louis Vuitton. I painted in the pattern and the big LV with a fine detail brush and gold craft paint. For anyone out there wanting to re-create this I reccomend you use Folk Art acrylic paint (I got it at Michaels) that specific brand has the best metallics it is the only one I have used that paints on completely opaque. The color I used was 660 metallic pure gold.

Polish: China Glaze Unplugged

Day 46 - Snow Day

We have finally had our first snowfall so I wanted to do one last set of snowflake nails. Sundays and Mondays are my days off and we are expecting more snow to come so I am pretty excited to have a snow day, lounging around the house and getting a lot of blogging done. I use to love snow days as a kid, waking up and seeing the neighborhood covered in snow and waiting to hear if school would be cancel, it was the best. Unfortunately in adult life we dont get to cancel a day of work, but either way I'm off and I am going to enjoy it. When we get a light dusting of snow it really makes me appreciate this beautiful city I live in, all the surrounding mountains really pop out and look absolutely gorgeous. With that said I hope this weather is very short lived preferably gone by tuesday, weare not very good with handling large amounts of snow, more than a few inches the roads turn into a major nightmare! I'm equally at fault with the rest of the bad drivers out there, I go into pure panic mode.

Well now onto the nails because thats what I am suppost to be talking about... lol! I have had this color for a month now (It's from the Eye Candy 3D Glitter collection) and I absolutely love it. The glitter is fantastic but I have struggled to use it with nail art,  I find it looks too busy and the glitter gets lost. So I decided to paint one large snowflake on each nail, I used a black instant artist paint and then went over with a blue glitter paint so it worked with the nail polish. To finish it off I put a large blue crystal in the center of each snowflake. Pretty simple!

Polish: China Glaze Lorileis Tiara

Day 45 - Icy Crackle French

With a weather forcast full of snow the cold is definitely getting to me. but I am not going to lie I love it when it snows I just hate being cold. For todays nails I wanted to go with a icy blue tones, over the last week I have had lots of fun with the bright colors but the reality is we still have a lot of winter to go.

This design looks pretty simple but there is a few steps involved. First I started off by painting a black diagonal frech, once that was dry I painted a siver crackle over the bottom half of the french. I then faded a blue crackle from the silver to the top of the french. I wanted the nails to look like bits of ice were breaking off the tip so when the crackle was dry I applied a tip layer of top coat and added some foil pieces along the french line. Once complete I finished off with a high gloss top coat.

I found these nails a bit tricky to photograph, the first picture is with flash which shows the colors of the polish quite well and the second is without flash which is a little unfocused but shows the foil bits clearly

Polish: China Glaze Liquid Leather with Crackle Glaze in Platinum Pieces and Oxidized Aqua

Day 44 - Beauty and the Beast

Last night I had way to much free time so I wanted to do a Beauty and the Beast design. I am sooo pumped for the 3D release of this movie, it is still one of my favorite movies and I cannot wait to go see it!I am unable to go tonight but plan on going asap!

 I am really happy with how this design turned out, I think it could be my favorite so far. For the characters, I just pulled up some pics on google images and copied them to the best of my appility. I used my new nail art brushes, some acrylic craft paint and the odd instant artist paint. It did take a really long time to paint this, almost two hours for just 5 fingers. but I think it was definitely worth it. I will be sad to remove it tonight when I paint tomorrows post :( I might have to do a simple design using my left hand...

the above photos are without flash below is with flash

Polish: China Glaze Dorothy Who

Day 43 - Giraffe Print

I got this new super soft giraffe print blanket for Christmas which I love, quite often I have it wrapped around me late night when I am typing up my blog for the following morning. So today, that is where my inspiration came from. as you can see, I have posted two different photos today. Originally I wanted the design to be a random giraffe pattern wrapping around the side of each nail (which I think looks kinda cute) but when I finished I was enjoying the design so much I wanted to go all the way and just finish it. I am so happy I did, I love these nails!! I was a little sad, I painted these yesterday between clients so you can imagine how they looked once I was done removing her polish :( I think they were perfect for a whole 10 min. But the good news is my client love the design and it lives on, on her nails.

This one is quite easy it is a little tedious painting all the shapes but definitely worth the try. I just pulled up a picture of giraffe print on my iPhone and copied the basic shapes trying to do a variety of sizes.

as for the polish I will have to add that in later, I forgot to write down the colors

Day 42 - Dots

This one is super simple, I saw a similar design on pinterest (my new obsession) It was a white nail with random pastel dots. For my design I wanted to go bright with a variety of fun colored dots focused just on the tips of the nail. Not sure what it is supposed to look like bubble gum? sprinkles? the dippin dots you get at the movies? but it actually kinda reminds me of the kwik-e-mart donut from the Simpson's if only the dots were elongated to look like the donut sprinkles.

There is no reason to go on and on explaining the design, I used a dotting tool and a variety of paints. This polish is my favorite toe color, but I find it impossible to get the color right in a photo. Any polish bloggers out there have tips on taking pictures of neons? I find no flash dulls the color and flash makes it way to bright...well if you have not seen this color in person take my word for it, the color is amazing!!!

Polish: China Glaze Purple Panic (Neon) not to be confused with the original Purple Panic which is not very nice

Day 41 - Blue Abstract

This one is pretty basic. I wore this design out yesterday so I had to go with something I could paint with my left hand too. I find I always lean towards blue polishes not sure why but I think every other color makes my skin look funny, especially this time of year when I am super pale. So I painted my nails in this lovely shade and waited for it to dry. I then took scotch tape and taped off a horizontal french for the color blocking. Usually I would free hand this but I thought the tape would give it a cleaner line, unfortunately the odd spot did not stick properly so the line is not as crisp as intended. After the second color was applied I painted in the stripes and dots with my black and white paints.

Polish: China Glaze Bahamian Escape and Sexy In The City

Day 40 - Minnie Mouse French

I have been talking about this design idea for a while now and when my girlfriend came in to the salon and wanted to try it, I was quite excited. I painted eight of the nails french with a red gel polish and the ring finger a black french in the shape of mouse ears. After the gelish had cured I lined the red french tips with black paint and added the minnie mouse dots, for the ears I painted in the bow. My friend had the idea to add the glove and the daisy which I think made the design super cute! Over all I think it turned out pretty good, but if I where to do this again I would paint the ears on the thumb instead of the ring finger just because the shape of Minnie's bow, it covers most of the ears. I would even try a 3D bow just to add a little more definition to the design.

Polish: Nail Harmony Stand Out Gelish

Day 39 - Swirls and Dots

This design is completely random. I really liked the polish (it's another one from Electropop, big surprise!) Originally I had wanted to do this design in light monotone colors. When I finished painting the blue and white swirls I felt as though it needed a little more depth, so I decided to add in some black as well. After that I painted dots along random swirls. I think this design is kinda cute, but what I like most is the more I look at it, it kinda looks like a paisley bandana and that gives me inspiration for a future design. Also kinda looks like an octopus attack, but thats kinda weird, lol!

Polish: China Glaze Kinetic Candy

Day 38 - One Stroke Flowers

I'm still fairly new at one stroke painting, I have watched who knows how many YouTube tutorials on this nail art Tr. I am fascinated by the different one stroke design people come up with, So far I can just paint flowers but I hope to master this technique very soon! For the based, I painted the nails and with a similar color of loose glitter I pressed it into the polish to create a sparkly fade. With one stroke painting you load your brush with two colors (one on each side of the brush) and apply the colors all at once in one stroke, depending on the angles you hold the brush you get different shading effects. For the petals I used two similar tones so it is a little difficult to see the fade. The paints I used are just regular acrylic craft paints in a light turquoise and a periwinkle purple color. After I finished painting the petals I outlined the flowers with a black striping paint and added in some white highlight along the edge. Then with my dotting tool I added in some final details. I usually would not where a design like this in the winter but I think the dark base tone makes it OK. I am quite happy with this design and I am definitely looking forward to playing around with this technique in the near future

Polish: China Glaze Stella

Day 37 - Hot Pink Lotus

For those of you who have had nail art from me, there is a good chance you have had some sort of lotus flower painted on your nail at one time or another. I love this design it is simple but fun! Usually I go with a black outline but today I wanted go with a darker base color and bright design, so I decided to use a white striping paint  (also if you did not read yesterday's post my black is being difficult) After the outline of the flowers was done I knew I wanted to go super bright, so out came my hot pink instant artist paint. You cant really tell in the photo but this purple has a very fine blue and neon pink sparkle in it, so this combo really worked. To finish it off I went in with my dotting tool and added some final touches. This design is old news to alot of you, but still one of my favs!

Polish: China Glaze Flying Dragon

Day 36- Peacock Feathers

This is my first attempt at peacock feathers, I'm still undecided about this one. I'm not overly excited about how the feathers turned out, but I do really enjoy the color combo that is going on. There is a very good chance I will attempt to do this again in the future.

The polish is another one from my new Electropop collection, I usually hate green polish, but this one is quite cute! I think  I will be using this color alot this spring. For the design, I started off with the dark blue shape in the middle and worked my way out.  After I painted the yellow layer, I went in with my black instant artist striping paint (which was a little mangled) and painted in the feater definition. I like my striping paints to have a nice sharp point, but today the brush had a little bend to it for some reason unkown. So I kept the black definition to a minimum. Again definitely not my favorite design, but I hope someone out there likes it!

Polish: China Glaze Gaga For Green

Liebster Blog Award

I had a nice surprise this morning, Tip-Top-Nails  has awarded my blog with the Liebster Blog award.  What an honor!! Thank You Tip-Top-Nails!!!

Please check out her blog http://tip-top-nails.blogspot.com/ 

This Award is given to bloggers who have less than 200 followers, all in the spirit of fostering new connections.

Leibster is German & means ‘dearest’ or ‘beloved’ but it can also mean ‘favorite’ & the idea of the Leibster award is to bring attention to blogs with less than 200 followers and I decided that I should definitely write a post about it & pass the award on to 5 or more bloggers.

The Rules are:

1. Show your thanks to the blogger who gave you the award by linking back to them.
2. Reveal your top 5 picks for the award and let them know by leaving a comment on their blog.
3. Post the award on your blog.
4. Bask in the love from the most supportive people on the blogsphere – other bloggers.
5. And, best of all – have fun and spread the karma.I am awarding following blogs:

Here are my 5 pages I want to nominate, Please check out these blogs and follow

1. Top Coat It topcoatit.wordpress.com/
2. Smashley Sparkles smashleysparkles.blogspot.com/
3. Dressed up digits dressedupdigits.blogspot.com/
4. Little Nails little-nails.blogspot.com/
5. My Nail Art Blog http://mynailartblog.com/

Day 35 - Capricorn

I am fascinated by astrology and the different zodiac signs, so when I started my blog project I knew I wanted to paint one each month. With that being said, I would like to apologize to the Sagittarius followers out there I was over consumed by Christmas nails and forgot about you guys, I promise I will make it up to you at some point! This month is Capricorn, I seem to have tones of them in my life. during the next couple weeks there is a birthday every few days.

The polish is another from the Electropop Collection, Even though these are spring colors, I'm hooked and I'm using them now! Capricorn is an earth sign so I wanted to stick with earthy tones,so  I painted the nails in a nice dusty blue, while it was still wet a pressed light blue/green aurora sparkles onto the tip. The constellation is a goat with a fish tail or a sea-goat, which I painted on the thumb. On the pinkie I painted the zodiac sign, I hope this is correct, I find it very difficult to choose which symbol to go with as each site has there own variation. Either way I like how it turned out, the symbol and the writing really pop with the white outline. I love these nails and cant wait to do the other signs, I think I will have a lot of fun doing these.

Polish: China Glaze Electric Beat

Day 34 - Wild French

I woke up this morning feeling super sick, I have had this horrible cold since Christmas that I just cant kick. So I decided I needed a little pick me up and pretty nails always make me feel better. This design is a combo of some of my favorite things. I bought 6 of the new colors from China Glaze's Spring collection and they are the most adorable bright colors, my favorite color to wear is turqoise and this collection has some great blue tones. I am a huge fan of animal print nails so painted a leopard print in black and gold. I like to have a least one finger different, so I did not paint a french on the ring finger, instead I added a 3D bow with a swarovski crystal, I love japanese style nail art and have not had any 3D art on my nails in forever, so I could not resist. My Sinuses are still horrible but at least now, I have something pretty to look at while I'm stuck in bed.

Polis: China Glaze Aquadelic

Day 33 - Haute Metal Chevron

The Crackle nail polish has not been a huge hit with my clients and of coarse the polish addict I am rushed out and had to buy them in every color, leaving me with a rather large collection of unused polish. So today I decided I would play around with them, and this is what I came up with. I painted the nail a solid black and used the crackle on the tip painted in the chevron style of french, I then went in with a black and silver striping paint to give it a little more definition.  I mirrored the same design  on the lunula part of the nail and finished off by adding a crystal. Personally I am not overly fond of the all over crackle look but I do like it as an accent, especially in the metallics. I quite like this and would probably wear it again

China Glaze: Liquid Leather and Haute Metal Crackle Polish

Day 32 - Out with the old, In with the new

Happy New Year Everyone! For today's nail art I wanted to do Father Time passing the hourglass to Baby New Year. I chose this design because personally, I like to wake up every January 1st and feel like you get a fresh new start. I'm all about kicking the year off with big goals and resolutions. I'll admit they are usually forgotten about by feb 1st, but the good intention is always there! lol..

I was super excited to start painting because I just picked up some new nail art brushes from my supplier. I got a three pack of double sided brushes by it's so easy nails and they are awesome! Having new crisp brushes definitely helped for the fine detail on this one. I am super happy with how this turned out, hope you like it!!

Polish: China Glaze Blue Years Eve