Grayscale Geode, Inspired by the Lovely Lady Alayna

     I started my Nail Technician classes this week, and I am very excited to be able to focus on my love. I saw this mani on Pinterest by Lady Alayna, and it was an instant "do me now" project.

     Although I have admired the geode nail art for some time, this was my first time attempting it. I used a fine art brush and various polishes to create the geode design. In hindsight, I will either 1) use acetone to soften the lines or 2) use watered down acrylic paint instead. I added a slight pinch of loose gold microglitter to the golden centers of the geodes.
     The remaining nails are done with a variety of techniques, including stamping, spray water marbling (shout out to Liquid Palisade for making water marbling and stamping infinitely easier to do) and glitter placement, along with a few goldtone accessories and a rhinestone.
     This was tremendously fun yet challenging - there will definitely be more geode nail art in my future. What do you think - have you tried this type of nail art before? What did you think -- any tips? I'd love to hear from you :)

What's Cool?

This is!

I won some free ad space over at My So-Called Chaos: an amazing blog that covers a variety of topics, including nail art, and more! It is definitely worth taking your time to check out -- I feel like her topics are of interest to a variety of personalities.

I played around with creating a few banners, and chose to use this one:

Making banners is a lot of fun (at least for a nerd like me), and as I found out, there are plenty of sites online that you can make free banners. I used Bannersnack and was pretty pleased with the results, although I felt like I didn't have as many options with the Text editing as I would have liked. But since it was free -- I really have no room to complain!

I would love to hear any constructive criticizm, or commentary on making banners, especially since I am pretty new at this.  :)

UPDATE: my ad is scheduled to run July 9th. Be sure to check it out over at My So-Called Chaos!

Flip Flop Weather is Here

It's pretty darn hot already, and it's definitely time to bust out the shorts and sandals. Today's mani is one I did for a friend.

The base is Zoya "Godiva," which is an awesome sandy-looking Pixie Dust. I used Bundle Monster stamp #BM309 and made decals with a variety of polishes. I love the beachy feel of this mani!

Floral Abstract in ....purple of course :P

This design is a re-creation from a CND ad I saw in my March 2015 Nail Magazine. I used Color Club's "Harp on It" for my awesome holo base. For the flower-doodles I used Zoya "Julieanne" along with a few shades from The New Black's purple ombre set. This was a super easy design to do - I used my dotting tools to create the entire thing. This is definitely a design that you could do over and over with a variety of colors.

From the Pinterest Vault

Today's mani is from one of the many that I have stored in my Pinterest Nail Art stash.

 When I choose someone else's mani to recreate, I do a little research (beyond just looking at the pic) on the original artist so that I may give credit where it is due. I was pleasantly pleased with Miriam Elizabeth's work -- you can find her Facebook page here and Instagram  here -- you too can be inspired by her creativity! The original mani which serves as my inspiration can be seen

here. 

I used Essence "Breakthrough" as my base, and added the purple (OPI "Siberian Nights), blue (Zoya "Ling") and White (Funky Fingers "Gesso") by using the watercolor technique . As the final touch, I added some gold nail foil. This time, I decided to use the nail foil glue, like you are supposed to do. Usually I use my quick-dry top coat. Musta had the big girl panties on. Long story short, I do not care for the nail glue.

Bottom line, this is one of those manis that I keep staring at my own fingers. I love it. I will definitely be trying to recreate mroe of Miriam's work in the near future.  :)

Today's 5Below Haul!

If you don’t have a 5Below store near you, I am very sorry. I LOVE this store. I cannot leave without nail polish. Along with a bunch of bow cabochons and nail sequins, I grabbed up 4 bottles. The Fresh Paint is called “Winning” - it’s a nice earthy green color. I can definitely see using that for nail art. Next up (wer’e going left to right, here!) is Funky Fingers “Dia De Muertos.” This cool blue jelly is chock-full of pink and blue glitter, and it even glows in the dark. Yay! FF “Fireworks” is a polish I have been eyeing. I will definitely use that next 4th of July. Fireworks is a clear polish with red, white and blue glitters, in a variety of sizes. Very cute topper. Last is FF “Varsity Blue.” This is another clear topper with black, blue and white glitter in 2 different sizes. I have oh so many mani ideas for these! 

Cosmic Kitties & Welcome!

This is my first post on Blogger. If you are reading this, thanks for taking the time to stop by! I guess I will write an intro about myself eventually, but nail art is more interesting than me, so let's move on :)

Today’s mani is a depiction of something that rarely ever happens - the idea in my head actually looks like what is on my nails. What a nice change! :)

I used Essence “Hello Marshmallow!” as my base, and did a double stamping of the wavy image on plate m69. I really didn’t intend to do a double stamp, but the first blue I used (Kleancolor “Pastel Blue”) wasn’t very dark, so I overlaid it with Salon Perfect “Baby Blues.” The little stars are from stamp m14, with Essie “Blanc.” Lastly, I used cat water decals from Bundle Monster for my Cosmic Kitty look. I finished off with Poshe Topcoat.  

I was pretty impressed with the decals from Bundle Monster - you can see them here. I thought I was only getting one sheet, but I was pleasantly surprised with all three! For under $2, it was definitely a bargain.