Return Of The Nail Art!

I've been pretty busy over the month of January! I've been keeping on track with my New Year's resolutions, filling some custom orders for nails, and helping my husband with his palm trees. In fact, Today I worked on the very plants used in the background photo for this blog and my website!

World Diabetes Day Mani

Good afternoon! Today is World Diabetes Day today and I had no idea until I saw this post posted by Maria at Cult Nails on facebook this morning. I spent quite a bit of time last night cruising pinterest to get some ideas and inspiration for my next manicure but I was still not feeling it. After seeing that post this morning - I knew I HAD to do it!! I have type II diabetes and many of my family and friends have both type I and type II, so it seemed the perfect thing to do today! I loved my last mani so much, it seemed hard to find something else to follow that up with.

Now, let's get to the pictures! I'm going to start with my indoor shots.

Here's a few more outdoors. I made more of an effort to catch the holo effects here. One day I will master catching the effect. 

I think I did ok catching the effect on the macro shot but you be the judge as to which is your favorite. To do this one, I started with Seche Vite clear coat, then I added Orly's Snow Cone. Then I added a thin layer of Hits' Poseidon. Poseidon doesn't have a strong color - it builds up with multiple coats but I didn't want that many coats of polish here. Then I sponged on a gradient of Hits' Apolo. Finally I stamped on a flower and then used Hits' Hefesta to create the center dot of the flower.  Finally I finished this mani with a top coat of Seche vite. 

How has diabetes affected your life and your family??  

Post Wedding Check-in

Well, I have made it through all the insanity and I think I managed to not loose my mind. lol We are now moved into our new place (though not completely) and we had a lovely wedding, and we're enjoying our "family honeymoon" this weekend. I'll be back to posting regularly, but initially, I will no longer be making daily posts. I will, however be posting at least once a week while I try to get our daily lives back to normal and get the lil one set up for the new school year.

Without further ado - I bring you a wedding photo! For the moment, it's the only one I have access to but I promise to post at least one more of the entire dress.

Of course, since this is a nail blog - this entry would not be complete without a photo of my manicure for the day!! I did my nails with Gelish and I took this picture almost a week later so there is some growth going on there. I still love the look!

The flowers are from my daughter's bouquet. She was one of my bridesmaids and I had to get the nails with the flowers becauses I did like my wedding flowers. I wonder how much of that is because I did my own flowers? haha! 

That's all for this week - I'll see you all next Sunday! Have a nailicious week!

Blue Ombre Gradient

Good Morning fellow nail art fans! I'm back to my obsession with blue and this time I'm really diving in to the color! I have blue ombre gradients that go from light blue to an indigo blue! Of course, I included glitter and shimmer galore because I can't help myself.

This is another one I tried the other night but changed it just a little bit because deep down I was unhappy with the original concept. I originally had the colors going from white to blue to dark blue to indigo and I think that was just too many colors and my nails aren't long enough to give a proper graduation to the color.

I genuinely love love love this gradient and I have a few sundresses this would go fabulous with come summer time!! I hope you enjoyed today's post and Thanks for reading!!

Groovy Man

Happy Sunday! I hope you have plans to take a day of rest after a long week! Today I have a super groovy nail art for you. I got the urge to play with some neon "sally girl" colors and decided to make a gradient and stamp over it!  Time for some groovilicious pictures!

I had entirely too much fun doing this one. It's a little silly and a bit retro. It reminds me of more than a few album covers from back in the late 60's and early 70's. Who else remembers those days? Are you a "retro" person? 

I'm feeling Tigerish..How About You?

Happy Monday everyone!! This morning's nail art manicure is one I'm genuinely excited about!!  I was inspired by an comment on my personal facebook page about yesterday's blog post. I am so happy with how this came out that I got a little more creative with my pictures than I usually do!!

I'm holding a hand carved gazelle Tommy's parents got in Africa. I thought it fitting  for the theme.

There I'm holding a carved Lion. I cropped the head out of the picture since it's not actually a Tiger and to maintain some halfway decent proportions to the photo.

This one was relatively simple to do. I have the perfect golden/orange nail polish by Milani, Metallic Mango. Using a make-up sponge, I sponged on Milani's Golden Goddess  at a diagonal. Finally, using another make-up sponge, added white to the corner of each nail.  Using one of my newly purchased stamping plates I stamped on the stripes in black. A nice top coat of Seche Vite and *POOF* I have Tiger Nails!

I hope you enjoyed and if you gave this a try - post the link to it in the comments!! (Links to anything other than Tiger Nails will be deleted so be good!)

Pineapples

Today's Nail Art is relatively simple but I was just inspired by one of my favorite crystal and crochet patterns - the pineapple. One of my recent purchases has been a few new stamping plates and I have really wanted to do the pineapples. I couldn't think of any colors that just "go" with a pineapple - so I decided to just go ahead and put it over my Gelish Sunset Mani. The sunset always reminds people of the beach and I thought a pineapple would give it a tropical flavor.

Taken in full sun

Also taken in full sun

Taken in the shade outdoors

Also taken in the shade outdoors

That's all for today. Starting tomorrow I'll be doing St. Patrick's day themed Nail Art. Putting the luck of the Irish at your  fingertips, literally.

Fairy in the Flowers

Happy Hump Day everyone!  The week is half over. Today's post is going to be really quick because this morning I'm covering for one of the other mom's at my youngest daughter's preschool. Today's mani is not especially difficult or very challenging, however, it's the one I'm currently wearing and loving.

That's my Gelish sunset gradient as a base "color" for some stamping I did. I was looking to do the fairy since I have her on two different plates and it's just cute.The fairy really only fits on my middle finger and I felt that I just needed something else. So I stamped the flowers on the rest of my fingers, deliberately changing the alignment a little bit on each finger just to keep it from being repetitive and give the impression that she's in a field of flowers.

That's going to be it for today! See you all tomorrow!!

Hunger Games!

That's right, I said it. Today I have both a Hunger Games Mani and a Hunger Games Pedi to show you. I decided to show a pedi because I actually do some Nail Art on a Pedi too, and it matches when possible. Sometimes a client will go a little wilder on their toes because they are not allowed to be so bold with their fingers for work. Even on those occasions when I am at liberty to "match" like this, I still usually alter the pedi design a little bit to suit toes. See for yourself and tell me what you think?

Certainly not the best shot of my toes ever...but you can clearly see there's a minor difference between the Pedi and the Mani below.

The Colors I used on the Mani are (cuticle to free-edge) "Stone Cold", "Harvest Moon", "Riveting" and finally, "Electrify". I toned it down for the toes and did "Stone Cold"," Riveting" and on the big toe I added a thin bit of "Electrify". They clearly go together but they aren't exactly the same.

Just as an aside, I went back to my Gelish Sunset Mani and stamped a new design on it. Of course, you know I took pix to show and share! The pedi, however, *that* I kept. I genuinely like it and I thought it would be different from my usual plain shade of polish. 

What are your plans for the Hunger Games? Going to see it opening night? Are you reading the books now or have you read them already? 

Gelish Grandients gone wild!

Happy Monday!! Continuing on with my ongoing gradient kick...today I bring you Gelish gradients.  I have previously posted my "Fall Colors" gradient as part of my Gelish tutorial, and I'll repost it today but *after* the new one that I'm currently wearing and am in total love with!!

The flower is stamped using regular polish. I was tempted to use the gelish to paint on another palm tree, but I already did that design using all regular polish and it seemed kind of redundant. So, I just finished off with the topcoat sealer and then stamped the flower on......knowing I could change it to anything else depending on my mood. This is really the reason I just LOVE LOVE LOVE Gelish. Because I can change that multiple times a day and it can hold up! I  think I have done a much better job getting the gradient. One of the challenges here is that the gelish half dries, just a film on top, so sponging with it doesn't always create that smooth transition you can get with regular polish. So i will sometimes cure that layer...then take a fresh sponge and very lightly dab to get it properly and then cure again. It really does help that the sponge is not picking up any extra from the nail. You can be the judge by checking out the last Gelish Gradient I did.

I hope you enjoyed today's Nail Arts and if you haven't already considered it, take a serious look at the Gelish products, or any of the UV cured Soak Off Polishes. They truly are a bunch of fun and soooo much more versatile than the manufactures even realize!! This is doubly true since nail art is transitioning from a trend into the Mainstream! 

Gradients on my mind

A Groovy Good Morning to everyone!! I know I talked about posting my "Hunger Games Mani" today but I did the Mani and after looking at the pictures, I'm just unhappy with how it came out. I'll be taking another shot at it really soon, so don't think I forgot about it. I mean, how can I? I have all those amazing polishes just calling my name.

I do however have a design for you today that includes one of the Hunger Games polishes, Stone Cold. I've been almost obsessed with doing gradients lately and I'm just letting that impulse run rampant since it's something I do well. Now, on to the pictures!

I originally stamped the flower on, but even with such a dark color, it came out very faint looking and the bottom 2/3 of the flower was barely visible. So, I just took a fine tipped brush and the actual polish color and darkened it. It doesn't show well in the photos, but I made a center dot from a gold holo polish by Color Club's Art Club. I really liked this color combo and I thought about this specific gradient when I was in Sally's buying the polish. I realized the silver foil I was looking to get for stamping would look awesome with it - that put it at the top of my "to-do-NOW" list.  It vaguely reminds me of the book cover for Hunger Games, at least as far as the color scheme goes. One more pictures because I really love the colors.

I love that colors are bold but not LOUD. I personally love to wear loud colors on my fingers but not everyone does, so I try to come up with designs that fall into that. What do you think? Is it bold but quietly so?

Swimming with the Seahorses

Another late night for me last night. Yesterday, I picked up the new "Hunger Games" polishes that I wanted. I also picked up a few other polishes that have been at the top of my list for a long time now...with all the new polishes I had to try some out.  It was very tempting to make today's post my "Hunger Games Mani" but I'm too tired to sort through my pix and watermark them :( So, it'll have to be tomorrow.

For today, I did an underwater scene using blue gradients and stamps. The gradient was pretty straightforward, then I just stamped bubbles and a few seahorses and yay!!

And just one more because I want to.

I also did a Gelish version of the sunset gradient last night. In fact, that's what took so long. You might notice that in all pictures one of the corners of my index finger broke off.  This meant removing my current Gelish Mani and doing a new one. I decided to go ahead and do another Gelish gradient, the technique is similar to polish but it's a little different and I'll do a blog post about that this week. So the Nail Arts this week will either be over a "sunset gradient" or over dark nail polish colors. I hope you enjoyed today's Nail Art!!

Palms in the Sunset

I'm very excited to bring you today's nail art - I hope it inspires you to relax and enjoy the weekend - even if you have work through it - hopefully you can catch a few moments to relax!!

One of the things I love about living where I do is we get some amazing sunsets. Even better we have views of the sunset with the shadowed trees in the foreground. It's an amazing sight and I thought I'd do my best to bring that to you today. This is one of my better efforts. I'm so in love with it right now that I'm going to post all four pictures!

I'm holding the bottle of shimmer I used on the gradient to give the sunset a little sparkle.  This particular one by Orly is awesome! It has a variety of shimmer colors and pretty much goes with EVERYTHING. 

Yah, I bought the plate for this solely for the palm tree. It also has a pineapple...now i need to figure out what do I do with a pineapple nail art?? ohhh now i have an idea!! ok back to the pictures.

One last one because I can.

I can see this one being popular. Mom's maid asked me today about me doing her nails...I think her hands would look GREAT in this! I think I even have the colors to do this one in Gelish, gotta make sure her mani lasts!!

Ok folks, I hope you found today's nail art worth the wait. I just needed a night to relax and finally finish reading hunger games. I can see my teenager didn't like it....but I like it. I'm not as embarrassed by the romance as she is. 

Star Flowers

Good Morning and a groovy day to everyone! I'm just going to get right to the picture this morning!

You'd think I'd be sick to death of the pinks, but I'm strangely not. Just because I can, here's another shot.

The second photo, the gradient background is much more pronounced than in the first one. I like both shots, and I just couldn't bring myself to pick only one.  This was a very easy one to do. I did a pink gradient starting my Gelish "Go Girl" and I then sponged on a generic unlabeled polish (I get them for a buck a piece at the nail supply place - great stuff for doing nail with) in hot pink and again with a deeper toned berry color. I stamped the flower using my unknown Essie color.  Sadly, I have no idea what the name is because the writing on the label has long since worn off I've had this one for so long. I grabbed my dotting tool and added a larger dot for the center of the flowers and dot trails in between the petals. Finally, I took my bottle of generic silver glitter, using my striping brush, I brushed glitter over the dot trails. A coat of Seche Vite and *poof* a Star Flower is born! 

We'll see how it goes tonight and how my fingers are doing and hopefully I'll be back to nail art tomorrow. 

Nighttime Stars

Happy Monday! Ok, I know most of you don't like Mondays, but I genuinely do. That's usually because I've had a chance to get everything ready for day in advance. It's really the only day I have time to do that because the weekdays can get so hectic that I just fall over at the end of the day.

Today's Nail art is a purple gradient with stars stamped in silver. I added a purple shimmer from Orly over the top of it all to give the stars a little bit of a shimmer. I apologize for the less than stellar quality of the photos. The Mr borrowed my light and I really had difficulties getting the light right which led to a slew of other issues.

In the shadows with no flash

In the direct light, no flash

That's it for today! Tomorrow I'll be continuing with my star theme and hopefully my hands will be in better condition by then as well!!

Froggy Flowers

Good Morning Everyone! Today's nail art is a lil stamped frog chilling in the flowers and the rain.  I hope you enjoy it!

I'm sad to say you really can't see the amazing gradient I did with this one. You can almost see it in this picture, but it looks more like texture and less like the greenish-gold shimmers that it should be. It's definitely a gradient combination I'll do again, but I'll remember to do it during the daytime, so it can be photographed in full sun. Hopefully that will help.

I might have to take a few days off from doing nail art. I was practicing my acrylic work today and got a glob of dried acrylic in my brush. Silly me used my fingers to free glob knowing full well that I am sensitive to acrylic and now my hands are all swollen. Fortunately, I did manage to get a few more nail arts done this evening before the offended fingers got puffy, so I do have two more days worth of pictures to show you. Hopefully, by then, I'll be recovered enough to get some more done. If not, I can always write do a post about something other than nail art. There are other aspects to being a manicurist that I just LOVE.