Cherry Blossom Trees

Hi everyone!  As you read this I'm currently in Washington D.C. for a National Sustainability Design Expo sponsored by the EPA.  And I couldn't go to Washington D.C. in the Spring without doing cherry blossom nails even though I'm here a week after the peak bloom and the conclusion of the National Cherry Blossom Festival.  I was really hoping the cold weather could push back the peak bloom for one more week till I arrived.  Maybe next time!  The trees are nice, just no longer in full bloom.  I've done a cherry blossom manicure once before but that was back when I first started blogging so it's a view at your own risk manicure (view able here).

I haven't been able to do much nail art this year, especially free hand, so this was a fun change.  I started off with two coats of China Glaze for Audrey, a full coverage robin egg blue.  It's also my current pedicure color (don't worry, no feet pictures).  I then drew on the tree branches using So Easy Stripe Rite Black.  I don't have much practice with striping brushes but I felt as though going very slowly and carefully was key to being in control of how the final image turned out.

I used two colors for my flowers.  The first was OPI I Think in Pink, a light pink from OPI's 2012 Breast Cancer Awareness Duo.  The second was OPI My Vampire is Buff, a yellow tinted nude from OPI's Spring 2013 Euro Central Collection.  In the center of each flower I placed a small dot using Zoya Dana, a rose pink.  I finished everything off with a healthy coat of Seche Vite Dry Fast Top Coat.  

What do you think?  Have you done a cherry blossom design before?  

Day 23: Inspired by a MOVIE

Welcome to the next installment of the Longest 31 Day Challenge Ever.  Today I'd like to share with you Day 23: Inspired by a MOVIE, otherwise known as My Hunger Games Failure.

Like many of you, I devoured the Hunger Games series and was really excited to see the book turned into a movie.  I bought my tickets for opening day a head of time, painted flames on my nails, but completely underestimated how popular the movie would be!  I showed up for the movie only to find the only remaining seats were the ones in the very bottom corner...

So I still have yet to see the Hunger Games movie as I returned my tickets (why do theaters even include those seats in the first place??) but I'm hoping in the next week or so to try again.

To create the manicure I wore for opening day I relied heavily on Kayla Shevonne's Hunger Games inspired nails.  She always does such amazing work and I love seeing the designs she creates.  My attempts to duplicate her work never turn out quite the same.

I used a layer of Zoya Snow White for my base, then two coats of Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Mellow Yellow.  I next sponged Zoya Tamsen on top, making the layers thicker as I moved towards my cuticles.  I then "drew" on flames with a Kiss Nail Art Pen in Black, finally filling in the area outside the drawing with my SoEasy Striper in Black.  A coat (or two) of Seche Vite was all I needed to make this design shine.  Clean up was a complete PITA, black polish just doesn't come off my skin nicely.

Overall, from a distance this design looks pretty sweet because you can't tell that my flames are a hot mess.  At this distance they're much more skeptical though I do enjoy them.  I really need to practice free-hand nail art more.

Week 8: Corset Manicure

Welcome to Week 8 of the 52 Week Challenge!  This week is corset manicure and I used the tutorial created by Nihrida to create my manicure.

I used Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Black Out as my base, a line of Wet 'n' Wild Wild Shine Caribbean Frost, and then So Easy Stripe Rite in Black to make the laces.  I really like Caribbean Frost.  It's an absolutely gorgeous green and I really like wearing it.

Be sure to check out what others have done for this challenge by visiting their blogs:

LizMarie at I'm Simply Complex • Jenna at I'm Still Thinking... • Caitlin at Addicted 2 Nails • Sarah at PrncessSarah02 • Charlotte at Charlotte's Nails :) • Shally at Polished & Not Quite Put Together • Rachel-Karina at Polished Criminails • Liz at Nothing But Nail Polish • Fun With My Nail Polish • Operation: Nail It! • Lauriestrodes Fun With Nails • Square Polish • Only Always Soccermom  • Hurr Did, Nails Did • Olivia Writes • The Dragon Lady • Kaki at Glitter Obsession • Isa at IsaBella's World • Gypsy at Gypsy's Glitter • Jackie at MeMa's Mani's  • Lissa at Lissa's Nail Blog

Day 14: Flowers

Day 14 of the 31 Day Challenge calls for flowers but I needed something more subtle for work.  For this version of subtle I chose to do a simple french manicure with an accent nail flower for this day.  You may be surprised to hear that I've never done a french manicure on my real nails.  It's true!  They've never been long enough for me to want to draw attention to the tips before.

Confession?  The white part of my ring finger and middle finger chipped while I was at work and I tried to "fix it" so it looks a bit funky in this photo.  This being my first attempt at french tips I'm pretty pleased at how it turned out. This is definitely something I'd like to try again in the future!

I used two coats of Essie Petal Pink as the base, SoEasy Stripe Rite in White for the tips, then I stamped Zoya Areej on my ring finger as an accent using Bundle Monster plate BM14.

Cupcakes

For my birthday today I decided to paint myself some cupcake nails.  They turned out all right, definitely not perfect but all right.

Personally, I think they look like cupcakes only if you tell yourself they should look like cupcakes.  If you don't know what they are I think it's a little hard to tell.  I'll try to do cupcakes again sometime to see if I can come up with something more realistic.

For this manicure I used China Glaze For Audrey as the base of the cupcake, Zoya Snow White for the frosting, and Zoya America for the giant red dot (it was supposed to be a cherry). For the colored dots (a.k.a. sprinkles) I used Finger Paints Art Nouv-Yellow, Zoya Robyn, Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure I Pink I Can, and Zoya Mira.  Finally, for the cupcake holder lines I used So Easy Stripe Rite White.

Some of my dots are smudged.  They took a ridiculously long time to dry and I kept smudging them (sigh).  I need to practice dotting more so that I keep down the amount of nail polish I have on my dotting tool.

I also learned that this manicure is a little too risqué for work.  Evident ally engineers are supposed to be creative, but conservative.  Who knew?

I want candy!

This week's theme from the Polish-aholics Anonymous group on Facebook is candy inspired nails.  I'm not big on candy right now; I'm supposed to be on a diet!  Who am I kidding, I'm always big on candy yum yum yum.

When I looked for inspiration for this manicure I looked on Google, where I got many hits for candy corn.  Candy corn, while delicious, I think is better suited for a manicure in October.

I next looked for inspiration on the lovely website Pinterest.  While browsing through Pinterest I ran across these two gems: M&M manicure and M&M nails.M&Ms! - Perfect.

By painting M&Ms on my nails it gave me an opportunity to use some polishes in my collection that I haven't used before, such as Zoya Jancyn, Zoya Sookie, and the Finger Paints polishes.  I've never used Finger Paint polishes before but they applied very nicely.

The colors I used for this were (base) Zoya Snow White, (blue) Zoya Robyn, (red) Zoya Sooki, (green) Finger Paints Chrysanthe-Mum's the Word, (orange) Zoya Jancyn, (brown) Sinful Colors Nirvana, (yellow) Finger Paints Art Nouv-Yellow, (iconic M) Stripe Rite White.