Ukranian Easter egg nails

When I was in high school I took a textiles, arts, and crafts class. One of our projects was to make pysanky, or Ukranian Easter eggs. It's a difficult and time consuming craft but I loved the results. When I started doing my nails I got the idea to do a pysanky theme for Easter but I never actually got around to doing them. Until now!

I started with a relatively simple idea, mostly using stamps to get the look I wanted. Of course that didn't work out, so I ended up free-handing the whole thing. I'm a little bit out of practice (it's been months since I last did any proper nail art) so it's a bit rough but overall I'm very happy with how it turned out!

I used a lot of colours, so bear with me. For the darker nails I used Sally Hansen's "Black Out" for a base, then did the design using Sally Hansen's "Lightening", Quo's Instant Artist in black and white, and Tivoli Art Deco polish in red. For the accent nails I used Revlon's "Seduce" for a base, then did the design with the same polishes. All the nails were topped off with the matte top coat from Sephora. 

Now I just need to make these last until Easter is over!

Halloween monsters

Well, after two long months I'm finally able to return to doing nail art! My nails are (almost) back to normal, so I've bought a new nail hardener to try and I have my fingers crossed it's going to go better than last time. I've decided to use Sally Hansen's Hard as Wraps, I've seen some good reviews for it and I haven't had any problems with the brand before. I'm still a little sad that Nail Envy didn't work out for me. It was, and still is, so highly recommended by so many people I know. C'est la vie.

Of course my return ended up being slightly less than triumphant. I put a lot of thought into what I wanted to do, and with Halloween coming up I was sold on the idea of doing a variety of monsters. I'm a bit out of practice but overall I was happy with the results...until I put the top coat on. Smudges. Everywhere. I thought I'd left lots of time for it to dry too, so it was very disappointing. They still look good from a distance though, so I just left them. I've gotten some compliments on them too, so they must be all right!

Here's the colours I used:

Skull: Sally Hansen's "White On" for the base, Quo's Instant Artist in black for the design

Mummy: Sally Hansen's "White On" for the base, Quo's Instant Artist in black and white for the design

Zombie: L'Oreal's "Safari Chic" for the base, LA Color's "Pink Chiffon" for the brains, Tivoli Art Deco polish in red for the blood, Quo's Instant Artist in black and white for the rest

Frankenstein: L'Oreal's "Safari Chic" for the base, Quo's Instant Artist in black and white for the design

Vampire: Sally Hansen's "White On" for the base, Quo's Instant Artist in black for the design

It's good to be back!

Happy Canada Day!

I'm going to keep this short because I'm off in Montreal celebrating Canada Day! I made sure to have appropriate nails for the occasion, and what would be more appropriate than a Canadian flag?

I wasn't confident in my ability to paint a maple leaf, I can't even successfully draw one on paper. So I cheated a little bit recruited my boyfriend to do the hard work for me. I think he did a fantastic job! The pointer and ring fingers I did using tape to attempt to get a clean, crisp line, though as you can see that didn't quite work on all of my fingers. I used a nice sparkly red as well, because who doesn't love a little sparkle?

The colours used are Sally Hansen X-treme Wear's "White On" and "Red Carpet". Before I go, I also thought I'd share with you the cool calligraphy my boyfriend did of my initials while he was practising painting maple leafs. Like I said, definitely artistic!

HAPPY CANADA DAY, EVERYONE!

Santa and his elves

Today I'm posting my last Christmas manicure for the year. Unfortunately I had a terrible time trying to get a good picture of these nails, so hopefully you can forgive me for the less than stellar images.

The green is "Voodoo" and the red is "Cayenne Pepper", both by LA Colors. For the belts, I used Konad Special Polish in black and Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in "Golden-I". The green nails actually remind me more of leprechauns than elves, maybe I'll recycle this manicure for St Patrick's Day! Or not.

Well, that's the end of my Christmas nails. I hope you all are having a wonderful holiday season and that you all are getting to spend time with those that matter most.

Sparkly Candy Canes

I can't believe it's only four days until Christmas. Four! I think I'm almost ready for it, just a few more things to take care of tomorrow and then I'm in the clear. In keeping with the holiday spirit, I decided to do some candy cane nails.

The red is "red carpet" and the white is "white on", both by Sally Hansen Xtrene Wear. The red is more sparkly than it looks in these pictures, which makes these nails a little distracting. Still, they're perfect for this time of year!

Oh Christmas Tree

After an unexpected and unplanned hiatus from doing my nails, I've finally been inspired to start back up again. Last Friday my family picked up our Christmas tree for this year (we always get a real one) and I thought I'd make my nails match the occasion. I originally saw this design on pshiiit.com and it was quick, easy, and looked fantastic!

The base coat is "Goddess" and the green is "Voodoo", both by LA Colors. The silver and red used for the tree decorations are by Tivoli Art Deco nail art paints. I'm still not sure I like the giant chunks of glitter in the base coat, but other than that I was very happy with this manicure. 

Happy Valentine's Day!

Doing a design for Valentine's day turned out to be a bit of a disaster for me.

Saturday night I made my first attempt. I had a design in mind that would use some of the bundle monster plates that would be very holiday-appropriate. Red background, some lines and hearts over top of that in white, and then a black kiss in the corner. I thought it would be nice, but it was doomed from the very start. First it took me two hours just to do my base coat because I kept screwing up two fingernails. Every time I repainted them, I got impatient and touched them before I should have. When I finally got the base coats finished, I spent another hour stamping on the designs. Once I finished my left hand, I examined my work and......it looked ridiculous. I took it all off. I didn't have the heart to start all over again, so I called it a night.

Sunday I tried again, this time with a completely different idea. Boyfriend had suggested doing x's and o's, and that inspired me to do this design for Valentine's day:

The base coat is cayenne pepper from LA Colors, and the design is done in Kiss Nail Art Paint in white.

This is not my best work. In case you can't tell, those are supposed to be x's and o's on the tip. My polish was a bit too dried out, so I was having trouble working with it. Also, I think this design would be a lot nicer on longer nails. Overall though, I like the idea. It just needs a bit more tweaking.

In other news, I am considering doing the 31 day nail challenge. Well, it would end up being the 31 week nail challenge for me, but I think it would be fun. I have a few more designs I want to do first though, so if I do start this it won't be for a few weeks.