12/24/11 - Happy Holidays!!

Happy Christmas and holidays, everyone!
I'm entering my holiday manicure into a Migi Nail Art Pen holiday contest, hence the fancy image. :) But look at those nails! I did the same thing on the other hand, and it took hours! On the upside, everyone really likes them so far. :D
The polishes used are: for the background, alternating Claire's - Snowball with Klean Color - Neon Aqua. On the thumb and pinkie; Migi Nail Art Pens red and green. On the pointer finger; Migi white with an overcoat of OPI - Last Friday Night. Middle finger; Migi green and a coat of Nail Treats - Jubilee. Ring finger; the face is Love & Beauty - Taupe, the wings are Sally Hansen - Platinum, the hair is Migi yellow, the eyes Migi blue, the mouth Migi red, and the dress Migi white.
I hope you are all having a fantastic holiday season, and that you enjoy my nails inspired by the holidays. :)
P.S. You can click on the picture to see it larger. ;)

12/16/11 - I Heart Glitter

I performed in a show last Friday (the 16th). The show mentioned in the last post - a group of friends and I performed Mama Who Bore me. So in the hour and a half between when school ended and I had to be at the theatre, I did this to my nails. This was something I'd been planning for at least a week. I loved the glittery tips from the last mani, and one of the blogs I follow did etched out hearts. I was going to link to her blog, but I can't remember who it was and even though I've gone back two months in my followed archives, I can't find it. :( If anyone knows who it is, I'm more than happy to give credit where credit is due. [ETA: I found it! Copy That, Copy Cat is the main source of inspiration for this look. :)
Anyway, so it's a base layer of Sally Hansen - Diamonds, then (on every nail but the thumb), a sponged layer of Nabi - Silver, then sponged on the tips, one of my new favourites, Wet 'n' Wild - Diamond in the Rough. The ring finger has a heard drawn with Migi Nail Art Pen - white, and the thumb has a heart etched out with a tooth pick.
I actually really like these nails. The only problem is that they looked beautiful right up until I changed into my costume, at which point they weren't actually quite dry and the tips got all bunched. I did my best to smooth it out and cover it up, but you can still see some premature tip wear. Even still, I really like how it looks. :)
The accent nails:

What do you think? :)

12/2/11 - Musical Notes Mani

I've been thinking musical notes would be a good idea to try. When I was trying to decide which musical notes to use (should I use just random notes? actually follow a song? random parts of a sang?) I kept thinking of the song that I'm currently working on with a group of friends for a winter arts festival, called Mama Who Bore Me. This is a song from the musical Spring Awakening. The song is a beautiful song that I love, and the musical is a fantastic show. I highly recommend both, or at least listening to the music (it's all on YouTube).
Anyway, on to the nails!


I attempted to do the first couple notes on my left hand, and the last couple on my right hand.
The base colour is Claire's - Snow Ball. Migi Nail Art Pen - black makes up the musical notes. Then I sponged tips of newish Wet 'n' Wild - Diamond in the Rough, and covered the whole thing with Sally Hansen - Diamonds.
I think Diamond in the Rough is a really cool polish. A great silver glitter with some holographic glitter in there. In this last picture, I attempted to capture the sparkle in the sunlight.

So as a concluding note: watch Spring Awakening! :D

11/27/11 - Forest Mani

First: my apologies to Misty. She so kindly suggested forest, and I immediately thought a dark green background with things you might find in a forest, like animals and trees. Unfortunately, my brain out-thought my actual talent with a tiny paint brush, and, well, this is the result.
The green background is a new polish - Sinful Colors - Last Chance. As you can see, it's a beautiful dark green. I only used one coat here. The main downside is that it is absolutely awful to clean up. You can see it all over my fingers here, and when I actually removed it, it had stained not only my nails, but my fingers! Also, it's a little dark. Especially when I went to use black and brown over it, it's hard to see the details. But it's really a great quality dark green, so I'll use it again. :)
I also had to finally face the fact that I didn't have a brown nail polish. Brown is my least favourite colour, ever. I never ever wear anything brown. But I really wanted to do a monkey, and I've been wanting to do some things like trees and stuff, so I finally gave in an bought Revlon - Hot for Chocolate. It's a bit hard to see the colour, but it looks like a nice brown and it has a nice formula, so I guess it'll work.
The last new polish I got from Forever 21 just because it's cheap and I liked it - Love & Beauty - Periwinkle. You can see this on the snail's body.
The tree top, outline of the leaf, and grass/vine/branch that the snail and toucan are on is Love & Beauty - Neon Green. The leaf body is Sinful Colors - Irish Green (over Migi white). The snail shell is Simply Sweet yellow and with a swirl of Migi Nail Art Pen yellow. The toucan is Migi black, white, yellow, orange. The monkey belly/face/etc. is Love & Beauty - Taupe, with details of Migi black. The branch in that is underlined with Migi copper.









My personal favourite is the monkey. One of my friends got ridiculously excited about the toucan. Everybody else needed me to say, "this is a toucan" to recognise it. xD I also thought the snail was pretty cute.