Happy Halloween!!

So, I know you're probably expecting some Halloween-themed nails. Pumpkins, or candy, or something spooky.

Sorry to disappoint!!

Instead I'm sharing with you what I did to go with my costume this year. For those of you familiar with The Guild (and if you're not familiar with The Guild... GET YOUR BUTT TO YOUTUBE AND WATCH IT!), I dressed as Codex this year.

(Felicia Day as Codex)

To go with this costume, I wanted some red and gold. I didn't really have a specific pattern in mind, so I just drew some random flourishes with a thin brush. At the end, I used some gold glitter polish with a dotting tool to add a few spots of sparkly gold.

The polishes I used were::

*Beauty Secrets Base Coat

*China Glaze Ruby Pumps (I LOVE this sparkly red! Makes me think of the ruby slippers from The Wizard of Oz!)

*Orly Glitz

*Orly Too Fab

*Beauty Secrets Top Coat

Maybe this weekend I'll play around with some autumn-themed designs to make up for slacking on the Halloween theme... Hmmmm....

Lindsay

How It All Began...

It all began when a friend of mine posted about Water Marbling and I was immediately intrigued. There are several tutorials out there, with lots of different patterns to try. Usually I just end up using the simple designs. The picture above was my very first attempt at using that technique. After a day I redid it and ended up with the picture below, which I liked much more.

I did several different patterns over the next few months. The picture below is probably my favorite. Now that I've moved on to different techniques, I haven't done any water marbling. It's VERY messy, takes a long time, and half the time I'd get only a few fingers done and then the rest would end up all screwy and I'd have to remove the polish and start from scratch. When that happened more than twice, I'd give up completely. But, it did start me down the path of nail art!

First Snow of the Year!!

So for my first actual nail post, I figured I'd start with my newest project. Last night was the first snow of the season, so to celebrate I wanted to do a snowflake pattern. Originally I thought of using my light blue as a base and white snowflakes, but after some searching I settled on one from IndigoNova1. She drew her snowflakes in black with white accents, and I added a couple drops of sparkly silver as well, which I think looks really cool. 

The polishes I used are:
Beauty Secrets Base Coat
2 coats of China Glaze For Audrey
Snowflakes were Nina Black
Kiss Nail Art Paint Silver Glitter
The white was a basic french tip white polish... Part of the reason I went for black snowflakes was that I need a newer white polish, but since with this pattern it was only used for dots, it worked fine. 
Beauty Secrets Top Coat

I really love how it turned out! I did a couple practice snowflakes on a paper plate with a thin striping brush in order to get comfortable with the design. If I do this design again in the future, I'd like to try to make the snowflakes a little smaller so that there's more of the background visible and so the other dots, or "snowflakes", have more space.

Happy Winter!!
Lindsay

Yay Procrastination!!

I have considered starting a blog for my adventures in nail art for quite some time. However, I have procrastinated because I do not want this to end up like the other blogs I've started. (Laziness prevailed and I slacked on updating and eventually deleted them.) 

Then I realized, while staring at my newly designed nails that I did last night (they're so cute!!), that despite this being a new hobby, I have been pretty consistent with it. Doing something new with my nails once, sometimes twice, a week is a method of self-care for myself. As a full-time grad student with a part-time job in residential treatment and an unpaid internship, I need a breather now and then to take care of myself. My pjs, a glass of wine, a movie, and a new nail design to try combine for the perfect recipe for self-care! 

So, to spare my poor Facebook friends from the constant nail-art pics clogging up their news feed, I decided to attempt another blog instead. As I have a lot of designs that I have already done in the past months, I'll likely sprinkle in some old projects among the current ones. 

I also want to state that usually I do not come up with the designs myself. I'm not quite to that level of talent and creativity yet! With each entry, I will give credit where credit is due to whomever gave me the idea. I will also give a breakdown of the steps that I took, what problems came up, and any personal flourishes I added to make it my own! 

In addition, feel free to make suggestions or send me links to cool designs to try! I'm always looking for more!! 

Thanks for joining me!
Lindsay