NOTD Mar 30/12 - Easter Chicks!

I had to do at least one Easter themed mani because there are so many cute themes for Easter and "cute" is one of my favourite motifs for nail art!

This was inspired by IHaveACupcake's tutorial on YouTube - I got the idea for putting one of the chicks in the half-shell from a nail wheel I saw somewhere on Tumblr, sorry, can't remember where! The original design had the top and bottom half of the shell with the face peeping out, but my nails were only long enough for one half of the shell. ;)

I really love this design, it's so completely adorable I just smile when I see my nails, and so does everyone else who notices them when I'm out and about! I hope you like them too!

Colours used:
Revlon Top Speed in Electric (pictured)
Sally Hansen Insta-Dri in Whirlwind White
2-way nail art pens in black, white, and orange

NOTD Mar 27/12 - pandas!

I love this cute little design! Every time I look down at my hands I see these little dudes looking at me and it makes me smile! That's really the ultimate reward of nail art - having one more reason to smile every day!

It was quite late when I did this and I wasn't feeling up to duplicating the pandas on my right hand - normally I'll do whatever I have on the left hand on the right, but not this night! I went with something abstract for the right hand this time. Here's my often unseen right hand!

Hope you like! Here are the colours I used:
Sally Hansen Insta-Dri in Whirlwind White
Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Black Out
LA Girl Color Addict in Escape

NOTD Mar 25/12 - pink, black and silver chevrons

I think I'm going to start giving titles to my NOTD posts, seeing as how most of posts now are nail art I want them to be more specific! I may even go back and re-title the older ones at some point too.

Anyways, here is today's mani! This one was hard to photograph and it looks much more graphic in real life. I had made this design a while ago on one of my nail wheels, and picked it at random recently when I needed a new mani! And let me tell you - making these straight is hard! These look straighter in real life than in a still photo. Hope you enjoy!

Colours used:
LA Girl Disco Brites in Disco Diva
Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Black Out
Claire's Two Way Nail Art Pen and Brush in Black, and Silver

I have Helmers!

Yaaaay!!! I have been wanting Helmer drawers (from IKEA) for storing my nail polish for a long time, as I'd heard many times how perfect they were for it! I finally got my set of drawers yesterday and I am soo happy!! I wasn't sure if I wanted white or silver (red was there too but I wasn't drawn to that colour) but I'm glad I picked white, I think it looks so clean and nice and less filing cabinet-ish than the silver would have.

Of course, the only real drawback to having this baby is that now, I want MOAR nail polish to fill it! I counted all my polishes (including 2-way nail art liners) and I only have 97 - an appauling amount according to my boyfriend and any friends who aren't into nail art, but very modest compared to most nail art fanatics and bloggers. I have about 8 more bottles on their way from an awesome Barielle sale on HauteLook last week, but this collection needs expansion!

One of my favourite things about this is how it's on wheels - I can roll it over to the couch, where I usually sit while I'm doing nail art, and place a paper towel on the top to use it as a work surface for my nail art. Then when I'm done, tuck away all the polishes in their drawers, and wheel the Helmer back into some unobtrusive corner so my boyfriend and roomie don't get upset at me for leaving my nail polish all over the place!

I didn't take pictures, but the top drawer is glitters, second drawer reds, pinks, oranges and nudes, third is blues, greens and yellows (well, yellow - I only have ONE! What?!?!), fourth is purples, blacks, whites and greys, the fifth is supplies like base and top coat, files, remover, thinner and remover pads, and the bottom drawer houses all my nail wheels and 2-way striper pens!

On a side note, is it weird that I actually like putting together IKEA furniture?

NOTD March 15/12

I did this as a last minute manicure before work yesterday, just randomly grabbing a creme and a glitter, and it looks like I perform well under pressure! I'm really happy with this colour combo, it looks so beautiful! The base coat is Revlon Dreamer, a pretty soft periwinkle blue I got recently. Then I did a coat of Icing Written in the Stars (pictured) over the top. The glitter is suspended in a sheer purpley-blue polish that looks soo pretty over Dreamer! Very ethereal and glowy looking. Luckily it stopped raining/snowing today and the sun came out so I could get a good photo of it!

NOTD Mar 13/12

I revisited an old manicure I did, with a new twist - sprinkles! After all, it's not really a sundae without sprinkles!

NOTD Mar 8/12

Giraffe!!! This has been a design on my to-do list for a long time!! It was actually very easy to do too - I didn't use any special brushes or anything, just the brush from the bottle! I did have to go back with a toothpick dipped in the yellow to widen some of the gaps between spots that I had made a little too close but other than that, very easy and simple to do! Very cute to look at :) Next time I think I'll try doing it with a little giraffe face on the accent nail!

NOTD Mar 7/12

I needed a reason to use some of the new polishes I'd bought, and a floral just seemed as appropriate as ever! This time though I went for a design that centres more near the base of the nail bed. Because of the colour palette, I think of this design as "gloomy floral"! Hehe!

And this isn't normal for me to post, but I loved the base colour on its own so much that I had to include a shot of it before I added the nail art! It's Essie School of Hard Rocks, and it applies like a dream. Kind of a dusty, dark blue-ish teal shade.

NOTD Mar 5/12

This has actually been my mani for the past few days - the idea just sort of came to me out of nowhere and it happened! I love that kind of inspiration.... usually I'm staring at my inspiration photo stash forever before I finally settle on one to do, but this one popped into my head all on it's own! Of course roses on a yellow background aren't exactly unique, but it's the first time I'd tried it! Hope you enjoy!

I'm also giving a new hand pose a shot, trying to incorporate polish bottles in there - I think I like it!

more new sets for Etsy!

I've been on a roll since I got my latest shipment of sets of nails! These two are my most recent additions to my shop.

First up a pretty floral design on a deep navy blue background with little white dots. This was actually inspired by a shirt I bought recently!

And then a really bright, happy looking one - a rainbow made up of all dots. This one is so bright it makes me smile!

Thanks for taking a look! Check out the rest of my work in my shop! I'm very excited because I just recently hit a couple of milestones there - my first occurence of two seperate sales in the same week, and the second one marked my 10th sale! So extremely exciting! It's really gratifying to be able to do something I really enjoy and have other people be interested enough in it to want to purchase it for themselves! So a big thanks to all my customers, past and future!