NOTD Jan 8/13 - ice cream and sprinkles

Somehow this is the third ice cream manicure I've done, but I don't feel like I've done that many....? Weird!

Anyhow, this is the first ice cream cone manicure I've done - this one was inspired by the super talented This is Venice! I am in looooove with how these turned out! I realized after I did them that they're probably pretty summery for a January manicure but who cares?! They look awesome!

  I used about eight-bergillion colours for this (give or take a few bergillion :p) so if you're curious about a certain shade, ask in the comments! :)

NOTD Nov 20/12 - peppermint swirl

Do you ever kind of look up, look around, and go, "Holy Crap! It's late November? Wasn't it just summer like, last week?" I don't just mean weather wise... I mean it was pretty mild through most of September and even October... but I feel like this fall so far has gone by extremely quickly and all of a sudden, BAM, it's almost the end of the year! Crazy!

Anyways, continuing with the spirit of the approaching Christmas (and assorted other holidays) season I have another festive manicure! This one is inspired by peppermint candies!

This may look upon first glance like a water marble, but in fact since I totally refuse to subject myself to the what seems to be torturous process of water marbling, I took a different route with this. I painted my nails first with Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in White On, and then took a miscellaneous red striper polish and painted on curved diagonal lines that tapered at one end.

I did each nail one at a time so the polish wouldn't dry before I got back to it, and took a needle and dragged in through the lines, going first one direction and then the next time in the other. Then I topped each nail with NYX Advanced Salon Formula in Disco Inferno for a bit of glittery fun! I loved these and they seemed to be real eye catchers, I got lots of compliments on them!

NOTD Oct 18/12 - pumpkin tips

More Halloween manicure goodness! I really loved CutePolish's apple manicure which I recreated last month, and it got a great response. Not surprising because it's such an adorable design!

I was brainstorming for Halloween mani ideas, and it occured to me how perfect that manicure was for adapting to Halloween! Instead of apples, I drew pumpkins! The ones on my ring fingers have made it to the jack o' lantern phase, but the rest are just plain and simple gourds. :)

I love how these look, they're so cute and perfect for the season! Hope you enjoy them too!

For the pumpkins I used Cherimoya Mango and Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Sunkissed, and for the highlights I mixed a bit of white in with Mango. Then I drew the stems with Revlon Chocolate Truffle and the vines with Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Green With Envy, and black for the jack o' lantern details!

NOTD Sep 20/12 - apples!

I wanted something really cute and simple this time - I had started another design but it just was not turning out so I started over and didn't want to do something else time-intensive! I hadn't checked out anything on the CutePolish channel on YouTube in a while, so I looked at it and she had posted this adorable apple manicure about a month ago! I thought it was so sweet so I decided to replicate it!

I followed all the steps in the video, using Wet n' Wild Wild Shine in Red Red, Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Green With Envy, and Cherimoya Melon for the apples. I used Revlon Chocolate Truffle for the stems and Sinful Colors Envy for the leaves. She didn't include this in her tutorial, but I added some white reflection marks on the apples to make them look really shiny and juicy! I love these, they're so cute to look at! I haven't done a "fancy tips" style manicure probably since I did a Hello Kitty mani around a year ago!

NOTD Jun 20/12 - rhinestone strawberry

Strawberries on my nails! Finally! I've wanted to do it forever! But I wanted some blingy-bling on it, so the ring fingers have rhinestone seeds! And I mixed it up by making some of the strawberries pink. I'm in love with these!

Colours used:
 Revlon Top Speed in Pink Lingerie
Wet n Wild Wet Shine in Red Red
custom green mix

NOTD May 17/12 - watermelons!

This is a classic design that I have been meaning to do for literally AGES and I finally tried it out the other day and I'm in love with it! It's been very sunny and warm out lately and this manicure just completes that "summer is here!" feeling that I love!

Colours:
Cherimoya in Melon
Sinful Colors in Envy
Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure in Frutti Petutie
black striper polish for the seeds

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!

Excel Gum Character nail art

You know those seriously adorable commercials for Excel gum with the little onion, garlic, coffee and donut? You know, these ones? I've been obsessed with these commercials since they came out - the little mascots are SO cute! My boyfriend suggested I do some nail art of them and I thought it was a great idea!

Although this is definitely the straw that broke the toothpick's back - meaning this mani made me realize I need to get some detail brushes for nail art, because these were kind of a pain to paint using only the nail polish brushes from the bottle and toothpicks! But I'm very happy how they turned out nonetheless! Hope you like too!

NOTD/FOTD Aug 12/11

Double feature today!! I absolutely love how these nails turned out!! It kind of made me realize, in the process of doing them, that even if things look a little whack during the process of doing your nails, stick with it and keep going and it will turn out! If you could see step by step pictures of this, the first few steps just look uggo! And I kind of doubted whether it was going to turn out and thought about stopping and starting over, but I kept at it. And at the end, they turned out great!

So remember, with nail art or even makeup, keep your end goal in mind and keep going for that - the in between stages might not always look pretty but you'll get there! (awfully philosophical for nail art, eh?)

Here's my face today as well!

 

 Main colours used on the eyes:

• UD Mildew on lids
• UD Half Baked just on the centre of the lids
• Maybelline EyeStudio Shadow Quad in Green With Envy, dark green shade in outer V and light green shade in inner corner
• UD Virgin for brow highlight and inner tearduct highlight

The lips were:

• Revlon Super Lustrous Lipstick in Just Enough Buff
• NYX Girls Round Lipgloss in Whipped

NOTD Aug 2/11

Vanilla ice cream sundae with chocolate sauce and a cherry on top!! Yumm!! Hungry yet?

(PS - drippy manicures are WAY easier than I thought they would be!)

NOTD July 12/11

Sorry for the no updates lately! Work's been keeping me busy and wanting to do literally NOTHING on my down time!! But I have found some time to do my nails! Another one I got the idea for from a Tumblr blog (the manicure inspiration folder on my computer is growing at an alarming rate!) for some flowers on a black background!! I think I still need to get the hang of scaling patterns to the size of my nails... I didn't intend it to be this big or have the flowers overlap! But I still like how it turned out!