31 Day Nail Art Challenge - Day 1: Red Nails

Hello, all! I am so incredibly sorry that I have been MIA lately! I'm going through some big changes in my personal life and it's taking a lot of my energy. I'm starting a new job on Monday and I'm nervous/excited/scared to begin this new chapter in my life. I'm hoping that starting next week things will be back to normal and I'll be posting with some regularity!

I'm really excited to share that Meghan from Will Paint Nails for Food and I are going to be completing the 31 Day Nail Art Challenge together! I am sure most of you know about Meghan and her awesome swatches, but I always love when she does nail art because holy crapola, she's excellent at it. We're both hoping that completing this challenge together will help us grow even more as nail artists and push us outside of our comfort zone. Always great to have a partner in crime to egg you on ;) 

At the moment, we are planning on posting every Tuesday and Friday instead of completing this in 31 days. As you can see, I have already failed to post on time, but I promise this is the last time that happens! (famous last words, right?)

The first day of the challenge is "Red Nails." While browsing reddit, I came across this guitar beautifully drawn on with a sharpie and knew immediately that I wanted to do something like it. Whether the style on the guitar intended it or not, it reminds me of henna tattoos. Henna also happens to come in red on occasion so I knew this was the style I was going to go for. 

I have a bit of a confession about the paint I used for this design. While the base is polish (OPI's Don't Pretzel My Buttons), the red is actually acrylic paint! *gasp* I have always considered myself a purist when it comes to my nail art in that I have always used polish only. I never thought I would try acrylic paint. I ended up randomly purchasing black acrylic paint just to see what the hype was about and realized that it is so much easier to work with for detail work. I honestly did not know what I was missing. 

That night I went and ordered a starter acrylic paint kit and I don't plan on looking back. I truly hope it doesn't bother any one that I'll be mixing acrylic paints into my designs - I just think it gives me a whole new world of options. 

Happy Polishing :)

31 Day Nail Challenge - Day 1: Red

I'm thinking that this 31 Day Nail Challenge will be good for me as it will actually force me to push myself a bit and not just stick to my favorite colors and designs. There are also a few things on the list that I have yet to try (a majority of the "patterns" sections I have not attempted yet) so I'm excited to learn some new techniques and see what I'm capable of :)

First up for this challenge is Red Nails! Well, red isn't really my go to color, at least not anymore. I used to wear a lot of red (as in, I only really owned red and pink polishes...I had no idea what I was missing!!) but lately I've been wearing cooler tones instead. When my collection first expanded a few months ago, I got rid of a lot of my old polishes that were no longer useable or no longer my taste. For instance, for whatever reason I was REALLY into shimmer polishes for what appears to be several years since that is the only kind of polish I bought. Now a days I tend to stay away from those if I can. I'm not sure what I was thinking in buying all of those, but then again, I had some weird bangs when I was younger and I'm not sure what I was thinking then either (why, mother, why would you let me do that!?) Funny how tastes change that way!

Okay, that was an odd tangent. Here are my Red Nails! It turned into a sort of basket weave/brick wall sort of look. Oddly enough, I actually liked how these looked more without a top coat on because each stroke I had made with the brush was much more defined. 

 Happy Polishing!! :)

Painted accessories for the bare back

I didn't get to finish this one over vacation that day, but it was a fun start ;)

LAST Christmas mani! YAY!

Although I was gone for ten days and began to dream about getting to paint my nails again, when I got home Christmas eve and started thinking about what my Christmas mani would be, I was incredibly uninspired. I still wanted something festive for Christmas time and did in fact stay with a Christmasy pallet, I think I've come to realize that while I love Christmas time, I'm really burnt out on reds, golds, and silvers. I'm excited for new colors! Yay!

I'm currently at my parent's house so I apologize for the image quality, but here is what I have been sporting the last few days! :)

Happy Polishing! :)

Is it too early for a Christmas mani?

Autumn and Winter are by far my favorite time of the year. I love being able to bundle up on the couch next to the fire with my hot cocoa and a great book. Reading and nail painting are essentially tied for favorite things to do so don't make me choose! (Maybe I'll do some book reviews on here occasionally...hmm). Anyway! The past few days have finally begun to be gloomy and cold (only took to the end of November!..but that's what you get in California) and driving home after work with the sun already down and all the Christmas lights up really solidified the feeling that it is in fact winter! My favorite! 

I was feeling inspired by the time of year and landed on PRESENTS! Everyone loves to give and/or receive gifts and I've been slowly finding presents to give to friends and family so it seemed fitting. 

I used, YET AGAIN (sorry!) Sephora by OPI's Mr. Right Now because it is my all time favorite red and I am going to have to go buy more soon. My striping accents (you have no idea how many times I checked to make sure that didn't say stripping accents...) are Ulta's Concrete Evidence and a mini Sephora by OPI called Already Famous that came as part of their winter Tinsel Town Collection. 

Here's my Christmas Present-esque look all together. I ended up using striping brushes that I got off of Amazon. They can be found here. 

When I use nail brushes, I like to make sure that I'm working on a flat surface (table, desk, closed laptop with a towel over it?) and have both hands resting on the table so that I eliminate any shakiness. There are a two basic methods to ensure a straight-ish line. The first is to have the brush do the moving while your nail remains stationary. This one can be a little bit tricky if your brush hand isn't as steady. This method might work best for when your dominant hand has the brush. When you're painting your dominant hand (brush in your non-dominant hand), holding the brush stationary and moving your nail beneath the brush removes the battle of creating a straight line with your non-dominant hand. Through all of this, I make sure my hands are resting on the table to eliminate additional movement. 

 Happy Polishing :)

Boyfriend, boyfriend.

I was struggling a bit with what colors to go with tonight so I asked my lovely (and possibly color blind) boyfriend to choose for me. He took the job very seriously--paused the show he was watching and settled in with my case of polish to find the perfect color. He started with a florescent yellow...um, no. I had to remind him it was fall and that wouldn't fly. He finally settled on two Kleancolor polishes, Red Alert and Fuchsia Glitter. But here's the thing...these colors look pretty swell together...my questionably colorblind boyfriend who often argues with me over the actual color of his shirt...chose some nice polishes...

Source: http://gifguppy.com/movies/jurassicpark/hfsitsadinosaur.html & Jurassic Park 1993

Okay, all joking aside, I decided to slap these colors on and go for it! I decided to add some Essie Matte About You because honestly, who doesn't love a good matte?

Happy Polishing. 

I'm experimenting with new promo cards for the Return of the Curls event I'll be body painting for today!

Covering a blemish

Adrienne had me do this painted necklace for her to cover an unhealed scar from a surgery. Can you tell where it is? Its under an orange paisley... This is a service I would LOVE to offer more!

Painted Accessories and Hair Decorations

This is Adrienne modeling some hair decorations and painted accessories I did for her dress. Keith Ramsey shot this for our 10 week photo/body paint project.