You Are Getting Sleepy...

Check me out over at Polish Art Addiction for a tutorial on how to do Maleficient!

I have been wanting to do some type of swirly design like this for a while, so when I finally got around to it, I was very happy. This was definitely not an easy design because of my perfectionism. After I finished it I walked around thinking, "Man, this line is thicker here... and this is uneven." But in hindsight, I think it looks pretty awesome and not that lopsided (the pinky is my favorite). Hope you enjoy!

I'm Back!

For almost three weeks now, I have been incredibly sick. So sick that not only has my nail art slowed down to a crawl, but that it's been excruciating to even think about staring at the computer screen long enough to write a blog. I am happily finally doing MUCH better (I developed a cold which turned into a bad sinus infection along with laryngitis). I'll be back to posting normally, or maybe a little less from now on, and I hope that I didn't dishearten anyone for being gone for so long.

Anyways, I'm sure you'd like to see some nail art!

This is a scalloped slanted french tip design that I came up with. I am quite fond of these nails and I'll surely be doing them again. They were quick, easy, and visually pleasing. I hope you enjoy! And I'll see you all back here tomorrow!

Chevrons

Today is Thursday so make sure you check out Polish Art Addiction to see my latest entry in the Peculiar Polish series: Totoro! 

I love how chevrons look on nails! That is all =)

Abstract Snake Skin

This was a snake skin inspired design I came up with a while ago which you can see here. I like it because it looks like an weird mosaic but can go with many outfits (which as you probably know, more colorful nails have a tendency to clash). When I began taking these nails off they looked really cool, so cool that I almost put another top coat on and wore them around like that! The picture of this is below. What do you think? Is the original design better or do you like the distressed look more?

Family Guy

These are the Family Guy nails I did for my collaboration with Leslie from Polish Art Addiction. Read all about them here!

Stripes and Outlines

I wanted to do some Spring-y stripes and when I completed them I decided to experiment with some outlines. I wish I had made the outline skinnier. Which design do you like better, with or without the outline?

My Taco Bell Nails

Today a very exciting thing happened, the official Taco Bell Facebook page posted one of my sets of Taco Bell nail art (the above ones, to be exact). As everyone here probably already knows, I am a huge Taco Bell fan, so that was super exciting. It is awesome to me that it's possible that the executives at Taco Bell have potentially seen my nails. Heck, I give them enough of my money, I think I deserve the recognition haha.

Anyways, I got over 23,000 likes and a ton of comments. Almost all the comments fits into one of these topics:

1. Oh my god, that's so cool! I want those on my nails! (This is totally amazing to hear and I can't hear it enough)
2. I'll bet you that chick is soooo fat. (This is my favorite comment to read because some people say really funny things. But if I were fat, I would probably be really saddened by this. Some people said they would bet that I was fat... I will totally take all of those bets and make thousands of dollars)
3. Guys, cyber-bullying is a serious issue! Stop being mean! (I'm completely perplexed by this. I read all the comments and the worst thing that anyone said was that I was fat and ghetto... This is so far from cyber-bullying in my opinion. Heck, we got worse comments about our engagement video when that got posted online! I guess, thanks for defending me, but man, lighten up a tad)
4. It isn't photoshopped! It's real nail art painted on her nails! (I'm also totally confused by this because I didn't see a single comment that claimed that they were photoshopped) 
5. Oh, she must work at Taco Bell (Can't a girl just love eating five layer burritos, beef baja chalupas, and cheese quesadillas?!) 


Anyways, I thought a lot of the comments were hilarious and a lot were complimentary and I just wanted to do a little bit of bragging. I'm very proud today =)

Tiger Stripes

It's Thursday and that means you should pop over to Polish Art Addiction to see my latest Peculiar Polish (I did Family Guy nails this week)!

In line with my new love for animal prints I thought I would do some tiger stripes. I've seen these gradient tiger stripes before and figured I'd try them out myself! Every time I looked down at these nails I was reminded of one of my favorite childhood books: How the Tiger Got Its Stripes. The book is originally a Viatnamese folk tale and I'm not sure which version I used to read, so I can't tell you an author. Another great book in the series was How the Peacock Got Its Feathers. Anyways, I loved these simple nails and wore them for ages. I used a special top coat on them which I'll be posting about soon. It is a special hardening top coat that doesn't need to cure under a UV light but acts like typical gel top coats. 

Here's the nails before I added the stripes. You can see that I put a holographic coat over the gradient to really make them pop!

More Animal Print

I might be addicted to animal print right now. I liked these but after I took the photo I added a thin brown line separating the white tip with the animal print and they looked way better.  I wore these for much longer than I typically wear any given nail art, they made me feel elegant and trashy at the same time. Hope you enjoy!

Hot Fries

I think it's safe to say that we've established that Taco Bell is my favorite food (for proof you can check out my series of Taco Bell nails here, here and here). Well, Andy Capp's Hot Fries are by far my favorite snack. They are deliciously spicy and crunchy. In high school I ate at least one bag of Hot Fries a day, and now I get ahold of them as often as I can. For my nails I did the logo. I got a lot of the yellow fire detail in, but it's kind of hard to see in this photo. Also hard to see is the fact that my blue background is an exactly match for the bag (I used Wet n Wild's Saved by the Blue). On my thumb I did a caricature of Andy Capp eating a Hot Fry (just like he does on the bag).

 Fun fact: Andy Capp started out as a comic strip. He was a working class man who never really did any work. His name is a play on words because in the English town he is supposed to be from his name would be pronounced "handicap."

mmm... Going in for some Hot Fries...

Yummy Hot Fry dust! Way better than Cheeto dust. 

Done. Time for another bag!

Invader Zim

I did these nails as a part of the Peculiar Polish series that I'm collaborating on with Leslie from Polish Art Addiction. On my nails I did the main characters of Invader Zim: Zim himself, Gaz, Gir, Gir again, and Dib. I haven't watched too much Invader Zim myself, but from what I've seen it is pretty awesome. One of the things that I really enjoy about it, that is relatively common on good cartoon shows, is that it is really dynamic. By that I mean the camera does a lot of panning and creates really interesting movement. The reason a lot of cartoon shows incorporate this is because it tends to save on animation costs. However I like the look because it creates a lot of interest. Especially in a show like Invader Zim, which requires a little bit more suspense. Changing the camera angle can completely change the tone of a show.

To see my original post about these nails click here

NAILgasm - The most important post you will read today!

Some of you might have heard about this new documentary project called NAILgasm, but some of you might not have. In case you haven't, it's a documentary about what we all love the most: nail art! As the creator puts it, NAILgasm, "explores [sic] how nail art has evolved from the streets to high fashion." This is of particular interest to me, because not only do I love nail art, but I love documentaries. I think it would be so amazing to sit down and watch a documentary about one of my favorite things in the world. But NAILgasm needs your help. In order to be completed, the director has set up a Kickstarter to help get some extra funds so that she can interview more awesome nail artists from across the world. In case you don't know Kickstarter is essentially a fundraising site that allows anyone to donate to a project. The project has a set goal that it needs reach in order for the "backers" to have to pay. (So basically, if not enough people pledge to donate, NAILgasm will get no money and might never be made!) I just pledged to donate $25. With my donation, if the project gets backed, I will get stickers, buttons and my name in the credits as a perk for donating! You can donate as little as $1. And let's be honest, I don't think there is a single person that reads my blog who wouldn't be willing to pay $1 to see an awesome documentary about nail art. But if you don't have the money, at least spread the word. 

Right now, NAILgasm still needs about $2,000 in order to be funded. They still need 25% of their goal. And there is only 32 hours left for them to achieve this goal (it ends 3/20 at 8:35EDT). Please, go donate over at Kickstarter here and spread the word to anyone you know who loves nail art and wants to see nail art move further into the mainstream, learn where it came from, and see what the nail artists you idolize have to say about the field. 

Lightning Bolts

So, yeah, these are some lightning bolts. I don't really know what inspired them, they just sort of happened. But when I was finished with them they ended up reminding me of Bad Brains. I did a set of more realistic lightning nails here (these were inspired by fleury rose).  

St. Patrick's Day - An Unusual Holiday Post

I'm usually not too big on holiday nails. And usually when I do them,  I get so excited about the holiday that I do them 3 weeks in advance and they never actually are on my hands anywhere near the holiday. But *today* I have these semi-St. Patrick's Day nails on so I thought I'd share them with you! I mostly did these because I don't own anything green and I'm not in the mood to get pinched! Today I plan to celebrate St. Patrick's day by sitting around and watching movies. I'm not going to the parade, for fear of rowdy crowds. I'm not drinking green beer, because that's just gross. I'm not dressing up and going all out. These nails are essentially the only way I'm celebrating, which is exactly how I like to spend the holiday's -- painting my nails!

Branches and Stripes

Sometimes I don't plan out my nails at all before I start painting, this was one of those times. But I kind of like how it turned out. The colors were inspired by a planner that I use and I somehow ended up with some branches and random stripes. Unfortunately my poor photography skills have once again made it difficult for you to actually see the colors of these nails, but I have a feeling that (although my nail art may improve) my photography never will! 

Wedding Shoes

Don't forget, it's Thursday and that means I guest posted over at Polish Art Addiction! This week was Invader Zim nails, check them out here!

I probably say this all too often, but I'm getting married! In September! Which is like crazy soon, ahh!  I'm definitely not the most traditional bride, so I try to ensure there is a little bit of funkiness in every aspect of our wedding. So to offset my traditional white dress I decided to get a very non-traditional pair of shoes! I decided not to let anyone see my dress before the wedding, but I couldn't keep these shoes to myself and I figured what better way to show them off than by painting their design on my nails! Here are some of my favorite things about these shoes: They are definitely not your normal wedding shoes. They take care of my something blue. They are comfortable. They have HIGH heels. And they allow me to do a special craft to them... But I'll post about that when it's completed!

Swirls

These are some swirls. That is all because 1. I'm in a huge rush and 2. I don't really have a lot to say about swirls.

Mod Squares

Have you ever just been going along in your life, doing your thing and then BAM! it's Tuesday and all along you still feel like it's Saturday? That's how this week has been! I've been busy with wedding planning and tons of other crazy stuff so I've been totally forgetting to post! Which really stinks since I have tons of nails to share with you guys! Just so you know, if I ever disappear like this, you can always see sneak peaks to upcoming nail posts on my facebook.

Anyways, these are some mod looking squares. I can't remember if I've seen this design done by The Daily Nail before, but this totally reminds me of her work! I know she's done tons of mod designs, but I just don't remember if the reason I did these is because they were logged in my memory as being an awesome design that she created! Either way, I'm in love with these. I'm also in love with the color. Teal-ish blue is always one of my favorite colors and I think it looks great on nails. 

Animal Prints

I've never been a huge animal print kind of gal, but I'm totally in love with these nails. Does that sound a little conceited?  Oh well, that's how much I like these nails -- enough that bragging about them outweighs any fears of seeming too into myself! I wanted to make a sort of organic overlay of both leopard and zebra prints and this is what came out. I think the design looks really cool, but if I were to go back and do it again I would probably use different colors for the leopard print. I would have used the lighter color as a background and the medium shade as the center of the spots. Anyways! This was my first attempt at zebra print and I think it was a success. I always get worried about print type things because if you try to hard to be random, you create patterns and then the art looks fake. Another thing I love about these nails: the matte finish. I love mattes + animal prints. Yay, these were some super happy nails!

The Last Unicorn

Go check out my post about these nails at Polish Art Addiction!