Time Periods Challenge: Medieval

Hey everyone! I was so excited about this post and now I'm blah. I woke up this morning with the start of a cold. I'm known for my colds. I had a cold every single holiday as a child and wasn't much better as an adult. I thought I was getting over having such a low immune system since I've been cold-free for a while. I'm hoping it's just a 24-hour cold and it will fade quickly.

Keep your fingers crossed for me and enjoy my Time Periods Challenge nail art for Medieval.

I thought long and hard on what to do for medieval. Medieval torture was all I was coming up with until I remembered the myths and legends of fire-breathing beasts started in medieval times. DRAGONS!! How could I forget dragons?? I am so in love with this design.

Looking at the finished nail can you believe I started with this? Two coats of Savvy Totally Teal. It's such a gorgeous color of blue that has a gleam of green when the light hits.

It proved to be the perfect base. I used some saran wrap to dab on L.A. Colors Mint, an awesome neon green, and some Chameleon Fandango and Chameleon Mist. They're both really sheer but have an amazing amount of sparkly glitter to them.

I used Petites Night and a nail art brush to draw the scales, skipping my middle finger.

I drew the eye on this finger first and then drew in the scales around it. I used L.A. Colors Mint for the eye itself.

You can't have a dragon without showcasing their fire-breathing ability. So for the thumb, I painted it with two coats of Sally Hansen Lightening and then used saran wrap to create the flame effect with NYC Spring Street and China Glaze Adventure Red-y.

Up next in this challenge: Imperial China!

Up next on the blog will be the Disney Challenge: The Lion King!!

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Disney Challenge: The Fox and The Hound

I think this is probably the only Disney movie I don't like. Well, okay, it's not that I don't like it, it's just that I can't watch it because it sends me to the safety of my bed sobbing!! It's a horrible, horrible movie, lol!!

I looked for inspiration everywhere, and finally decided to do like everyone else who has tried to find inspiration in The Fox and The Hound � do their faces.

I started with an almost watercolor background. This is two coats of white that I used saran wrap to dab blue, mint, purple, pink, and yellow over. I loved the old Disney books as a kid; when the images in the books weren't digitally created. Kind of like how it is with the old movies too! This watercolor effect reminds of those, and I love it for this challenge!!

It might have also had something to do with this scene. These are screencaps from the movie that I turned into a collage. See the awesome watercolor effect of the background and the water? You just don't get that with movies now!!

Before starting these nails, I used my morning to create nail art stickers for Tod and Copper. Their faces are all hand-painted, but creating stickers allows me much more freedom since I don't have to keep my hand turned to point of breaking thus allowing for a more precise image.

To create nail art stickers you use a Ziploc bag and put a layer of clear polish down slightly larger than your nail. Let it dry completely! And then you just draw your design over the clear polish and again let it dry completely!! If the image isn't completely dry it will stick to the Ziploc bag and tear, ruining your image.

I thought it was missing something. The sadness of The Fox and The Hound maybe. So I added footprints going in opposite directions. There's so much meaning behind that, but it all boils down to the separation of Tod and Copper. It shows them going in opposite directions, leaving their friendship behind.

Next up: The Little Mermaid. :)

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Time Periods Challenge: Ancient Egypt

Hello everyone! You'll notice a bit of a difference in my nails with this post. Three of my nails broke last week. I filed them down pretty short and found out the hard way a few hours later that they weren't filed enough. One of them caught and broke again! My nails had to be filed shorter than I've had them in a good long while � so short that the tips of my fingers actually hurt where the extra length of my nails usually protected them.

But enough about that. Here is my post for the Time Periods Challenge. Today is Ancient Egypt. I've seen so many hieroglyph nails and the rarer death mask inspired nails that I wanted more than anything to do something different. Here's my attempt to think outside the box.

I'm not an expert, but I've always been slightly fascinated with Ancient Egypt. The pharaohs, the Gods, their way of life � it's all so interesting to me. Did you know cats were highly revered by the Ancient Egyptians? Some cats of royalty were dressed in gold jewelry and allowed eat from their owners' plates!

What better way of thinking outside the box than to do a cat nail for Ancient Egypt? I used a saran wrap base of Color Show Bold Gold and Funky Fingers Platinum Record. The cat is a representation of Bast/Bastet � most often shown as a black cat with gold jewelry or a woman with the head of a black cat.

I couldn't find my nail art brush so the cat was done with a combo of dotting tool and sewing needle (for the ears, tail, and collar).

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W is for ...

Hello everyone and welcome to another ABC Challenge post! This week we're up to the letter W. Coming up with words to use for each letter and then creating a nail art design for that word is harder than it sounds! My mind goes blank every week, so I usually scroll through dictionary sites to find my word of the week. I thought there was absolutely nothing to do this week that I could then link to Valentine's Day, but I finally came up with something. And it has no pink!!

W is for ... Wings of Love.

I have wanted to do a caged bird mani forever! And I completely and totally adore how this one turned out!! I started with 3 coats of LA Colors Energy Source. More coats than I usually use, but since so much of the white was going to show I didn't want any chance of this being sheer or patchy. The black is Petites Night. I tried to keep everything connected between nails. The open birdcage, the cursive love, and the bird all leading to the heart. 

I love this mani so much that I couldn't seem to stop taking pictures. I tried to choose one from every angle so you can get the full effect.

I actually sacrificed an old nail art brush to do this mani. I couldn't get the lines small and delicate enough for the birdcage and the cursive love with the brushes I have, so I cut some bristles off an old brush to make it thinner! A great use for old brushes and cheaper than buying a thinner brush!!

It looks intricate and elegant, but is actually pretty simple when you break it down by nail. I found the hardest part is actually the birdcage, at least for me. Don't try to twist your hand around to do it right-side-up � this will just make your hands shaky and it's harder/messier to do an 'n' shape with nail polish; it's so much easier to leave your hand pointed straight away from you and just create a U on your nail. Create a smaller U inside that making sure the bottom of your u's touch/overlap and put a line down the middle. Add a line across the bottom, a handle at the top, and an open door on the side.

I really hope you enjoy this mani as much as I do. Check back tomorrow for the last Valentine's Day mani.

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P is for ...

Hello everyone. Welcome to 2013!! :) Today's post was supposed to be for the letter Q in the ABC Challenge but, after the Christmas rush, I felt like doing nothing, so I'm a little behind in my posts. I don't feel right moving onto Q before posting P so ...

P is for ... Phoenix.

I cringe a little looking at this design. I was cleaning my usual nail art brush and the bristles came out. I was stunned because I was cleaning it like I always clean my brushes. I wasn't any more or less rough/gentle or pulling on the bristles excessively. I'm really not pleased because I pay an outrageous price for these brushes�4 brushes for about $15! I think I'll be ordering my brushes online from now on; for my usual price I can probably get a full set.

So, all brush rants aside, this design is a little messier than my usual since I had to use a thicker brush for the line work. Still, I felt very Harry Potter creating this phoenix ... though it's not as stunning as Fawkes. :)

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L is for ...

It's Wednesday again, and you know what that means�another ABC Challenge mani.

L is for ... Lemur Catta aka the Ring-Tailed Lemur!

I think lemurs are some of the most adorably weird creatures. I think of them as a combination of a koala, a cat, and a dog. Yes, that's silly of me. But they have the furry fluffy coloring of a koala, the slinky graceful body of a cat complete with long twitchy tail and there's something oddly reminiscent of a dog in their face. I think it's the long muzzle-like nose and the big expressive eyes. Look through some pics of ring-tailed lemurs and tell me I'm not right!

I decided on a green background for these nails. When a lemur isn't in the trees, they're usually bouncing around in the grass. Green seemed like a good idea. I used two coats of Sinful Colors Exotic Green then mixed it with a little white and used my eyeshadow applicator to dab on the lighter green. You know how I love my texturing. :) The rest, lemur face and tail, were all hand drawn.

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Happy Turkey Day!!!

Surprise!!! I got my Thanksgiving nails done last night so I decided to schedule this to post while I'm not home. Right this second, I'm enjoying turkey and stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy and many more yummy, yummy things. :) I hope you guys enjoy this mani and have a wonderful (and safe) Thanksgiving.

I did Pilgrims and Indians. The Indian nails were inspired by this absolutely gorgeous printed skirt I found browsing Google. If I could find this skirt for sale somewhere I would totally buy it ... and I don't wear skirts; I just love it that much!

And you can't forget about the turkey on my thumb. I'm sorry the picture is kind of fuzzy. I couldn't get my hand twisted just right to get anything better than this.

Enjoy and I'll see you tomorrow. :)

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K is for ...

Another day, another ABC Challenge post. With K words like ketchup and kazoo to choose from what was I going to do?? It actually took me a few days and much dictionary browsing to find something worthy of a mani. I bring you:

K is for ... Koi.

I confess that when I started these nails I still had no idea how I was going to accomplish them. I knew I wanted to do koi and use Wet n Wild Club Havana and white to make a splotchy pattern but that was about it. After using two coats of Club Havana I decided to use saran wrap to dab on the white. This gave the koi a very unique swirling watery pattern. I also used the saran wrap to dab on some Pure Ice Poker Face, a sheer shimmery golden orange polish, in an attempt to create the glittery metallic looking scales of a koi.

I'm sure you know by now how much I love my accent nails. So, no matter how unique these nails looked alone, I just had to add an open-mouthed, barbel-whiskered koi like fish face.

I will not be posting tomorrow as I will be spending the day with family. To those who celebrate, Happy Thanksgiving. To those who don't, have a great day anyway. Spend time with family and be thankful for all you have. :)

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I is for ...

I scoured the internet looking for something, anything, unique that I could do for the letter I in the ABC Challenge. I was going to do Rorschach ink blots, but I didn't have the correct tools to accomplish them the way I wanted. I attempted them anyway and ended up with an absolute disaster. I decided to start over and try something else. So ...

I is for ... Iguana. Not very unique, but I tried. :)

I used Revlon Garden as my base color. I lightened it and darkened it with white and black for the texture. I also added a few dabs of Color Club's neon yellow Yell-Oh! Looking through pictures of iguanas I found a beautiful green iguana that had light blue patches on its skin so I also added some dabs of Wet n Wild I Need a Refresh-Mint over the texturing.

Here is a closer look at the texture. I had a moment of panic upon realizing I had no scale stamps on any of my stamping plates. The one stamp that looked anything like scales was absolutely tiny! So, I settled for Born Pretty Store's m61 stamping plate. I used China Glaze Holly-Day and actually consciously slowed my movements so I wouldn't get the full stamp.  A first for me, but I wanted it to look uneven like scales and I also wanted some of the texturing to show through in places.

I wasn't completely happy with the texturing and scales so I added an iguana eye to my index nail hoping to give this mani some life. In this picture, before I removed the design, I decided to see what it looked like with a top coat. The nails lost nearly all the rough texturing I worked so hard to create, but I really like how the eye took on a more realistic quality. Look into it and tell me it doesn't stare back at you!

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The Webs We Weave

Hello girlies!! First off, I just want to say thank you guys so much for sticking with me. I don't say it enough but I love all your follows, your views, your comments, and your shares. You keep me going, keep me coming back with better and better nail art. So, thank you; you guys are great!!!

Spider nail art was the challenge for today in the Nail-Aween Challenge. I'm really excited to share these nails with you. I tried something new, and I really like how it turned out.

When I read the challenge for today all I could think of was spiderwebs on my nails with a spider crawling over my hand. I wanted nothing more than to find someone local who owned a tarantula and wouldn't mind me getting some pictures. Sadly, no one I know owns one anymore and I didn't think the local pet shop would be too happy if I wanted to hold their spiders for pictures with no intention of buying. I finally settled on this big guy. He was made with a suction cup on his belly so he could hang in the window but I found a new use for him.

These spiderwebs look even better in person. I used two coats of L.A. Colors black and used white sewing thread to create the webs. It was a little more time consuming than simply drawing them on but not only did I actually enjoy creating these webs I really love how 3D using thread makes them.

Here is a closer look at the thread. Honestly, they aren't the best to look at in macro. A camera catches things your eyes glance right over. I did not actually cut the thread first. I found it easier to control where the thread lay when it was still attached to the spool. I simply ran the tip of the thread through some clear polish and lay it where I wanted. I used my dotting tool and more clear polish to move it into position and attach it to my nail. I cut the end from the spool before I attached the last section. Each line was done separately. As I was doing this, I thought it was oddly like laying tape for a sunbeam mani.

I tried putting a top coat on my pinkie but it caused some slight bleeding into the white thread and also caused a lot of bubbling so I decided not to use top coat on the other nails. After that it was a simple matter of arranging the spider over my nails and snapping some pictures.

What do you think of my thread webs? Will you be trying them before Halloween?

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F is for ...

I had a few ideas on what to do for F in the ABC Challenge but the one that really stood out and begged to be done was frog. Not just any frog though, I wanted to do Blue Poison-Dart Frog nails. I actually want to do a collection of poison-dart frog nails.

I started with a three coat base color of China Glaze Secret Peri-Wink-Le and used my trusty eyeshadow applicator to lightly sponge on China Glaze First Mate. I mixed Secret Peri-Wink-Le with a small bit of L.A. Colors white to create the lighter speckles. The black dots were created with my largest and my smallest dotting tools and done with L.A. Colors Black. I'm sure even those who don't know anything about frogs know that frogs have this slick, wet or slimy look about them so I used two coats of top coat to give these nails an extra froggy shine.

I used this stock photo as my inspiration. As animals go, I'm pretty neutral about frogs. I don't have a fear nor would I scream if I saw a frog but I wouldn't want to run up and try to pet them like I would a dog. However, I do find some breeds, the poison-darts especially, of frogs stunningly beautiful. The poison-dart frogs all have such bright, bold, and beautiful colors and markings. I find them oddly like butterflies in this way, using their colors and markings to warn off predators.

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A Parliament of Owls

Hello girlies! I don't know about you but I've been seeing owl nails everywhere. Sometimes just colorful owls like SuPa Nails Oh Oh Owls! Sometimes not so colorful like JawsOfKita-LoveHim's Owl Nails. There's also those with one owl like cutepolish's Cute Nail Art tutorial. Or those with designs that incorporate all nails like Chalkboard Nails Valentine's Owl Nail Art or Unhas da *micktuti*'s owl nails.

With all these awesome owl nails I wanted to try some of my own. I saw this design on Pinterest first and just had to recreate it. It's originally from Chalkboard Nails and was then recreated by Let them have Polish as part of a challenge�inspired by a tutorial.

I couldn't have chosen a worse time to do this design though. It was very hot and humid; the kind of heat that nail polish doesn't dry well in. I also had very little time to do my nails before I had to start getting ready for my niece's dance recital. I thought I could do it though. How hard could they be? Well, I'll admit they weren't that hard. I didn't think out the color choices very well. I mostly just reached into my nail drawer and grabbed the closest colors.

The base colors worked well together but once I started lightening it for the chest, dotting on the chest spots, and adding the beak everything just kind of blended together.

The spots and beak look nearly perfect on the mint and purple, shows up slightly less on the pink and red, but really just blends completely on the orange. If I had more time I'm sure I would have tested each color on paper before using them, but I was in a rush.

How much of a rush you ask? So much of a rush that I didn't realize I had scraped the eye off my thumb owl and dented the tip of the middle finger owl until I was in the car and far away from my nail supplies. I told my nieces that the orange owl was evil and attacked the pink owl. *giggle* I'm so mean. :)

I'm actually pretty proud of how well my right hand turned out all told. I'm right handed but through much practice I've gotten my left hand able to do much of the fine detail work. Still, it's never as good as doing nail art with my right hand. However, besides the googly eyes on the red owl I think everything came together very well.


For those who are wondering ... a groups of owls is called a parliament, hence the title. Yeah ... I had to look it up too. ;)


Polish Used

• Revlon - Base Coat
• Wet n Wild - I Red a Good Book
• Wet n Wild - I Need a Refresh-Mint
• Wet n Wild - Club Havana
• Wet n Wild - Bite the Bullet
• Wet n Wild - Tropicalia
• Sally Hansen - Mellow Yellow
• Sally Hansen - Sun Kissed
• LA Colors - Black
• LA Colors - White

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Chessur Disaster

Not all my nail designs work out. I, like everyone else, have off days and disasters. I call today's post the 'Chessur Disaster'.

For those who don't know, Chessur is the Cheshire Cat of Tim Burton's, Alice in Wonderland. This is one of my favorite movies and I dream of one day having a Cheshire tattoo complete with the Mad Hatter's top hat. I love any Alice in Wonderland but Burton always adds a certain flair to everything he touches that I simply adore.

In addition to being a simple tribute to such a wonderful movie, it is National Pet Month. I have my own pets that I adore, but I would love a Cheshire Cat of my own. Who wouldn't??

As you can see, this isn't my best mani. I tried something a bit different and it didn't work out. It happens to all of us. The thing to remember is: don't dwell. Seriously! Pick yourself back up, mop up those tears (if there are any), and move on. Thankfully, I realized what a disaster this was before I completed more than this hand. Yes, this turned into a one-handed design! The polish stayed on only long enough to take these pictures and then I moved on. C'est la vie!


Polish Used

• Borghese - Brilliante
• New York Color - Sidewalkers
• New York Color - East Village
• LA Colors - Black
• LA Colors - White
• Sally Hansen HD - Resolution
• Sally Hansen - Fuchsia Power

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Blushing Purple Cows

Wow! Ten followers already? Thank you guys so much! I appreciate each and every one of you. :)


My day started early, and I�ve been on the go ever since. This means my pictures aren�t up to my usual standards since they were taken in the car. I apologize for this.


The nails themselves are my take on an early Valentine�s nail. I didn�t want to do the standard hearts so I went with an adorable blushing purple cow. I don't know why my mind immediately goes to cows on Valentine's Day ... might have something to do with the Farmville traditional cow available around this time. The cow is all hand-painted so each one is unique.

Colors Used
Sally Hansen - White On
Beauty Concepts - Unnamed Black
L.A. Colors - BCC 590
Essence - Gold Rush
Bon Bons - Unnamed Pink

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