15:00 by Unknown
Welcome to another Time Periods Challenge post. This one is for Imperial China.Here is my pretty poor attempt at creating the Great Wall of China on my nails for this part of the challenge. At war with nomadic tribes, the first Emperor of China, Qin Shi Huang, ordered a defensive wall be built. This wall would later become the start of the Great Wall. All in all, little of the defensive wall he had built to stop the attacks of the other tribes still stands today, but it's still pretty darn impressive that something started so long ago still stands in one form or another!
Next up in this challenge: Renaissance Era.
15:00 by Unknown
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!!
15:36 by Unknown
We're off to Ancient Rome with this post for the Time Periods Challenge.
There were two things I thought of when I saw Ancient Rome � gladiators and Roman soldiers. I finally decided on Roman soldiers. I did my best at creating pteruges on my nails. I had to search long and hard to find out the proper name for this piece of clothing/armor. Pteruges were the decorative skirts made of leather or fabric strips that were worn around Roman and Greek soldier's waists. Some of them had metal studs and such on them to give additional protection.Next up for the Time Periods Challenge: Medieval.
Coming tomorrow: Beauty and the Beast for the Disney Challenge ... if I can get them done in time. I was finally right on time for my posts, and then I spent a day making new nail polish instead of doing my nails, so now I'm behind again. At least you'll have some really gorgeous new nail polish from me to look forward to.
*A reminder. The Grin & Bear It Giveaway is ending tomorrow. So get your entries in!
16:24 by Unknown
Ever feel like there is so much to do and not enough time to do it? I feel like that a lot lately. It's the reason for all the late night posts. I just can't seem to get ahead, but I am really grateful not to be behind! I would feel 100 times worse if I was behind. So, today's post is another Time Periods Challenge mani. We're on Ancient Greece now.I decided on a Greek wave mosaic. Like the Greek fret, the ocean-like wave pattern was very common. Another common feature in Ancient Greek art was the pebble mosaics. It was something the Greeks pretty much perfected.
I used a base of Revlon Waterfall and then created the waves with Sephora by OPI Read My Palm. Once the waves were completed I started layering blue/green sequins over them, using clear polish to attach them when my base color dried. This is a design that will take a while as each sequin has to be added one at a time so that they touch or even overlap a little.
With thing heating up around here there are a few things I forgot.
Things I forgot over winter:- The heat causes my polish to bubble as it dries
- The heat slows dry time, meaning I can't get away with rushing to add a second coat.
- A fan too close while I'm doing my nails causes the polish to dry out quickly on the brush turning it thick and tacky.
- The heat sometimes causes my fingers to swell, which means I'm not as dexterous as I need to be for both painting my nails and for taking pictures ... especially for taking pictures.
20:23 by Unknown
Late night post!! I'm sorry for the lack of actual nail posts lately. I just really haven't been feeling very inspired. It might have something to do with this. I had absolutely no idea what to do for Ancient Mayan in the Time Periods Challenge. I'm not a history buff. I have a few eras I like, but I mostly look to the future. I know nothing about the Mayan culture. If there wasn't the recent hubbub about the end of the world thanks to the Mayan Calender I likely wouldn't know anything about Maya at all. I searched and searched all week and finally found something last night. It feels a bit like a cop out but ...
Mayans worshiped many jaguar gods, demi-gods, and protectors. As I said, I know nothing about Mayan culture, but I found this really interesting. Why? Because I love big cats!! They should totally be worshiped! I actually looked into colleges with programs that would let me work with these beauties, but found nothing that would let me do exactly what I wanted. I even looked into volunteering at big cat rescues, but there were sadly none near enough.
So, if you haven't figured it out yet, my nails are jaguar print. I really try to stay away from most animal prints. They've been done a hundred thousand times before by nearly every blogger under the sun. There's really nothing new that can be done with these prints. But I really did enjoy doing these nails ... twice since the first attempt was a messy disaster!
15:00 by Unknown
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).
15:00 by Unknown
Since we are now on the Stone Age in the Time Periods Challenge I couldn't think of a better nail art idea than the modern stone age family! If you don't know who they are, what rock have you been living under all your life??
It's the Flintstones and the Rubbles: Betty and Barney Rubble and Fred and Wilma Flintstone! I adore the Fred nail. I never realized this shade of blue and orange went together so well.
For the nude polish lovers out there I definitely recommend trying to find Color Fever Seashell. I had someone tell me they also found it in the CQ bottles with the same name and number. Seashell is nearly a perfect match for my skin tone. It's a really beautiful nude that has slightly more than a hint of pink. This is one coat!! There is still a small amount of visible nail line and that's not usually my thing, but I love it with this color.
I think I finally figured out the whole inlinkz thing so check out the other manis by some really lovely artists for this part of the challenge. Hopefully I'll remember to add the coding to each post for the challenge. :)
15:00 by Unknown
Welcome to the very first post of the Inspired by Time Periods Challenge! I'm not very good with time periods; I abhorred history only slightly less than math in school, but I'm going to try my best. :)
So, first up: Jurassic Era. That means dinosaurs, right? I've watched Jurassic Park, many times, and seen the sequels too!
Even having the jumping off point of dinosaurs I was still completely stumped on what I wanted to do with this nail art. I practically lived on Google these last few days hoping for some really awesome inspiration.
That's when I found some really cute dinosaur nail art by Vettelicious and decided to try and put my own spin on it. I'm not sure I accomplished that very well. My little dinosaur nail looks more like a horned troll or something in my opinion. Ah well, every artist has their off days.
Here is the line-up for the Time Periods Challenge. You can take the image and join in if you like. Be sure to join this group and post your manis so we know you're with us for the Challenge!
Come back tomorrow because I have an amazing post for you filled with swatches galore!
