Catching Fire Nails

Good morning everyone!  I hope your first week of December is treating you well!  Only 20 more sleeps till the big guy is here!  I have started my Christmas shopping, but hope that Tyler and I can get a good chunk of it done this coming weekend :)

Today I have a quick post with a mani that I did a couple weeks ago for the opening weekend of Catching Fire, the second installment of the Hunger Games trilogy.  This is one of my favourite trilogies, and of course I had to go and watch it with my bestest friend, and movie-buddy, and have a girls' weekend :D

For this I started with 2 coats of Julep Nadia, a light yellow shimmer.  This is a really interesting colour, and I kind of like it.  Then, I followed cutepolish's tutorial for Catching Fire nails using a random orange shimmer polish, and Julep Karmen to create the flame tips, and my Jordana Pop Art Black Mark striper polish.

Overall, I love the look of this mani, and loved the movie!!  It was just as exciting as Hunger Games, and can't wait for the final movie to come out, but I don't know when that is yet.

Did you go watch Catching Fire?  Did you do your nails to match the occasion?

Cartoon Nails

Happy Monday!  We got our last blast of winter yesterday and ended up with a little less than an inch of the white stuff.  Don't worry, I'm not complaining :D  I personally took it as Mother Nature's way of telling me "it won't be long till it's back!" :D  Now, before you guys start throwing rotten tomatoes at me, let's move on to the nails ;)

I have been wanting to do this mani from cutepolish since watching the video a few weeks ago when she posted it, but other designs and swatching have taken precedence, for some reason..  That, and I've been kinda lazy, lol!

February Nail Art Challenge Day 7

Afternoon ladies and gents!  I hope all my readers in provinces that observe Family Day are having a good day off work (I know I am), and those of you in the US are having a good Presidents' Day.

I have for you Day 7 of the February Nail Art Challenge - can you believe that it is almost over?? :(  Today's theme is Inspired by a Tutorial, and I mosy'd on over to cutepolish's YouTube channel and watched her Black Spotted video again to make sure I remembered how to do it.

NOTD: Back to School Nail Art

Hey everyone!  Today I have for you my Back to School nail art for Spicey'z Nails' "Back to School" nail art contest that she is having until September 10.  Here is the link to the contest information.

For those of you who follow my page on Facebook, I have been advertising that is is Muffin Nails that is having the contest, but I was wrong.  I am so sorry for the confusion!  I hope both of these ladies can forgive me for my mistake :(

Ok, now that I have that off my chest and cleared up, onto the nails! :)

I used so many colours for this design I will try to remember them all and list them at the bottom :)

• Thumb nail - apple manicure inspired by cutepolish's tutorial.  For this I used Jessica Red Delight, Cherimoya Dark Brown and Julep Courteney.
• Index nail - note paper manicure, I have seen this around the nail community.  For this I used L'Oréal I Will! (white), Avon Lagoon (blue) and Jessica Red Delight.
• Middle nail - pencil manicure inspired by Muffin Nails (who said she was going to do pencils, so I came up with this design from her mentioning it).  For this I used the tape method to get the point (cut a triangle into a piece of tape and put it on my nail) then painted with Julep Alyson (nude).  Then I painted over that with Julep Daisy (yellow) and did the lines with Julep Parker.  The lead I did with Jordana Pop Art Black Mark striper polish.
• Ring nail - chalkboard manicure, again I have seen this around the nail community, but with math equations so I thought I would do letters instead :)  For this I used Julep Emilie for my chalkboard and Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Mellow Yellow.  I topped it with Essie Matte About You topcoat to give it a matte finish.
• Pinky nail - converse shoe nails, because every good student needs a new pair of shoes to start off a new year :D  For this I used Avon Blue Shock, L'Oréal I Will!, Jordana Pop Art Star Designer (silver) and Jordana Black with a toothpick.

I hope everyone participates in Spicey'z Nails' Back to School nail art contest.  I love doing nail art contests :)  And again, I apologize for the mix-up in who is hosting it.  I feel so bad about it :(

NOTD: Water Marble

Well I made it through today -- how about you guys?

Jill over at Jilltastic Nail Design has weekly nail art challenges on her Facebook page and this week she chose water marbling for her fans.  I have tried this technique twice before and have found that it's a very tricky technique and you have to hold your tongue just right in order for it to work ;P  I decided I would participate in the challenge so tonight I did some water marbling.

First, I painted my nails white with L'Oréal I Will! so that the colours I used to water marble would pop!  Then did my water marbling with Jessica Black, Avon Loving Lavender and Aqua Fantasy.  I LOVE the way this turned out even though there were some spots where I mis-aimed and didn't get any design on my nails but that's OK because the white adds extra character with the unique designs :)

So what do you think??  Have you tried water marble nail art?  Share pictures with us on my Facebook page!

Some tips and tricks --

• Use room temperature bottled water, not tap water
• I use a plastic shot glass (Jell-o shooter glass) that I got at my local dollar store
• Apply chapstick on the skin around your nail and up your finger so that when you dip your nail into the water and polish it is much easier to remove the polish that gets on your skin.
• Check out these videos to get a visual on how to accompish this technique -- Jilltastic Nail Design and cutepolish

The thing I like about water marbling is that every nail looks different :)

NOTD: Get a Life! ;)

Hey everybody!  I hope everyone is enjoying their weekend so far :)

I have for you today the nail art I was going to do on Thursday but due to nail staining (which is still there) I put it off, but decided to do it anyways.  This is for all you video-game junkies out there!

I was able to cover the staining with white polish, then added a nude sheer to it to give it an almost natural nail look.  It's a lot better than what this design would have looked like without the white coat because my green stained nails would have been peeking through the design.

Anyways, without further ado, here is what I have for you today.  I saw this nail tutorial on cutepolish's YouTube channel and just had to try it!

This was a little more difficult than it looked in the video, but I used the nail polish brush rather than a smaller art brush, so that made it a little trickier.  Next time I would definitely use a smaller art brush.

I also knicked my thumb nail while I was waiting for the nude colour to dry, so please ignore that  :)

So the colours I used -- Avon Electric Green, L'Oréal I Will, Jordana Pop Art Black and Sally Hansen Nearl Nude Natural Colour from a French Tip kit.  In the sunlight pictures you can see the shimmer of the nude colour, it's very pretty on its own too :)

What do you guys think?  I would also like to try the design with red for the "grow-up" mushrooms from Super Mario Bros.  Super Mario Bros. is my favourite video game, but I don't know all the "technical" terms for the magic mushrooms in the game :P

So the next time your boyfriend or husband tells you to "get a life" because you paint your nails too often, paint this for him then see what he has to say ;D

NOTD: Braided Nail Art

Happy ManiMonday everyone!  I decided, after seeing this nail art around the web that I needed to try it.  Then, Mary over at Swatch and Learn did Braided Nails twice (Fishtail Braid Nails and Summery Fishtail Braid Nails), and cutepolish posted this tutorial video on YouTube, I knew it was time! :D

I used Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Celeb City, Julep Morgan and Jordana Black for this design.

What do you guys think of Braided Nails?  Have you tried Braided Nails?  If you have, share them with us on my Facebook page so we can all see :D