Night Sky

I have started another semester of college.  I graduate with my associate's degree in childhood education at the end of this one, so I am pretty excited.  The other night I went to my school for a night class and looked up at the sky.  It was a deep blue which faded into a light yellow at the horizon.  The moon was a crescent.  I was inspired to create a manicure based on how pretty it was.

I started out with a coat of Essie Protein Base Coat.  I then painted on two coats of Sinful Colors Unicorn, a very light yellow.  I applied a coat of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly after that so the sponge wouldn't take off my base color.  

I put four colors on my sponge.  I painted on a stripe of Sinful Colors Black on Black, Sinful Colors Into the Blue, Rimmel Blue Eyed Girl, and a very thin stripe of Sinful Colors Unicorn.  I then stippled that over my nails with the black at the cuticle.  

If I were to do this again, I would have immediately applied another coat of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly to make the gradient blend better.  Since I waited, I was left with a slightly grainy effect.  It's not bad, but it could have looked smoother.  I am really happy with it anyway, though.

I eventually applied a coat of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly over everything but my ring finger.  I used a dotting tool and white acrylic paint to dot on the moon.  I then put a drop of my black polish and my darkest blue touching each other on a piece of paper and I dipped in a dotting tool so I could match the dot which created the crescent moon to the background a little bit better.  In person, it doesn't stand out quite as much as it does in the pictures.

After applying Dries Instantly over all the nails, I applied two coats of NYC Matte Me Crazy, a matte top coat.  I wanted to make my night skies look a little more realistic by taking out the shine.

"Supernatural" Nails!

I am really excited about how most of this manicure turned out!  I thought it would look much worse, so this was a pleasant surprise.  So, in my last post I mentioned that I am loving the show "Supernatural" and that I wanted to do a "Supernatural" inspired manicure.  Well, here it is:

"Supernatural" inspired designs

I started out with a coat of Essie Protein Base Coat and then painted two coats of Sinful Colors Snow Me White on all my nails except for my ring fingernail, which I painted with two coats of Sinful Colors Black on Black.  (On my right hand I painted the white on all my nails.)

This was fun nail art to do because there were so many details that, when I waited for one thing to dry, I could work on something else.  I was never waiting around!  The first thing I did was make the blood spatters on my pointer and pinky on my left hand and on all five nails on my right hand.  I took a straw and would dab polish right from my bottle's brush onto the end and then blow through it with it positioned a couple inches above my nail.  I went over some nails a few times until I got the effect I wanted.  I bought a new blood-red polish that was thin enough to blow on to my nails.  I got Revlon Forbidden.

right thumb nail blood spatters

After I had done that and done a bit of cleanup, I painted a large silver (Sally Hansen Celeb City) circle with a small, flat nail art brush onto my ring fingernail.  I had meant to make the outside ring gold, but I forgot.  So, after the silver ring was dry, I took a large dotting tool dipped in Sally Hansen Golden-I and filled in the edges in with gold and left the center silver.  I then took a small nail art bush and some black acrylic paint and painted the small circle around the silver part and put a small dot in the center of the silver circle.  This is supposed to be the base of a bullet casing.  When the gold was dry, I took a toothpick dipped in the acrylic paint and stippled on the words "45 COLT" on the gold part of the circle.  

"The Colt" bullet casing base

I finally got around to buying some acrylic paint and I DO NOT regret it!  I got mine for $.50 each from Walmart!  (The brand is Apple Barrel.)  Lots of nail art people have said that it is so much easier to work with than nail polish and they are 100% correct!  It is easier to use because it isn't as sticky, so it glides on easily;  it washes off with water, so if you mess up you can wipe it right off and start again; it is very opaque; and it dries really fast.  I would definitely recommend anybody getting it for details and such!

I painted on the "Supernatural" star symbol on my middle finger with a small nail art brush.  I used black acrylic paint to do this.  I messed it up a bit.  I am not that happy with the final look of it either, but I was able to clean up the edges of it and add the white spaces inside the star with some white acrylic paint.  

"Supernatural" insignia

The last bit of nail art I did was the license plate on my thumb.  I first painted some yellow and blue (yellow--Sinful Colors Unicorn; blue--Revlon Dreamer) over the white base to create something that somewhat resembles the background of Dean's Kansas license plate.  When that was mostly dry I added a coat of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly to make a smooth, dry base for the rest of the art.  I then used a flat nail art brush dipped in my black acrylic paint to make the border of the license plate.  Then I took a toothpick dipped in the same acrylic paint to write on "Kansas" and the license plate number (KAZ 2Y5.)  

Dean's Kansas license plate

I finished off everything with two coats of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly.

Guys, the best thing you can do with nail art is not be afraid to experiment and mess up a little!  It is okay to make a mess!  And I have discovered that you can usually save a ruined bit of art in one way or another.  I never take off all the art from a nail because I hate starting over.  I just salvage what is messed up.  Experiment!  And even if you are left with a messy nail, people do not notice.  The overall nail art is what people see!  Have fun with it!

Pink and Yellow Color Blocking

For Easter, my very nice parents bought me some nail polish!  Haha!  The colors I used today are two of my new polishes:

I started out with a coat of Sally Hansen Double Duty.  I then painted two coats of Sinful Colors Unicorn (the light yellow) on all of my nails.  After that, I applied a coat of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly (I also got that for Easter!) so the tape wouldn't pull up my base color.  I then stuck on triangular pieces of tape horizontally across my nails and painted on a coat of Sally Hansen Rockin' Hard.  I used tweezers and my fingers to remove the tape immediately after painting on Rockin' Hard.  I had difficulties doing this today, for some reason, so the lines are not all as crisp as I would like them to be.  Acetone helped me to fix up my major mistakes and issues, though.  I finished off with two coats of Dries Instantly.

I just want to take a moment to thank all of you for being interested enough in this blog that you keep coming back and looking!  I never expected anybody to ever look at this blog!  You guys don't know how excited I get when I see that people from all over the world have viewed it!!  Thank you all so much!!!  =)