Friday 6 January 2012

Ten days of Christmas

















Created from 13th December.
I had decided to do advent calendar nails the week before because I had been late picking up an obligatory chocolate advent calendar for myself this year so that gave me the idea. I had to wait until the 13th before I could paint on the doors because 10 days before Christmas starts on the 15th, unfortunately I don't have 12 fingers so I couldn't do the proper 12 days of Christmas. I decided to use just plain silver and gold for the doors to keep them simple. This made it easier for me to do retouching because they needed maintenance before the 10 days were up. I also placed the numbers randomly like you would see on a normal advent calendar, although I did strategically plan where each design would go first depending on the size of the design.

15th:
I started it all off with a nice traditional Christmas mistletoe. Unfortunately it was a bit too small to catch the attention of any boys.

16th:
This one's not quite so Christmassy because the 16th is my mum's birthday. Traditionally I usually give her the 16th chocolate from my advent calendar so this year I thought I'd go one step further and pay tribute to her in nail art form. She was very pleased with it.

17th:
A teeny red and white candy cane on a green background. I do love a good candy cane and this year we've decorated our house Christmas tree with them too!

18th:
A robin on a snowy white background.

19th:
A lit candle on a holder. This one is my favourite of the bunch because the tiny details came out nicely.

20th:
Holly and berries. Took a few goes to get this nail right and even now I still think it looks a bit plain. Decided to add gold stripes down the side and across the tip to give it a bit more structure.

21st:
Christmas pudding. Not the best pic because of the reflected light but it shows up the layer of silver glitter I painted over the brown. It looked too plain without it.

22nd:
Glittery wreath with a big red bow. This is my completed right hand with all the advent calendar doors uncovered.

23rd:
Pretty Christmas angel. Almost made her too big to fit the halo on her head but I made room for it. I like her tiny eyes and red lips.

Christmas eve:
Decorated Christmas tree with baubles, tinsel, a star and glitter sparkles. I wanted to fit in some presents under the tree too but I didn't quite make enough room for them. This nail was painted using my new nail art pens that I got for Christmas. Pack of 92 colours, including glitters! So excited to use them all! Many more nail art designs to come next year...

















This is my completed left hand. Some of them have a few little chips because unfortunately the varnish doesn't tend to stay on very well for 10 days.

This is me and my friend Dave celebrating Christmas eve at my best friend Nyssa's house.

Wednesday 4 January 2012

Winter wonderland

















Created on 6th December.
Writing essays can be so tedious. Even when I'm writing about my favourite subject; zombies! So I took a break for a good couple of hours to make myself some nice winter themed nails.
I wanted them to just be white and different shades of blue for winter colours. Of course I had to add a few dashes of other colours here and there to complete my creations. From left to right; silver base with blue crackle nail polish. I rarely use this as I like to create my own designs and I find this polish cheats a bit because it's creating the look for me but I thought I'd try it out this once; blue and silver Christmas bauble on a white background; silver bells on a white background; blue stripe wrapping paper. This started out as candy cane stripes but I think it looks more like wrapping paper the way I've done it; a snowman that's ready to party! Then on the other hand; snow globe scene; present with a bow and silver tip; gold shooting star in a blue sky; a very cute penguin; and a snowflake.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

















Created on 26th November.
These are my first Christmas nails of the season. I'd actually just stuck some fairy lights on my wall as my first Christmas decoration, wasn't quite ready for the tree yet. Also as it was still November I wasn't quite ready to go all out festive so I thought some pretty fairy lights would do the trick. I painted every other nail either gold or silver with the new Barry M metallics. Then I painted the tips with either red or green glitter before doing the fine detail of the lights with my nail art pens. I also added a Thanksgiving turkey on one of my nails as my little Thanksgiving tribute.
I always go to my best friends house every year to celebrate and her mum cooks the best Thanksgiving dinner. She also gives me leftovers so I can have a second dinner the following day. I am yet to make a sandwich with a moistmaker though, a la Ross in 'Friends'.

Wonder Woman!

















Created on 16th November.
My uni work had really begun to pick up at this point last term, I was getting really involved with making my first prosthetic and my wig was coming along nicely, however it was becoming very stressful for me as time was rapidly running out. I knew I needed to do something fairly simple with my nails which didn't take up too much time but still looked effective. I was having a cup of tea one evening with my Wonder Woman mug and I realised that would be a perfect theme.
I've used parts of her costume on most of my nails. The little fingers are her boots, the blue stars are her shorts, the yellow 'W' on my thumb is her top and the red star on the gold is her head band. I still had two blank nails left over so I decided to add her lips and a comic book style 'pow'.

There's a zombie on your lawn...

















Created on 12th November.
These were a recommendation from a fellow Plants vs. Zombies fan who I work with at hmv. Took me a while to do them but I got there in the end so these are for you Robb!
They're quite plain and simple really, just a character on each nail but the detail took me a while. I have plants on one hand and a zombie with zombie items on the other.
On my left hand I have a sunflower with sun, a sun-shroom, a peashooter, a wall-nut and a lily pad. The colours aren't necessarily correct but it's all I had to work with at the time and I managed to get their facial expressions which was the important part.
On my right hand I have a zombie head on the thumb (couldn't quite manage a full zombie), a zombie flag with a brain on it, a zombie dolphin, a zombie balloon and a traffic cone which some zombies wear on their head (only the ones which like to party though).

Remember remember the 5th of November...

















Created on 2nd November.
To celebrate Bonfire Night I decided to paint different coloured fireworks on most of my nails, some with silver glitter underneath to make them sparkle like the real thing. As I don't like to do all my nails the same, I put bonfires on my thumb nails, a toffee apple on one finger and a tiny poppy on my little finger nail for Remembrance day which was the 13th of November.

Happy Halloween!

















First of all I must apologize for leaving it so long since I last updated. Been very busy with uni, work and many other things. However I have still made time for my weekly nail art. Therefore I'm now going to have a mega update of the last couple of months.

I moved into a new house just before Halloween so we used this as an excuse to have a big housewarming/Halloween party. As my costume this year I decided to be a Day of the Dead jilted bride and paint my face with bright colours. I do love a bit of blood and gore but it gets boring doing it every year. Here's the outcome:


My housemate Charlotte also made an awesome short film of me doing my make-up as part of her university course. Here's the link: http://youtu.be/6MCXtx0d5oQ

So we come to the nail art... I was considering keeping to the 'Day of the Dead' theme and painting skulls on my nails, however I wanted to do something with a bit more variety so I decided to do a mixture of everything Halloween. On my right hand I have a candy corn, a spider and web, a wolf and moon, dripping blood and a gravestone. On my left hand I decided to do spooky faces; a clown, a pumpkin, Jack Skellington, a mummy and a ghost.