Christmas Leopard

I love me some leopard and so of course I had to do some Christmas themed ones! I stared with a base of Sephora by OPI Curve-aceous (red) and Nails Inc. Bruton Mews on the accent nail.

I then dabbed on the opposite colour for the leopard spots. The above picture is taken in front of my Christmas tree :)

I then used a copper nail pen and outlined the spots.

Here are some pics outdoors:

This may be one of my favourite leopards! I love how versatile animal prints are. I think this would look good with a gold stud at the base of the nail.

Happy painting friends!

Santa Hats

This really cool image has been floating around the internet so I thought I would duplicate it on my nails. I'm not sure where the original idea came from but it's so cute! (EDIT: Just found out the original idea came from a very talented Youtuber named keshiaLilly, click on her name to be taken to her tutorial video. I did mine a bit differently as I used nail pens but the effect is the same.)

This look is actually reasonably easy to achieve. I started with Sally Hansen Diamonds and then added a Sephora by OPI red called Curve-aceous. I then did the black and white details with nail art pens.

I love these and have gotten lots of positive feedback about them. Unfortunately you can see a bit of the stain that remains on my nail from a previous nail polish. You can't see it so well in person but it's much more noticeable in the photos. Just shows you that you need to have a really good base coat! I had one on at the time it was stained but it wasn't "strong" enough. Yikes!

Happy painting friends!

Warm Up with a Cup of Cheer

I love getting inspiration from all over and today's nails are inspired by a picture of one of my friends, Nikki, who recently visited the German Christmas Market here in Vancouver. If you are ever so fortunate as to meet Nikki, you would find her to be one cool lady indeed!

Here is the pic I took inspiration from:

And here is the nail art that came from it:

I started with a base of Zoya Sailor  on all of my nails to replicate her coat and then added polka dots using a dotting pen and Revlon Foxy (dark brown) and an unnamed beige by LA Color Craze for a rather loose interpretation of the fur around her collar.

My first pic is in natural light and the second pic is taken indoors.

This pic is also in natural light. For the cup I used an unnamed red in my collection and some nail art pens for the details. I'm not sure what exactly is in the cup ;)

Nikki liked it a lot! (I think, lol)

Happy painting friends!

A Little Bit Holly

Being back at work has sure made me behind in blogging! I have definitely not been on top of it like I usually am but I still haven't missed a day! I wanted to do some nail art for my friend Holly and what better to do than some holly :)

I started with a base of Orly Moonlit Madness (red) and then did a diagonal stripe of Zoya Tomoko (gold). I then took the Orly and dotted on the berries followed by putting the leaves and gold accents on with nail pens.

I really like how these turned out but they weren't what I pictured in my mind lol. Isn't that always the way?

Apparently I applied the top coat (Seche Vite) rather poorly as I had uneven lines near the cuticle. Oh well, it's a learning process!

Happy painting friends!

In a Galaxy Far Far Away...Called Vernon!

I'm going to take a break from the Christmas designs I've been doing to show you the last nail art I did for my friend Carrie when I was visiting her in Vernon. I love the galaxy design and since she is a scientist (biology not astronomy though) I thought I would do it for her.

She guessed what is was right away which made me very happy :)

I started with a base of Sally Hansen Black Out and then sponged on a load of colours mostly from Orly and Essie.

I then went in with one of my nail pens and drew in little stars. The best thing is that as I am typing this I have Songza on and the Imperial March from Star Wars has come on. So perfect!

The galaxy mani is really quite easy to do. You just need to layer colours with a sponge. I usually start with dark and go lighter to build up the colour.

Thanks Carrie for the use of your nails :)

Happy painting friends!

Christmas Foil

Today was my first day back at work so I apologize that this post is a bit late. I did this manicure a while ago but as it's Christmas colours I wanted to put it up. This is the same as my tape tutorial that I posted a few weeks ago but with different colours.

I started with a base of a Color Club silver and when that was totally dry I used scotch tape and painted off sections using Orly Moonlight Madness (red), China Glaze Outta Bounds (Green) and Ciate Ladylike Luxe (gold).

Looking at these photos I am cringing a bit as I should have paid better attention to my clean up! I think if I redid this mani I would choose a different gold as the Ciate came across a bit yellow against the silver.

Happy painting friends!

More Snowflakes but so Tiny!

Today is day two of my nail art featuring my friend Carrie and her daughter. Today is focused specifically on her daugher Mina. She is five years old, cute as a button and very smart! I had such a good time visiting with her and doing her nails. She loves pink (of course) but is also really drawn to bright orange! She wanted snowflakes just like her mom so I had to give her what she wanted :)

I started with a base of Orly Mayhem Mentality and then drew on the snowflakes with a silver nail pen. The glitter accent nail is by Color Club.

The thing I love the most about this is she chose everything herself. All the colours, where the accent finger was, everything! She had very definite opinions of what she wanted.

She was very happy with the result:

How cute is she?!?

I then invited her to do my nails and she was very excited to choose my colours and design. She was even brave and tried using the nail art pens!

Needless to say there was a lot of glitter involved! She was so invested in doing my nails and I loved it. There were a lot of colours involved and I won't list them all here but I will say that the end result reminded me of a birthday party so we called them "birthday nails".

Thanks Mina!

Happy painting friends!