Blue and White Pottery Inspired Nails

Hello friends, how are you all this week?  It feels almost like spring where I am right now, and not at all like a typical February here in the GTA. My boyfriend visited me last week and the weather was just gorgeous, it was so warm and sunny! I really hope that this weather lasts until summer, though that'll be unlikely. This week, I actually really wanted to do a spring inspired design because of how spring-like it feels outside. However, not wanting to jinx this beautiful weather, I decided against it. 

The idea for the design came to me because my mother showed me a post from her chinese website about dresses inspired by traditional blue and white pottery designs. I've always found traditional chinese pottery to be extremely beautiful. I've spent many hours as a child staring and admiring the the beautifully glazed ceramics.

With this design, I decided to that it would look best if done purely with nail polish. Normally, I would prefer using acrylic paints for such intricate designs, but I did not have any paints in this colour (I definitely need to add some more colors to my collection). Plus, acrylic designs tend to look a bit more flat compared to polish based designs and  I wanted to achieve that glazed ceramic feel without having to add thick layers of topcoat. That being said, I had not worked with nail polish as a medium in a while and I was definitely not used to how fast the polish dried up! It was certainly quite a fun process, and I think that I'd enjoy trying this with some acrylic paint in the future.

Anyway, without further ado, here are my tips and tricks on how to create these nails (and some more pictures)!

Elegant Watercolor Nails (with Pictorial)

Hello everybody! It's been a gloomy couple of days up here in Ottawa; it was pouring rain for a while yesterday, and it's been lightly misting all day today. The rain just makes me so sleepy all the time, and with the daylight saving days ending, the days here get dark so early it feels like nighttime seventy-five percent of the time. The good thing so far is that we've been blessed with such warm weather this year. Usually by this time, I already have 10 layers of clothes and my warmest jacket on, so I'm really glad for that.

This week's WNAC theme is watercolor, so I decided to do some very pastel water colour nails with a cute purple french tips! This was actually inspired by a design I did several years ago, but I haven't had a chance to practice this technique so the blending didn't turn out exactly how I thought they would.  I also don't think the picture turned out very well, as the pink barely shows but, these pictures give the design a more pastel and gentle look.

Keep reading f you want to know and see how I did these nails:

Damask Nails (with Pictorial)

Hello everybody and sorry about the late blog post! It's been quite a busy week since midterms just started; but I made it through both exams just fine (I hope). Anyways, I finally had a chance to do my nails late last night but I wanted to wait until today to take full advantage of the gorgeous sunlight in order to capture these pictures. Can you believe that no filters, effects or adjustments were added to these pictures? There truly is no lighting better to take photos with than natural lighting.

These nails are the second prompt for the weekly nail art challenge (WNAC2015) with the theme of "damask". I think that my first attempt at damask was pretty successful! The only thing that I would like to change is the amount of glitter I applies to it. In an attempt to make my nails stand out more, I got the idea of adding a glitter top-coat. I then had to balance it out by putting glitter on my accent nails as well, and it just made everything look a bit messy. All is well though, because creating these nails made me super happy and that is all that matters!

Continue reading to find a pictorial and step-by-step instructions on how to create thee nails!

Pastel Roses

Hello world, I am back with a new manicure after an (almost) year-long hiatus from my blog. As promised though, I am back and determined to keep up with my weekly updates! So here we have my first nail post of the year, some lovely pastel roses! With summer creeping along slowly (it's still a bit chilly here), I wanted to create a manicure that reflected all the colours that reflect the beautiful season that spring is.

Well, without further ado, here are my tips and tricks for creating a similar manicure:

I'm Feeling Rosey

 

Oh hello, hello! I I know that I haven't updated in a very long time, and I apologize! On the plus side though, I finally graduated from high school; four extremely tiring years are finally over! No more late nights and long weeks doing arts projects and living off coffee or less than an hour a sleep for me! I am so ready for two months of relaxation and spending some quality time with my friends before we all part ways for university. Although I know that I'll miss people dearly, I am more than ready to pack my things up and move away. Speaking of packing up, I still have no idea of how I'm going to move all of my nail polishes and nail art supplies to my dorm!....But I'll climb over that mountain when I get to it.

Now, I know I haven't been updating this blog (or my Instagram...sorry), but I have not stopped doing my nails. In fact, I have a plethora of pictures stored, that I just haven't posted yet, though there were a few designs that I neglected to document. These are the nails that I have on right now. They feature one of my most favourite flowers- roses! These are actually quite different from the rose designs I usually do, because they are a lot more detailed. The techniques however, are quite similar, but instead of using just one colour for the roses, I used four. I am in love with this design, it's so much more detailed and the roses just seem to pop out, especially against the nude background! And I don't know if it's just me being weird but, sometimes, when I finish a design, I have this one part or one rose in this instance that I adore so much more than the rest. Is that weird? 

Anyhow, I've ranted enough (for now), so... Onto my tips and tricks:

Prom Nails: Diagonal French Design

Hello all! My eventful week whizzed by like a breeze! I did these simple yet very elegant nails for prom, and I am absolutely in love with them! I've always been a fan of diagonal designs, but this was my first time doing a french inspired diagonal  manicure; plus, I think that the rhinestones really pull it together and they add extra dazzle!

(I haven't a clue of what I'll do for my next set of prom nails yet...)

Here are some tips on creating your very own diagonal french nails for prom (or any occasion):