Beauty and the Beast Stained Glass Nails (with Pictorial)

Hello friends! Have any of you seen the live-action Beauty and the Beast movie yet? They trailers look so amazing and Emma Watson is as gorgeous as always. Maybe I'll take some time to go see it this week. Despite not having seen the movie yet, my nails this week are inspired by it (but maybe moreso the original Disney animation). I've only ever seen the animation two or three times, but I absolutely loved the sound track! "Tale as Old as Time" is such a wonderful song and it makes me feel all warm and tingly inside when I listen to it.

 

This week's nail art did involve a bit of experimentation since it was my first time attempting to create a stained-glass look. I used a glittery base polish with translucent colors on top. The results were not quite what I expected but I think they turned out quite nice, since the sheer layers of paint allowed some glitter flakes to shine through. It took me a while to nail down what design I wanted though, as there were so many cute characters in the movie. In the end, I kept my nails relatively simple using different parts of the stained glass from the movie. On my thumb is the beautiful rose, while on the rest of my fingers I incorperated the wall-climbing roses from the bottom left of the stained glass with the pattern of Belle's dress. 

Anyway, here are my tips, tricks, more pictures and a pictorial of how I did these nails....

Quick NOTW Update: Matte Vintage Roses

Hello everybody. I feel extremely ashamed right now as I've been neglecting to post on both my blog and my instagram in the past month. I apologize for the lack of  updates and also in advance for another period of inactivity that is likely to happen due to my upcoming final exams. The thing is, I have been doing my nails almost every week, but I end up forgetting to take process pictures and final product pictures until my nails end up chipping... ahh Shirley, you need to keep it together! I do a have a few picture of new designs that I did, but I guess I'll keep those in queue for later.

Why does it seem like every time I come back after a period of inactivity, it's with a rose-inspired design? 

Anyways, after a couple of snowstorms within the past couple of weeks, it's finally beginning to feel like spring here in Ottawa; and I thought, what better way to welcome spring than with pretty roses? I started out with the intent to do a pastel spring design but ended up using an extremely bold red. This design ended up looking better than I was expecting it to be and the pastel background with the faint white gridlines complimented the bold look of the roses very nicely. With this design, I decided to do something quite different that I have not done in a long time and went with a matte look instead of a shiny one. The matte top-coat really pulled the design together as it almost makes the roses look kind of velvety in real life (if only my camera was able capture it, sigh). 

Roses and Gold + Happy New Year!

Hello friends! Welcome to 2016! I've bee away for a month now, and I've missed it so much. I returned home for Christmas and only brought a set of polish back home with me. I did get the chance to swatch a couple of polishes I got from Crabtree&Evelyn  a couple of months ago. unfortunately, I packed my suitcase in quite a rush and failed to remember to bring some nail tools or even a top/base coat! In the end, Christmas break ended up just being a "breathing month" for my nails as I left them  bare for a majority of the time. It feels great to be back though! I promised myself that I would try my hardest to post weekly this year; so here's to keeping up with our new years resolutions and to a great new year!

I had a surprising amount of artist's block while trying to come up with the design for these nails, so I reverted to a design that I know how to do well. Rose nails were actually the first design that I learned to do when I first took up an interest in nail art, and I feel like I haven't done them in so long that bringing them back seemed like a good start for the year. These nails turned out to be really pretty in the end, I am loving the result! I was a bit skeptical about y choice of colours for this design, but the roses seem to pull the entire look together!

To find out how to create these nails, please read on:

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:

Magenta Roses

Hello, hello!! It looks like spring has finally arrived here in Canada! I'm so excited for summer to come once again!

This time, I did something that I hardly ever do...I used a black polish as a base colour!I guess that in light of the recent happenings in my life, my choice in polish colour is beginning to reflect my mood..BUT anyway, to celebrate the first breaths of spring (and to the new season that is sure to bring new memories), I used my most favourite flowers as accents! (If you couldn't tell already, roses are my absolute favourite flowers).

Here are some tips on how to create you own version if this manicure:

Simple Gradient with Subtle Rose Accents

Hello to all! I apologize for not posting sooner, but I have no good excuses; I've just been really lazy and I have not been photographing any of my new manicures. This is actually a manicure I had on a couple of weeks ago; and  unfortunately, as you may have noticed, I had to cut my nails short again because they just kept on cracking and chipping! No matter how careful I am, my brittle nails are just too weak to face the world. Winter weather is so hard on the nails, I can't wait for summer to come so that I can wear my nails long again. 

Recently, I've started to really enjoy doing and seeing gradient nail designs- they're so simple yet they can look so elegant and cute. In my pre-blogging days, I did not like gradients at all... probably due to the fact that I failed to make them look how I wanted them to. But, it's like they say, practice (and patience) make perfect! Actually, I've also recently started to really enjoy nude nails as well...combine the two along with my love for roses and you get this manicure (I'm sure more designs like this one are sure to come in the near future). 

Here are my tips and tricks to create your own version of this manicure: