Arrow Tail


There wasn't a lot of nail painting for me this week, school work took up most of my time. I did do another "arrow tail" design which I came up with while improvising for the tribal print challenge in my last post. There's just something relaxing about drawing the design that makes it such a fun task to do.

This time I used Orly Viridian Vinyl as my basecolor and I truly fell in love with it again. It only needs two smooth and fastdrying coats for opacity and the color's just fantastic! Finally I made the arrow print with a white striper. No topcoat was applied, because the satin-matte finish of Viridian Vinyl is too pretty!

31 Day Challenge, day 16: Tribal Print


Hi everyone! Today's it's time for tribal nails with Hema #844 as my basecolor. I was just improvising with a gold striper polish (Janet #115) and this was the result. Not sure if they look tribal per se, though I did recognize an arrow tail in the design when I was done. And that's pretty tribal, right? ;-) The print was really fun to do, and quite easy as well, as it basically just consists of seven straight lines. I can't wait to try it again with bright colors!

Smudges


Remember my animal print post? I'd drawn little animals with a Steadtler permanent marker on a matte polish. Because I wanted to keep the matte finish, I didn't use topcoat over it. Still I wondered what would happen if I did. Well, turns out topcoat doesn't exactly work well with that marker, or does it?

These pictures you're looking at are from my first attempt on the delicate print challenge. I used the same marker on top of Catrice New York and later added topcoat, causing it to smudge like crazy! If you look good, you can still see the letters. But, I actually really liked the smudged effect. It made the letters look a bit graffiti-like. Or like a quick and bad paint job, in a good way, heehee. That's what I love about experimenting: that it can lead you to things you'd never come up with otherwise. What do you think of this smudged mani?

31 Day Challenge, day 15: Delicate Print


Hello everyone! Here's my attempt on the delicate print challenge. Initially I was going for a lace pattern using stamping, but I was more in the mood for some freehanding today which brought me to this gothic kind of look. I have a huge passion for typography and calligraphy and love spending time on drawing fonts. So it was only natural for me to include it in nail art someday. :-)

Not sure if it's very noticeable, but the purple is actually a gradient, I thought it would bring more depth to the design. I used H&M Beauty Bandit as basecolor and sponged some OPI Funky Dunkey (which I'm holding in the picture) and Essence Passion For Fashion on top of it. The writing is done with China Glaze Ink, a striper polish. Hope you like it!

31 Day Challenge, day 14: Flowers


Hi everyone! :-) This is day 14 in the 31 Day Challenge and today's theme is flowers. I have to say the whole mani is a little bit too tacky for me, haha, but being a tad different than most of my manis, I enjoyed working on it very much. I used my trusty cloud design method to draw the petals, first with a black, then with Essence Ultimate Pink. Then I added the blue, diamond-shaped glitters for a bit of contrast. I don't use loose glitters often, but I immediately fell in love with these from Essence, named Shine Like A Star!, which I bought about a year ago. It doesn't show on the pictures, but they're actually holographic, which makes them even more awesome. Can't wait to use them again. :-) Thanks for dropping by!

31 Day Challenge, day 13: Animal Print


Hello readers! For this post I'd like to show you my attempt on challenge 13 of the 31 Day Challenge: a very literal animal print. It was a bit of an experiment as I used other materials besides nail polish: a Staedtler permanent marker and an Edding Deco Marker in white. Once the blue basecolor was dry (nameless polish from Claire's), I freehanded the curious animals on top. The markers seemed to attach well on the matte surface, the polish just needs to be completely dry before you can draw on it.

The animals in this print were supposed to be cats, but with a little imagination they can be any animal you like... Dogs, mice, pigs, ferrets... If you squint your eyes, they can even be the little black soot creatures from Miyazaki's Spirited Away. Oh, yeah, definitely going for the squinting. Love that movie!