Christmas nails: Santa's helpers

Hey, hey, what do you know? 5 more days till Christmas and I've got the perfect holiday nail art to show you. Today's nail art is a recreation of the Christmas nails that IHaveACupcake did. Here's the link to her video.

I did these nails last year and I really wanted to do them again this year just to see if there's any improvement. Please excuse the bad angling of my hand, the poor lighting and smearing of polish (yeah, I had a horrible top coat that really didn't do much).

Taken indoors

Taken in indirect sunlight

Taken with flash

As you can see, I used 7 colors but I can't remember exactly which polishes I used. I do know that I used China Glaze - Turned Up Turquoise, The Face Shop - BR602 (brown), a black nail art pen and a white nail art pen.

I did this design using the tips and ends of skewer sticks only. Not too shabby, if I may say so myself. How hard was it to complete a design using only skewers? Not too difficult.. just that it requires a lot of patience. I believe I once said that nail art has helped increase my patience level. It's true, haha. I used to devote a lot of time and hard work - still do but less since I have a couple of proper tools these days.

Don't give up on your nail art no matter what level you're at. You can do this and learn to embrace the imperfections of your nail art. I would say it's worth it. Don't forget to take breaks in between though. I think it's important to let your nails breathe and grow out once in a while.

I hope you like my recreation of this nail art. Tell me which design is your favorite and if you've ever done Christmas nail art recreations by other nail art bloggers.

Thanks for reading and have a lovely day!

Christmas nails: a string of lights

Hey everyone. I've got more Christmas nail art for you today.

Lately I've been feeling uninspired to do my nails. I've got quite a bit going on in my life at the moment so it's been busy and I haven't felt like sitting down to do my nails even though at one point it was the thing that helped me relax. I hope to get back into the swing of things soon but we'll see, right?

Anyway, in the meantime, don't worry, I still have nail art to show you. Today's design is one that has been on my nail art wishlist - a string of Christmas lights! I LOVE seeing Christmas lights - it gives everything a magical look and reminds me of Disneyland during the holiday season.

Taken with flash

Hmm... how I got white polish onto my skin is a good question... Haha, let's just say I really lacked control when I was painting them.

Taken in indirect sunlight

Taken in indirect sunlight

Taken in indirect sunlight

I used a black nail art pen to draw the wire first then I blobbed on the lights using a nail art brush.

The nail polish I used:
China Glaze - Salsa
China Glaze - Frostbite
Sally Hansen -  Emerald City
Orly - Charged Up
Orly - Glowstick
China Glaze - White on White (base color)

This design, as with the most of the other designs I've done, was really easy and I believe anyone can do it too. If you're looking for a cute Christmas design to wear this holiday season, I hope you'll give this a try. I love when I find easy designs that turn out well. That's the fun in nail art for me - simple but beautiful creations that anyone else can do.

What do you think of Christmas lights? Are they a must-have in your house for Christmas? What kind of Christmas lights do you hang? Ever tried Christmas lights nail art? I'd love to see them!

Thank you for reading!

Pink mermaid tail nail art

Hey guys! I've got a surprise for you today. I did promise to show you these nails in my Liebster Award post. I know that post was in September but hey, October was for Halloween nail art so perfectly justified, right? Haha, maybe but anyway...

Since I received such overwhelming love for the mermaid tail nails that I did two months ago, I decided to do another version but this time in shades of red. I myself LOVED the mermaid nails that I did and was so excited that you all loved it too.

I was sitting around wondering what next to do for my nail design when it clicked in my head. I can do mermaid nails in shades of red! The image in my head was so pretty so I knew I had to do them.

Here are the pictures!

Taken with flash

This picture was taken after applying one coat each of polish to my nails so that is why you can see some patchiness.

The colors I used were:

• Thumb: China Glaze - Strawberry Fields
• Index: China Glaze - Strawberry Fields
• Middle: Essie - The Girls Are Out
• Ring: The Face Shop - PP401 (pink rose gold)
• Little: The Face Shop - Lovely Me:ex Hongdae Pink

Taken with flash

Taken with flash

Then I used my black nail art pen to create the scales. I think this time around I made the scales around the same size so that's good.

A bit of blurry goodness?

Taken with flash

Taken indoors under yellow lighting

Taken in indirect sunlight

Taken indoors under yellow lighting

Taken with flash

The finished look! Again, I didn't do scales for my thumb nail. :D I alternated all the pink polishes to color the scales. Oh, and I also used Love & Beauty - gold glass flecks and Love & Beauty - gold glitter for some scales to give it a glowy golden look.

Taken with flash

Taken in indirect sunlight

Taken in the shade (yes, I was going for an 'under the sunlight' picture but failed)

Taken in sunlight (this didn't turn out quite right either but oh well)

Taken in sunlight

Taken between rays of sunlight (this was a mid-morning shot so you can see how soft the light is)

Taken indoors

And here's a picture of some polish that I spilled while doing these nails. I am a klutz. -_-

Aren't these mermaid nails GORGEOUS?! They are so much more sparkly in real!

They're actually not as tedious as you might think. Drawing the scales probably requires the most effort but filling the scales with color is my favorite part. Oh, and they also don't have to be perfect because from afar they look fabulous just the same.

I'd love to try them with a different color scheme next time. Maybe green? If I can gather enough different green polishes, haha.

Do you love these nails?! Do you love mermaids like I do? Do you prefer this version or the first version of my mermaid tail nails? Tell me in the comments, I'd LOVE to know.

Also, it seems like I'm still getting hits on my Bioshock nail art (I bet my sister is so proud of me)... maybe it's time to do another Booker and Elizabeth-themed nail design?! Which picture would you have me use as inspiration?

By the way, are you liking the bigger pictures or do you prefer them smaller?

Thank you so much for reading! xx

Halloween Snoopy and Woodstock nail art

So who likes Halloween? What's your favorite part about Halloween?

Mine, of course, is the nail art. So many cute Halloween Snoopys to choose from. So naturally I did Halloween Snoopy nails.

Taken with flash

Taken with flash

Taken in indirect sunlight

Taken in indirect sunlight

Taken in indirect sunlight

The polish I used for this nail art:
Thumb: random pewter polish
Index and little: Sally Hansen - Espresso and Love & Beauty - gold glass flecks
Middle and Index: China Glaze - Kalahari Kiss (as the base), The Face Shop - YL402 (yellow), white nail art, black nail art pen.

Yes, I did make Snoopy's belly round because round beagle bellies remind me of a certain puppy. :) I love how these nails turned out. Sad that they turned out a bit bumpy though. There was a fan turned on so some icky bubbles formed.

Here's the picture I used as reference to draw Snoopy and Halloween. Super cute, right? I love it too!

Picture from Google

What do you think? Would you sport these Snoopy Halloween nails? Wait, first off, do you like Snoopy? If you don't, we probably can't be friends. ;)

Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoy this design!

Pink bat french tip nail art

Hi guys! Today's post is going to be short and sweet.

I did these Halloween nails last year and I really loved them. I attempted to recreate them this week but I've been feeling pretty meh and didn't manage to do what I planned. In any case, these nails look good to me and hopefully to you too.

Halloween nail art is okay but I love Christmas more so... Haha, anyway, here you go:

Taken in indirect sunlight

Taken in indirect sunlight

I don't remember what the pink polish was but I remember using a nail art pen to draw the bats. Pretty neat, eh? It was easy enough to do and I was pleased with the results. I did get quite a few compliments from friends so if you're looking for Halloween nails that will garner some attention, this bat french tip will do the trick... or treat. See what I did there? :)

I also did candy corn nails last year. I will show you that in another post later on.

Anyway, that's it from me today. Sorry for the super short post. I've been working on quite a few things and I haven't exactly been inspired to do nails.

If you're thinking, aww I wish you posted more often, fear not. You can always hop over to my main site that I share with my sister and check it out.

What Halloween nail art are you attempting this year? Is Halloween nail art your thing or do you not care for seasonal nails? What do you think of my pink bat french tip nail art?

Thank you for reading!

Frosted tribal nail art

I actually did these nails quite some time ago (when I was a semi-newbie at nail stuff) which would explain the lack of clean up so please excuse that.

Taken with flash

I used all Love & Beauty polishes for this design except for the black polish which came from a black nail art pen.

Love & Beauty doesn't actually give their nail polish names - well, you can see names on the Forever21 site but these came in a set - so I'll just name them myself.

On my thumb is a Frosty Peach polish and the other polish on my other nails is a shade of Pearly Oyster. Both are very sheer and would probably require 4 or 5 coats (!!) to reach any kind of opacity so I layered them over white.

In the picture above, I'm wearing one coat of both polishes and you can tell that it's streaky.

Taken with flash

Now here I'm wearing 2 coats of both polishes. The pearly finish has obvious brushstrokes but I don't mind that so much.

I wasn't - and still am not - too crazy about either color since neither complements my skin color. It just makes my skin look washed-out or at some angles, darker. It wasn't working for me but I thought it would be a waste to remove after layering on the polish so carefully... So this is what I did:

Taken with flash

At first, I used Love & Beauty - Pale Blue, Pale Pink and Pale Orchid to do some random stripes. Suddenly the color didn't seem so bad and I found myself reaching for my nail art pen to fill in the blanks with dots and arrows.

Taken with flash

I took the pictures before I put on top coat so if you're wondering whether I was going for a textured look, I wasn't.

This might not be one of my best nail designs but it was spontaneous and I ended up figuring out a way to jazz up the poor base colors. So if you have a nail color that you don't like on you, you could probably try something like this.

I LOVE all things tribal print. Do you?

Thanks for reading!

Neon Tribal Nail Art using Orly Glowstick

Today I have a fun tribal design to show you.
I knew I had to do nail art with Orly - Glowstick because it's so vibrant; the black nail polish just seemed to pop against the neon base.

It's simple and I used a black nail art pen to draw the tribal design.
I used 1 coat of China Glaze - White on White before using 2 coats of Glowstick.

Taken indoors

Taken with flash

Taken with flash

You can see that it wasn't easy taking the pictures with such a bright base.

Taken in natural sunlight

Taken in natural sunlight

I personally like the design on my thumb and ring finger the most.

Do you like these neon tribal nails?

Thanks for reading.