Funky Feather French

Today I have for you a funky french and feather mani!

I had just purchased a little bag of colored craft feathers and really wanted to try it out. Since it was my first time working with the material (feathers!) I decided to only use 1 per hand so that if it looked horrible, I would only have to worry about fixing 2 fingers :)

To my surprise, these things were super easy to work with. The hardest part is trimming the feather to fit your nail. Once that's done, the rest is easy peasy!

Franken (made by myself) in Lady Finger

Blue glitter that I seriously cannot remember the name of...

Craft feathers from Hobby Lobby

 I used a green and a blue feather, just to test out different shades. I liked how the green feather matched my funky french but preferred the coverage with the blue feather.

Here's how I did my feather mani:

1. select a feather large enough to cover your who nail

2. trim the bottom into a rounded shape to match and fit your nail shape

3. paint your nail a nude color (if you have a very dense feather, you can probably skip this)

4. wait for the nude polish to dry and then apply a thick layer of topcoat

5. quickly place your feather and apply LIGHT pressure. Too much and you risk your nude polish seeping through the feather

6. trim the tip so that you don't have extra feathery bits hanging from your nail

7. apply another thick later of topcoat!

there may be an easier way to do this, but this method worked well for me. The feathers stayed on as long as the rest of my polish. After a couple of days, I did find myself peeling little feather strips but by then, my tips were starting to show signs of wear...

What do you think of feather accent nails?

Until next time ^_^

Corset Nails

Welcome to week 8 of the Year of Polish challenge!

Corset Mani

I had seen a few of these on other people's blogs before. They are usually composed of 2 swipes of color on either side of the nail and are connected by a lace that crisscrosses between the 2 (just like my ring finger). So that's what I was going to do!

However, as I was browsing some other blogger's pages, I came across Nail Stories: Hearty Half Moons and they reminded me of the top of a corset! I thought they were so pretty that I had to try it out for this week's challenge!

As you can see, I did the traditional corset nail on my ring finger, but I used Nail Stories "curtain nails" on the rest of my fingers. To make them look corset-ier I added some frillies and bows :)

This mani was super easy to do! For the corset tops, you just need to do 2 quick swipes from side to middle. They don't have to be super straight since you can fix it with the frillies. Then using a migi pen, make little bouncy half circles along the edge and do a quick bow in the center.
The corset back is made up of 2 semi circle swipes of each side of the nail. Make a few dots, those will be the eyelets. Then using your migi pen (or even a striping brush) crisscross the lines.

Easy peasy!

What I used

Base- Franken Lady Fingers

Corset- Essie in Sassy Satchel

Eyelets- GOSH in Silver

Lace and frillies- Migi Nail Art pen in Shimmering White

I've never been able to find the right shade of nude for me so I ended up making my own... It's the closest I have ever come to true mannequin hands!
All you need to make your own nude polish is a lot of white, a dash of brown, some yellow, and a hint of red. If you have darker skin tone, add more brown. If you have cool undertones, more red.
I'm very pale with warm undertones so I needed a lot of yellow and only a little brown :)

Don't forget to check out my Year of Polish page to see other bloggers who are undertaking this challenge as well as to check out past manis and future challenges!

Until next time ^_^

Holo and Glitter Gradient

So I've decided to try out the new polish challenge. I wasn't prepared to do a new nail art a day like most of the previous challenges, so the Year of Polish challenge is perfect for me! It will also make me post more regularly which is something I really want to do. To learn more about the challenge, just go to the "Year of Polish" page which is located right under the "About Me" section.

The challenge started on the first of January, so I'm a little behind, but I will catch up soon!

Week 1 of the Year of Polish challenge-  "Make it Sparkle" Mani Holo glitter

So here it is, mani 1 of 52! I decided to do a gradient, 1- because it is easy and quick and 2- because you rarely see a gradient that uses holo polish

Unfortunately, it is dark and rainy here in Ohio... So I couldn't get you guys any sunshine pictures which means that my silver holo, doesn't really look holo. If the sun shines before I take this mani off, I will snap some quick pictures of it to show you how truly pretty it is (or you look at amused polish's post about it)

Left Hand!

blurry rainbow pic!

Right Hand

Avon Nailwear Pro in Gunmetal

topped with Winmax Alpha Rainbow in Silver

Avon Nailwear Pro in Luxe Lavender

topped with my own franken- Melacara

and Out the Door Northern lights

I've been doing a bit of frankening lately and I love it! I need to buy more empty bottles because that is the only think that is stopping me right now :)

 Heres's a better look at Melacara. It's a medium grayish purple shade with loads of glitter and a hint of holo.

I hope you enjoy this awesome challenge and if you decide to do it too, let me know and I can spread the word about your designs!

Until next time ^_^

Franken! first edition

I have created my first franken polish!

It was an adventure in shaking and spillage but it was a successful adventure.

The story begins here, with a cat.

from qiacat.blogspot.com

A cat like this one. A korat. More specifically, my boyfriend's cat Mallory.

from freetheleafcutterants.xanga.com

This is Mallory. He (that's right. Mallory is a he) is the most peculiar cat I have ever encountered...

He is scared of everything but the other cats. In the household hierarchy, Mallory is king.

He scurries around the house with his belly close to the floor and attacks anyone who stands in his way.

If Mallory sees your hand approaching him in a way that would suggest touching him, he will react in one of 2 ways...

1. he will quickly scurry away and look back at you in a way that says "I keel you"

2. he squeaks out a "Mallory noise" incomparable to any other sound emitted by a cat and attempts to bite your hand

 With that said, Mallory is a cool cat. Peculiar, independent, and cool. 

He is also the prettiest color...

In his honor, and because I like that color and wanted it very much, I created: Mallory polish

coincidentally, there is a swatch of Wet Cement and Mallory in the background

To make this cool steely gray, I used lots of Sally Hansen in Wet Cement and added a touch of bright blue and a ton of black.

with flash

it is nighttime here so I couldn't get a good picture but I will do a mani with this soon enough

For now, I'm just happy I finally made a franken :)