14 Jan

Almond Blossoms Nail Art

Hi Girls!
Sorry for the break in our regular programming. I got hit by a nasty cold and suffered through a 6-day-long sinus headache. It was pretty horrible. I’m feeling better now though and only have a mild headache, so I thought I’d get on here and share these with you today.

Have you ever decided to do a design, get all excited and worked up to do it, only to start regretting it as you begin to nail it down? (See what I did there?) That’s what happened to me when I embarked upon this challenge.

If you have been around a while, you know my favorite piece of art is Van Gogh’s Starry Night. I like it so much that I dedicated quite a bit of time to paint it on my nails. My next favorite is his Almond Blossom painting. The very talented Jacqui of Craftynail did a look inspired by this painting last year and it turned out lovely.

I wanted to challenge myself and see if I could do another forgery, and I kept coming back to Almond Blossoms because I just love everything about it. So I decided to go ahead and give it a shot too and let my OCD kick in and try to match the colors and technique as best I could to the original. See for yourself and tell me how you think I did.

Almond Blossoms nail art with decorative bottle

Here is the original just for reference. There’s nail art and then there is nail ART! Please do take a moment to notice the detail work. πŸ˜‰

Almond Blossoms by Vincent Van Gogh
Source Wiki

I had planned to feature this awesome design for my blogiversary, but I was so run down and tired that I only had time to get the background part done and had to add the details a couple of days later. I used 15 polishes total for this look, plus some black and dark brown acrylic paint for a few spots on the branches. That’s almost ALL polish! Acrylic is much easier to work with if you do detailed work as it doesn’t dry too quickly, but it also does not smooth out and blend with top coat like polish does. So polish is always my preferred medium.

Almond Blossoms four fingers

If you look closely, you will see that each of the nails on my left hand are copied from sections of the actual painting. (Bonus points if you can spot them!) I worked more loosely with the designs on the right hand as I didn’t want to be up all night trying to match it so closely.

Almond Blossoms on cinderella hand

Well, I hope you love these as much as I do. I will leave you with a few more pictures as I just couldn’t bear to leave them out. What is your favorite work of art? Have you done any designs based on works of art? Please leave a link below because I would love to see. Have a fantastic day and don’t forget to make someone smile.
Hugs,
Rach

Almond Blossoms thumb and side view
Almond Blossoms with Chic bottle
Almond Blossoms four fingers another angle
11 Aug

Sun and Flowers Nail Art

Hi gals!
Let me start by pointing out that, although this would be more appropriate as a spring time design, we don’t have four seasons over here in the Philippines. All we have are wet and dry versions of hot, very hot and ridiculously hot times of the year. :/ So my”Sun” inspired mani is all about the sun and pretty flowers in bloom. I’ve even got a cute little bee with his tiny wings flying around doin’ his thing. Aren’t these adorable? I am quite pleased with them. My almost 2 year old girl thought they were cute too.

I used a whole bunch of different polishes to do this and don’t particularly want to get my bum off the couch to list them all (it’s been a long day). Sorry. I guess it’s one of those days.

On a more exciting note, I’ve got a great week lined up for you gals. I’m going to be guest posting on not just one but TWO great blogs this week and hopefully I will have my very first guest poster come visit to wow us with her amazing skills! I am excited so stay tuned!

Just in case you missed it, I joined instagram a couple of weeks back and I would love to connect with you there especially if you want to see more pictures than what I share here or on FB. πŸ™‚ Find me @thenailinator (I’ve got a link in the side bar) and let me know you follow my blog too. πŸ™‚

I hope you are having a fantabulous weekend. Talk to you soon!

13 Jul

Starry Night

Some products used were sent to me for honest review.Β 
Some were purchased by me.Β 
All opinions are my own. πŸ™‚

Hey ladies!
Technically I’m not jumping the gun because it’s just past midnight on July 13 so I’m posting a mani in line with the day 13 theme “stars” for the Rather Awesome 31 day Challenge Giveaway. I’m pretty ridiculously proud of these. I’m sad that my top coat bubbled but it’s not too visible due to the array of colors. My favorite painting is Starry Night by Van Gogh and that was my inspiration for this mani. I’ve had these on my “to do someday” list for ages and I’m so glad I finally did them. LOVE!

What do you think?

starry night
Direct sunlight shows the details best.

starry night thumb

starry night in sunlight
Starry Night by Van Gogh

I used polish for this work of art and only a tiny bit of orange acrylic paint when I couldn’t get the moon the right color. I used some tiny brushes and did a lot of mixing. I loved using these colors for this project.

Products used:
Oh My Golly polishes: Jive, White Out, Black Out, Naked, Atlantis, Gossip, Banana Boat and Bahama Blue as my base color.

Klik polishes: Mango Shake, Baby Blue, Cocoa
Enchanted polish: Orange
31 May

It’s me, Mario!

Happy Friday everyone! I’ve got a fun filled post for you today. First I’d like to remind you that there is still time to enter my giveaway. Check it out here for a chance to win the Oh My Golly Crystal Sand collection.Β I had a very exciting week last week after I put up the info for my giveaway. I was contacted by Kimberly who is the General Manager and Product Developer for Ming Mei Cosmetics who makes the Oh My Golly and Klik polishes. We talked on the phone and she told me she loved my blog and she was so happy that I liked their polishes so much and she wanted to send me some more for giveaways and/or reviews. She was super sweet! So a few days ago I received a box in the mail and my jaw dropped when I opened the box and saw what all she sent me. Let’s just say that I’m excited and I’ve got lots to show you guys!

On to the nails! As I mentioned on my FB page, my sonhas been nagging me to do some nail art of his favorite game which is Super Mario, Mario Kart… Basically anything Mario. So I finally went online and found some pictures and gave it a whirl using several of my new lovely polishes byKlik/Oh My Golly. I think they turned out cute. When my son saw them he said “Ooooh. Great job!” so the effort was worth it. πŸ™‚ What do you guys think?

As a base color I used Oh My Golly Atlantis. I thought about using a lighter blue but Atlantis was calling my name and I had to try it. It’s so pretty on it’s own. It’s almost a one coater and dries so fast. Isn’t it gorgeous? I can’t wait to try this with glittery tips!

Here’s a break down of what colors I used. On my index finger for the star I used Klik Mango Shake and Oh My Golly Black Out.

For the Goomba on the middle finger I used Klik Cocoa (Dk. Brown) and Klik Kofi (Lt. Brown) and Oh My Golly Black Out for the details.

I saw the design for the mushroom on the ring finger online somewhere a long time ago and it stuck with me. Not sure who the idea came from but it’s definitely not mine.

That being said, I used Oh My Golly Salsa, White out and Black out for this adorable mushroom.

For the bomb guy (if my hubby was here he could remind me of theactual name of this character) on my pinky I used Oh My Golly Black Out,Klik Ashley, Oh My Golly White out andKlik Mango Shake. I sealed everything with a coat of Oh My Golly Colorless.I used a nail art brush for most of the art and a dotting tool for a bit of it too.

I hope you guys like these and that you have a great weekend!

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