Category Archives: Nail Art

14 Oct

Wheel Of Time Nail Art – The Stole of the Amyrlin Seat and The Flame of Tar Valon

Howdy!

Wow! That is quite a title huh? I decided to put all that in the title in hopes that this would be easily found by anyone searching for Wheel Of Time (WOT) nail art. I couldn’t find any when I Googled it although I know I have seen something somewhere a long time ago.
If you have read the EPIC 14 book (plus a prequel) series by Robert Jordan then you can probably interpret and enjoy this design easily. But in case you have not, I’ll give you a brief explanation.
In the WOT world, the Amyrlin Seat is basically the queen of the whole world as all kingdoms bow to her and submit to the will of the “White Tower”. The White Tower is where all women who can channel (do “magic”) go to be trained and when they graduate to a full fledged “Aes Sedai” they pick an “Ajah” based on their personal preference. Each Ajah goes by a color (Brown Ajah, Grey Ajah, White Ajah, Red Ajah, Yellow Ajah, Green Ajah and Blue Ajah) and they dress according to their Ajah’s color. The Amyrlin is head of all Ajahs. She is “from all Ajahs and yet of none” and to symbolize that, she wears a stole with a stripe of each of the 7 Ajah’s colors. That’s where I came up with the stripes. The accent nail is “The Flame of Tar Valon” which is the official symbol of the Amyrlin and the White Tower. That is just a tiny bit of info about the series. It is a REALLY long story!

I imagine if you haven’t read the books then this won’t be much of a manicure to you. But, even if you aren’t familiar with the MASSIVE back story behind the inspiration of these nails, consider how hard it was to free hand these stripes. Ha! It did take a while and I know they are not perfect. I planned to do both hands but it was so late after I finished these that my Cinderella hand just got skittles so I could get to bed at a decent hour. Then my topcoat bubbled in the middle of the nail. Oh well, sometimes topcoat kills the mani. I struggle at times to float the brush to avoid smudging and to avoid bubbling at the same time.

That’s all for now. I meant to get this up on Saturday but time got away from me. It tends to do that with two kids to run after. I hope you all have a great week.

10 Oct

Klik Burgundy and Cobwebs

Hi everyone!
I’d like to say a special welcome to all the new faces *waves*! I’m thrilled to have you here.

I’m so excited to see all the entries coming in for the giveaway that started yesterday. If you haven’t already joined, you really should. There’s lots of great stuff up for grabs and it doesn’t cost a thing to enter. Not even much effort if you already follow me via Bloglovin, Twitter, FB, GFC, Instagram or anything like that.

What I have to show you today was a pain to create so you had better leave me a comment saying you love them as much as I do. Ha! Just kidding. (No really, you should say something nice. It would make me smile.)

I started off wanting to swatch Burgundy from Klik’s holiday collection, (swatch is at the end of the post) and it turned out to be a lot more work than I had anticipated. Upon my inspection of the polish, I thought it would need just 2 coats. But after 2 coats it was very streaky and showed bald spots. I waited quite a while before adding the third coat since it was raining in Cebu and the added humidity always seems to cause bubbling. Despite the long wait, I still ended up with bubbling after applying the third coat. Meh! On top of that, in certain light you can still see some thin spots and cleanup was a pain. After several hours, more bubbles showed up and I was so sad that my manicure had gone from pretty and polished to pretty awful.

As I sat down to remove this, I had an idea to try and salvage the look. I grabbed my awesome MJ XIII stamping plate that Meann of My Online Shop sent me and selected this cobweb design. After several failed attempts at color choice, I stamped with Color Club Harp On It. and I love how it turned out. Mr. Nailinator and the 4 year old boy both say this looks like a Spiderman mani. Do you love it? I do. I’ve included a shot under the lamp so you can see the holo shimmer. I’m pleasantly surprised how well the CC Halo Hues work for stamping.

Do you have a favorite non stamping polish to use for stamping? Do share and have a great day!

Over and out!

Under lamp
Swatch of Klik Burgundy before most of the bubbles popped up
03 Oct

L.A. Girl Black Illusion Gets Foiled

I’m so excited to show you what I’ve got on my nails today. It looks so stinking cool and was so easy to do!

I started off with 2 coats of L.A. Girl 3D Effects – Black Illusion. I wore it by itself for a day because it is beautiful and I just had to admire it for a while. Last night I needed something more so I grabbed my clear coat and my nail foil #22 that I purchased from Blooming Nail Cebu for only 8 pesos (that’s 19 cents US) for a 4 by 1 1/2 inch piece of foil. One piece is more than enough for a manicure. I don’t have nail foil glue so I just dabbed some clear coat on the nail and let it dry a bit and then I dabbed the foil onto the still sticky polish. I’ve added two layers of topcoat to smooth it over. It is so shiny and metallic IRL.

On another note, how do you like my crepe paper rose prop?

You can see my swatch of L.A. Girl 3D Effects in Black Illusion below. So purdy!

What do you think? Would you try this easy and awesome look? Check out Blooming Nail Cebu on their Facebook page to see what else they have to offer. They have tons of foils to choose from. If you live in Cebu and are into nails then you NEED to drop by. If you live elsewhere in the Philippines, they will ship to you. I stopped by there today to buy some of their new items and they sent me home with some goodies for a giveaway that will be live later this week. Yay!

By the way, I’m not being compensated at all for sharing about Blooming Nail Cebu. I’m just excited about what they have to offer and want to make sure other nail art enthusiasts like myself from the Philippines know where they can find supplies.

Here’s hoping you are all having a great week!
Hugs!

P.S. If you are interested, do check out my updated “About Me” section and brand new “Disclosure Policy“.

30 Sep

L. A. Girl Teal Dimension with Decals

Hey girls!
I hope everyone is having a great start to the week. I have been having so much fun with my new polishes that my sister (The Shutterbug) brought back with her from Texas.

I’ve got a cool look for you today that was so easy to do. I started with 3 thin coats of L. A. Girl Teal Dimension. I’ve added some water decals I purchased from Blooming Nail Cebu. This whole sheet (Hot-010) cost me 15 pesos (about 35 cents USD) and has a variety of decals on it to choose from! They have some great stuff available for very affordable prices and they ship internationally for the best price available.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again… I LOVE these L.A. Girl polishes. The base for their 3D Effects line is a tinted jelly but when you remove the polish there is absolutely no glitter nightmare left behind like a typical glitter polish. So I’m not sure exactly what makes up the holo glittery magic they have got going on. But I appreciate not having a difficult time cleaning up after wearing it. In addition to that, it is so easy to apply and is extremely forgiving. It dries quick too! Win win win! If live outside of the US, you can order these from Cherry Culture as they ship internationally (Philippines included! Whoop!).

I hope you have a great week!

26 Sep

Argyle Nail Art

Greetings!
I’ve got a short and sweet post for y’all today.

Day 26 of the 31 Day Challenge is “Inspired by a pattern”. I’ve chosen to go with an Argyle pattern. I saw a tutorial by Cute Polish for this nail art way back when I was just getting into nail art and I tried it out on a nail wheel right away and it looked very nice. So when I saw it on a nail wheel the other day I thought it was time to try it out on my nails. I learned that doing my nails while watching episodes of the Doris Day Show makes for some wobbly stripes. Definitely not my neatest work. :/ Whatever! I still think they turned out cute. Don’t you?

The colors I used are San San Cloudy Gray, Caronia First Crush (purple), China Glaze For Audrey (green) and Jocarste White.

If you are just starting out with nail art I strongly suggest you check out Cute Polish on You Tube. She has some pretty cute designs that are really easy to achieve. Have a great day!

Hugs!

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