Little Mermaid

This one is really nice and clean, and simple.

I also wanted another excuse to draw scales. So these remind me of mermaid tails with the pastel shades sponged randomly onto the accent nails. I like the cute scalloped french tips on the other nails too. It's a very clean, and simple looking manicure.

I sponged "Pastel Teal", and  "Pastel Blue" (by Kleancolor) and "Lacey Lilac" (Sally Hansen) onto the ring finger, and went over top of it with "Age of Aquarius" (Color Club) for the scales. The base I used was "French White Creme" by Wet n' Wild. This one was really cute and easy to do.

House Lannister (Photo Heavy)

Week 3, we're almost there!

House Lannister nails:

Whole Hand

 So as you know the Lannister's sigil is a Lion, I chose not to use the original sigil for these because its very tough getting a whole lion in there with the amount of detail I would've wanted. So instead I opted for one of the desktop wallpaper lions.

Main Four.

 I also included a fancy chevron french manicure to the other nails, unfortunately the rhinestones on my index finger migrated a bit before I photographed these and noticed it. I added the lion's tail on the pinky because I didn't want it plain, and didn't know what else I should put there.

Thumb Close up.

 This is by far the best looking lion.

The base colour I used for these was "Hey Sailor!" by China Glaze. I painted the lions using a gold/yellow matte acrylic paint. The gold striping tape is from the BornPretty store.

These were fun, but didn't turn out as nicely as I hoped, but overall I'm pleased with them.

Have a good week! And stay tuned for the Finale!

If you would like a set of these feel free to contact me.

House Stark (Photo Heavy)

This week its House Stark in continuation of my Game of Thrones month.

Whole Hand

 Let me start by saying, I had a ton of trouble getting the Stark dire-wolf  right, they either looked to fluffy or like they were grinning as opposed to snarling.

Main Four.

 I chose to do some geometric patterns on the ring and index fingers because mimicking the wolf's fur would have made it too busy, and I like the geometric/asymmetrical french going on. The snow on the pinky is because of all the snow in Winterfell and obviously the wolf is the Stark sigil.

Thumb close up.

This one is the best looking wolf, most likely due to the large size of my thumbnail.

The colours I used are: China Glaze "First Mate", with "Wet Cement" by Sally Hansen. I used my trusted Speedball ink and dip nib pen for the black outlines.

If you would like a set of these, as either false nails or nail wraps, send me an email.

Have a Happy Monday!

House Baratheon

If you're one of my peeps on Facebook, you may have already heard that I'm dedicating this months manicures to Game of Thrones, in honour of Season 3 (airing March 31st, 2013).

The first house up is Baratheon!

Whole Hand.

The house sigil for Baratheon is the deer, so antlers were a definite must, as you can see the french on my index and ring fingers are outlined by black antlers, while I have the main deer in the center, even though it's just a close up of the head. 

Main Four.

The deer was done using, believe it or not, regular India ink by Speedball and a nib pen. You can see little crackle marks which appeared after I top-coated, but I love the way it did that. I found that it was a lot easier getting the fine details in using this method than using a brush and paint/polish.

Thumb detail.

I originally wanted to do another deer head on the thumb, but I came across an alternate symbol when I searched Baratheon on Google, it was an image of symmetrical antlers on a yellow-gold background; although my antlers are not symmetrical, I think I came as close as I'm going to.

So now on to the polishes, the base colour I used for my thumb and middle finger is "Fast Track" by China Glaze, from their Hunger Games collection. On the other nails is "Expresso 58" by Kleancolor, a nice rich metallic chocolate brown.

If you would like a set of these, be it false nails or nail decals, feel free to contact me at my email: ayeshaskhan27@yahoo.ca. Please put a subject in, so that I don't accidentally mistake it for spam.

Have an awesome week!

Flashback Friday: Blue Snowflakes

Nov/29/2010

This is another acrylic set I did for myself from waaayy back when. I made my own blue glitter acrylic and then stamped over them some white snowflakes which you can barely see. Ahh well, lesson learned.

Flashback Friday: POW!

Feeling a little inspired this Friday. Based off of those cute action word bubbles from old-school comic books.

August/15/2012 Whole Hand

 I apologize in advance for the severely chipped ring finger nail. I only got a chance to photograph these after I finished work.

Main Four.

Thumb Close up.

So I wanted something quick for this manicure. So I french up with "Scandalous" by Revlon, a beautiful sheer black jelly with multiple sized glitter pieces floating in it. I've always liked the little action words like "BAM!" "WHAM!" and "POW" so I put them on my nails with some spikey abstract things. I thought this was fun while it lasted. And again, I apologize for the chips, dents and tip wear.

Flashback Friday: Go Go Power Rangers

August/08/2012 to August/11/2012

These are simple nails, but they remind me of the Power Rangers for some odd reason. The base colour I used was "Hot 4 Teacher" by Sation, and "I'm Not Lion" by China Glaze (ring finger) from their On Safari collection. I did a sort of chevron reverse colour french tip on these using my foils from Dollarnailart.com. The gold foil is "White Gold" and the pink is "Passion Pink". Then I added some lines with black polish to jazz it up even more. This was a fun, and simple design to do.

Flashback Friday: Blossoms

This is an old one, but it's nice, simple flowers on an easy gradient:

May/09/2012

On a side note, forgive the severe dryness of my skin, it's not been happy with me lately.

So this is a simple french done using Wet n' Wild's "Tickled Pink" with a lilac gradient sponged over top in "Lacey Lilac" from Sally Hansen. It's a nice, light, airy sort of design, which is why I like it. I tried a different way of doing the french tips, which resulted them being a tad thick. I think I'll stick to my old way, unless school teaches me a better technique.

They're kind of dented because these photos were taken after going to work and doing lots of manual labour.

The flowers were done using white acrylic craft paint.

Flashback Friday - Blue Roses

Another Flashback Friday for you all!
This was an experiment with different nail tip shapes and one-stroke flower painting.

Square tips: Whole hand.

 So, to start you off, here are the more common square nail tips, that I personally prefer. They aren't squoval, much to them looking like it in the photo.

Square tips: main four.

 You can see the square-ness a touch better here, along with clearer nail art. This ring and thumb fingers have the one-stroke painted roses on them. They just look like blobs to me though.

Square tips: close up of thumb.

Almond Tips: Whole hand.

 Here are the almond tips. Remember its the exact same mani, the only thing that has changed is the shape of my nail tips. I like the almond shape, but on certain nails it doesn't look to flattering to me, for example my ring finger looks to oval (I tried to make it pointier but it's too short).

Almond tips: main four.

 A better shot of the tips alone. You can see what I meant about the ring finger being more oval than almond.

 Now for the colours I used: the white was done using Kleancolor's "White", with an overlay of Miss Pro Nail Sation in "Cotton Candy" a beautiful pink sheer opalescent shimmer.

One more photo for you guys:

Top: Almond Shape.
Bottom: Square Shape.

Here is where I'd like your input, which nail tip shape do you think looks better on my hand. The almond? or the Square?

Flashback Friday: Marbled French

Oct/10/2010

A marbled french mani. Used "Sonic Bloom" by Sally Hansen, and "French White Creme" by Wet n' Wild. I just taped off the areas I didn't want marbled.

Flashback Friday: Abstract French

May/10/2010

Another black tipped french, only with some white dots and swishes. "Black Creme" by Wet n' Wild.

Flashback Friday: Pink Flowers and Black Tips

Jan/31/2010

Simple black french, with some hot pink flowers. Used very transparent paint for those flowers. Anyway, the base colour is "Sheer Pink" by Revlon, the tips are "Black Creme" by Wet n' Wild.

Flashback Friday: Spotted French Leopard

June/16/2011

Experimenting with water decals my Mom found for me from when she lived in Nigeria. They're like a green leopard print with gold rimmed spots. The base colour is "Sheer Pink" by Revlon. The water decals are apparently from Sally Hansen.

Flashback Friday: Simple French

June/10/2011

A basic french manicure. Used "Sheer Peach" and "White" from Kleancolor. The glitter on my index finger was from a sad attempt at making my own glitter polish. You can see it a little in the Rimmel London bottle in hand.

Flashback Friday: Chevron French

Sept/03/2011 to Sept/05/2011

Simple white roses on a black chevron french. Base colour is "Sheer Pastel Nude" by Kleancolor with "Liquid Vinyl" by Orly for the tips.

Flashback Friday: Inverted Molds

So a little note for you all before the fun stuff. Seeing as all my Friday posts are old mani's from ages back, I', going to officially start calling them "Flashback Fridays".

April/15/2011 to April/23/2011

Inverted molds, a different type of acrylic nail system. I bought mine off of their website here. I find they give a nice finish (not needing any buffing to get a glossy shine) although my application is sloppy seeing the bubbles trapped under the molds. I used my own gold glitter acrylic mix for these.

Acrylics

Nov/01/2010

Tried my hand at acrylic nails, this is not the first time I've done acrylics, this is just one of the better attempts. Painted some black and white swishes on them to hide the flaws ;)

French Message

Oct/17/2011 to Oct/22/2010

A french manicure using my favourite shade; "Hue Left A Message" by Finger Paints. Added a super cute stick-on decal to the ring finger for some added interest.

Scandalous

This isn't this week's mani! I promise, tomorrow the proper one will be up.

I'm uploading this for today in the meantime though.

 So the colour on my tips is 2 coats of "Night Prowl" by Wet n' Wild, with one coat of "Scandalous" from Revlon, for the multidimensional magenta glitter. You probably can't really tell from the photo but I'm experimenting with different tip shapes, I'm trying to get it almond shaped.

I will do this again, only next time there will be something more exciting than a basic french. I promise!

Simple French

Jan/17/2010 to Jan/23/2010

Simple French manicure using "White" by Kleancolour and a gold striper polish.