Mermaid Monday!

I've decided to start a blog special! I love fantasies and fairy tales--and the mermaid is a unique make-believe creature that inspires amazing nail art! So I am going to start doing Mermaid Mondays! Some will be nail art or patterns, others will just be a mermaid inspired color. I may not be able to do one every Monday, but I will certainly do my best!

So, without further ado, the very first Mermaid Monday! Today's design is inspired by mermaid scales. The grey is sleek and underwater-ly (if that's a word); and the green is the mermaid's tail. (Polish and technique after pictures).

For the base I used OPI Mermaid's Tears. Over the ring finger, I layered on China Glaze Hook And Line. For the scales I used Zoya Opal. Opal just gave it a glittery look, and that wasn't exactly how I wanted it; so I covered them in Essie Matte About You. I think the matte really makes the manicure. It makes them look much less glittery, and more like actual sacles. They definitely still catch the sunlight; but there's a hint of mystery--much like a mermaid.

Stay Serendipitous!

Tropical Fire Gradient

The weather just turned cold here, which is is not nice at all. So I wanted to spice it up with some very warm nails. This was an easy sponge gradient.

For the Orange I used Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Sun Kissed. (<--The formula for this polish is crap, by the way.It was thick and streaky. I don't know if it's this polish or Xtreme wear...) And for the red OPI Chick Flick Cherry.

"Baroque" Effie Trinket Reaping Nails "I just...love that!"

I just...love that! That's one of my favorite things Effie says in the movie. That line runs through my head whenever I think of her nails--because I do love them!
Ever since I saw the first Hunger Games trailer I was very intrigued by Effie's nails. I've been wanting to do them for a while, even before the many Effie nails began to appear. I didn't have the right shade of fuchsia I wanted (I still don't), but I wanted to go ahead anyway. I'm very particular about matching colors, but I like the way these colors look. My friend told me they reminded her of Beauty and the Beast; and I have no problem with that--I love Beauty and the Beast. Since I used a slightly darker color than Effie had, I can see where she was going--it has a baroque-ish feel to it.

There's a lot of pictures, but it was so hard to capture the look of it; these pictures don't even do it complete justice. In person the nails looks more fuchsia, which is the color Effie had. Sorry there's so much residue outside the nail. Believe me, I tried to touch it up, but this polish was behaving very badly. The remover was just smearing the polish around and making it worse, so I gave up. =/

One with flash.

The flash made the background so dark! It was just amazing!

Indoors

It looked good from afar. It's very hard to tell, but the distance made the colors blend and made it very appealing. 

 It's amazing what flash can do! =O

Now that all the pictures are done, on to the polish! I used OPI Bastille My Heart and Sponged on China Glaze Passion.

The inspiration herself:

When I get the right color fuchsia (I've been on the lookout) I will re-create and post again!

Simple Striped Tips

To match my stripe-ity toes, I had to do my nails to match! This was kind of a fun, free-hand look. I wanted the stripes to have a very loose look. IT kind of looks like blue-ish watermelons... heehee =D
I wasn't meant to be watermelons, but I like it ;)

I used OPI Thanks A Windmillion for the base. and Free-handed the stripes in OPI Ski Teal We Drop.

Dark Chocolate "Mocha" Dots

These creamy nails just remind me of truffles... A dangerous nail design to temp myself with...

With flash to show the frostiness of the polish (this isn't a very accurate color representation). (This was also before fixing--so, sorry it has some edges--so distracting, I know @_@)

I used Orly Chocoholic for the base and OPI Did You 'Ear About Van Gogh? for the dots.

I just noticed that I can see myself reflected in the first picture... Strange. Well, you know they're shiny! =)

Cinna's Gradient

I used some of the Hunger Games colors (I really love the whole collection) to make this gradient. I couldn't not think of Cinna when I look at it. It's so bold (you have to bold the word bold because, well, it's bold!), and then there's the gold (Cinna = gold; and it rhymes ;) ).

I used China Glaze Mahogany Magic for the base; and the sponged on CG Harvest Moon; and then sponged a small bit of CG Riveting for the tips.

(Sorry it looks so nasty--I hadn't fixed the edges yet. I had to go back in my pictures to find these)

Boy with the Bread

To go with my Katniss nails I had to do Peeta nails on my toes. It was a very simple "boy with the bread" design. The nails are supposed to be the burnt bread that Peeta tosses to Katniss in the rain.

I used China Glaze Mahogany Magic for the base of the "bread;" and then for the three littlest toes I used OPI Black Shatter to simulate the burnt parts of the bread; and then Crackle Glaze in Cracked Medallion For the other two toes to be the crusty exterior of the bread. 

Very simple and not extremely "bread-like," but I still liked it.

Girl on Fire

I did these a few weeks ago, but since this blog is brand new, I must post them now!

I absolutely love the Hunger Games. I did theses nails for the premier of the movie. The are Inspired by the flame nail design Katniss has in the book. (Sorry it won't let me rotate them =/).

I used (all China Glaze Hunger Games colors) Smoke and Ashes as a base and layered on the flames with Riveting, Harvest Moon, and Electrify.

All in all, I'm really happy with how these turned out. The flames aren't as detailed as I would have liked, but that's just because I used the actual nail polish brush.