Chocolate and Flowers

Hello, everyone!

My nail art for this post was not actually inspired by chocolate, as the title suggests, but rather by a children's dress!  Check it out:

The other day, I received a nail art challenge from Gina Lee of Dazzle Dry Philippines.  She sent me a a picture of the fabric used on a little girl's dress she saw in the tiangge.  It was a floral brown and orange piece.  Here is the picture she sent me:

I instantly felt up for the challenge, seeing how cute it looked! 

Because my orange Dazzle Dry shades are limited, I chose to use Tropical Sunset, and combined it with Manhattan Mink to start off with a half moon manicure as the base for this design.  It can barely be seen though, as most of it ended up covered by the flowers.  

I am personally not a fan of orange (thus my limited shades), but I'd have to say Tropical Sunset is a pleasant surprise.  It is a warm orange shimmer that is definitely easy to apply, given its perfect consistency.  I also appreciate that two coats provide full coverage. 

I also used two coats of Manhattan to get an opaque finish, just like Tropical Sunset.  If you do the math, I had four layers of lacquer on my nails, not to mention the acrylic paint I used to paint the designs.  But despite the number of layers, my nails were not bulky at all. :)

I suppose the star of this nail art is Manhattan Mink.  It definitely captured the chocolate brown-ness of the fabric.  I also love its richness without being too thick.  

Anyway, I asked Gina to come up with a name for this design, as it was her idea in the first place.  She said it reminded her of chocolates and flowers, and so we shall call it that.  :)

I erased this though soon after I made it because I felt that it had too much going on.  What do you think?

Thank you so much for reading!

Kanga and Roo at Bedtime - Mother's Day Nail Art 2013

My mom is known among family and friends for her great, scrumptious dishes.  But since I was a very picky eater as a child, my fondest memories of my childhood with her are not of her dishes, but of how she used to read me stories at bedtime.  I would also often sneak up to their bed and ask if I could sleep with her whenever I'd wake up from a bad dream.

So as a tribute to Mommy, and the other great moms out there, I decided to paint pictures of Winnie the Pooh characters Kanga and Roo at bedtime.  

I patterned the pictures after a photo of Kanga tucking Roo in.  I can imagine her reading a bedtime story to him, or even singing or whispering comforting words to him to let him fall asleep -- Just the way my own mom used to do it when I was a little girl.  

To create this design, I used Dazzle Dry's Aegean Cruise on the blue nails, and White Lightning as a base for my nails with characters.  I then used acrylic paint to paint the characters, and stamped pale yellow stars (The Face Shop YL 01 and Mash-11 image plate) on all the other nails.  

Aegean Cruise is one of my  Dazzle Dry favorites.  It is a sheer light blue shimmer, although darker than Morning Sky. It has a thin consistency that makes application easy. I used three thick coats to achieve this pearlescent opaque finish.  It is amazing that my nails did not end up feeling bulky after applying as many coats as I did. 

White Lightning, on the other hand, is an opaque white.  It is the whitest and purest white that I have ever seen in polish.  Because it is opaque, all I needed was 2 medium coats.  The cleanliness of White Lightning made painting the characters easy because I did not need to worry about opacity.  This is definitely a keeper for nail art enthusiasts! 

Let us have one last look at the details of this nail art:

I would say I'm happy with how this nail art came out.  The nails came together to create a comforting look.  Looking at my nails reminds me of how much I enjoyed listening to her stories before, and how good I felt when I was with Mommy at bedtime.  I may now be all grown up, but I know I would always be her little girl, the same way that she will always be my Mommy.  

Black Butterflies on White (inspired by Anne Hathaway's SAG Awards Butterfly Manicure)

Hello Everyone!

You may have noticed that I have not been posting as many designs recently.  This is mainly because I have been obsessed with plain nude or white nails as of late.  There's just something about clean, light-colored nails that appeals to me -- when done correctly, they look very polished and sophisticated, even when nails are kept short.

But despite this recent obsession, I still miss drawing on my nails.  I therefore decided to recreate my favorite celebrity manicure from this year's SAG Awards -- Anne Hathaway's butterfly nails!

Here is my recreation:

And for those who are interested to see Anne Hathaway's nails, here is a picture of them:

My butterflies are not exactly the same as hers, but I would like to think I did a pretty good job nonetheless.  I also did not want to copy hers directly, as I wanted mine to have a touch of individuality still. :)

Instead of using a bright white polish like Anne Hathaway, I opted for Portia's Wit by Dazzle Dry.  It is an off-white color with undertones of pink/beige.  It is actually my current favorite, given my recent obsession with nudes and whites.  It strikes the perfect balance between nude and white.  I also find it quite flattering.

Here is a close-up picture of my left hand:

And my right:

I am quite happy that I picked Portia's Wit for this nail art.  I find that black on bleach white creates a very stark look, while Portia's Wit provides a warmth and softness to the design while still providing that contrast that is the essence of this design.

For those wondering how I made the butterflies -- well, there is no secret.  I used Mars Black acrylic paint together with a striper and a detailing brush, and hand-painted the butterflies.  No tricks used in this design, I'm afraid.  Just some good old-fashioned perseverance.  :)

Well, thank you very much for reading!  I hope you liked this one, and that I did the original design some justice.  :)