Sarah Waite vs Nessie

Ok, just to warn you, this is a VERY SILLY manicure. It may not make much sense to you. I was playing with my nail polish last night and tried a combo of a pretty shimmer green with a glittery topcoat, and I showed the base color to some of my polish friends. I asked them what I should paint on my nails as artwork. My friend Sarah Waite of Chalkboard Nails said, "my face" which of course is a very silly thing to paint on ones nails. I got a few other fun suggestions including one from Laurie Nievin to paint the Loch Ness Monster. So I decided to do both: I give you Sarah Waite vs. The Loch Ness Monster!

Bwahahahaah! So in case you couldn't tell, that is Sarah on my thumb and Nessie is swimming along the rest of my fingers. 

Here is the beautiful base polish. I will tell you which colors I used to make this base mani at the end of this post. Hint hint, one of the colors I used is up for grabs in my 100 follower giveaway! You still have time to enter. Just click here and scroll to the bottom to get your name in the drawing. 

I started by painting Nessie on my nails. I made her look kind of cartoony and fun. This was a fairly easy design to do. You could do it with acrylic paint like I did, or try it with nail polish. I think this design would be easy to do either way. 

Here is Nessie pretty much finished, and before topcoat. Also, no Sarah Waite yet. 

By the way, this is a pic of Laurie Nievin who suggested the Loch Ness Monster design. Thanks for the great idea, Laurie! :-)

This is my nail polish BFF, Sarah Waite. When I decided to paint her face after she pretty much begged me to do it, I chose this picture of her. It is black and white, and fairly stark, so I thought it would be easier to duplicate rather than a color photo. 

Here is how I started with acrylic paints. I used only black and white acrylic paint for Sarah's portrait. 

Here she is without her glasses on. I also made more adjustments to her hair before finishing the portrait. 

Before topcoat. I think I got pretty close!

Here are the nails together. I added some little bubbles to Nessie. Of course, when discussing this nail art with Sarah and Laurie, we knew that the two designs would have to duke it out, and thus the nail art on my right hand...

It's Sarah Waite vs. The Loch Ness Monster! (I was tired after that portrait of Sarah, so this was a lot easier design to paint using my non-dominant hand.) 

Polishes used in this manicure: Wet n Wild mini color icon in a shimmery aqua green, Sinful Colors Nail Junkie, Essie All In One Basecoat, and Seche Vite topcoat. 

This manicure demanded an epic video to showcase all of its awesomeness. I give you the Battle of the Ages!!! Sarah Waite vs. The Loch Ness Monster:

I am SUCH a nerd! And no, I am not going to paint your face on my nails. LOL

Cinderelly Cinderelly

I wanted to try out a few of the mini polishes from my Wet n Wild Color Icon set that I am giving away here, so you could see some of the things you can do with them if you are the winner (deadline for entry is November 14th!). The polish I used was from my OWN set, not from the one you could win. That is brand new and safe in its little box waiting to be shipped to YOU! Here I used one of the clear sparkle top coats to make a Cinderella manicure!

"Cinderelly Cinderelly Night and Day it's Cinderelly! Make the fire! Fix the breakfast! Wash the dishes! Do the moppin'!"

I started with a gorgeous pink sheer shade from butter LONDON, then added two coats of this unnamed sparkle top coat from Wet n Wild. It is very sparkly and could work as a pretty main just like this. 

Then I painted Cinderella using acrylic paints. Her eyes and mouth were particularly hard to do. 

Here is Cinderella before I topcoated. And you can see the mega sparkle of the nails in the background. So pretty!!

Polishes used in this manicure: butter LONDON Pink Ribbon, Wet n Wild Mini Color Icon unnamed sparkle topcoat, Essie All In One basecoat and Revlon Quick Dry Topcoat. 

Here is the song I was singing while I painted these nails. :-)

Redwood Empire Food Bank

Today's nails are in honor of one of my very favorite charitable organizations. Redwood Empire Food Bank serves 78-thousand Sonoma County residents every MONTH. Every MONTH! And they don't just help the hungry in Sonoma County, they also serve Del Norte, Humboldt, Mendocino, and Lake Counties. On my bento blog, I donate $1 per post to the Redwood Empire Food Bank. I am excited to be talking with the lovely people from the Redwood Empire Food Bank during my show this afternoon to spread the word about their Winter Food and Funds Drive and ways that our community can help feed those in need. Listen at about 5:35pm online at ksro.com. Here are my Redwood Empire Food Bank (REFB) nails!

It's the REFB logo on my thumb and a Campbell's Tomato Soup can (a la Warhol) on my ring finger! These were really fun to paint. 

I started with a base of white polish. I used a new white polish that was recommended by Leslie of Nail Polish Art Addiction, thanks Leslie! This is just one coat of Snow Me White by Sinful Colors. I'll never go back to Sally Hansen Whirlwind White!

The soup can was the hardest thing to draw. I used acrylic paints for all of the art on the nails. There are so many tiny details on the soup can, I did the best I could. 

Here is the beginning of the REFB logo. So cute, a heart inside of an apple inside of a box of food. It is very evocative and has a clear message. 

On my right hand I painted an apple (it turned out really photo-realistic! I am so proud!) and also the letters 'refb' for Redwood Empire Food Bank. I painted this with my non-dominant hand.

Here are the two hands together. I really like how both of the items of food are red, which brings the design together. I also like that one item is non-perishable and the other is fresh fruit. Redwood Empire Food Bank is able to distribute both shelf stable and perishable food to our community. It is really an amazing effort. 

Here are my thumbs with the REFB logo and the letters 'refb'. I had to ask my friend Lauren to take this pic at work for me, LOL. 

Polishes used in this manicure: Seche Vite topcoat, Sinful Colors Snow Me White, and Essie All In One Basecoat. The nail art was all done by hand with acrylic paints. 

You still have time to enter my 100 follower giveaway! Click here to get your name in the drawing. Deadline for entry is November 14th, 2011. Good luck!

Unicorn Puke

Bwahahaha! I crack myself up. I wanted to do this manicure as soon as I got my hot little hands on Cult Nails limited edition nail polish called Unicorn Puke. Maria, the owner of Cult Nails, released a small amount of this flakie multi-hued polish in October. I was able to get two bottles. It will be released this weekend as Clairvoyant. Same exact polish, just under a different name. Click here if you want to get the Cult Nails set of four gorgeous shades, which Maria is calling the Super Powers Collection. The presale is this weekend only.

I modeled the unicorn after a drawing I found online made by Jennifer Wood. Click here to see her silly unicorn drawings. I wanted the unicorn to look really ridiculously over the top. Mission accomplished! It looks so much funnier next to that blob of sparkly vomit. 

I started with this base of blue polish. I would have used another Cult Nails polish as a base, but I only have Unicorn Puke, Hypnotize Me (a sparkle topcoat), and Awakening (a dark blue-green). I needed this to look really cartoony. 

I started the design with black acrylic paint. Yeah, it looks like a bunch of nothing right now. When I paint, I try to really pay attention to form and shape. My dad could look at any cartoon character and recreate it without tracing it. I think he used the same technique. What is the shape of the different parts, and where do those parts exist in relation to each other? It helps so much to think of an image in this way instead of thinking "What does a unicorn look like?" That kind of thinking will just will run me right off the tracks.

Next I filled in the white areas.

I got too into working on the unicorn, and this was the next photo I took. As you can see I have filled in almost all of the details of the unicorn. There is also a bit of shading with grey acrylic paint. I changed things a bit before topcoating, but this is pretty close to being done. 

Here I added the "puke" on the black areas, the gold acrylic paint on the horn, and fixed the forelock and the eyes a bit. 

Topcoated! Here is a side view so you can see the Unicorn Puke actually coming out of the mouth. Ewwwww! I got puke on my fingers!!! LOL

On my right hand I painted the letters "P U K E" in an Olde English style, to make it kind of fairy tale-ish. I think this turned out pretty well for my non-dominant hand! 

Polishes used in this manicure: Cult Nails Get It On basecoat, Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Pacific Blue (I used ONE COAT for this mani!!), Cult Nails Unicorn Puke, and Seche Vite topcoat.

Now Unicorn Puke is such an amazing polish, that I really had to do a video to show off its amazing sparkle. I give you: "Unicorn Puke: The Movie!"

Don't forget to enter my giveaway! Click here and scroll to the bottom of the post to enter to win some pretty polishes in honor of 100 followers of Sonoma Nail Art!

Maleficent and Facets of Fuchsia *Giveaway Closed

When I first laid eyes on this gorgeous nail polish I thought of Maleficent, the deliciously wicked baddie from Sleeping Beauty. This polish was meant for her! So here is my Maleficent mani!

Gaaah! I just love how this mani turned out. And I am psyched that I get to wear it longer than 24 hours, LOL! The 31 Day Nail Art Challenge was fun, but it was heartbreaking to remove some of those designs so quickly. 

I started with two coats (two MESSY coats) of Wet n Wild Ready to Pounce, from the On the Prowl collection. This is a really gorgeous shimmery dark plum color. I could easily have just used this for the Maleficent manicure.

But it does look amazing with Revlon's Facets of Fuchsia layered on top! This is one coat of Facets of Fuchsia, yum. At this point in the process, I did two coats of Seche Vite to give me a smooth surface to draw the evil Maleficent. 

I painted Maleficent with acrylic paints. I started with a black outline of her head, which was actually really hard to see on the polish, then filled in a light green for her face. 

I added her purple collar, the light grey lines of her headdress, her eye makeup and nose next. If you look closely between this and the next shot, you will see how I adjusted the shape of her eyebrows. This is the magic of using acrylic paints. You can really rework areas with the paints. 

Here is Maleficent before topcoat. I thought about adding her pet crow, but I got tired. Plus he is almost all black and would barely show up. 

Both hands together! Sorry this pic is a little blurry. I have to use my self timer for these shots. It is no use asking my husband to help me take pictures of both of my hands together, he invariably aims the camera at my boobs. Sigh.... 

Polishes used in this manicure: Wet 'n Wild Fastdry Ready to Pounce, Revlon Facets of Fuchsia, Cult Nails Get It On Basecoat, and Seche Vite Topcoat. 

Soooooo.... who wants to win some free polishes from me?!?! I just passed the 100 follower mark on Sonoma Nail Art, and I want to celebrate by giving you some free nail polish! THANK YOU FOR FOLLOWING ME! Here are the lovely prizes you could win:

All of the polishes are brand new, never used: Revlon Facets of Fuchsia (yes, I am the person in Sonoma County who keeps buying all of the bottles up), OPI DS Sapphire (sheer linear holographic polish!), and Sinful Colors Daddy's Girl (this is a dark purple jelly polish with teeny glass flakies. I lurve it!). You will also win:

...this set of Wet 'n Wild mini color icon nail polishes! There are nine mini bottles in the set. They are really cute! I bought another set for me, so I will try to play with them in the next few days to show you what they look like. 

Here are the rules: You MUST be a follower of Sonoma Nail Art to enter the giveaway. That's pretty much it. You can get additional entries for following my tumblr account, or following my facebook account, but really you can just enter as a follower of my blog. Deadline for entries is Monday, November 14th, 2011 at noon PST. One person will be selected randomly from all entries and notified via email on November 15th. You will have 48 hours to respond, otherwise another winner will be selected. The giveaway is open to all, international entries are WELCOME!

Thanks so much for your interest in my blog. Good luck! NO MORE ENTRIES PLEASE! I will announce the winner on Tuesday, November 15th, 2011. Thanks so much!

31 Day Nail Art Challenge: Happy Halloween!

I made it! Besides being a little late with the last few posts, I did a different nail design for 31 days. This was really fun. If other nail artists are thinking about doing a challenge, I say go for it! 31 days is a long time, but you will really improve at nail art with all of the practice! And after doing this challenge I have SO much more respect for Melissa of The Daily Nail who did an entire YEAR of nail art. Melissa rules!!

My final manicure for this challenge is zombie nails! I think this is actually my third set of zombie nails for this challenge. Zombies RULE!

Oookie! I have a bunch more ideas for Halloween nails, so I guess I will just save them for next year. These matched the costume I am wearing today. 

I started with a lovely pink shade, though it looks more orange in this shot. 

I added red polish in random patches to the tips of each nail. 

Then I used a dark brown acrylic paint to make jagged cracks, and then highlighted the bottoms of each crack with black acrylic paint. 

I did both hands! Hello right hand, long time no see!

So my costume is Miss Zombie Sonoma County! I had fun putting this together. As soon as I had the make up on, the character just came together. So funny!

Grrrr! Arg! Brains! (I photoshopped my eyes in this pic. No money for cool contacts.) Polished used in this manicure: Sally Hansen First Kiss, Revlon Raven Red, Cult Nails Get It On basecoat, and Seche Vite topcoat. 

And I was even inspired enough to make a short video. Meet Miss Zombie Sonoma County!

Hahahahaha! Happy Halloween!