Summer in the City

I'm home for the summer! And by that, I mean I'm home for about 10 more days until I leave for my job as a camp counselor in Minnesota. As we slide into summer, I wanted to highlight the bright colors that come with the season. I'm from New Orleans, so summer is hot and humid, which to me, translates to brights and neons, none of that pastel nonsense.

Much to my dismay, I'm unable to travel with my full collection; most of my polish will be gathering dust in my roommate's basement until we go back to school. Devastated as I am, this is really just an opportunity for me to buy more nail polish.

I used some of my new China Glazes--White on White and Sun Worshiper--as well as OPI A Good Mandarin is Hard to Find. The flowers have touches of Nails Inc. Brompton Place and Essie Mint Candy Apple. The flowers are free handed; my ring finger uses nail tape, and my thumb was done with  Winstonia's plate W111.

Against the wall? Not really working for me. 

With flash? I'm thinking it's a bad idea.

I'm still working on what hand position, location, and lighting are going to work best for me, so hang in there. It can only get better (hopefully).

Street Art

Today, my nails were inspired by street art. More specifically, they were inspired by the Sally Hansen nail art competition, whose theme this month happens to be street art. Like actual graffiti, I wanted my nails to look like they had been painted and re-painted.

I started off with a single coat of Sally Hansen Hi-Res, a pink shimmer. Over that, I made sure that I had almost no polish on my brush before painting a very sparse and spotty white coat. Over the splotchy white, I news-printed, and stuck a few scraps of the actual paper to some of the spots that didn't turn out as well. On five or six of my nails, I partially covered the nail with Revlon Hazy, like graffiti that gets painted over. 

The caution tape is Sally Hansen Lightening; the green arrows are Sally Hansen Mint Spirit; my left thumb is a bit hard to make out, but it's meant to look like a graffiti 'LLY,' the end of Sally. The 'graffiti' letters are done in Blue Me Away! topped with Mermaid's Tale, both Sally Hansen, and both of those colors can be spotted on my pinkie too. Anywhere that there's a shimmer, it's Sally Hansen Diamonds. 

Some of my nails were inspired by well known street art. The two nails on the right were based on this Banksy work, but I could only manage the hand letting go of the string and the balloon itself.

 

               

My right thumb is based on Invader's work. Invader, if you're not familiar, is a French street artist named because he creates mosaics of characters from the arcade game Space Invaders. I couldn't manage squares, but I mimicked the mosaic style with my dotting tool.

The red polish is Essie Russian Roulette; white is Milani White; black is a nail art pen from Claire's.

That's it for my first nail art post! I know the pictures aren't the best quality, nor do they have great lighting, but I'll work on that. Hope you liked it!

Hello World?

Hello!

There's nothing I love more than a good nail blog, so I figured I'd make one of my own. I'm still figuring everything out, but I hope I can create the type of blog that I like to read. Wish me luck!