Eiffel Tower Nails for #NAILLINKUP

Week 1 of N.A.I.L. for May is TRAVEL/TOURISM and I immediately knew I wanted to do something French.  My ancestors are from France.  Sure, they left Europe over 400 hundred years ago, but still, I’ve always been interested in my heritage.  The fact that my full name is super french-sounding probably has something to do with it.  I studied french for years and years in school and college too.  But unfortunately, I’ll forget it all if I don’t put it to good use.  What a shame that would be.  Is the fear of losing my foreign language skills a good enough excuse for me to blow a wad of cash on a flight and hotel in Paris?  I say a resounding YES!!!!!!!!!   And guess who I will be visiting when I land in the land of la France?  My Brijit, of course!  I’m putting this shiz on my bucket list.  I seriously need to get off this continent someday.

But you are here to see my nails….. not hear about my hopes and dreams.  So here they are!

I tried to stamp the Eiffel Tower using one of my Bundle Monster plates but I think BM didn’t etch the design well enough.  I had the damnedest time and got pretty frustrated.  I used my squishy MoYou stamper, and then my Konad one. The Konad stamper almost worked, if I pushed really hard.  But then I said forget it!  And I free-handed the towers instead.  Much better!!!! Kinda cute and artsy and french looking, non?

The accent nails are OPI Don’t Bossa Nova Me Around and the towers were done with a cheap black striper polish.  And my other nails…. such a pretty aqua color!  Here’s a closeup…

The aqua is Finger Paints Dream I Can Fly (Which I also painted on my mom too and we both love it!)  Then I sponged some Finger Paints matte glitter on the tips.  The glitter’s called Crystal Springs and it kinda looks like floam to me.  There’s also little shards of flakies in there.  I adore it.

You should totally do a TRAVEL mani too!  Where do you dream to go for holiday??

And for those of you with exceptional attention spans, here’s some background info on Nail Art ideas Linkup–

Did you know that Brijit and Jemma and I started the Nail Art Ideas Linkup after last summer’s big OMD Challenge? That July challenge we did was so much fun it was kinda depressing to think that it would be over.  So we developed N.A.I.L. to keep the momentum going.  Since we started in August 2013 I have done a manicure for every single prompt but I’m only realizing today how many that is!  If you wanna see all my N.A.I.L. manicures then hop over to my Gallery Page to see them all in one spot!  And speaking of the OMD Challenge, my next post will be a sneak peak at what’s in store for the 2nd annual July OMD Challenge.  So if you are into big huge nail challenges then stay tuned.  Oh mon dieu!

 

 

Clover Accent Nails

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!  I know I’m getting older because I now associate this holiday with eating instead of drinking.  Yup, a free corned beef dinner at mom and dads sounds better than a crowded bar.  I live in a college town and it’s spring break right now so most of the students are gone.  If I went out, I would probably feel at home since the places would be filled with my fellow ‘townies’ instead of young’ens.  But, it’s likely I’ll eat a nice family dinner, do my 30 day ab challenge exercises and call it a night.  OMG, I have to say… my ab challenge is getting so hard!  Here’s what I have to do.  I’m up to 75 situps, 100 crunches, 42 lower ab/leg raises and 65 seconds of plank today.  Phew!  I have to break it up into two workouts per day now… cuz 75 situps at once is a killer!  Enough whining! Let’s look at my st patrick’s day nails…

I’m wearing AVON Don’t be Jaded as my base color.  Yes, I wore it yesterday too for my other st paddys design.  I’ve noticed a weird pattern that I follow- if I get a new cream polish I like to wear it a few times right away.  It kinda makes me feel bad if I get a lovely new polish, only try it once, then put it on a shelf and forget about it.  I like to cherish my new bottles and use them a lot so they know they are loved.  If inanimate objects have feelings I like to think that my polish bottles are happy and feel appreciated. 🙂  Weird?  Yes, but that’s why you like me!

I also sponged some army green Ulta nail polish on my tips too, but you probably can’t tell since the colors blend well together.  Then I added a coat of a Pretty Woman glitter topper.  I’ve never tried Pretty Woman brand before.  I picked it up at Rite Aid recently and I think the name of this one is GREEN.  Very original huh? 🙂  I like that there’s a variety of glitter sizes in there… glitters like that tend to spread well for me.  I only needed one coat and I got some nice even glitter coverage with it.

I also decorated my ring fingers as accent nails.  Maybe you recognize my clovers ?  They are some of the diy decals that I hand-painted over the weekend in this post.  I stuck my clover decals on and then slathered some Seche Vite topcoat over top.  Like always, I love the the nice smooth finish and quick-dry shine that I get from my bff Seche!

Do your nail polishes have feelings too? Or is it only mine?

Nail Art Ideas Linkup (NAIL)- Sand Theme

Today I’m sharing my SAND-inspired manicure for our Nail Art Ideas Linkup for August.  Sand makes me think of my beige bottle of Zoya Pixie Dust called Godiva.  The textured finish really reminds me of beaches so this was a great choice for this theme.  To jazz up my Godiva I paired it with some NCLA Nail Wraps called Ally En Vogue..  These wraps were provided to me by Nail Polish Canada and I reviewed another set of them back in May- Jazzy Nail Wraps.  I painted 6 of my nails with Godiva and covered the other 4 in the NCLA wraps.  Here’s a better shot of the wraps…

I’m enjoying wearing Godiva while on my vacay- it’s holding up better than my other polishes were.  Much less chips.  The nail wraps didn’t last that long, they started peeling rather quickly, but I like the look of them….I have no idea why the pic below keeps showing up sideways…. but I have plans to go see our friend Amanda in WA and I don’t have time to fiddle with the photo editor!  lol

If you’d like to join in on Nail Art Ideas Linkup here’s the info!

N.A.I.L. Theme 3 – Sand :

French Flowers

It’s the last day of the Nail Art Challenge.  Boohooie!  Before I joined the challenge I was thinking oh no.. will I be able to commit to 30 straight days of nail art!?  It sounded like so much work.  But now that the 30 days are up… I can’t believe how fast it went!  I was able to really immerse myself in nail art and I tried so many cool techniques that I’ve been wanting to try for so long! Julie picked some really cool themes and it was a blast.  One of my own favorite designs is probably my AriZona Iced Tea Nails.  AriZona recently posted it on their facebook page and my blog stats have blown up today!  Pretty cool I think. 🙂

Moving on to my very last mani from the challenge!  Day 30’s theme is RECREATE YOUR FAVORITE MANICURE.  I chose Brijit’s manicure to recreate:  Isn’t hers cute?  Brijit’s mani was in turn inspired by PSHIIIT.  Pshiiit made the cutest little GIF to show you how easy it is to paint these flowers: nail art fleuri.  I named my copycat of their manis FRENCH FLOWERS because both Brijit and Pshiiit are French bloggers!

My base color is Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Blue Me Away!  My petals are a light blue by NYC called Skyline Blue.  The silver accents were made with NYC Tribeca Silver.  I like the way it looks in real life- but so hard to photograph!

A final thank you for following me on this challenge!  I loved all the likes and comments- it really kept me going throughout the 30 days!  See you next time when poor Craftynail will have to come up with ideas on her own! lol

wet n wild eggplant frost

wet n wild Eggplant Frost

This color feels like a throwback !  I must’ve owned a similar polish back in the early 90’s cuz I feel like a teenager again LOL. This wet n wild Eggplant Frost is from the wild shine collection and it’s an awesome deep royal purple.  I also painted my ring finger as an accent nail using kleancolor sugar coat.

Overall, I like the Eggplant Frost!  A polish like this is kinda hard to photograph since it has a lil bit of a chameleon effect going on.  In the light it shimmers some fierce blue, and in the shade it’s more of a dark purple.  I like that the pigments shift … it’s shiny & vampy… and it’s only 99 cents 🙂

 

blue shimmer in direct light

 

in the shade- with kleancolor Sugar Coat accent nail