Spring Flowers for #NAILLINKUP

This is my design for the SPRING FLOWERS theme of the N.A.I.L. Linkup!  The colors I chose are a bit more intense than the usual spring pastels.  But then again, it doesn’t feel like spring yet in NY!  It was kinda nice out yesterday, but today is like brrrrr.

BASE COLOR ♥ I Love Nail Polish – Grape Alicious

STAMPING NAIL POLISH ♥ AVON Mirror – Blaze

STAMPING PLATE ♥ MoYou London – Pro Collection 04

RHINESTONES ♥ magenta gems from Sally’s Beauty Supply

ACCENT NAIL GLITTER ♥ Sinful Colors – Star Dust

NAILLINKUP Spring Flowers –

#31DC2013 Flowers Nail Art

Day 14 of Chalkboard Nails’ Challenge is FLOWERS and I’ve got some brown cherry blossom nails for ya!  I’ll be honest with you… I don’t really like how these nails came out.  I don’t like to be negative… but it is what it is.  And I realized that when I don’t like one of my designs I usually only post one pic.  So here it is….

I’m wearing two coats of a cream brown called Nirvana by Sinful Colors.  A few months back you may remember me whining about how I didn’t have any basic brown polishes… well, now I have one!  I think Nirvana should come in handy for nail art this fall and winter. 🙂    For my floral design I painted some branches using Orly Nite Owl.  I wish I used a dark polish for the branches.  (On this old AriZona Green Tea mani I made the branches black and they looked amazing!) The pink flowers are China Glaze Dance Baby and Orly Kiss the Bride.  I used a toothpick to make black dots in the middle of the blossoms, but the dots came out much bigger than expected (oopsy)!  I topped it off with seche vite and there you go!  These aren’t that fantastical, but they were quick to do, so that’s a bonus.  😀

See some of the other flower nails from #31DC2013 right here:

#31DC2013- Violet Nails

Day 6 of Chalkboard’s 31 day nail challenge is VIOLET and I came up with a bold purple petunia design using my new Essence colour & go polishes! The lighter base color (3 coats) is called Essence Oh My Glitter! and it’s such a pretty, pretty purple, I just love it!  It’s one of those purple shades that’s dusty, but also bright at the same time.  (does that make sense ?)

Moving on to the petunia motif…  I started by free-handing the petals with a detail brush and cheap black nail polish.   I almost always use this NYC brand of polish called Black Lace Creme for my black nail art.  This stuff was $0.98!  Also, it’s nice and smooth and it doesn’t get too goopy on my brush.  It’s just a great cheapo polish to have on hand!  Then I filled in the black outlines with Essence Break Through, a deep magenta-tinted purple.  The flowers came out big and bold but luckily they don’t outshine my gorgeous base color!  I like that my eye keeps catching the pink and purple micro-glitter that’s in there.  Here’s a close-up of Oh My Glitter! so you can see ….

Want to see more purple manicures?  Here’s the inlinkz for 31DC2013 violet theme…

Embellished Nail Polish Easter Egg

I love painting easter eggs with nail polish- it’s my new fave spring project!  If you’d like to see my first attempt here’s the link to my other egg.  My first egg was decorated with just nail polish.  But today’s egg has a few other embellishments- fimo clay flowers and beads on top!

I took a few days to complete this egg because I’d paint a section… then wait for it to dry.  Then paint another section and wait for that to dry.  I set the egg on a soda cap while it was drying.  I also added some orange fimo clay nail art flowers and stuck them on with some clear nail polish.

Since I drained my egg before I painted it… it had a nice little whole on top which was perfect to slide a eyepin into (an eyepin is the metal stick that jewelery-makers use to slide beads onto when making drop earrings).  I simply placed two silver beads onto the eyepin and then slid the pin into the whole on the top of my egg.  I secured it with glue so they wouldn’t slip out.  I really like the beaded accent on top- it adds a nice touch and almost makes it look victorian.

I hope you get a chance to do some spring crafts too!  I can’t believe Easter is tomorrow!

In recent news, I have set my blog up on the Bloglovin site!  So if you use Bloglovin to view your favorite blogs- then you can add Craftynail to your list of followed blogs by clicking this link-  Follow my blog on Bloglovin!

If you have not yet setup a Bloglovin account then you can read about it here – I think it’s a great way to view all your favorite sites in one spot!

My Favorite Gold

I haven’t tried this Nicole by OPI shade yet- and I figured it would be a great glitzy color for the 3 day weekend!  I just found out yesterday that I have bronchitis, and now I’m surprisingly really happy!  I have been sick for ten days, so I’m glad to finally have a diagnosis and some meds.  This shiny gold polish is perfect for me today since it matches my good mood.

This shade is called My Favorite Gold and it’s part of the Justin Bieber collection.  This gold is super shiny, glam and is really an eye-catcher.  It’s one of those polishes that really glows!  If I dare venture out of the house today I can imagine getting a lot of compliments on it.  The formula was iffy- it did dry fast, but man- did it need a lot of coats?!  Shown in my pics is 5 coats… and I could almost go for a 6th!  If I turn my hand just right I can still see some visible nail line.  Next time I’ll have to use a white or yellow base coat underneath it.  I also decided to spice up this mani a little bit with some fimo flowers.  Has anyone used these before?  The flowers seem small at first glance, but once I apply them to the nail I realize how big they really are.  They take up way more space than I planned.  I wish they were a bit daintier…. but they’re still fun to use as an embellishment once in a while.

My Favorite Gold came in a two pack along with I’m a Belieber and I noticed a funny typo on the box.  There’s a couple words printed on the packaging- fashion, art and DYI.  DYI?  What’s that?  I think they meant to say DIY!  Hehehe… I love finding random typos.