Summer Birthdays

The month of May seems to contain the birthdays of many of my closest friends. This year saw a big milestone with my friends Grace and Lucille's 30th! As well my housemate Kerala's birthday at the beginning of the month and my friend Dave's at the end of the month. To celebrate these I have painted a nail for each person on my left hand. A birthday cake for all of them, balloons for Dave, wine for Kerala and her wine and cheese party she threw, a disco ball and ice cream for Grace and Lucille.
For the last week of the month and for Dave's birthday celebrations we went on a trip to Bournemouth for some beachy fun. Unfortunately it happened to be the one cloudy week of the month but we were lucky to not get too much rain and still managed to make time for beach walks and coastal fun. So on my right hand I have a beach scene of sun and a beach ball, a person flying a kite, a parasol and beach towel, a sailboat and crab, and a sandcastle, bucket and spade.
Had a great month spending time with all of my friends, although I'm now looking forward to being able to save a bit of money in preparation for my birthday celebrations at the end of July!

"Game over man, game over!"

Last week saw the sad loss of an amazing artist, set designer and the man behind the creation of the xenomorph, H.R. Giger. To commemorate I decided to paint some detailed Alien and Aliens film nails as they are two of my all time favourite films and without Giger's designs they wouldn't be nearly as visually stunning. My left hand is Alien themed while my right is the sequel, Aliens.
On my left hand I have the 'Alien' title, a chestburster (unfortunately forgot to paint the blood on it), a xenomorph, an alien egg, and acid blood splatter. On my right hand I have the pattern from the power loader Ripley uses, multiple alien eggs, the queen xenomorph's head, an M41A pulse rifle and a facehugger.
Took a very long time to create the detail and shading for these nails but it paid off and I'm pleased with the outcome. Painting the shading involves a lot of stipple technique using a very thin brush and lots of layers of colour. I also stipple the excess paint onto a tissue before painting to get fine detail, as opposed to blotchy colours.
I love the Alien franchise and I'm so glad Giger's work will live on in such classic and beautiful films.

Feliz Cinco de Mayo!

Last Monday was the annual Cinco de Mayo celebrations and as my best friend is part Mexican I decided this would be my nail art theme for the week.
On my left hand I have 'Feliz Cinco de Mayo', sugar skulls, a sombrero and a cactus. On my right hand I have a chilli, more sugar skulls, maracas and the dragon eggs from Game of Thrones. The eggs may seem a bit out of place but I wanted to include them because not only are they the same colours as the Mexican flag, the new episode of Game of Thrones aired on the same day as Cinco de Mayo.
To create these nails I used a white base coat on most of them because I wanted to make the bright colours pop. I then only wanted to include red, yellow and green in the colour scheme as they are the stereotypical colours which represent Mexico, plus they're bright and festive.
I hope everyone who celebrates this day across the pond had an amazing day!

You go Glen Coco!

Last week saw the special 10th anniversary of the awesome film that is Mean Girls so of course I had to paint my nails for the occasion. Unfortunately due to a busy schedule over the last few days I haven't been able to complete this set so I just have the one hand as I'm moving on to a new set of nails today.
Here I have 'Mean Girls', pink leopard print (on Wednesday's we wear pink), the Burn Book, Karen's mouse ears from her Halloween costume and Regina's R necklace. On my other hand I was going to paint the prom tiara, Janis and Damian's prom suits, 'fetch', the sexy santa outfit and 'You go Glen Coco!'. Will create a whole new set of these when the occasion calls for it next and include all the ones I didn't have time for.

Yesterday was also the 30th anniversary of one of my favourite films of all time, Sixteen Candles! With all these anniversaries of awesome high school rom coms I think it's time to get the booze out, slippers on and girls round for a pyjama party...

The Tale of Peter Rabbit

This was of my favourite books as a child and my mother used to read it to me a lot as she also grew up on Beatrix Potter's books. These were originally my Easter nail ideas but as I was a bit delayed I decided to paint them the following week for my mum's retirement. Now she can finally relax and maybe make some Beatrix Potter tales of her own.
I wanted to paint these in the order of the story but didn't quite think it through how they'd be displayed and got them a bit backwards, so I've flipped the images below to put them in the correct order:

From left to right I have a basket, a robin on a shovel, Peter wearing his nice new blue coat, carrots, a robin looking at Peter's lost shoe, a sparrow flying away from the fence, a watering can, Peter after he lost his coat, Peter's coat and shoes displayed like a scarecrow and a hot pot of camomile tea.

These nails took a long time to paint as I wanted to get the detail of Beatrix Potter's paintings just right. To do these I painted a white base on all my nails, then painted the detailed drawings first before adding a light stipple of colour to the background of some of the images to create a watercolour paint look. I also used dark browns instead of black to create the outline of some of the images so it looked more painted and less harsh and cartoon-like.

Coming next, "On Wednesday's we wear pink."....

Happy cutesy Easter!

Happy Easter! What better way celebrate the festivities than with some colourfully decorated Easter Eggs (and maybe a couple of cute bunnies thrown in there for good measure).
These are probably the most basic nails I've done in a very long time but I just wanted to do something quick with a variety of pastel colours for Easter. I also used my Claire's matte top coat over the patterned nails to give them an egg shell finish. It dried ok however the little finger on my left hand turned white as it dried.
To paint these I painted all my nails with a white base coat, I use two coats of Barry M, then used a thin brush to paint the stripes and zig zags and a dotting tool to add the polka dots. I painted a pink and yellow coat over the white for two of the nails for a bit of variety (both Rimmel). For the rabbits I actually painted the colour on over the white then added the black and pink detail (I think the rabbit on the left hand maybe looks a bit too psycho).
Hope everyone enjoys their day of chocolate and yummy foods and don't forget what Easter is really about - zombie Jesus!

Easter of Thrones

It's Easter! Which can only mean one thing... Game of Thrones is back for 10 short weeks of the year! This is by far my favourite show currently on TV, therefore I always look forward to this time of year, especially now that I've read enough of the books to know what's going to happen this season (don't worry I'm not one of those smug readers who gives away all the spoilers).
So to celebrate the return of this awesome show I've painted my nails with the accessories or clothing of nine different characters.

On my left hand I have 'GoT' in the Game of Thrones font, Melisandre's necklace, Jon Snow's wolf pommel, Tywin Lannister's Hand of the King broach and Arya Stark's sword, Needle. On my right hand I have Danaerys Stormborn's necklace, Littlefinger's mocking jay broach, Margaery Tyrell's embroidered dress and rose belt, Davos Seaworth's pouch which contains his fingers and Joffrey's crown.
With my GoT nail I wanted the replicate the style of the Season 3 DVD box so I painted it with a white base coat, then I used a soft brush to stipple a light grey colour, then more white over the grey until it had the right texture and colour (it's all about layering). I then painted the letters using black to start with before going over with my Barry M metallic silver to create a 3D look. Also you may notice the Tywin nail has a slight crimson look, I used a black base then painted over with a layer of OPI German-icure for a dark red tint to get a nice dark Lannister colour.

Only two episodes in to the new season so far and already it's proving to be the best season yet. If the books are anything to go by, they have a lot to fit into this season and I can't wait to see how it all plays out!