Nail Designs

I was once told I have a story for everything. The more I thought about it I realized I do have a story for everything. Maybe it's because I want to share the meaning. Maybe it's because I like to talk. Maybe it's a combination of both. Regardless of the reason here are some nail designs I've done in the past few months and a little meaning behind the design. 

Cow Spots

My sister likes cows (well, specifically their spots) and had asked me to paint her toe nails. We've experimented with the spot colors, but we both like the traditional white with black spots the best. On this occasion she was going on a week long vacation so I decided to paint my nails to match. We both had so many compliments on our nails. Who knew so many people would like cow spotted nails?

Plaid Nails 

This plaid design sparked my creativity. I've even created a how to video to instruct my niece how to copy this design. Start with a solid color. Add a plaid design with 3 stripes going in each diagonal direction. Add a second color of strips in between the first stripes. Simple, yet it looks so complicated at first. A steady hand is helpful, but if you look closely, you'll see not all the stripes are perfectly straight, but you can't tell because there are so many stripes. 

Princess Nails 

I started with a solid pink as the back drop to this design. I added pink glitter plaid (just like the first color in the Plaid Nails design) and then used a magenta pink to add the dots in the middle of the plaid formed diamonds. I loved the way my nails sparkled. I felt like a princess all week with my sparkly pink nails.  

Ladybug Nails

This little girl likes ladybugs. How could I not put a rainbow of ladybugs on her nails? I've copied this design on my own nails. It is so easy to do and gets so many compliments. I like when the ladybugs go in different directions, but they are just as cute if they all go in the same direction. 

Vintage Rose Buds

The Vintage Rose Buds is a design I copied from Pintrest. I'll do my best to describe how I made the rose buds, but I'm not sure how well I can paint the picture with my words. For each rose bud start with  your lighter color and make two "C" shapes so the tails of the "C" interlock with each other. So you end up with a lopsided circle-ish shape. Then do the same thing with the darker color on top, but 90 degrees of the original interlocking "C" shapes and spaced out a little so they are not so close together so you can see the first "C's" interlocking. I liked this design. The only down side is it takes a while to master the design and it takes a while to do. This is one of the longer to complete designs I've done recently.

Broken Arm Nail Design

Okay, I know the title of this design is not very creative, but it is what it is. When I had a cast on my arm I still wanted to paint my nails. After all, I was sitting around doing nothing, so I might as well paint my nails and then sit around and let them dry. My doctor requested I not paint my right nails because he needed to see if my nails were changing colors and not with paint. To compromise my desire to paint my nails and to honor my doctor's request I used clear polish as my starting base. With the limited motion of my casted arm I knew my design had to be fairly simple. I had three stripes in one direction and two stripes in the other. The picture is hard to see the details, but with a casted arm this was the best I could do. This design allowed my doctor to look at my nails without having to remove my polish. Not to mention the nurses all raved on my creativity. 

Vanuatu Flag

My friends are missionaries in Vanuatu and their family is going to celebrate their completion of translating the Bible in Naavar. The 11 year old asked for the Vanuatu colors and I suggested we paint the flag. We googled the flag and I copied what I could (the blue is actually green, but the lighting changed it to a blue color). After talking to my friend in Vanuatu via Facebook she told me a little about the flag. Here's what Wikipedia says about the Vanuatu flag:

The flag of Vanuatu was adopted on February 13, 1980.

When the Vanua'aku Party led the country to independence as Vanuatu in 1980, the colors of the party flag - red, green, black and yellow - were chosen to be the basis for the national flag. A parliamentary committee chose the final design based on submissions from local artists.

The green represents the richness of the islands, the red is symbolic of the blood of boars and men, and the black of the ni-Vanuatu people. Vanuatu's Prime Minister requested the inclusion of yellow and black fimbriations to make the black stand out. The yellow Y-shape represents the light of the Gospel going through the pattern of the islands in the Pacific Ocean (Vanuatu is approximately 90% Christian).

The emblem in the black is a boar's tusk - the symbol of prosperity worn as a pendant on the islands - along with two leaves of the local namele fern. The leaves are supposed to be a token of peace, and their 39 fronds represent the 39 members of Vanuatu's legislative assembly.

Cool, right? I love the Y represents what my friends have been doing for the past 10 years!

American Flag

My sister and I will be in Washington DC for the 4th of July and figured we might as well show our patriotic side with American Flag nails. Here I was experimenting with a few different ways we could paint our nails. It worked out well and we will be sporting our patriotism in our nation's capital this 4th of July. Happy Birthday America!

Tasty Strawberries

Okay, okay, these are not real strawberries. In fact they aren't all that tasty, but they are super cute! A fun summer design.

Thank's Pintrest

I found this design on Pintrest and loved the concept. The picture doesn't do this design justice. The pointers are silver (which you can clearly see) and my other fingers (and thumbs) are pink. What you can't really see are the dots in a swirly pattern in the opposite color. Super cute and hard to make a mistake. If you make a dot where you didn't want it, just add another dot to follow along. Simple and fun.

Rainbow Nails

This little girl loves to have Miss Alice paint her nails. On this particular day we didn't have much time, so we decided to paint her nails while she was in her car seat waiting for her siblings to get out of school. She had to stay still long enough she ended up falling asleep while I was painting her rainbows! Talk about a challenge - tiny 4 year old nails while she is sleeping and kept clinching her fists! In the end they turned out so cute. When she woke up she was so happy to see her rainbows! 

Boston Red Sox

My sister is a Boston Red Sox fan. When she was heading out to go to Boston she asked if I could paint the Red Sox logo on her toes... apparently I can.

Cupcake Nails

Another Pintrest inspired nail design. A lot of the cupcake designs on Pintrest included a cherry, but who puts cherries on their cupcakes? Cherries are for ice cream, not cupcakes! I figured I'd give this design a try for my birthday and I'm very pleased. 

Pick A Color Any Color...

Here is just part of my nail polish collection. The top row are special stripe polishes with thin brushes. My collection is ever growing because I think of a design and need to add a color or two. I think I may have a problem with how many nail polishes I have, but then again if I didn't have this many I couldn't create my fun nail designs.