ABC Challenge: W is for Woven Nails

Hi there!  It's a late night here in Chicago and I should totally be in bed, but I just had to get my ABC Challenge post up.  Can you believe it's 'W' this week already??  Only 3 letters left, folks!  'W' was one of the letters I've had planned for awhile (wish I could say the same for 'X'!).  Back in school, I took a few weaving courses and found out that I really enjoyed it.  I even bought myself a tabletop loom after graduation.  I haven't used it in awhile so my skills are a bit rusty, but I hope you'll like what I've come up with for this week's Challenge.  I give you...Woven Nails!

I started with 2 coats of Sinful Colors in Unicorn.  Actually, this manicure started last night when I painted a ziploc bag with 2 large squares of China Glaze in Sunday Funday and Sinful Colors in Island Coral.  Those squares became, after they dried and were cut, the strips of polish I used to create the woven patterns on my accent nails here.  It's similar to what I did for my Viking manicure, only with less detail and more aggravation lol  I had planned to weave the pattern off the nail and then place the whole thing on while Unicorn was still tacky.  However, after a couple of tries, I found that placing the strips directly on my nails and weaving as I went worked better.

After admiring my work, my bf kindly pointed out, "They look prettier than I thought they would...but it took you 2 hours to do 2 nails!"  Oh, boys!  They just don't get it!

Please take the time to check out the other ladies' posts this week.  You can find them via the thumbnails below.  Thanks so much for reading!

23 of 31: Nails Inspired by a Movie

Howdy, everyone!  I'm a day behind with this post and I'm blaming it on the photos.  I'm still not very happy with how they turned out, but it's this or nothing! 

So, the challenge for Day 23 is to do a manicure inspired by a movie.  I chose to use The Last Unicorn as my inspiration.  Now I'm going to guess most of you have never seen this movie.  It's an animated film based on a book by Peter S. Beagle.  TLU is one my favorite movies of all time.  It's a hold over from my childhood and it brings me right back there every time I watch it. 

Here's a shot of the full mani.  I chose some of my favorite characters from the movie to spotlight.  I'll do my best to explain who's who for those who haven't seen it.

I'll break the explanation nail by nail.

Starting with my thumb, this is the Pirate Cat from King Haggard's castle.  (King Haggard is the dude who's stolen all the unicorns from the world.)  This cat is pretty awesome...he can talk for one and he's got this cool Cruelle de Ville hair-do and an eye patch! 

My index fingernail has The Red Bull, not to be confused with Red Bull the energy drink.  TRB is a bad, bad dude who chases down all the unicorns and forces them into the ocean, where King Haggard can see them but no one else can.  Talk about never learning the "sharing" lesson in kindergarten!

This is the Butterfly.  He doesn't really have a name and he's only in the movie for one scene, but he's really one of my favorite characters.  In the film, butterflies speak in song and bits of poetry, so his lines are really fun. Plus he has an adorable hat and scarf combo!

My ring fingernail has a six-pointed star to represent The Unicorn.  There is a pink, star-shaped mark on her forehead where her horn spouts out of her head.  Now The Unicorn is actually not one of my favorite characters, but I could hardly do a manicure about this movie without the title character making an appearance.  I didn't have time to paint another mini portrait though, so I went for more of an abstract thing instead.  Incidentally, that's my new Deborah Lippmann Edge of Glory holographic top coat you see shining so prettily on top :)
 

Last, but definitely not least, is The Tree. She's another one without an official name, but her scene really steals the show.  She's been accidentally enchanted to life by Schmendrick (a would-be sorcerer with a serious self confidence issue) and then falls in love with him.  It's quite amusing!

Well, I hope you stuck with me through all of that!  And you should check out The Last Unicorn if you love 70's style animation or unicorns or cool cats :)  I'll be posting my book-inspired nails here in a bit as well and then check out tomorrow's post for some fashion inspired nails...thanks so much for reading!!

Scalloped Manicure

Howdy, everyone!  Just a really quick post, as I'm headed out the door for brunch at one of my favorite spots!

This is 3 coats of Unicorn by Sinful Colors, allowed to dry and used my craft scissors to cut up some scalloped pieces of tape.  Placed the tape and then applied a coat of Secret Peri-Wink-le by China Glaze.  This photo isn't a great representation of the colors.  The China Glaze has a bit more purple to it, but at least you can see the design.  I'm lovin' this one!  Can't wait to try with other colors and maybe with more colors on the nail together.

Be looking out for some great new manicures at Over The TopCoat!  I made another Ulta run on Friday and then, Saturday at work, a fantastically giving customer brought me some her own polish stash as a gift!  All in all, I think I have about 25 new shades to try out...it'll be a very exciting week for me!

Thanks for reading!