My uncle and aunt's wedding nails

I wanted to design something nice for my aunt and uncle's wedding I decided to go with a heart beat theme and connected it all together with a heart and their initials.  I was very very happy with how well the cursive letters turned out and the whole nail art together was loved by all on their special day with friends and family.  My base is Pink Friday by OPI and red acrylic paint for the design.

The Flintstones

I did this nail art so long ago but have been neglecting my blog as of late.  I was very proud of these nails and how well they turned out.  Even so people took a while to figure out they were The Flintstones which made me sad, but I still loved having them on my nails.  Maybe it was the lack of recognition that delayed me in posting.  Not sure, I hope you all like them.

Red Shirt inspired nails

Not the red shirt from Star Trek, my nails survived being painted.  I just bought this shirt and really liked the colour and pattern.  I thought it would make a nice nail art design.  I used my favourite polish Bungle Jungle by Essie which really looks nice with the black.  After doing the stripes (with a cat whisker) and the dots with a dotting tool) I decided I'd do tiger stripes on my dominant hand.  Very happy with the way they turned out.  Such a nice contrast with the colours.  I have a few bottles of the bungle jungle polish.

Avengers Assemble Nails

So we saw the movie when it came out and it was really funny, extra character development and all around entertaining so I decided it was worth giving a try at Avenger nails.  The only one that really daunted me was Captain America's shield, but even that went really well.  After my initial design I went back and touched up the Avenger's symbol as it was missing the little arrow on the cross bar.  I liked it much better after fixing it up.

Tissue Paper inspired nails

I love how pretty the tissue boxes have become recently.  I took inspiration for my nails from one box in particular.  I started with OPI Alpine Snow and then used a cosmetic sponge to apply both Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Mellow Yellow 360 and Sun Kissed 150.  These two combined formed the base of my design.  After it dried I used my acrylic paint to make my design in red over top of the polish leaving the original colour on my nail where I want the picture to pop out.  I started with my pinkie and tried to duplicate the designs on the tissue box but soon realized I really had the ability to paint whatever I wanted and by the thumb I had a beautiful sunset design going.  I did a yin yang on my dominant hand and then wussed out and used my stampers for the rest of the designs, but they still turned out great.

Tea Bag Nails

So my friend at work gave me some kosher teas and I fell in love with the tea bag holder.  I decided to bring it home, cut it up and paste it onto my nails.  I was really happy with how they turned out but it took me until the thumbs to get a good result.  I really coated on the polish to make it stick.  As you can see from the first pinkie it didn't stick very well, after that one I curved the bits of paper so they would conform to my nail better.  They are pretty even if the end result is not the "cleanest".

St Patrick's Day

I started with my pinkie and made my way across to the thumb.  I wish I had done the thumb first as it looks really great and would have been nice on all the nails.

Basketweave Nails

I got Chris to pick my colour after letting him know what I had in mind.  He chose Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear 270 Lacey Lilac.  I then took a few tries to get it right and still not the happiest with the end result it's good enough to wear in public so I left it alone.  It's hard to the get lines just right and I tried to use previous lines to keep them in order, but it just didn't work out perfectly, but hopefully the idea made it's way across that these are supposed to be the weave you would find on a basket.

Rainbow Butterflies

My friend's mom wants me to do butterflies on her nails so I experimented with a few designs and then decided I wanted them on my nails too.  I've always loved rainbows across my nails so I went with different coloured wings.  My base was Pure Ice First Love 828CP and then I used acrylic polishes and applied the wings and whatever I messed up in the middle I just went over with black and pulled out my handy cat whisker and put in the antennae.  I love this idea to much and it has really been working for me.

Ladybugs in the Sun

I am so happy with how these turned out.  Now I have happy nails on both my hands (I have teddy bears on my right hand).  I started with Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Mellow Yellow and then it's all acrylic paint following instructions by Robin Moses for Multicoloured Ladybugs here:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EuE4YeRLejQ,  What really makes me so proud of these is the fact I got the little antennae to look really thin.  I'm finally losing my heavy hand.  YAY!

Teddy Bear Nails

I decided to take inspiration from a snuggly warm sweater I've had for years.  My ring finger had a few coats of Sally Hansen Smooth and Perfect Air 06 (it needed a few coats to get it opaque) and the rest just have a base coat.  I then used my blue acrylic paint mixed with white to get various shades and made cute little teddy bears on my nails and black for their eyes and little noses.  I love them and they really boosted my spirits today as February is a very rough month for me.

Robin Moses black and gold flowers

It took me a while to decide what to put on my off hand after doing my Chinese New Year nails.  So I looked to Robin moses and found this design,  I used my dotting tools for the flowers and my paint brush for the stems and leaves. For an off hand design I'm pretty happy with the turn out.  I started with Sally Hansen Xtreme wear Golden-I and then used black acrylic polish for the rest.  It didn't take long, I just wish I had better placement with these dotting tools. Also my cat joined my photo session so I took one with her as the background.  :-)
Tutorial found here although I just following the picture: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5v_87-MP8hk

Chinese New Year - Goat

So I just learned as I'm posting my pics to my facebook account (https://www.facebook.com/NailArtByCynthiaMinns) that it's not the year of the ram but of the goat.  So much for the ram on my thumb but I digress.  I love doing Chinese new Year nails.  I remember doing the snake and the horse and loved the way they turned out, although the Chinese characters can be a bit tedious to learn properly.  I started with only the ram goat on my thumb and the symbol on my ring finger but when I was home sick with the flu I added a few more designs with the crackers on the pinkie, flowers on the middle and my feeble attempt at one of the lanterns on my index finger.  Ah well, as a combination they look great and I love them.  Red (Sally Hansen Diamond Strength Diamonds and Rubies 360) and gold (Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Golden-I 485) just look really classy on nails.
nb.  please note that Sally Hansen red bleeds so I always use 2 base coats before applying.

50 Shades of Grey by Robin Moses

After doing valentine nails I wanted to do some water marble nails on my dominant hand.  Well, that failed so I tried a Robin Moses no water watermarble and also fail, I then tried the technique I used for spider web nails... yup fail so here are the 50 Shades of Grey nails by Robin Moses.  They are easy to do and I have done them before but just did one tone of grey, these have 3.  The base is Sally Hansen 850 Pumping Iron and they grey colours are black and white acrylic paints mixed as shown in the tutorial here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGW8Wmhw8qo

Valentine miscellaneous nails

I started my design with OPI Pink Friday except the White nail which is Sally Hansen Nearly Nude 1 Natural White then I used my acrylic paints to create the design of each nail.  I even got one of my brushes cut down a bit as it was getting a bit shaggy in places.  The heart and infinity symbol was inspired by a necklace a friend has and the love letter envelope is credited to jjooyoo.tumbler.  The others I found on the internet without any credit although I do know Robin Moses did the heart beat sign in a few designs.  I hope you like them and they inspire you during this time of love and romance.

Negative Space Nails

So decided to try this new nail art technique where part of the nail is a neutral colour and the rest is a design focusing or surrounding that blank space.  I did some simple stuff, but for having to paint something in reverse I think they came out pretty well.  I used a Sally Hansen Ceramic nail polish Porcelain Ivory for my base and white acrylic paint for the outlining.

7 Days to Die

Nail art is for the artist who creates it and not for anyone else.  So when I couldn't find inspiration for new nail designs I turned to my newest game addiction from Steam called 7 days to die.  It's a zombie apocalypse survival crafting game that is super addictive. My design is the various crates from the game hammer for building materials, fork and knife for food stuffs, gun for weapons crate, bullets for the ammo crate and lastly the explosive warning symbol for boomies.  I am very happy with how they turned out.  Many people liked the gun, probably as the only recognizable item on my nails, but they make me smile.  So here they are using base coat of Revlon 711 Smokey Canvas, a colour I wouldn't normally use but my sister gave it to me and it works well.

2015 Nail Art

My grandma gave me a pack of nail art stones and I thought they'd be put to good use by a new year design.  The white didn't show up that well over the gold, but being a straight line it didn't matter much.  The gold looked super awesome on the silver. My friend Adil actually painted my nails here.  She did mine and I did hers. It was a nice change to have my nails done. 

Tim Horton's Nails

I saw the Christmas cups at Tim Hortons and thought the bottom design would look nice on nails.  Being into nail art it seems that everything provides inspiration for new n ail designs.  I didn't add the extra chevron to my design.  Maybe if my nails were longer...  I really like the blue chevron tip with the white dot.  Maybe because it resembles a yin yang which is a symbol I like.  I used Sally Hansen Nearly Nude 1 Natural White and a tiny China Glaze that my aunt gave me called Frostbite.