Halloween

I know Halloween is not an Asian holiday, but it's well-known. I created 101 designs for Halloween and here are 10 out of 101. This one I just took a bunch of pictures of the nail art and the materials because these are designs I'm not letting out of my sight, plus they are simple and easy so you can figure them out on your own. Enjoy

お月見ネイル Moon Festival Nails

In the last week of September many countries celebrate the Full Moon Festival (the Chinese name is better). For my Mandarin class we celebrated this festival with mooncakes, Chinese and Japanese candy, as well as learning all sorts of legends about Moon Festival. This also includes how it is celebrated- in China all the family members return to their homes to be with their families, eat together, and appreciate the beautiful moon. Japanese gardens (kind of like a park, but Japanese, and I don't think you'd ever see a playset there) also have special offers for this holiday. Some Japanese grocers- and I don't doubt Chinese markets- carry flyers about places where they are celebrating. The Chinese markets also charge a lot for mooncakes as a business opportunity! Yum.

At any rate this is a week late, but I hope you still appreciate my design.^_^감사합니다!

お月見ネイル

Colors: Tokyo Pearl, hot pink, orange, flat black, red, dark grey-silver, gold, coral pink, flat white

하얀색, 핑크, 주한색, 검정색, 빨강색, 실버, 노랑색

 白色,パンク, 橙色, 黒色,  朱色, 銀色,  金色 

Design Layout

*For the thumb on the right hand just do as well as you can (I painted that left-handed, whoops, so much for people asking me if I'm ambidextrous- I'm not. I just work hard ^_^)

Base Colors

Left hand

Nail 1 Chinese Lanterns

1)Paint the white lanterns any color of your choice

2) Topcoat

Nail 2 Festival Kanji

1) Paint the kanji in red (look at the nail design

2) Top coat

Nail 3 Peony- China's national flower

1) Paint the peony outline in black

2) Fill in with the coral pink (I used a pink that turns purple in the sunlight)

3) Top Coat

Nail 4 Full Moon

1) Paint the moon and stars in flat white

2) Paint Tokyo Pearl color over the moon

Nail 5 Moon Kanji

1) Paint the kanji for moon in red

2) Top coat

Nail 6 Oriental peace symbol

1) Get as close as you can to  the original design- don't paint this left handed! use the black

2) Topcoat (the white chips easily)

Nail 7 Moon and flowers

1) Paint the tree in black

2) Paint the moon white

3) Paint the flowers in white and red 

The nail polish on the skin will go away in two days

Nail 8 Celebrate Kanji

1) Paint the kanji in red

2) Top coat

Nail 9 Otsuki

1) paint the Japanese Hiragana "O" next to the kanji for moon in white (look at design)

Nail 10 Miru- to see 

1) Paint the kanji for Miru- to see in white

2) Top coat

FINAL LOOK

Note to self- NEVER EVER paint Kanji LEFT HANDED. It defies the Chinese writing system and as the Japanese kanji were taken/adapted from  the Chinese characters do not ever break the Chinese writing rules if you can help it.

Chinese style Clouds중국 구름.中国の 空

Clouds중국 구름.中国の 空

I painted this design on a nail color wheel- they use these at Sephora for practice and I love them, to show you how the design works together. This was another spontaneous design modeled off some Chinese art I saw once.

Base Colors and Materials

Nail Brush, Black, White, Sheer White

The magazine is Vivi, a Japanese fashion magazine

Cloud Art

This picture is a picture of some clouds I drew, I have seen clouds like this mostly on Chinese art like I stated above but I recently watched the Dreamworks advertisement on Kung Fu Panda and that also has clouds kind of like this.

How to:

1) Paint the nails either sheer white or flat black and let dry

2) Use the nail brush to paint clouds in the opposite color on the nails so they seem to flow together- for inspiration there is the picture and for simplicity look at how mine turned out.

Important thing to remember: Nail designs are not designed to look perfect up close, people do not shove their face within centimeters of your nails. They are designed to be eyecatching, balanced, and continuous. My policy is no two nails the same but the designs must at least compliment each other. So if you mess up on a cloud sometimes it's better than impeccable clouds, it adds detail.

Bling Bling반짝

반짝!

This is one I have no layout for, you'll have to look at the pictures. All you need is sparkles of the smallest size you can find (enough to fit 9 in perfect rows on your nail) and a huge heart one. I would have preferred the smallest ones but I ran out halfway through so... This is a design where people saw me walk in the room and said "I love your nails" from about 5 feet away, they are eye-catching and red carpet worthy! Anyways I'm not getting paid to advertise it, so here are the pictures:

Hints: a flat black with NO sparkle works best. You need clear nail polish, black nail polish- 1 coat!, and the gems/sparkles. I also suggest tiny tweezers to actually pick up the gems.

More clear takes longer to dry but lasts longer, especially if you trickle polish down underneath the sides of each gem. Too much on top takes away the shine. ^_^