Medical Skull Drawings

Kathleen Sawyer drew these ladies for a recent competition. The drawing are postcard size. I love the pinup and medical themes of these drawings. The level of detail is impressive, especially considering the size of the paper. Though these ladies are nude, they are tastefully done. These would be a great series of prints, especially if you had a penchant for medical artwork.

"Surgery"

"Diagnosis"

"Recovery"

Winstonia Brushes review - Sofa King Bueno Girl

*Products provided in exchange for an honest review. Please see my disclosure policy for more info.* 

Today I've got a review of a brush set from the Winstonia store! So far I have used the brushes and dotting tools from this set and I can not say enough good things about the quality of these brushes for the price. After doing a few manis with these brushes and tools, I knew I wanted to do something detail oriented to see just how far these brushes could go. I can safely say I was not disappointed! 

This weekend while visiting home, I had a fabulous wine from a local winery, Chronic Cellars...and I fell truly, madly, deeply in love with their labels! I don't know what it is about the skeleton girl on this label, but I knew I needed to recreate her on my nails and it was a perfect opportunity to do this review. 

The quality of the brushes is surprising considering the $9 price tag for every thing in this set - from the brush hairs to the handles, these just feel good. I used the #00 and #000 brushes for this look and both of them were great. Very little struggling with the hairs to do what I wanted. I did make one small alteration to these brushes as I worked with them a bit - I trimmed 1-2 long hairs off the end - and then they were perfect. They create a fine tip and allow for more detail than you would ever expect. 

The dotting tools are also great. I used them randomly throughout this mani but also in several others over the past few days. They are pretty much your standard dotting tools, but I really like how small the smallest tool goes. I have a few other dotting tools and I can easily say these are the best ones. The kit also comes with a nail buffer that I haven't had a need for yet, but the fact that it is included in this kit is just another plus. On the whole, this kit is an excellent deal for the money. I'm still shocked at the amount of detail these brushes produced! 

If you'd like to grab one of these kits yourself, use the code WONDROUSLY at checkout to receive 10% off this item :) If you don't yet have a set of nail art brushes, I'd say this is an excellent starter set (or normal set!). 

What do you think of this mani? Do you like the wine label or is it not your thing? Would you find nail art brushes like these useful? 

Happy Polishing :)

Hunt The VMAs - Katy Perry inspired look!

How's everyone's Sunday night going? Did anyone watch the VMAs? I partnered up with The Hunt to do a mani inspired by Katy Perry's VMA dress and I am pleasantly surprised with the outcome :) She wore a leopard print dress that was covered in gold dragonflies and it seemed like such a daunting and tough look to replicate! I tried a few different looks but eventually ended up with leopard print and an accent nail with a gold dragonfly! The dragonfly is actually 6 different stud rhinestones that I got from the Born Pretty Store and it seemed like fate that I had all the right shapes to make this happen!

I used OPI's My Vampire is Buff as the base, Zoya's Flynn as the brown center dot, and black acrylic paint for the outlines. I actually really loved the leopard print so I also painted the accent nail with them!

What do you think of these? Pretty out there but somehow, I think I really like them! ;) 

Happy Polishing :)

Change to Disqus for Commenting

Hello, all! I just wanted to write a quick post about a change that has just occurred on my blog! I've decided to switch to Disqus for commenting on my blog and I hope you'll all be okay with the change!

To quote a favorite movie of mine, A Knight's Tale, I've got something to say to Blogger's commenting system: "You have been weighed, you have been measured, and you have been found wanting." In other words, commenting via Blogger sucks. Majorly. It's incredibly inconvenient to figure out if someone has responded to your comment and I don't think that it is very conducive to open communication between the blogger and the reader. 

I know that everyone has their opinion on Disqus, but hopefully everyone feels more favorably about it than not. I want to try it out for a bit and see how the whole process goes. Disqus allows you to sign in with several different social media accounts, as well as create your own Disqus account (which I recommend because it provides a whole new level of notification and interaction!). I hope you'll bear with me if you have a really strong dislike of the commenting system! 

I am not unreasonable though! If you guys get in there and find that the whole commenting process is cumbersome, irritating, and an all around terrible experience, shoot me a comment or email and let me know! I would love love LOVE to receive feedback from you guys (good and bad) about how this new system works.

I looked through some of the past comments that have been imported into Disqus, and it does look like they are a bit wonky for past replied comments, but hopefully moving forward it will all be fabulous! 

Whew! Apparently that wasn't that quick of a post...here's a picture of Fonzi being adorably handsome as an apology ;) 

Happy Polishing! :)

31 Day Nail Art Challenge - Day 13: Animal Print

I'll start this entry with yet another apology - I'm so late with this post! I made an impromptu trip up to my parent's house (4 hours north of where I live) and was gone Friday and Saturday. But, I'm posting now!

The latest theme of the 31 Day Nail Art Challenge is animal print, and as Meghan had also mentioned in her post, animal print is not really my thing. This is in fact the very first animal print I have ever done - I've never had the desire or need to do it before now! 

When I think of animal print and nail art, leopard print and maybe zebra print and the two that really come to mind. I like a lot of the leopard print ones that I've been seeing lately that use unique colors and varying textures and really contemplating going down a similar route for today's look. However, I decided that I wanted to go with a print from either one of my favorite African animals - Giraffe or Elephant. I was going to make an attempt at the wrinkly and wise skin of an elephant, but as that is not really a "print" per say, nor is it a very recognizable design, I went instead with Giraffe print!

I considered making these bright and fun colors, but when it comes to animal print, I'm a purist and really like print that looks exactly like that of the animal. I used Zoya's Flynn as the base color and Zoya's Louise for the spots and really think these two colors were made to be a giraffe print together ;) I'm a little bit bummed that I had some smearing of the colors on my ring and pinky finger, but alas, things happen. 

I free-handed this pattern with one of my Winstonia brushes (these ones, I love them! You can use the code WONDROUSLY for 10% off of this whole kit!) and it was much easier to create than I thought it would be. I randomly chose the starting place for the first spot and then just made sure to keep a consistent distance between each spot, while varying the size and shape to add interest. For those who don't know, a giraffe's spots are similar to a person's finger prints in that no two giraffe's have the same spots so it felt perfect that I was creating my own unique spots :)

What do you think of these? How do you feel about animal print nail art in general? 

Happy Polishing! :)

An InLinkz Link-up

Sunday Simulacra - Version 7.13

Today's simulacra are really leaving their mark....

This paintball splash skull was shot by Riki from Toulouse, France....

...and this perky chap was snagged by Job.

I guess some skulls make their presence a little more known that others. Have you captured your own sneaky skull simulacra? If so then be sure to submit it to us. We be as thankful as we are to Riki and Job. Thank you!

Skulloctopus From Outer Space

Plaseebo is at it again with a couple of wonderful new custom skulloctopus figures.  Bob Conge is the creator of these unique creatures using glass eyes, a clear vinyl head filled with cosmic debris floating in space slime illuminated by an internal motion activated color changing LED unit.  I love the bright ideas that these little critters give me.  These are as comical as they are creative.  Thanks for sharing them, Bob!