Back to Blogging...finally!

Hello! So yes, I dropped off the face of the earth. And yes, this is my first post of the year. Boy, is that just tragic. It was devastating to stop blogging but sometimes life gives you too many lemons at a time and the joys in your life are the things to suffer. I won't go into too much detail but let's just say 2013 started off rocky and it's just barely starting to level out. There's been illness and death, along with an ungodly amount of stress in my life. I barely have been on my computer, thus why the long absence. For those of you who know me, I use my blog as a creative outlet, to escape the pressures of life. This blog is very important to me and the fact that I haven't updated in quite some time has deeply saddened me. With all that said, I am now back to blogging. It's good feeling to be back to sharing my creations.

So even though my personal life hasn't been great lately, things are certainly looking up, especially at work! I currently work at a Boys and Girls Club here in Arizona. With our after school program we offer "clubs" or classes for the kids to take and I am teaching a nail art class! I couldn't be more excited! So I have 8 weeks to teach a group of girls all sorts of tips and tricks about nails and of course the fun and different techniques of nail art. Yesterday was the first course and it didn't go very smoothly but I only have 45 minutes and when the girls kept asking questions, it was hard to get down to the painting. Overall it was a fun experience and I can't wait for next week.

I have decided to recap my classes on the blog with pictures of the girls hands. Since yesterday was day 1, I didn't quite plan a lesson but rather an introduction to the course and a sort of free for all. I was surprised and delighted on how creative these girls were.

For some reason not all of the pictures I took would download but I hope you get the idea. I didn't help these girls come up with the designs or anything. I really just painted some of their left hands. haha. The rest was all them. I must say, I'm really proud. The picture quality will be better next week, since I have been instructed to teach the class outside from now on...due to the powerful fumes. So at least the lighting will be better. Next week I am going to teach the girls how to make and use their own dotting tools! Should be a lot of fun. I'm not sure when I will be back to doing challenge posts but I hope it will be soon. 

Until next time,

Erin

Llama Nails: ABC Challenge! K is for Kirby!

Hello all! I am excited about today's nails. As my readers should have noticed, I am a nerd. A nerd who loves "old" video games. I have done Yoshi nails and Luigi and to add to the collection, for the letter K I would like to present my Kirby nails! Kirby is one of the cutest video game characters of all time and he is my #1 choice for Super Smash Bros. He flies and has the ability to steal other abilities. Anyways here are the nails:

At first I painted my nails two coats of Sally Hansen Coral Reef but it wasn't the right pink, (it was a little too dark), so then I painted over it with Julep Carrie. I used Coral Reef for the cheeks though. I wanted to do several of his cute faces. I just LOVE the way he came out, just sooooo cute!!!

 I just can't stop smiling! These nails are so cute. I now have the urge to play Super smash bros. Might need to convince the boyfriend to play with me. Since tomorrow is Thanksgiving, I will be going out of town and that means that I will probably be M.I.A. for the next few days. I hope you all have a wonderful holiday!

Until next time,
Erin

ABC Challenge: H is for Happy Faces , I is for Icicles , J is for Jalapeno

Hello all! So this is the last post with three different letters. From now on it will be one letter at a time. I finally caught up. I also would like to announce that I am going to start doing Sat-art-day challenges and at some point a holiday challenge. YAY FOR CHALLENGES! Ok so let's get started with H. I had no clue what to do for H and then I realized I had done some smiley faces a week ago and never posted them, so they became happy faces! They are happy so it works.

H is for Happy faces

I used Sally Hansen Lightening for my base color and also for the stamping color on my ring finger. The stamp is BM 304.

I is for Icicles

For I, I wanted to do something fun and since an igloo would have taken so long, I decided to do icicles. I thing they came out pretty but they don't look exactly like icicles haha. For my base color I used Sally Hansen White On. I then used essence Gleam in Blue and mixed it with the white for some of the icicles. To create the look I used a thin tipped nail art brush.  

J is for Jalapenos 

I let Blake choose what I should do for J. He replied with jalapeno...on a stick. For those that don't get the reference, it's from a Jeff Dunam joke. So I had this pepper stamp and decided to do the jalapenos. The base color is L.A. Colors Wave Length. For the stamping I used BM 06 with OPI Jade is the New Black. 

I will be posting K as soon as the inlinkz is posted on the Llama Nails FB page. :)

Until then,

Erin

ABC Challenge: E is for Elephant, F is for Frog, G is for Giraffe

Hello! So I am going to squish in E, F and G in today's post! Up first is E. Something I love that starts with the letter E is elephants. I just think they are amazing creatures, so I created an adorable elephant across my nails.

E is for Elephant

I used Sally Hansen Coral Reef for my base color and for the details on the elephant. The elephant himself was done with black and white acrylic paint. For F I decided to do a frog, not sure if it looks like a frog, but I liked the way it came out.

F is for Frog

For my base color I used Nubar Reclaim. I will never stop loving this polish. Anyways. I also used Piggy Polish Blue-ing Romance for the base color on my ring ringer. I then used OPI Jade is the New Black, along with BM03. I then used BM 19 with NYC Skin Tight Denim. The frog and flies were done with acrylic paint. For G I thought I would keep up with animals, so I immediately thought of giraffes.

G is for Giraffe

The base color is Sally Hansen Mellow Yellow. I then used BM 215 with China Glaze Street Chic. The giraffe was painted with acrylic paint. I've been noticing that I use acrylic paint a lot but it's so much easier to work with and it's pretty cheap too. 

I will be posting H, I, and J within a couple of hours and K will be posted tomorrow along with everyone else! I am almost caught up, yay! 

Until then,

Erin

PS Read more to see the inlinkz collections for each letter! :)