December 2016 - Cinnamon Nails

Today marks the one year anniversary of my Instagram page cinnamon_nails! Over this past year, I really feel like I’ve taken my hobby to the next level. I made my first nail art tutorial, started a YouTube page, and even had a humble give-away when I reached 100 followers.

I have to thank all the nail art Divas of Instagram for giving me inspiration with their beautiful designs. You challenged me to try different techniques and I have learned so much in the process. It’s so great to be amongst such positive and encouraging energy.

Here are some of my favorite nail designs from 2016!

Beach Nails – created entirely with gel polish

I was going to the beach for a week and knew that if the design was to last I needed to use gel. This design took several hours to create since I had to layer the colors and encapsulate the nail charms and rhinestones into the gel so they would not fall off. The way this glittered in the sun was mesmerizing!

This is one of my refrigerator magnets and it compliments this manicure perfectly. This is a combination of nail stamping and free hand art for the edges. It was fun to have ten little porcelain tea cups on my hands.

Cloisonne Nails – combination of nail smoosh and hand painted decals

Thanks to Doris, one of the lovely moderators of Smooshy Nail Sunday, for coming up with the lovely jewel-like color combination of metallic red, blue and green; I was inspired to push my creativity to the limits with this design. I made nail decals for the gold accents and coi fish using a nail stamper and colored in the fish with different nail polishes. All work was done directly on my Bliss Kiss Simply Neat Miracle Mat. I’m especially proud of the nail tutorial for this mani.

Prince Tribute – double stamping and thermal nail polish

Prince is one of my favorite artists of all time. I was deeply saddened to hear of his passing so I knew I wanted to commemorate him in some way. This is a simple double stamped design with nail charms and rhinestones, but I love the added dimension of the thermal polish by Liquid Sky Lacquer called Violet Tendencies. My clear jelly stamper was quite useful for stamping precision.

Pink and brown – pattern and color combination overload

My submission for the When Colours Collide nail art challenge: pink and brown. This mani took a long time for the simple fact that every nail could have been an accent nail. I like that each one is completely different but they all complement each other. I also used thermal polish as the base color so when my hands were warm it was like having a different manicure!

Pulse Nightclub tribute – Out of chaos we will find a path back to love.

The tragedy in Orlando hurt me to my heart. But for the grace of God I could have been counted amongst the fallen having been to many dance clubs with my friends celebrating life and enjoying each others company. This was my mani contributing to Rainbow Nails for Orlando because love is love.

My Mother’s favorite colors – Red, Black and Gold

My Mother is the main source of my creativity. So many good memories are from when we would sit together doing various crafts. It’s so much fun to have more another palette to work on other than my own. I really like how these turned out for her.

Game of Thrones – Cersei’s dress in the season finale and wild fire

I am Game of Thrones obsessed. I’m actually watching the GOT marathon on HBO as I write this. I cannot say that I am a Cersei sympathizer but I have nothing but respect at her level of ruthlessness. She won! And she looked fierce in her war dress while doing it. I wanted to capture it on my nails.

Elizabeth Sutton Collection – manicure inspired directly from her artwork

I have full intention of owning an Elizabeth Sutton piece in my home. I love her juxtaposition of movement and structure as well as her intricate use of color. Once again, I created nail decals using vinyls directly on the Miracle Mat.

What can I say. I believe that many of the intentions we had for 2016 probably failed or got derailed in some way. One for me was to start this nail art blog. I am ashamed to admit that I created this page and the domain name literally one year ago and it has laid dormant.

There was just too much else to tackle in life: changing jobs, selling my home, moving to a new state to name a few. Not to mention keeping my center during the tumultuous and somewhat tragic turn of national and world wide events these last 6 months.

But I did create and maintain my nail art page on Instagram, but even that has gotten less attention over the past few months. Especially since all of my nails broke off to nubs during the move.

But in a way, that was therapeutic. A tree needs to be pruned in order to grow healthy right? So maybe 2016 was a year for pruning away all the things that were holding us back. To pay attention to what we were taking for granted. Leaving empty spaces for us to fill in new things in like compassion, empathy and patience. Plus an acceptance that we do not have much control…over anything.

So I return to a goal from last year: to start blogging. I have opinions and have been told years ago that I should do this. This page may not be entirely nail art, but I will make a disclaimer first so you can ignore it if you like.

If 2016 has taught us anything, life is short! Be honest with yourself and others. And whatever you are putting off, its time to dive in and do it!! May the Force be with you. Love, Cinnamon Nails!

Month: December 2016

Happy Birthday, Cinnamon Nails!

Hang in there, it’s almost 2017!