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  • CND
  • En Vogue
  • EzFlow
  • Gel II
  • KUPA
  • LeChat

  • Mia Secret
  • NSI
  • Orly
  • Swarovski
  • Tammy Taylor
  • Wildflowers Nail Academy

Product Sponsors

  • ADI
  • KUPA
  • Swarovski
Emily

Profile

Full Name: Emily Nash
Hometown: Elkhart, Ind.
Salon: Natural Impressions
Preferred Nail Art Medium: gel paint
Favorite Nail Trend: anything marble

I have been a nail artist for seven years now. Art has been a passion of mine since I could hold a pencil, so being able to create a wonderful career out of it has been the biggest blessing ever. I specialize in all hand painted nail art, especially characters and small details. I love that I get to do my dream job every day!

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Week 7: En Vogue

Strike a Pose

Madonna is known not only for her songs but her insane fashion style. So when given this challenge to do a set of nails inspired by her iconic 1990 song Vogue, I had to figure out which looks would best fit the challenge. Of course I had to incorporate her classic cone bra. I modernized it with rhinestones and silver backing. One of the outfits she wore in the video, was a sheer lace top. The lace design was super sleek and classy. I wanted to keep the nail look as a whole, on the monochromatic side to give it more of the music video feel. Everyone knows her classic “Strike A Pose”, so I decided to paint this look but to switch it up a bit with negative space. The guy dancers all wore suits or a button-downs with suspenders. One of Madonna’s classic outfits is a suit as well. I painted one nail with a tuxedo design. Last but not least, to incorporate the “V” from En Vogue, I wanted to do a split nail to show two different outfit colors she has for the tours, one being rose and the other black and more edgy, painting the “V” with opposite colors down the middle.

Click here to watch a video diary for these nails. 


Week 6: NSI

Feeling Festive

For this weeks challenge, I wanted to create my favorite parts of the carnival. I had trouble at first deciding on what carnival actually meant, but after some research I found it could mean a lot of things. So in my town we have a county fair, which could be considered a carnival since it has carnival rides, food and games. I wanted to give you the feeling of all the senses you experience at the carnival. The smells, the sound, the lights and of course the joy of being around all of that! You also get to experience things like fun houses and psychic Fortune Tellers. With the main ride of any fair or carnival being the Ferris Wheel, I made one that spins around with hanging carts. Then you can head on over to get you fortune read with the Psychic gypsy. Take a walk through the fun house and laugh at yourself in the mirrors, distorting reality. See how many rubber ducks you can catch with a carnival game. You can’t have a carnival without some classic food like doughnuts! End the night watching some beautiful fireworks light up the night sky.

Click here to watch a video diary for these nails. 


Week 5: EzFlow

World of Wonders

After all the research, I decided on The Great Wall of China. The Great Wall is recognized as one of the most impressive architectural feats in human history. With it being so long, I decided to just sculpt out a mini section of the wall and one of the fortresses you can see while walking along the trail. One of my favorite facts about the wall is that it hasn’t effectively prevented invaders from entering China, yet it was still continued to be built through hundreds of years. I sculpted each brick one by one on the fortress and down the sides of the wall. I wanted to add in things you might see along the wall, so I sculpted out a dragon guarding the Great Wall at the Huangyaquan Pass. I sculpted a Warrior statue as well. On the other two nails, I painted the Chinese symbols for “The Great Wall,” and up close detail of the brick on the wall. Hopefully you feel the history through this set!

Click here to watch a video diary for these nails. 


Week 4: Tammy Taylor Nails

Love Story

When I first thought about who my favorite couple was, I didn’t think about Morticia and Gomez Addams. They are anything from normal, and even kinda spooky. But they loved each other like no other, and loved their kids! I sculpted out two different sized hearts using the Sculpt. I wanted to keep the design a little bit dark as well as Valentines themed, so I added spiderwebs to the hearts using the black gel paint. I then painted Morticia and Gomez on the bigger heart and their two kids Wednesday and Pugsley Addams on the smaller heart. This couple is usually all black and white and gothic, but to keep the theme with the colors we got, I used a variation of pinks and reds to paint the backgrounds of the hearts. The background of the nails are painted with a graveyard look, the reasoning because Gomez says how the first time he saw Morticia, they were at a funeral. Mon Cher • Cara Mia, which translates to My dear, and my beloved, are both phrases Gomez would say to Morticia. I sculpted little bat winged hearts dipped in glitter to add a little sparkle to my design and attached everything to the nails to complete it! Anything from ordinary, these two set up the perfect example of what love should be like.

Click here to watch a video diary for these nails. 


Week 3: LeChat

Perception Vs. Reality

Can you imagine how it would be to perceive color completely different than someone else? I chose to create my design to show how it would be if we were looking through the eyes of someone who had colorblindness. I painted a different kind of flower on each nail using the LeChat liner brush and acrylic paint for my outline. Using the Flawless French gel polish, I carefully filled in the inside of my outline. I made sure to leave room at the end of the nails so I could paint my design on the underside as well. Using the Perception gel, I filled in the flower. On the underside of the nails, I repeated the same design as the top, but instead of using white first, I painted down the color. This way the color is jellied between the white and the clear nail. Back on top of the nail, mix a brown color by using green, orange, and tad bit of blue. Layer on the bottom half of the nail to mute the color you see from the top. The top of the nail is the reality of color to some, but looking through the bottom half you see the way the colorblind sees the world.

Click here to watch a video diary for these nails. 


Week 2: Mia Secret

Safari Mani

I took my inspiration from my love of giraffes, and animals in general. One of my favorite memories is getting to feed a giraffe for the first time. I also love April the giraffe, who grew to fame when the animal park she is at, live-streamed the birth of her son, Taj. Which I actually got to watch live! I wanted to give the feeling of driving on a safari tour truck, experiencing all the different beautiful animals you would encounter. Starting from the left, I sculpted two flamingos. African flamingos have black feathers under their wings so I wanted to make sure I got that detail when sculpting them. I added them around some water, which is where you would most likely find them on a safari. I sculpted a low, flat-looking tree, like one you would see on a safari. The middle two nails form a safari tour truck with its own license plate and backpack. The next two are my absolute favorite: April and Taj. April is eating some leaves off the tree and Taj has found someone’s binoculars is the grass. Last but not least, I made a little herd of elephants. I made them smaller than the rest of the animals to give the illusion that they are off in the distance.

Click here to watch a video diary for these nails. 


Week 1: Orly

Seeing Clearly

I sculpted a set of clear nails using Builder in a Bottle, encapsulating crushed rose quartz and amethyst crystals in the gel. I took my inspiration from clustered crystals and wire wrapped crystal jewelry, so I wanted to be able to mimic that in my nail design. I made crystals out of gel, by using a clear straw as a mold. Then using a file to shape the tube of gel into a crystal shape. I also encapsulated wire in the nail, to look like wire-wrapped jewelry. I have two rings in my nail design that I made with the gel crystals and some of the crushed rose quartz and amethyst crystals, then using the wire made it into a wire-wrapped ring. I added one crystal coming out of a nail that was attached and a chain down the middle of my middle finger holding a wire-wrapped crystal I made out of gel as well. To finish the look I added triangle-shaped pieces of gel to my pinky and thumb to mimic the effect of clustered crystals coming off my nails. 

Click here to watch a video diary of Emily’s nails.


Sponsors

  • CND
  • En Vogue
  • EzFlow
  • Gel II
  • KUPA
  • LeChat

  • Mia Secret
  • NSI
  • Orly
  • Swarovski
  • Tammy Taylor
  • Wildflowers Nail Academy

Product Sponsors

  • ADI
  • KUPA
  • Swarovski