The Digit-al Dozen does Games- Pac-Man Nails

Hey there!  My third mani for The Digit-al Dozen's Games week is my favourite of them all.  I have some vague memories of playing Pac-Man at a stand up arcade machine when I was little but I have nooooo idea where I might have done that since I never went to an arcade.  I'd be willing to bet it was my dad who let me and my sister play though...maybe while he was grocery shopping or something!  No matter who it was who let me play, it's still the most iconic arcade game to me hence it's showing up on Games week.

The Digit-al Dozen does Albums - The Tragically Hip's In Violet Light

Hey there!  When trying to decide on albums to try to do for The Digit-al Dozen's theme this week, I decided I wanted to do an album by The Hip.  For anyone reading this who isn't Canadian, The Tragically Hip was (and is) the quintessential Canadian rock band.  They never really broke through in the US but that was okay.  They sung songs about all sorts of Canadiana and we all loved them for it.  I saw them live a few times which I'm very thankful for.  I'm old enough that I even waited overnight in line for tickets (outdoors!) to my first Hip show (this was before the online ticket sales times).  Sadly, the front man, Gord Downie, died from brain cancer in 2017.  I know I wasn't alone in getting emotional when I heard the news.  This past weekend I came across a documentary which followed their final tour (after his cancer diagnosis - yes, he toured one last time after getting diagnosed).  I had seen it before but I still couldn't turn it off.  It was like getting to spend a little more time with old friends.  Anyway, I wanted to do some Hip nail art but most their album covers didn't lend themselves well to nail art.  But the 2002 album In Violet Light was perfect.  I had to freehand again but I hope I managed to do their artwork justice.

The Digit-al Dozen does Albums - Pink Floyd's The Dark Side Of The Moon

Hey there!  Man, I've been a lazy blogger but there's nothing better to get me back into it than a new Digit-al Dozen week.  This week we're doing Albums.  I found it to be a tough theme (most albums have people's faces on them so I clearly couldn't do those) so I put off doing any of them until just last week.  I'm not usually that last-minute with my Digit-al Dozen manis.  Thankfully I did manage to get them all done...I might not love them all and I certainly took some liberties but at least they're done.  I honestly started by just googling "famous album covers" and, not surprisingly, one of the ones that kept coming up was Pink Floyd's The Dark Side Of The Moon.  I've never even listened to the entire album but it's ended up on my nails anyway.

The Digit-al Dozen does Marble -Realistic(ish) Marble Nails

Hey there!  I'm a tad late with my Digit-al Dozen marble nails for today but better late than never!  Darn work getting in the way of my blogging, haha!  For today I have my attempt at freehanding marble nails.  I did these over the Christmas break and they took me FOREVER!  Luckily I liked the outcome enough so I won't complain too much...

The Digit-al Dozen does Look Up - Tropical Painting

Hey there!  For the middle of The Digit-al Dozen's week of Look Up manis, I have something that seems unbelievable considering I live in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada...palm trees!  But this is indeed something I see every time I look up from my couch.  Unfortunately it's not what I see when I look out the window.  Instead, it's a painting I bought on vacation a million years ago.  I don't even remember if it was in Mexico or the Dominican Republic but it was definitely one of those two lovely, warm places.  And now it lives under one of the clocks I talked about yesterday...

The Digit-al Dozen does TV Shows - The Good Place

Hey there!  Like yesterday, it's time for another post about a TV show I live for but couldn't come up with decent nail art for.  The Good Place is super duper.  It's funny and light but oh, so smart.  I don't know how a show about the afterlife and ethics is this fun but it is.  Since it's easily digestible (you can watch an entire season in about 4 hours in a good Netflix binge), I've actually gotten a few people to watch it and they all like it too.  That makes me so happy!  No one ever takes my recommendations... despite the fact that I clearly having amazing taste in TV.

The Digit-al Dozen does Birthdays - August 2018

Hey there!  It's a bit late on a Friday night but this late night post is for a good reason.  August brought us celebrations for 5 of the Digit-al Dozen ladies' birthdays.  I couldn't believe it when I saw there were 5 birthdays.  There's not that many of us...that's 25%! August has the birthdays of Lothwen, Sarah, Kirsty, Tamara and Michelle.  That means they got to pick a photo for us to translate onto our nails.  They picked a nice one!

The Digit-al Dozen does White - Moonflowers

Hey there!  For my third Digit-al Dozen "white" nail art, I wanted to do some white flowers.  I suppose I could've done any floral nails in white, but I remembered that moonflowers are apparently white.  I don't think I've ever actually seen a moonflower but I love the Moonflower Polish brand so I thought I'd combine the polish with the nail art.  I tried with all my might to find a stamping plate that would work but, can you believe, I couldn't find a single moonflower image in all my plates?!  So I used the Moonflower Polish bottle and attempted to freehand them.

26 Great Nail Art Ideas - Things That Are Round

Hey there!  I hope everyone is having a great weekend so far!  Yesterday was the day for 26 Great Nail Art Idea's "Things That Are Round" prompt but I was too late getting my DD post done to blog twice so here we have it today.  Turns out there's so many things that are round but I went with the biggest...planets!  I have a set of planet glasses that my sister bought that inspired me to try out a bit of freehand for these.  Hope you like them!

The Digit-al Dozen does Birthdays - October 2017

Hey there!  I hope everyone's weekend is going swell.  Mine has been mighty busy (for an introvert like me) so I'm going to enjoy some couch and swatching time today.  But first, and way more importantly, The Digit-al Dozen is celebrating our only October baby, Amber from Nails Like Lace for this month's birthday mani.  Every month, the birthday girl(s) pick an image for us to be inspired by and Amber chose a fun (but strange) cat.  Check out the original inspiration after the jump.

The Digit-al Dozen does Throwback - Throwback Videogame

Hey there!  For today's Digit-al Dozen "throwback" mani I decided to go with something that I have spent many, many hours of my life on - Super Mario Bros.  I swear I wasted my half my childhood on this game, between versions 1-3.  And then more hours on in with versions for the Wii.  My niece still likes to play the newer one when she visits.  I even got bored enough this weekend that I tried the original one again - I died very quickly!

The Digit-al Dozen's 5th Birthday: 5 Balloons

Hey there!  This month we're celebrating the Digit-al Dozen's fifth birthday.  I'm so happy to be a part of a group that has been around for 5 whole years, even if I've only been around for a couple of them.  The theme was a tough one though.  I tried to think of things that came in 5's and there's really not many.  Luckily, Katherine of Procrastinails suggested birthday ideas and I totally stole one of them.  So today we have balloons with what I'm hoping is the number "5" in different languages.

The Digit-al Dozen does Birthdays - August 2017

Hey there!  It's a big birthday month over in the Digit-al Dozen!  Three of the ladies celebrated this month: Tammy of Canadian Nail Fanatic, Lothwen of Manis and Makeovers and  Sarah of 25 Sweetpeas and Tammy of Canadian Nail Fanatic.  So many birthdays!  They picked a tropical image to go with the winding down of summer.  I did my best to freehand it but I did NOT have the right colors, that's for sure.  So I guess mine is just loosely inspired by their photo.

Nail Crazies Unite - Sunflowers

Hey there!  Today I have some sunflowers I painted to share.  Yes, I actually freehanded something.  It's a rare, rare occurrence!  But since today's Nail Crazies Unite theme is sunflowers (and the Nail Challenge Collaborative flower month) and I've already used the UberChic sunflower image, I decided to try to paint them.  I think they actually turned out looking like sunflowers so I'm happy :-)

The Digit-al Dozen does Birthdays - April 2017

Hey there! In April a couple of my Digit-al Dozen ladies celebrated birthdays -  Katherine of Procrastinails and Uma of Uma's Nail Art.  As is our new-ish tradition, we had the birthday girls pick some inspiration for us to turn into nail art.  These ladies did not do us wrong this month!  They picked out a super cool bubble picture that intimidated me at first but then I found a blog post with a corresponding video tutorial from the amazing Narmai/Piggie Luv which was perfect!

Mani Swap with @nailmachine

Hey there!  Recently a fabulous nail artist, @nailmachine,  asked on Instagram if anyone would be up for a mani swap.  I'm a big fan of Kimberlyn's so I jumped at the chance to try my hand at doing one of her manis.  I scrolled through her feed and ended up picking a really recent design of hers that I thought I might be able to handle - these freehand roses.  And in turn she picked a freehand floral of mine.  Great minds think alike!  In the collage below, the originals are on the left and the recreations are on the left.  I think we did pretty darn good!

The Digit-al Dozen redoes Art - Leonid Afremov

Hey there!  So today's inspiration just cost me some dollars.  When I was looking for the link to the original Leonid Afremov painting that inspired my nail art today, I saw that he sells actual paintings for a really reasonable amount.  From what I can tell, he recreates the original.  So I just bought my first painting!  When I was looking for inspiration for this week's art theme, I knew that I liked palette knife paintings so I searched on Pinterest and saw a bunch of Leonid Afremov art and fell in love.  I choose Alley By The Lake to try to recreate....and then buy :-)

Nail Crazies Unite - Holiday Movie

Hey there!  This week's Nail Crazies Unite theme is Holiday Movie.  Honestly, the only holiday movie that I really know and love is Love Actually.  But I've tried a Love Actually mani before and it wasn't good.  It was so bad that I won't even try to find it and link to it.  So when I saw this was one of our prompts, I tried to think of another holiday movie even if I love it less.  I remembered A Charlie Brown Christmas simply because I have a fondness for Charlie Brown that is leftover from my childhood.  I had a Snoopy purse, our canary was named Woodstock and I had a blue blanket just like Linus.  But I definitely don't have any Charlie Brown Christmas stamping images so I tried to freehand it.  I hope it's recognizable!

The Digit-al Dozen does Negative Space: Day 1 - Pokemon Nail Art

Hey there!  It's a new Digit-al Dozen week...woohoo!  This month we're doing Negative Space, a theme that is always a challenge to me simply because my nails are so darn stained and I'm too embarrassed to show them.  But I (more or less) have enough manis done to participate this week while being sneaky enough to hide most of the yellow.  I couldn't wait to post this one even though it's the most recent one I've done.  I totally jumped on the Pokemon Go bandwagon as soon as I could (yay Team Instinct!) and, after seeing Chalkboard Nail's Disneyland nails I wanted to do the same for Pokemon.  For any of the players out there, I hope you can tell what these are and, for anyone else, I hope you think they're at least kinda cute.

The Digit-al Dozen does Whimsy - Whimsical Trees

Hey there!  As I said yesterday, I was at a bit of a loss when it came to this week's Digit-al Dozen theme of Whimsy.  So I hit up Google and this image popped up and I thought maybe I could freehand it onto my nails.  The best part is that I got to be accidental twinsies with Ashley since she did the same image yesterday.  Hers look way more fun and whimsical though...mine looks more like a demonic octopus.  But a demonic octopus is whimsical in its own way, right?