More Disney Nails

I love doing my nails.  I've never had them done at a nail salon, mostly because I have too much fun trying out new styles and techniques and am often indecisive.  If I don't like what I've done, I can just take it off without feeling guilty about spending too much!  Anyway, in anticipation for this past Disney trip, I did my nails in quite a few Disney themes.  This first one was inspired by Aladdin on Broadway, which Jim took me to as a Christmas present (we saw it this past March).  They are Princess Jasmine-inspired (with my little Vinylmation Abu keychain)!

I tried some Up nails!  I'd seen this idea on many instragram accounts and finally attempted it myself, although I was out of white nail polish so I had to use White-Out, which didn't come out that well!  I've seen these done more recently with tons of balloons all over the top 4 nails, and the house a lot more detailed with pastels, but I didn't have any tools at the time besides dotters!  (Now I have a detail brush but I haven't quite figured out the best way to use it yet!)

I'm not a huge fan of Alice in Wonderland but I do love the art!  I have a lot of pinks so I decided to make Cheshire Cat nails.  This was my first time using gold striping tape (it is difficult to work with!!) and I had a thin brush for the painted stripes.  It reminds me of the Pop Vinyl collectibles, since I gave the cat 2 small round eyes!

When we'd officially booked our trip, I celebrated by giving myself the Minnie Manicure they seem to offer at the Saratoga Springs spa.  I thought Disney would offer crazy-awesome themed manicures, but this was the only one I could find!  I used french manicure nail strips which I still need practice with!  I'm holding my Minnie Mouse phone handset here :)

My friend Katherine and I love Winnie the Pooh so I made a classic Pooh on my thumb holding onto that big red balloon!  I used nail beads for the bees that surround him.  I was very happy with this!  My summer campers were thoroughly impressed!  (The beads fell off overnight because I was reluctant to use a topcoat.  Whenever I use a topcoat it makes my nail art smudge in the direction of the brush.  Any tips?)

My piece de resistance, Lady and the Tramp nails!  I am most proud of these!!  I think they are the best nails I've done yet!  Jim & I love this movie, and I challenged myself by attempting an homage.  Lady is wearing a yellow rhinestone as her ID tag (which also fell off by morning haha!  But I had a gold paint dot underneath anyway).  

The "cement" on my thumbnail was really fun (in the movie they add their paw prints to an already-drawn heart in the cement)!  I coated it thickly with gray (essie's "chinchilly"), then drew on it with a dotting tool.  You could see the blue underneath so when it dried a little, I blotted on more gray.  It came out better than I had hoped!  Here's a little step-by-step I put on my instagram (you can follow me at @elysebuckley):

And finally I bought a set of mini nail polishes at Sir Mickey's in Fantasyland while we were at Magic Kingdom.  They are villain-themed (aaah!!) but I bought them anyway!  I painted these last night (large circles are really hard to do!!  I used the brush from the bottle, but there has to be a better way.  Anyone have ideas?  I wonder if there is a tiny sponge they make for that..).  The gold is nice and opaque, and the silver pops on dark colors.  I had to use about 4 coats of the blue to make it this dark--it's not as clean as the other colors.  I didn't try the purple yet, and the black was my own.

Do you love Disney nail art?  Send me a link to your blog or instagram account in the message area below!

Disney Nails 2

These are the latest Disney nails I've tried:  Minnie Mouse!  I saw these on multiple instagram posts and couldn't wait to try them myself!!

They look great on my Minnie phone handset!  I used ORLY french manicure strips for the red, and a dotting tool for the dots & Mickey!  (Unfortunately they chipped off immediately the next day--I think I need to find a new topcoat polish!)

I was in a pink mood before that, so I made these Cheshire Cat nails.  I'm not the biggest Alice in Wonderland fan, but I do love the art!  I had a lot of time on my hands for these (Spring Break from my TA job--also, no pun intended!!) so I made each nail different.  The cat's face is on my thumb, then stripes, dots, and 2-tone with a gold tape stripe in the middle!  I just bought 2 rolls of nail tape in silver & gold and I just love them!  (Also need a top coat for that, otherwise it pops right off!)

Then I ran into this dude in the Times Square Disney Store!

Before my cat nails I'd watched Up for the zillionth time and man I just love that movie.  I'd also seen these nails on Instagram before, and wanted to try them for myself:

I did the house with a regular polish brush, and the details with a dotting tool.  I used the dotting tool for the balloons & clouds, too!  (The white is Wite-Out because I'd thrown out the other white polish I had--it'd started to get goopy and gross.)

And I'll leave you with these nails I did for that wonderful gift my boyfriend got me for Christmas--tickets to Aladdin on Broadway!!   It was a fanTAStic show which I cannot recommend highly enough!!  I chose a Jasmine-y teal and dotted on some gold glitter for the tips!  I loved these nails!  And I was lucky enough to get this adorable Abu vinylmation keychain on my first try!  (You never know with those vinyls!  Sometimes you win the lotto, sometimes you get the only one you didn't want!)

Can't wait to do some more Disney nails!!  Any suggestions?

Tokyo Disneyland Part I (Disney Sea)

Let me spend some time telling you about a wonderful Disney experience: Tokyo Disneyland!  My brother David lived in Japan for 7 years before moving back home with his husband at the end of 2010.  On my second and last visit to him 2 years ago, it was my biggest wish to go to Disneyland (and Disney Sea, too!).  Well, that wish was granted and here are photos from that great trip with my brothers, David and Hiro!

Above is a map of the two parks--Disney Sea on the left and Disneyland on the right.  Below are two murals in the Disney monorail station:

Oh, and there were these straps on the monorails (sooo cute):

Our first stop was Tokyo Disney Sea!

We were there in July, just at the end of Spring Carnival.  This was a big flowers & fairies celebration.  Even the monorails were decorated for it!  Here's some of the balloons available (you'll notice if you didn't know already, Marie, the cat from Aristocats, is very popular in Japan!):

Here I am meeting Jiminy Cricket for the first time in any park!

 What a charmer! I wanted to say something when I met him again in Epcot in Disneyworld, but being the big celebrity he is I didn't want him to be embarrassed if he didn't remember me ;)

Here we are with an active volcano (well, Disney active)!!

Then there's Tinkerbell perched on my shoulder:

And of course Captain Jack Sparrow is a Frenchman in Tokyo...

There were a lot of cute things in the gift shops (I bought them instead of taking pictures, except for some things... like this chocolate pop!)

Tower of Terror! (David & Hiro went on.  I hung out and looked at the topiaries.)

I love me some Mickey-face treats!

They had flavored popcorn here.  And I mean all KINDS!  I think this one was cherry blossom flavor?  But every popcorn station you went to there were new and different flavors than before!

Even the popcorn box was adorable:

We got some great food, too, in this dark, indoor Little Mermaid-themed cafeteria:

Sebastian's Calypso Kitchen!  There were fish lights hanging from the ceilings:

And, if you couldn't guess from the name of the park OR the theme of this particular eatery, they mostly had fishy items on the menu.  Here's an adorable sandwich David got, shaped like a shell:

A little Asian packet of ketchup (a thin tube as opposed to a rectangular pouch), stirrer (with Mickey face) and spoon:

Mmm seafood pizza..

And my fish sandwich:

And my favorite Japanese soda, Melon soda!!  It's green!

Here we all are on Genie's carousel.  A highlight for me (well, what part of the trip wasn't a highlight?) because I LOVE carousels!  Especially old-fashioned, or out-of-the-ordinary, like this one:

Sure, there were horses... But there was also Genie!  Of course all the Genies get taken first!  (If you look at the pic above, you can see purple Genie on the left)

There was a whole Agrabah area along with the carousel!  There was this camel...

And the Magic Lamp theater (requiring 3D glasses.  I can't say I remember what the film was about but I'm pretty sure it was one of those 4D experiences, when they squirt water on you and emit wonderful scents).

 

I tried for quite some time to get a good picture of Ariel's castle at night.  The colors were as beautiful as the architecture, which reminded me of Gaudi's work!  Anyway this was the best I could get (I'd actually dropped my camera somewhere in Agrabah and worried about it the rest of the trip):

There was this great statue of Ariel I should have taken a picture of when the sun was still out:

There was also one of King Triton!

There were these great bubbles floating up in those windows in the background.  Here's one of the pillars of the castle that reminded me of Gaudi:

We ate somewhere called NY Deli which was pretty funny (being from NY and all)...  Oh and I found this Cheshire Cat doll with bunny ears (for the Spring Carnival) on the ground and looked around for who it might belong to, but in that crowd the owner was long gone.  To this day I still have it on my backpack :)

I found this great hat in one of the stores (I didn't buy it because where else could I wear it?)

Some nostalgic decorations:

We went back to our hotel soon after that, and got ready for our next big day: Tokyo Disneyland!!