Thursday, October 01, 2015

NYAN Turns Three!


Time sure flies, doesn't it? I can barely believe that another whole year has gone by filled with painting, photographing, editing, and blogging here at Not Your Average Nails! It's been another really fun year so I wanted to take a look back at some of the standout moments of the past 12 months!


Sponsorships
I was super privileged this past year to be contacted by 3 different amazing companies and asked to try out some products for them! I'd never actually done any swatching before and let me tell you, it's more time consuming than you'd probably imagine! I'd like to thank Cult, Ciaté, and Del Sol again for the wonderful opportunity to try out some of your polishes!











Square to Almond
Tbh most people probably wouldn't consider this to be a milestone, but halfway through January this year I decided it was time for something new and filed my way from square to almond nails. I'm not sure if non-nail artists will understand how big of a decision they was for me - my nails are such a part of myself and as a blogger they're basically my product, my brand. Changing the shape felt like I was altering part of myself, changing how people could easily identify my work (I feel like I sound like a drama queen; cue the dramatic music!). But aside from the dramatics, I'm super happy that I decided to take the plunge and I'm still pretty much in love with this nail shape even after 9 months!





20 Beautiful Women Challenge
This really has nothing to do with my nails and honestly wasn't even that big of an event, but when I was tagged to post a picture of myself for the #20beautifulwomenchallenge on Instagram it was the first time in 2 and a bit years of blogging that I had shown the Face Behind the Nails! It's always a little nerve-wracking to share things besides the usual nail art because you never know how people are going to react, but I'm so grateful to everyone who commented nice things and I'm glad could give you all a face to attach to the nails!







#NAFW2015
Nail Art Fashion Week is probably one of my very favourite memories from the past year! If you weren't around in March I'll give you the sparknotes version of the event: a few nail artists on Instagram organized a Nail Art Fashion Week where every day for a week anyone participating would post a design inspired by runway fashion for a specific theme. I'm so, so grateful that Fashion Week happened to fall on literally the only week during March where I didn't have any tests or assignments due for Uni so I could participate! It was such a whirlwind of a week but it was all worth it (and Ke$ah started following me on IG after, so that was a nice bonus!)





Video Tutorials & YouTube
This summer I started to film video tutorials for some of my designs (finally, I know)! Painting on camera definitely takes some getting used to, but I'm slowly getting better as I go. I've been making full length (2-3 minutes) videos for youtube as well as quick 15 second versions for Instagram, and while I knew that video tutorials were popular on IG it didn't really hit me until I saw the amount of positive feedback and publicity (in the form of being featured on multiple accounts with well over a million followers each) I got from these short videos. Obviously this is something I'd like to continue, but it may have to take a backseat for a little while while I'm busy with school, sadly.





10k on Instagram
As much as we as bloggers and artists say the numbers don't matter, it's still nice to have a large audience seeing and appreciating your art. Don't get me wrong, a small audience is wonderful as well, but it's just so gratifying seeing so many people appreciate all the things that I put so much effort into. Painting, photographing, editing, writing... all of these things take a tremendous amount of time and seeing over 10,000 (now closer to 13,300) people on Instagram appreciate that effort makes it even more worth while!








Guest Post for Robin
Look who's making it onto my yearly review post again! :P This year instead of doing a mani swap, Robin of Roaring Nails asked me to do a guest post for her while she was doing a summer internship. Never one to turn down the chance to help out and collaborate with other artists I happily agreed and ended up making Robin her own little roaring mascot! This little guy is definitely one of the cutest things I painted all year!










Niche Marketing (aka Kpop Designs)
While this isn't a series that I started this year, I did manage to add 13 designs to it (it's not my fault so many groups I like were having comebacks!). It's really interesting being able to serve a niche market in this way because a) I'm a business major so it's interesting having my schooling overlap with my nails, and b) I'm a kpop fan myself so it's cool being able to integrate two of my interests and have people come and talk to me about the groups I've done designs for! I've also seen firsthand the power of kpop fanclubs so I shouldn't be surprised that my Exo LMR tutorial has gotten over 20k views in the past few months!






And that my lovely friends and followers is what the past year has been like for me! I'm so grateful to every one of you for supporting my work. I'm always so appreciative of people liking and commenting on photos and interacting with me in general and I feel like it's never enough to just say a simple 'thank you', but really THANK YOU so much for another amazing year! You guys are all the best! :*

Here's to another amazing year!

xo,
Becca.

6 comments:

  1. Congrats Becca!! I hope you'll be making such AMAZING designs forever, and I'm super honoured to be in your yearly review post again!! :D Thanks again for the cutest mascotte ever! I also really like that you've been making tutorial video's, honestly your nail art is so great and intricate that it's super helpful for people who want to recreate one of your designs :)

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    1. Thanks so much Robin, I hope so too!! :D
      I'm still so happy that you like your little tiger and I'm so glad you like the tutorials! They can be a bit time consuming but I'm glad people appreciate them! ^^

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  2. Congratulations! You've had such a great year which you definitely deserve. :) The nail art you make is a great inspiration for many people and I hope there will be many more designs to come in the future! :)

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    1. Aww, thank you so much!! I hope so too, (and there should be more designs coming up as soon as I finish this first round of midterms/assignments!!)

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  3. Congratulations! I'm a recent follower to your blog, so I enjoyed reading the resume of your progress. Oh and I love the octopus nails! :)

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    1. Thank you! It's always nice to see and hear from new followers! ^^
      Glad you like the octopus nails! They were a suggestion from my roommate and she still won't let me forget how good of an idea they were, haha!

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