Share

May 26, 2013

Line French Tips

Hmmm...


I cant even decide if I love this or hate it so lets just move on to how it came to be :)


Konad Special Polish Black and White /China Glaze Neon & On and China Glaze Sun of a Peach


Two thick coats of Neon & On at an angle, starting at the top corner of your nail, and down to the opposite bottom corner. This polish is a little streaky and matte, I put it on pretty thick, but it does dry quickly.


Now with your second color, paint a line across your nail, starting just above your smile line and down to the opposite bottom corner. I can never do V manicures perfectly so I purposefully offset them on one side :P


I do not know what set this came from (Sorry) but it is labeled QA3. I buy everything I use on Amazon, but it would have been some time ago. There are many great sets that have straight line designs. This is just the one I happened to use.

*Update... I found the plate... here is the link QA3.


Carefully, stamp white lines down the first color you used. It doesn't really make much difference if the bottom part is neat. Do your best on the top because that is what you will see when your done layering.


Use black to add lines on top of the second color and finish with top coat. Interesting summer spin on French tips :)

colorful-french-tip-bright-stripes



How To Make A Feather Decal

As a little girl, my grandmother used to tell me, if I wasn't good she would beat me with a feather. At the time, the irony was lost on me, but today I found myself feeling beat-up and defeated by a tiny little pink feather. No matter how I hard I tried, the feather nail technique was a mess and a disaster. I didn't give up and found a fool proof way of doing it. I want to share.

I don't always get defeated by feathers, but when I do, I experiment until they are right where I want them... in one piece on my accent nails.


At first, I was doing it like the ladies I've seen on YouTube. Painting my nail and dragging and pressing the tip of the feather into place. My polish kept getting demolished and the feather was spreading out leaving huge gaps in a sloppy design. Despite how many coats of clear I used, or how long I let it dry, I couldn't even get a half way presentable feather nail.  Here is what ended up working for me....


I painted my nails like so. The pink is China glaze Beauty Within and the green is China Glaze Highlight of My Summer. They are both polishes from the new summer line which I am loving. The collection is six creams and six jelly polishes. I've read some complaints about the formulas but I don't have any to contribute nor do I agree for the most part.


I cut a rectangle out of a Ziploc bag and painted a thin coat of Seche Vite. I pressed some feathers into the areas of clear polish. After that was all dry, I went back over the feathers with another clear coat. When the polish was dry, I peeled it off the bag, and trimmed it down a little. I painted clear polish over my green nail, and pressed the feather decal onto it, careful to get it stuck down on the entire surface. This method of making nail decals was not my idea. I thought it would be great for feathers and it worked like a charm. My feather didn't spread out and cutting off the excess was a breeze.


I finished trimming off any extra areas and added another coat of Seche Vite. When I was dry. I filed down the tips and edges and I had a pretty close to undisturbed feather. 


I bought a giant bag of feathers in bulk for less than $10 here ... Craft feathers. I'm sure you could get them at a craft store as well.





May 25, 2013

Jelly Butterfly Nails

I don't know about you but I tend to use my cream polishes quite often and neglect the jellies in my collection. It isn't that they aren't beautiful but that they take so many coats and add so much dry time.


Jelly polishes do have some great qualities and we have all seen them with glitter sandwiched between coats. I wanted to see what would happen if I used a translucent jelly to layer a stamped design. Here is what I came up with.



This is two thick coats of China Glaze Reggae To Riches. This polish is very shiny and is somewhere between a purple and pink. The shimmer in this polish is a pretty blue purple.


Once my polish was dry I used Konad Special Polish in White to stamp on some bugs. I used to different plates from two different sets....Konad image plate M36 for the little butterflies and Salon Express image plate SE18 for the big ones.


I went back over all of my butterflies with a thin coat of my jelly polish. It changes the color of the stamping and dulls down the design quite a bit but not enough that you cant still see it clearly.


After that last layer was dry I went back with some more butterflies on my thumb and accent nails. I had some flooding at the cuticles but other than that I really like how these turned out. Nothing like experimenting :)





May 14, 2013

Bright Summer French Tips

Something Playful.


This is way easier than it looks at first glance.

Polish for gradient

China Glaze White on White

A Make up sponge. I use these Cosmetic Wedges because they come in bulk and one bag last me forever. I cut them into smaller pieces to get the biggest bang for my buck.

Start off with clean nails and sponge on a white polish at an angle across the lower half of your nails. The white will make your neon pop but its not necessary if you chose cream or metallic colors.

My Ombre colors here are China Glaze Love's A Beach and China Glaze Splish Splash.


Once the white is dry, paint your pink and blue in stripes across the edge of a sponge. Dab it on lightly and let the purple magically appear. Be sure to reload the sponge for each nail for more even coverage. I did each nail twice with the neons. Let it dry between layers or you'll pull up polish with the sponge.


Bundle Monster Image Plate BM12. This is from one the early sets I bought back in 2012 so I couldn't find the specific link to share.


I used Konad Special Polish Black and White when I did this design.



 Bundle Monster stamping polish is a little cheaper. Here is the link... Bundle Monster Black and White special polish.


Stamp your design in white on a diagonal across the top of your gradient tips.


Stamp the black polish over the white, but this time try not to line it up perfectly over the top, so that it shows. I don't really have to try not to line it up... I couldn't line it up the exact same if I tried lol :)


Add top coat and it looks like someone spent a very long time on her nails.











May 13, 2013

Dorothy The Rocker Nails

For some reason the only thing that comes to mind is The Wizard of Oz and 80's rock :P  I feel like this is what the pumps would look like if Dorothy went to see Black Sabbath.
Glitter is a great way to spice up your nails when you don't have a lot of time for nail art and also if you have a bout of creative block.

China Glaze Scattered and Tattered/ Confetti Just Dancin/ Seche Vite Top Coat


I used one coat of Confetti Just Dancin as my base polish. You can see through it and I'm not even sure were I bought this brand but for layering glitter this will do the job. It's a pretty color but I admit I thought it would be darker just looking at the bottle. You would probably have to do several coats to get it to its full dark shade. It isn't a very thick polish which is a plus here because I used two coats of the thick glitter polish and two coats of Seche Vite to even it all out. Give yourself a little extra dry time if you use as many layers as I did.

Scattered & Tattered is beyond beautiful. There are so many different shapes and sizes of glitter in there I cant even sit still and the black glitter is very rock n' roll. I have a hard time photographing glitters and shimmers but trust me... this is over the top glitz in person. Walk outside in the sun light with this on and forgid-a-bow-dit!


Layered Stamping

I really like the braided nail polish trend and thought I'd put my own spin on it. I wanted to see what the technique would look like using stamping rather than just lines of polish. It didn't quite turn out as I had thought it would because my lines aren't well placed but it is interesting none the less. Even though my attempt isn't perfect I still wanted to share the idea with you. So here is the general technique and hopefully you guys can come up with something a little less chaotic lol :)
My thumb nail is the only nail that actually came out with the look I was going for and only barely lol

Konad Special Polish/Pastel Pink/Pastel Blue/Black/China Glaze Liquid Leather

Start off by painting all of your nails a solid color. I used Black because it is one of the colors I'm going to use for stamping. Stamp your design at an angle across the top of your nails. I used Bundle Monster plate BM-11 for the dotted line pattern.


Cross your second color in the opposite direction.


Now use your third polish and go in the same direction you did with the very first stamp just underneath it. Continue layering alternating directions and colors all the way down your nails. I did a tutorial titled Braided Nails if you want to see a more in depth version.

Once you get all the way down to the tips add your top coat and seal it all in. I think this would look much different with more subtle or complimentary colors but I wanted to really show the contrast. I will probably revisit this idea when I haven't drank so much coffee and have more patience and less shakes. Have fun!


May 12, 2013

Rockabilly Cherry Nails

I am in love with Rockabilly style and I wanted to do a manicure that incorporates that 50's flair.

Cherries and Polka Dots... Yes!

Sally Hansen Red Carpet is a beautiful full coverage polish with a sparkly micro glitter. China Glaze Dandy Lyin' Around is also a micro glitter but with more chunky pieces of shimmer.


Start off by painting your nails like so ;) This is two coats of Dandy Lyin' Around and two coats of Sally Hansen red Carpet. You can't really tell form the above photo, but both the red and white polishes are extremely shimmery.


The cherries on stamping plate Mash-45 are one of my favorite designs. I used Konad Special Polish in Green.


I realize that using green to stamp on the cherry design seems, and looks a little on the odd side, but just trust me here. I wanted red cherries with green stems, it's easy to dot on the red, keeping just keep the detail of the stems.


(Sorry for such a bad pic) After your green cherries are dry, you want to use your red polish and a dotting tool, to ripen those bad boys up and turn them red. Just cover each cherry with a blob of red and add a little white highlight to the side for some detail. Also, this is when I added my polka dots over the French tips. I used two different size dotting tools but if you don't have these you can find things around the house that will do the job. The plastic coated tip of a bobby pin is the right size for the red dots and a toothpick is fine enough to do the highlight.


Again with a horrible blurry picture but I wanted to get in close to give you an idea of where to put the highlight.


Let it all dry and add top coat. Sweet Nails!



Popular