Bird Tracks in the Snow

I do not have any snow where I live right now, but I am hoping for some soon!  I love snow!  So, anyway, I also love how little bird tracks look when they are imprinted in snow.  They are just so adorable.  I decided to paint some bird tracks on my nails:

I started out with two coats of Sally Hansen Hard To Get as my base color.  When that was dry I took a toothpick to make the bird tracks.  I would draw a line first and then make the two little toes coming out on either side of the middle of the line.  I used two different shades of gray for the tracks.  The brownish-gray is Essie Chinchilly and the other one is Sinful Colors Cool Gray.  I finished off with two coats of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly.

Sponging, Stamping, and NEW CAMERA!

I am super excited to be using a better camera now!  I'm still not an expert hand photographer, but I will continue to get better with practice.  I am super excited about sponging, so I decided to do another sponging manicure today:

My base color is two coats of Rimmel English Rose.  When that was dry, I applied a coat of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly to my nails so that my sponge wouldn't pick up my base polish.  I put a line of Rimmel English Rose and a line of Milani Rapid Orchid on a cosmetic sponge.  I put on the lighter color first and then slightly overlapped it with the darker color.  Then I sponged the two colors on to my nails.  I had to reapply polish on the sponge after every couple of nails that I sponged.  When I was happy with the gradient and opaqueness of the new color, I allowed that to dry.  (Oh!  By the way, you can reuse a triangular makeup sponge many times.  I simply cut off the end that I use after I am done sponging all of my nails.)

I wanted to do some stamping too.  I used Bundle Monster Plate BM404.  The white polish is Sally Hansen White On, a polish that I use exclusively for stamping because it is old and very thick.  I applied two coats of Dries Instantly to finish off my manicure.

Nail Stamping Tutorial

MERRY CHRISTMAS!  I am having a wonderful day and I decided to do my post about how to stamp your nails today.  I got a super nice camera (a Canon Power Shot SX500 IS), so I will finally be able to take nicer pictures for this blog!  My next post will have better pictures!  So, on to the tutorial:

Here is what you will need to stamp with:

You need polish, of course.  The thicker and more opaque the polish, the better.  Then you need a stamping plate, obviously.  You will need a special rubber stamper.  There are all sorts of them.  I got mine in a stamping kit.  You will also need a scraper.  My set came with a metal scraper to scrape off the excess polish from the plate.  Konad, a popular nail stamping company (their plates are expensive, so I only have two Konad plates) sells a metal scraper, too.  The problem with metal scrapers is that they can scratch your image plates!  Many people, myself included, prefer to use plastic.  I use an old gift card and it works perfectly.  It can't scratch the plates, either.

So, you need to put some polish onto the plate:

It is best to put polish on just one side of the image.  The indentations of the image are extremely shallow, so you only need a little polish.  You don't need to waste much!

Next, you scrape the polish, with your scraper, into the image so you are left with polish only in the image:

Once you have scraped, you need to work fast because a layer of polish that thin dries very quickly.  Take your stamper and press or roll it over the image to pick up the paint:

You should be left with the image on your stamper.  Quickly roll that on to your nail before it dries.
To clean the plates and stamper, you can use nail polish remover or pure acetone.  I prefer pure acetone because it cleans the plates so much easier.  It can leave an iridescent sheen on the plates, but that is not permanent.  It is just residue that can be rubbed off, and it won't affect your stamping at all.

Keep in mind that mastering stamping can take a while.  I have greatly improved over the time that I have been doing it, but I am still not perfect at it.  When you do it yourself, you find techniques that work best for you.  Different images can be easier or harder to stamp with and some polishes do not work well.  Konad and other brands sell special stamping polishes.  I do not own any of them, though.  The only way to get better at stamping is to keep playing around and trying it out.

If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment below.  Anybody can leave a comment because I have it set so you can comment under "anonymous" if you do not have a Gmail account or other accounts.  I hope this was helpful!

Trees in the Snow

I saw this really cool picture on Pinterest and decided to try to recreate the manicure because I realized that I had the same stamping plate that the girl had used in the design:

For my recreation, I just put the trees on my ring fingers and thumbs to cut down on the time it would take to complete the manicure.  I started out with two coats of Sinful Colors Cool Gray on all of my nails.  On the fingers that I wouldn't be sponging and stamping, I applied a coat of Sally Hansen Diamonds, a fine glitter.  Then I put on one coat of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly.  I also put a coat of Dries Instantly on the nails that I would be sponging so avoid taking off the gray polish with the sponge.

When that was all dry I put some gray and white polish on my makeup sponge like this:

There is actually a line of white polish underneath the gray polish (Sally Hansen Hard to Get.)  It is touching the gray polish.  I found out how to successfully sponge nails!  You need some of your base color on the sponge too, so the new color you are sponging on seems to blend with the base color.  I used a stippling motion to sponge on the polish.  I was so excited to see that it actually worked for me this time!  A few months ago I attempted to sponge my nails, but it did not turn out very well.

When the sponged polish was dry, I stamped on trees from Bundle Monster's plate BM407.  I used Sally Hansen Black Out as my stamping color.  On my left hand, which is the hand I post on my blog most of the time, I accidentally stamped the trees crooked.  I just pretend that they are blowing in the wind.  Haha!  I stamped better on my right hand:

I applied two coats of Dries Instantly over the stamped nails.  After the manicure was complete, I used acetone to clean up all the polish around my nails.  I am very excited by this manicure.  Pinezoe.com is where the picture on Pinterest came from.  She is a very talented nail blogger!

I hope you all have a very Merry Christmas!  I cannot believe it is tomorrow!  My next blog post will be a series of pictures showing exactly how to stamp your nails.  

Pinezoe's nail picture is here:  http://www.pinterest.com/pin/421368108857517435/  

     

Christmas Lights

I occasionally paint my mom's nails and today I decided to take a picture of them:

I have seen many pictures of Christmas light manicures.  My mom wanted some festive nails and she suggested Christmas lights.  I'm happy with how they turned out.

The base color is two coats of Sally Hansen Hard to Get.  I painted on a coat of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly before painting the black wire just to ensure that the white and black polishes wouldn't blend (like, if the white wasn't as dry as I thought it was.)  I used a Milani black striper in Black Sketch to make the wire.  I did mess up a couple times and had some stray black lines, but I used a dotting tool in white to cover them up.

I then used a dotting tool to make green, blue, red, and yellow lights.  I dragged it a little to make the lights oval-like shapes.  I applied a coat of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly at the end.

Christmas Wreaths

I have been looking forward to painting my nails with wreaths on them:

My base color is Essie Wicked, one of my all time favorite nail polish colors.  I used two coats of that.  Then I used a dotting tool and made rings of white dots to make the wreaths.  The reason I used white is because colors show up better on a white base.  I then dotted the color over the dry white dots.  Originally I made dark green and light green alternating dots, but, even with the white background, the dark green did not show up well against the dark red.  So, I went back over the dark green with the light green which is NYC High Line Green.  When all that was dry I applied some bow nail stickers and then put two coats of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly over everything.

Christmas Trees

I only have one more exam for school and then I am officially done with this semester.  The exam can't come soon enough.  So, anyway, I saw this picture of Christmas tree nails on Pinterest a while ago and decided to try them out.  I did a variation of my own, though:

I started out by painting two coats of Rimmel Caramel Cupcake on all my nails.  Then I applied a coat of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly on my ring finger and thumb.  On the other fingers I applied a coat of red glitter.  Then I finished those nails off with a coat of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly.

I put masking tape on my ring finger and thumb so that I could achieve a neat triangular Christmas tree.  I painted a coat of Revlon Rain Forest for the trees and immediately removed the masking tape.  Then I stuck on some 1.5 mm gold studs from Born Pretty Store (which I shall never shop at again--I will tell you about it at the end of this post) for the stars at the tops of the trees.  I stuck them on with some Dries Instantly.  I finished those nails off with two coats of Dries Instantly.  Studs stay on your nails for much longer if you apply a suitable amount of top coat.  If I apply only one coat, they usually get scraped off more easily.  Two coats makes it almost impossible for the studs to come off, unless you are scratching at them very hard to try to remove them.

So, here's a little heads up about Born Pretty Store:
They sell great stuff for great prices, but most of their merchandise ships from Asia, so, depending on where you live, it can take a very long time to get to you if you choose free shipping (which I always do.)  Well, on October 4th I ordered some tiny hexagonal sequins for my nails.  They, apparently, shipped on October 9th.  I have still not received them, though, and my credit card was charged when they shipped.  Generally, things from Born Pretty Store take no more than one month to reach me.  I have contacted Born Pretty Store three times now to ask for another item or a refund and they have been of no help at all.  I am truly not cranky when it comes to mail mix-ups.  I am not at all annoyed that there was a problem with the package.  My complaint is that the customer service is terrible and I can't order anything else there because I do not want to risk something like that happening again.  Good thing my order was just a little over $5!  It would be awful if it was a lot more money than that!  I guess I will be sticking to Amazon for all of my nail art needs from now on.

Candy Canes

Again, sorry that I haven't posted in a while.  I have just been so busy!  I only have one more week of school to go before this semester is over.  I cannot wait!

I used two coats of Sally Hansen Hard To Get (the white polish) as my base color for all my nails.  Then, on my pointer, middle, and pinkie, I applied a coat of Sally Hansen Diamonds.  You can't really see it in the pictures, but it is a very fine, sort of iridescent glitter.  It is so pretty and reminds me of sparkling snow.  When that was still wet I applied red and green rhinestones near my cuticles and then used two coats of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly to finish them off.  

For my thumb and ring finger, I put on a coat of Dries Instantly and then, when that was dry, put on some tape.  The thick stripes were achieved with pieces of scotch tape and, for the thin stripes, I used striping tape.  I painted on Rimmel Burgundy Flirt and then immediately removed all the tape with tweezers.  A bit of red paint got under some of my tape, but I used a small nail art brush dipped in white to fix it.  I then applied two coats of Dries Instantly.  I am very happy with how these came out!

Winter Snowflake Nails

I was super excited to paint my nails for Thanksgiving, but, last minute, I worked all day on the day before Thanksgiving and then I went away on Thanksgiving day and didn't get back home until today.  So, there was no time to do a manicure.  I am really excited about today's mani, though.  I have been looking forward to using Bundle Monster's snowflake image for a long time:

My base color is two coats of Sally Hansen Thinking of Blue.  I used Bundle Monster plate BM323 to stamp with.  My stamping color is Sally Hansen White On.  That polish is actually pretty old, so it got very gloopy.  That's why it works so well to stamp with.  On my ring finger and thumb I used a couple 1.5 mm silver studs from Born Pretty Store.  I used two coats of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly as my top coat.   

Computer Chip Nails!

I got my 2013 Bundle Monster plates!!  I love them!  There are so many great designs!  The pattern I was most excited about is this one:

I am a bit geeky, so this pattern really got me excited!  It took me a while to decide on the colors that I'd use.  I used two coats of Rimmel Hard Metal as my base color and then used stamping plate BM415.  My stamping color is Essie Penny Talk again.  That is my best stamping polish.  I would love to get more of Essie's chrome colors but they are a little expensive for me, a lowly college student.  ; )  I used two coats of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly to finish off the manicure.  

Barbed Wire

I am still impatiently waiting for my 2013 Bundle Monster plates to come, so I felt like stamping my nails today:

I used two coats of Sally Hansen Black Out as my base color.  When that was dry I used Sally Hansen Penny Talk to stamp on the barbed wire.  This image is from Bundle Monster's plate BM-323.  The best polishes to stamp with are highly pigmented and of a thick consistency.  Chromes work very well, too.  If you have any old polishes that are a little too thick to paint your nails with, consider saving them and trying to stamp with them.  Thicker polishes stamp beautifully.  I applied a thick coat of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly to seal in the manicure.

Half Moons Again

I really like half moon manicures!  I love how they are actually vintage, too.

My base color is Sally Hansen Golden-I.  After painting on two coats of that, I applied a coat of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly and then, once that was dry, applied half a hole reinforcer to each of my nails.  I made sure each was pressed down tightly before painting on my red, which is Rimmel Burgundy Flirt, one of my favorite reds.  As soon as I painted the red on each nail, I used tweezers to remove the hole reinforcer.  I applied two coats of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly to protect the manicure.  

I really love this look!  Under light you can see the sparkles from the gold through the red polish.  The pictures don't do the color justice.  The red is really a perfect blood red color.  I think this is a great Christmas look.  It is very classy and elegant.   

Oh!  I changed the settings of my blog so that anybody can leave a comment.  If you do not have a Gmail account or anything like that, you can leave a comment under "anonymous."  I am still learning how to use Blogger, so bear with me.  =)

Star Trek Nails II

Sorry I have not posted for a while!  Since I am nearing the end of a semester, school has been crazy.  I have not gotten around to doing my nails again, so this manicure was actually one I did a while ago:

I used Rimmel Stiletto Red as my base color and then painted on the silver Star Trek insignias with Icing Metal Head.  I think I used a dotting tool to create them.  I then used a black striper (Milani Black Sketch) to create the details.  The symbols in these insignias are for engineering in "Star Trek: The Original Series."  I used Sally Hansen Dries Instantly as my top coat.

So, a couple days ago I ordered the 2013 collection of Bundle Monster nail stamping plates.  I am super excited for them to come!  I just have their 2012 collection and this 2013 collection seems ever better!  I love the new designs!

Dot Gradient

I saw this super cool picture tutorial for this design on my Facebook news feed this morning and NEEDED to try it out.  The tutorial is by Quite Polished.  I just went to her blog and it is great!  You'll have to check it out!  http://quitepolished.blogspot.com/

The green color is Essie Da Bush; the white is Sally Hansen Hard to Get; and the blue is Sinful Colors Rain Storm.  I painted on two coats of each color.  (To be honest, I would not recommend this white polish to anybody.  Two coats is just barely enough.  If my nails were only white, I would need three coats.)  After that was dry, I used a small dotting tool to create the dots.  (I got a very inexpensive pack of dotting tools from Amazon, but if you don't have a dotting tool, a toothpick works.  The colored end of a straight pin works, as well.)

I put lots of dots at the tips-- some overlapping to make them look crowded.  I then put them sort of close together in the middle regions.  Near the cuticles I tried to space them more.  I have not got the gradient effect perfect, but that will get easier with practice.  I will finish this manicure off with a coat of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly.  To tell you the truth, I do not always have a top coat on in these pictures.  A lot of times I take the photos right after finishing the design because I do not want something to happen to them in between finishing them and taking a picture.  Also, if you apply a top coat too soon, the design will smudge.  Sally Hansen Dries Instantly works great when the design is all dry, though.

I used pure acetone on a flat nail art brush to create a clean line around the edges of my nails.  To clean my nail art brushes, I swish them around in acetone and then rinse them in water.  The bristles get very stiff if acetone is left in them.  

Stripes Galore

I have not used striping tape for a while, so I decided to today:

I used two coats of Rimmel Mintilicious as my base color.  After that was dry I applied a coat of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly to make the bottom color not come up with the striping tape.  After that was dry I applied striping tape where I wanted to see the bluey color.  I made sure the tape was pressed down around my cuticles and then painted on Rimmel Wild Orchid.  I then immediately removed the striping tape with a pair of tweezers.

Once all that was dry I used a nail art brush dipped in acetone to create a clean line around the edges of my nails.  I then used a striper nail art brush dipped in Nicole Glitter In My Stocking to make a sparkly line across my thumb nails.  I finished off the manicure with two coats of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly.

Remember: if you have overlapping striping tape, keep track of which pieces are on top and which are on bottom (the order you placed them on) to avoid ruining the manicure while removing the tape.  I ALWAYS forget to pay attention to that and then have to guess the order in which I placed the tape.  I decided to put that gold stripe on my thumb because it looked and little empty AND because I messed up the center of the "X" because I forgot the order in which I placed the tape.

Oceany

Here's a manicure that I created a few months before I started my blog:

From my thumb to my ring finger, I used Essie Borrowed & Blue (I also used that on my pinkie), Essie Chinchilly, Essie Mink Muffs, and Essie Da Bush.  I used a dotting tool to make the starfish.  The purple ones are Revlon Impulsive and the coral ones are Essie Haute as Hello.

I have so many pictures of old manicures that I did, but, sadly, the majority of them were taken with my phone.  The camera on that only has 2 mega pixels, so the quality is not very good.

Statue of Liberty

So, tomorrow I am super excited to visit the Statue of Liberty.  I got these multicultural nail stickers from Walmart a while ago and have been looking forward to wearing them.  I bought the bluey-green nail polish at Walmart today, specifically for this manicure.  I know it's not the exact color of the Statue of Liberty, but I am happy with it:

I painted my ring fingers and thumbs with Rimmel Mintilicious and the other nails with Essie Penny Talk.  I got the 2 mm rhinestones from Amazon.  They came in a set of 12 colors and were only a few dollars.  I stuck them on with Sally Hansen Dries Instantly and then painted that over top of all my nails.  I hope everyone has a great weekend!  If you ever have any suggestions for manicures, feel free to leave a comment!

Candy Corn & Black+White

I decided to do my nails very festively today:

I will start with the black and white nails.  My inspiration for these is black and white movies.  I know, they don't look like movies...but they are black, white, and grey.  ; )  I guess it sort of looks like static.  I used Essie Chinchilly as my base color and put a coat of Claire's splatter effect glitter on top.  I then applied a coat of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly.

For the candy corn nails I first painted on two coats of Avon Sunshine (the yellow) by my cuticles.  I didn't even bother painting that to the tips of my nails because I was going to cover them with other colors.  When the yellow was dry I took a small nail art brush and painted on the orange stripe in the center with NYC Spring Street.  I then used the same nail art brush and painted on the white tips with Sally Hansen Hard to Get.  Then, when that was all dry, I applied two coats of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly.

I cleaned up the small bit of polish that got on my skin with a nail art brush dipped in pure acetone.

Sugar Skulls

So, I decided to be a little festive and attempted to recreate Cutepolish's Sugar Skull manicure (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLMTXjJyxDU).  Mine did not come out nearly as nice as hers, but I had fun with it.

I painted two coats of Rimmel Hot Chilli Pepper on my thumb, ring finger, and pinkie.  On my pointer and middle I painted two coats of Sally Hansen Hard to Get.  I attempted to draw flowers on my pink nails with a black and a metallic light blue gel pen, but they didn't come out that well and my camera didn't photograph them clearly.  I applied a coat of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly over top.  For the sugar skulls I followed Cutepolish's directions.  I have very small nails, so designs like this are hard for me.  I never have enough room and I forget to make things extra small.  The black I used was Sally Hansen Black Out.  I put multicolored dots around the eye sockets.  The tools I used to do all this were a black striper (for the line separating the upper and lower teeth) and a couple dotting tools.  As always, I used two coats of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly when everything was dry.

Patriotic Nails

This design is actually from this past Fourth of July.  I know it is a little off season, but you can be patriotic any time, right?  =)

On all my nails but my ring fingers, I first painted on two coats of Sally Hansen White On.  I then applied a coat of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly.  When that was dry I put on a few pieces of striping tape and painted over with Rimmel Stiletto Red and then immediately removed the tape.  After all that was dry I put on a coat of Dries Instantly.  For my ring finger I painted on Rimmel Blue Eyed Girl.  I then put on rows of 1.5 mm silver studs from Born Pretty Store.  I finished that off with a couple coats of Dries Instantly.  This manicure is modeled after The Nailasaurus's Fourth of July nail art, which this link will bring you to:  http://www.thenailasaurus.com/2013/07/independence-day-nail-art.html

Sally Hansen Salon Effects II & Top Coat Review

So, today I decided to do something a little boring.  I have a lot of stuff to do, so I didn't want something that would take multiple steps and take a while to dry.  So, I decided to try out some more Sally Hansen Salon Effects Real Nail Polish Strips.  This time I used Tri-Bal It On:

 I like this print.  I also got this package for only $3 from "Five Below."  I applied two coats of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly over top of the strips.  

If you're looking for a great top coat, you should really try Sally Hansen Dries Instantly.  It really does dry super fast.  It dries completely in literally a couple minutes and it only costs around $3 at Walmart.  My sheets have never left prints in it at night. 

I suppose I am not the best expert on top coats, though, since I have only used four different top coats since I got into doing my nails.  The first was Sally Hansen Diamond Shine Base & Top Coat.  That worked well, I think.  That was the first top coat that I had ever used, though, so I can't really remember how fast it dried or anything.  I do remember it was shiny and strong, though.  I used up the bottle, so I guess I liked it. 

The second top coat I used was Rimmel Base Coat Top Coat Pro.  I really liked that, but I didn't have much to compare it to.  I did notice that I always woke up with sheet prints, though.  At the time, I thought that was normal with nail polishes.

The third top coat I tried was Sally Hansen Strengthening top coat.  That worked well, but didn't dry nearly as fast as Dries Instantly.

So, after this tiring review, I shall conclude that I find Dries Instantly to be the best out of all these.  If you're looking for a good, inexpensive top coat, this is it!

Star Trek Uniform Shirts

I am a bit of a Trekkie, so I really enjoy creating Star Trek nail art.  I saw a picture on Pinterest and really liked the design, so I recreated it on my nails:

I painted 2 coats of base color on all my nails.  On my thumbs I painted Sally Hansen Black Out; on my index fingers I painted Avon Sunshine; on my middle fingers I painted Covergirl Out of the Blue; and on my ring fingers and pinkies I painted Rimmel Stiletto Red.  After all that was dry I painted on a coat of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly and then put strips of masking tape a little away from the tips of my nails so that I could achieve a clean black tip.

As soon as I painted on the black, I removed the tape.  Then I used a small nail art brush and painted on the black at my cuticles, which is supposed to look like the collars of the Star Trek uniform shirts.  (I used Black Out for all black details.)  After painting on the black details I cleaned up around my nails with a nail art brush dipped in acetone.  Then I used a nail art brush dipped in Sally Hansen Pumping Iron to add the Star Trek insignias.  Here's the easiest way to draw these:

After step 3, fill in the center with your color.  I have made Star Trek insignias on my nails multiple times now and this is the easiest way, in my opinion, to go about it.  I finished off this manicure with two coats of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly, which is my favorite top coat, as you have probably noticed.  I have been through many bottles of it.  "Live long and prosper."  ; )  

Fimo Canes

I have been seeing people using fimo canes on their nails for years, but I had never wanted to buy them.  But, when I found out that they were inexpensive and you can cut them thin so they are not too annoying on your nails, I decided to try them.  I got a pack of 100 from Amazon for only around $6.  I still need to get better at cutting them, but they're pretty cute.  I wouldn't use these that often, but they're nice to have.

I didn't cut them quite as thin as I would have liked, but the overall result is cute.  I used Rimmel Steel Grey as my base color and finished off the entire manicure with plenty of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly.

White Roses

Today I decided to stamp my nails.  They came out so well!

I first painted on two coats of Rimmel Black Satin.  I let that dry for a while and them I began stamping.  I used my Bundle Monster Plate BM323 and selected the rose pattern.  I have an old white polish, Sally Hansen White On, that got very thick.  That worked perfectly.  With stamping, thick polishes work better.

After I stamped all my nails I cleaned up around my cuticles with a Q-tip dipped in pure acetone.  I had never used pure acetone before, but it worked so much better than nail polish remover with acetone.  I didn't need to rub my skin to get the paint off.  The acetone took it off effortlessly.

I let the stamped images dry for a long time and then applied two coats of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly.  The trick to not smudging the images is letting them dry for a long time and using a top coat with a thick consistency.  Thin top coats do not provide a barrier between the nail and the brush.  If you use a thick top coat, though, and make sure you have a lot on the brush and apply it very lightly to your nails, the design will remain intact.  When I first buy Dries Instantly, it is pretty thin, but when it gets a little older it becomes thick enough to paint over designs.

Color Combinations

I took a long time for me to pick out this color combination, but I love it!  I decided to make a nail polish swatch book.  It was super fun and it made choosing color combinations easier than going through all my nail polish bottles.

I first used L'Oreal Now You Sea Me and painted on two coats.  Then I painted on a coat of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly.  When that was dry I applied squares of masking tape to my nails where I wanted the base color to show through.  I then painted Sally Hansen Espresso over top and immediately removed the tape.  Once all that was dry I applied 2 mm light pink studs from Born Pretty Store with some Dries Instantly.  I finished it off with two coats of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly.