New Years Nails

I titled this "New Years Nails" because glitter is involved and glitter is perfect for New Years, but this manicure can be done for any time.

I started out with a coat of Essie Protein Base Coat and then painted two coats of  Essie Penny Talk on all my nails.  I then took Maybelline Gilded Rose (which is a gold polish with rose gold pieces of different sized glitter it in.  It is SO pretty!) and dabbed it straight from the brush onto the tips of my nails.  I then lightly stroked some polish up toward my cuticles to give the glitter a gradient effect.  It was quite easy and quick.

I finished off the manicure with two coats of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly.

I hope you all have a great New Year!!  I cannot believe how close 2015 is!

Christmas Presents

Merry Christmas Eve to everyone who celebrates it!  Even if you don't, I have a super cute present manicure to show you!  

I started out with a coat of Essie Protein Base Coat.  This really protects your nails from stains!  I then painted two coats of Essie Good as Gold on all my nails except for my ring fingers.  I painted two coats of Sinful Colors Gogo Girl on them.  When that was dry I applied one coat of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly to all my nails so the tape wouldn't pull up my base color.  

I then applied a slightly off-center cross of striping tape to each of my nails.  I wanted to create what looks like ribbons over wrapped boxes.  I painted Sinful Colors Gogo Girl over all of my gold nails, and Essie Good as Gold over my red nails.  

After painting each nail I immediately removed the striping tape with tweezers.  I made sure I remembered the order in which I put on the tape so that I wouldn't pull the piece crossed under the other piece of tape.  That can ruin your manicure.

When the manicure was dry, I took a small nail art brush and painted on the bows.  I used Nicole Glitter in My Stocking on all my nails but my ring fingers.  On my ring fingers I used the same red that I had been using, Sinful Colors Gogo Girl.  To make the red bows a little more opaque, I went over them again after the first coat had dried.

My final step before my top coat and clean-up was to apply a gold 1.5 mm stud in the middle of each bow.  I used clear polish and a dotting tool to stick them on.  I then applied two coats of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly.  

I do not own any cuticle oil, but I wanted my cuticles to look a little more moisturized for my pictures.  So I used coconut oil.  It worked super well!  That stuff is great!

Merry Christmas everyone!

Glitter Snowflakes

Here is another snowflake manicure.  Sadly, it is raining at my house today.

I started out with a coat of Essie Protein Base Coat and then I applied two coats of Essie Borrowed & Blue to all my nails.  When that was dry, I used a dotting tool to put clear polish where I wanted to stick my small glitter pieces, and I used the same dotting tool to pick up the pieces of glitter to apply on my nails.  I got the glitter from Amazon.  It came in a pack of twelve colors.  All of them are holographic.  I used pink, light blue, and silver for this manicure:

It took quite a while to place all the glitter.  I made snowflake shapes on all my nails except for my pinkies, which were too small.  I decided to apply three clusters of three pieces of glitter to both my pinkies.  

To make the snowflakes, I put three pieces of glitter in a triangular shape in the center of each nail and then I put three to four pieces in a line radiating out from the center.  I made six of these, since all snowflakes have six points.  I then added a piece of glitter on each side of the radiating lines, near the tips, to give them the crystalline, feathered-out points.  

I actually did not know how I was going to make the flakes, so I winged it.  This is not a science.  If you try this, make the snowflakes however you want to!

After I completed placing the glitter on each nail, I applied a coat of Salon Perfect Cosmic Dust, a very fine, holographic glitter.  These nails are SPARKLY!

I finished off with two coats of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly.

Dainty Snowflakes

I have been on a roll with wintry/Christmassy nails!  Here's a manicure I did a few days ago:

I started out with a coat of Essie Protein Base Coat.  I then painted two coats of Sinful Colors Snow Me White on all my nails.  After that I began stamping.  I used the two single snowflake images from Bundle Monster's plate BM-319.  I stamped on different colored snowflakes until I was happy with the effect.  

The shimmery darker blue is Essie Blue Rhapsody, the peach is Essie Haute as Hello, and, though you can't see it in the pictures, I also stamped on light blue snowflakes with Essie Borrowed & Blue.  The gray dots I added with a small dotting tool are Sinful Colors Cool Gray.  

There is a light blue flake in the lower left side of this nail.

I finished off the manicure with a coat of Sally Hansen Diamonds to add sparkle and shimmer, and then I applied two coats of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly.

It is snowing at my house right now!  I love it!  It isn't really sticking, but it looks so pretty!

Classic Holiday

I love this manicure because it is just a really classic holiday look.  It is so classy and pretty and is really simple.  The key to a really classic Christmas manicure is gold and red:

Classic Christmas colors

I started out with a coat of Essie Protein Base Coat and then painted two coats of Revlon Forbidden on all my nails but my ring fingers.  I then painted two coats of Nicole Glitter in my Stocking on my ring fingers.  This is a really great glitter polish.  It has no pigments in it.  It is just red and gold glitter held together by clear polish.  The glitter is super concentrated, so it completely covers your nail in just two coats.  (I used the tin foil method to remove the glitter on these nails and it worked like a charm.  You don't need to worry about using glitter if you use that method.)

I finished off the manicure with two coats of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly.  I love how this manicure looks!  Red and gold is a great combination for the holidays!

Candy Cane Hearts

Whoa!  I have not blogged in so long!  I officially finished another semester today.  I am extremely happy to be done.  After my exams, as I waited for my sister to get out of her exams, I sat in the library and ate some fudge and a mini candy cane.  It was quite nice.  So, without further ado, here is a Christmassy manicure:

Candy Cane Nails!

My cuticles are a bit of a mess.  The dry weather is taking its toll.

I started out with a coat of Essie Protein Base Coat.  I then applied two coats of Revlon Rain Forest, a dark green, glittery polish.  The white part of the candy canes is white acrylic paint that I painted on with a small nail art brush.  The red stripes are Rimmel Stiletto Red.  I used a toothpick and applied the stripes with a stippling motion.  I finished off the manicure with two coats of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly.

This doesn't have much to do with nail art, but I don't know if you guys have heard of using coconut oil for skin care.  I bought a jar from Target for only a bit over $6, and was planning on using it to make a moisturizing lip scrub.  It comes in a jar like this:

It's solid, but melts really easily.  I saw people on the internet using it in lieu of lotion, so I wanted to try that out.  I have been using it instead of lotion on my face for almost a week and I am loving it!  You only need to use a teeny bit.  It absorbs really quickly and doesn't leave your face looking shiny and oily.

I have mild hormonal acne, but coconut oil is not supposed to make acne worse.  I have read that it is actually good for helping to control acne!  And, from what I have experienced so far, that is true!  I also started using it as eye makeup remover and I am never going back to using any other remover.  It didn't even leave my eyes feeling blurry.  I used my fingers to massage it over my eyes until the makeup was all broken down.  Then I used a damp cotton ball to wipe off the makeup residue.  That worked better than any other makeup remover I have used!  I would highly recommend this!  I bought the same brand that is in this picture (Spectrum).  It's a great product with a ton of uses!

Sequin Heart

Last night I watched the "Supernatural" episode "Death Takes a Holiday" and I loved Pamela's black nails.  I hadn't given myself a plain black manicure in a long time, so I really wanted to.  I decided to make it a little fancier by adding a heart made out of small hexagonal sequins:

I started out with a base coat of Essie Protein Base Coat.  I then painted on two coats of Sinful Colors Black on Black.  I used a dotting tool and Sally Hansen Dries Instantly to place the sequins on my middle fingernail.  I first placed the center top sequin so I would be able to make the heart mostly symmetrical on my nail.  I eventually placed the bottom middle sequin and joined up the lines to make a neat heart.

Whole hand shot!

I finished off with two coats of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly.  

I accidentally cut my nails a bit too short for my liking, but it is actually nice to have such out of the way nails.  It feels good to take a break from longer nails.  I am still loving the rounded shape!

Veterans' Day French Tips

I have been wanting to do this manicure for a long time now, and I thought it was a very fitting time for it since it is Veterans' Day in the United States tomorrow.  

Veterans' Day french tips

 I started out with a coat of Essie Protein Base Coat.  I then painted on two coats of Revlon Pale Cashmere on all my nails and finished that off with a coat of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly to avoid pulling up my base color with the tape.  When that was all dry, I applied french tip guides on all my nails.  I made sure that I stuck them all to the back of my hand first to make them a little less sticky.  

I then created a red, white, and blue french tip pattern and immediately removed the tape.  The red is Rimmel Stiletto Red, the white is Sinful Colors Snow Me White, and the blue is Sinful Colors Into the Blue.  I finished off this manicure with two coats of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly.

Thank you to all of the men and women who have served America in such a noble, significant way.  I am patriotic because of you.  

"Supernatural" Nails!

I am really excited about how most of this manicure turned out!  I thought it would look much worse, so this was a pleasant surprise.  So, in my last post I mentioned that I am loving the show "Supernatural" and that I wanted to do a "Supernatural" inspired manicure.  Well, here it is:

"Supernatural" inspired designs

I started out with a coat of Essie Protein Base Coat and then painted two coats of Sinful Colors Snow Me White on all my nails except for my ring fingernail, which I painted with two coats of Sinful Colors Black on Black.  (On my right hand I painted the white on all my nails.)

This was fun nail art to do because there were so many details that, when I waited for one thing to dry, I could work on something else.  I was never waiting around!  The first thing I did was make the blood spatters on my pointer and pinky on my left hand and on all five nails on my right hand.  I took a straw and would dab polish right from my bottle's brush onto the end and then blow through it with it positioned a couple inches above my nail.  I went over some nails a few times until I got the effect I wanted.  I bought a new blood-red polish that was thin enough to blow on to my nails.  I got Revlon Forbidden.

right thumb nail blood spatters

After I had done that and done a bit of cleanup, I painted a large silver (Sally Hansen Celeb City) circle with a small, flat nail art brush onto my ring fingernail.  I had meant to make the outside ring gold, but I forgot.  So, after the silver ring was dry, I took a large dotting tool dipped in Sally Hansen Golden-I and filled in the edges in with gold and left the center silver.  I then took a small nail art bush and some black acrylic paint and painted the small circle around the silver part and put a small dot in the center of the silver circle.  This is supposed to be the base of a bullet casing.  When the gold was dry, I took a toothpick dipped in the acrylic paint and stippled on the words "45 COLT" on the gold part of the circle.  

"The Colt" bullet casing base

I finally got around to buying some acrylic paint and I DO NOT regret it!  I got mine for $.50 each from Walmart!  (The brand is Apple Barrel.)  Lots of nail art people have said that it is so much easier to work with than nail polish and they are 100% correct!  It is easier to use because it isn't as sticky, so it glides on easily;  it washes off with water, so if you mess up you can wipe it right off and start again; it is very opaque; and it dries really fast.  I would definitely recommend anybody getting it for details and such!

I painted on the "Supernatural" star symbol on my middle finger with a small nail art brush.  I used black acrylic paint to do this.  I messed it up a bit.  I am not that happy with the final look of it either, but I was able to clean up the edges of it and add the white spaces inside the star with some white acrylic paint.  

"Supernatural" insignia

The last bit of nail art I did was the license plate on my thumb.  I first painted some yellow and blue (yellow--Sinful Colors Unicorn; blue--Revlon Dreamer) over the white base to create something that somewhat resembles the background of Dean's Kansas license plate.  When that was mostly dry I added a coat of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly to make a smooth, dry base for the rest of the art.  I then used a flat nail art brush dipped in my black acrylic paint to make the border of the license plate.  Then I took a toothpick dipped in the same acrylic paint to write on "Kansas" and the license plate number (KAZ 2Y5.)  

Dean's Kansas license plate

I finished off everything with two coats of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly.

Guys, the best thing you can do with nail art is not be afraid to experiment and mess up a little!  It is okay to make a mess!  And I have discovered that you can usually save a ruined bit of art in one way or another.  I never take off all the art from a nail because I hate starting over.  I just salvage what is messed up.  Experiment!  And even if you are left with a messy nail, people do not notice.  The overall nail art is what people see!  Have fun with it!

Autumn Earthy Tones

Hi!  I am back again!  I came up with this one yesterday:

I started out with a coat of Essie Protein Base Coat.  I then applied three coats of Essie Da Bush (I LOVE that polish name!)  I needed three coats because this polish is rather thin.  I waited for that to dry and then took some clear polish and a dotting tool to apply the studs with.  I would put a dot of clear polish on my nail, and then use the smaller end of the dotting tool dipped in clear polish to pick up a stud and apply it to my nail.  I put three near each cuticle.  These are 1.5 mm gold studs from Born Pretty Store.

I then took the brush from the bottle of Essie Mink Muffs (the brown) and put a curved stroke of it about half way up each nail.  I then filled in the tip of the nail with the polish.  I had to go over each of those again to make the brown opaque.  I used a nail art bush dipped in Essie Good As Gold to paint on the gold line separating the two colors.  If I made the line too thick, I just took one of my base colors and went over the edge of it to clean it up.

It's okay to get polish on your skin!  I used to try to avoid this at all costs, but now I don't mind getting a little on my skin.  It would have been hard to get nothing on my skin when I used the brush to make the brown curved lines.  It is easy to clean up the edges with a nail art brush or Q-tip dipped in acetone or nail polish remover!

I finished off with two coats of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly.  Sadly, mine is old, so you can see a lot of bubbles on my nails. =(  This manicure looks much better in person since you can't notice the bubbles when you aren't super close to them.  

I have been watching the show "Supernatural" on Netflix for a couple months now.  I am in season 4 and I LOVE the show!  I am dying to do a "Supernatural" inspired manicure sometime!

Hey!  This is my 100th post!  So exciting!

Houndstooth Halloween

So, as promised, here is my Halloween post!  I actually did a manicure four days ago and then decided to add to it.  Here's what I applied four days ago:

These are Sally Hansen Salon Effects Real Nail Polish Strips.  The pattern is "Check It Out," which is just a houndstooth pattern.  The strips have held up super well over the past few days.  The trick with these is to make absolutely certain that you do not put them too close to your cuticles and that you run the smooth side of the nail file thing that comes with them all over the surface of the strips to make sure they are secured to your nails.  If bits near your cuticles are sticking up, they will continue to stick up more when they dry.  Then they will start flaking off.  

This time I was super careful and they have not been peeling up!  I actually only used one set (instead of both sets that come in a package) because my nails are small and I can cut them in half and use the excess on my nails on my opposite hand.  You cannot save extra strips because they dry out and are then useless.  So, if your nails are small enough, you can get two manicures out of one package!  

So, anyway, I applied these to my bare nails and then finished them off with two coats of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly.  I wrapped the tips to try to make them last longer.  ("Wrapping the tips" just means running the nail polish brush along the free edge of your nails to seal everything in.)

So, on to the Halloween part!  I decided to use two techniques that I had never used before.  I first used the dry brush technique to rough up the look of the houndstooth.  This means that I made sure that the nail polish brush had almost nothing on it before streaking it over my nails.  You can see what I mean here:

I first used Sinful Colors Snow Me White and then applied some Sinful Colors Black on Black.  After this, I taped up my fingers (as you can see above) so I wouldn't make as much of a mess on my hands.  I used the blood spatter technique (which I have been wanting to do ever since The Nailasaurus did her "Dexter" nails: http://www.thenailasaurus.com/2013/09/31DC2013-dexter-splatter-nail-art.html)

I took a regular straw and two different shades of red.  Here is my straw before and after:

I put down a paper towel to make sure I didn't get paint anywhere and then took my first red polish (Rimmel Burgundy Flirt) and used the brush from it to paint a glob onto the end of half of a straw.  I then would position the straw a few inches above my nail and blow out hard.  It was quite difficult and I figured out why.  That polish was rather thick.  The thicker the polish, the harder it is to do this.   I ended up sticking the actual straw into the bottle of polish to make sure I got a lot in it.  I managed to get some spatters on my nails with this polish, but I then used another red (Essie Wicked--a very dark red) and the other section of my straw to add to the spatters.

This polish was thinner, so was much easier to blow.  I just used the nail polish brush to apply some polish to the end.  If you try this and are having a hard time, it could be because of the thickness of your polish.  

If I were to do this again, I would not have added any extra black on my base.  the black makes it harder to see the red.  Also, I would prefer to do it over a white base.  I want to try that some time.  White would make the red really stand out.  I removed the tape on my fingers and used acetone and Q-tips and a nail art brush to clean up everything.  Cleanup took a while.  I then applied two coats of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly.

 So, without further ado, here is my finished product:

Happy Halloween!

Cotton Candy Gradient

Whoa.  I cannot believe I haven't posted in almost a month.  School's been busy.  Tonight I, maybe, could be studying a bit more, but I was suddenly overwhelmed with the overwhelming desire to blog.  So, you see what won.  I haven't done much nail art recently.  This art is from weeks ago.  I am looking forward to trying out one thing for Halloween, though.  I'll need to get on that soon!  Anyway, here's what I came up with a while ago:

I started out with a coat of Essie Protein Base Coat.  I then painted on two coats of Sinful Colors Snow Me White.  After that, I painted on a coat of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly to avoid pulling up my base color with my sponge.  

When that was all dry, I took a makeup sponge and painted on a stripe of three different colors.  I made sure they all overlapped a bit to help the color transition to be smooth.  The purple is Rimmel Wild Orchid; the blue is Essie Blue Rhapsody; and the pink is Sally Hansen Pink Blink.  I stippled the color over my nails with the makeup sponge until the color was as opaque as I wanted it.  I flipped the sponge over so that the order of the colors alternated on my nails.  On my pointer and ring fingers I wanted the purple to be at my cuticles, and I wanted the pink to be at my cuticles on my other three nails.

 I then applied two coats of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly.  It's super fun to do gradients because the thin layer of polish dries really fast and a top coat will only help the colors to blend in more.  You don't really need to wait to apply the top coat!

This rounded nail shape has been working out for me so well!  I can grow my nails longer and I don't have any more sharp corners that catch clothing and/or break off!  My manicures last for so long because no part of my nails bend!  They're way stronger like this!  The corners of my nails used to always bend and then the polish would chip off.  Also, my actual nails have not been flaking!  Certain nail shapes work better on different people.  Experiment until you find out what's best for you!

I will try to post more often.  I really do enjoy blogging.  The wisest thing I have read on a blog is that you should not blog when you don't feel like it.  A blog is supposed to be fun, and if I don't feel like writing a post, the post will not be of high quality.  It can't be forced.  So, anyway, I haven't forgotten about the blog and I hope to do some more manicures!  I am super excited to do a Halloween manicure!  I hope you have all been doing well!  

Remember to check me out on Pinterest and Facebook!  I am on Pinterest all the time!  My Facebook and Pinterest are linked on the right side of my blog!