Dotted Design

Sorry I haven't posted for a while!  School has been busy.  At least the wait allowed my new base and top coats to come in the mail!  My top coat just arrived today...just in time for this new manicure!

I started out with one coat of Essie Protein base coat.  I don't usually apply base coats, but that is because I did not have one until yesterday!  Haha!  Also, my nails are getting a bit stained, so I will apply a base coat when I have time.

After the base coat was dry, I applied two coats of Revlon Impulsive.  This polish looks awful after the first coat, so you definitely need at least two coats.  Two coats looks okay, but three would probably be better.  I don't usually have time to put on three coats of a polish , though.  Once all that was dry, I used a dotting tool to dot on white dots (I used Sally Hansen Hard To Get).  The way I kept these "S" shapes about even was by first putting a dot in the center of my nail and then dotting a curve going one way and then one going the opposite way, if that makes sense.  When the white was dry, I dotted on L'Oreal Now You Sea Me over top of the white dots.

Today I used a Seche Vite top coat for my first time!  I have seen so many nail art girls using it and I finally ordered some through Amazon.  I am very happy with it!  It dried about as fast as Sally Hansen Dries Instantly dries.  I think it is shinier than Dries Instantly, though.  I only applied one coat of Seche Vite and it looks great!

The weather is very dry, which always takes a toll on my cuticles.  They are suitably pushed back, but some are peeling around the sides of my nails.  Burt's Bees Lemon Butter Cuticle Cream works wonders, though.  I use it every night.

Metallic Tricolor

I have been wanting to do this design for days now.  It is actually very easy and fast to do!  You won't need any tools besides the brushes already in the bottles of polish!

I started out by painting on one coat of Essie Penny Talk, one of my favorite polishes.  It is so opaque that I didn't bother doing two coats--especially because I was going to add more layers of other colors.  Once that was dry, I used Sally Hansen Celeb City (silver) to paint on the next stripe.  Instead of just striping this horizontally across my nail, I painted multiple vertical strokes from a third down my nail to the tip of my nails.  You can apply tape to get a straight line, but I didn't feel like waiting for everything to dry enough to apply tape.  So, I freehanded it.  I only needed one layer of that, too, because it is very opaque, especially if layered over another polish.  Once that was dry, I used Sally Hansen Golden-I to paint the next bottom third of my nails.  Again, I freehanded this the same way that I did the silver, just further down the nail.  I finished off the manicure with two coats of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly.
This is a super easy and pretty design!  I also love how fast it takes, since all of these polishes are fine with just one coat and you don't need any extra tools to create it.  Also, with metallics like these, nobody can even tell if you don't have perfectly straight, clean lines.  The colors sort of blend into each other because of the shimmer.  
I am super excited because I ordered a Seche Vite top coat from Amazon.com!  I can't wait to try it!  I've never used that top coat before, but have heard a lot of good things about it.   I hope everybody had a nice week!

Stamping Half Moons

I start another semester of college tomorrow, so I wanted to do a manicure before things get crazy.  ; )  I have been fairly busy lately, so that is why I haven't done a post since my slipper pattern nails.  I did do my nails once, but they didn't come out well, so I decided not to post them.  So, I have been wanting to do this manicure for a while and I finally got around to it:

I started out with two coats of Sally Hansen Celeb City, which is a really great, inexpensive, sparkly silver polish.  I then applied a coat of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly so that the hole reinforcers wouldn't pull up my base color.  Once that was dry, I cut some hole reinforcers in half and applied them where I wanted my half moons.  I then stamped on a pattern from Bundle Monster's plate BM 404.  My stamping color was Sally Hansen Black Out.  The stamping didn't come out as well as I had hoped (I have not been having much success with stamping lately, for some reason), so I wanted something else to make the half moons stand out better.  I decided to use a small nail art brush to freehand on the green stripes.  The green polish is an L.A. Colors polish.  I finished off the manicure with a coat of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly.  

I have been lacking ideas for manicures lately!  I have been wanting to do pretty, dainty manicures, but I can not think of any to do!  Any time you guys have any ideas, comments, questions, or suggestions, feel free to leave a response in the comments box!  Anyone can leave a comment because you can comment under "anonymous" if you want to!     

Slipper Pattern Nails

I got new slippers last week and I immediately thought of turning their pattern into nail art:

I started out with two coats of Pure Ice Scandal.  Then I stuck on some 2 mm pink studs from Born Pretty Store using Sally Hansen Dries Instantly.  I only put them on my ring fingers and thumbs because I like to add some 3-D on those nails.  After that, I used a dotting tool to make white dots where I wanted to dot on color after.  (That makes the color really stand out against a dark background.)  The white I used is Sally Hansen Hard To Get.  When that was dry I used different colors to go over the white dots.  The red is Rimmel Burgundy Flirt, the green in NYC High Line Green, the orange is NYC Spring Street, the pink is an L.A. Colors polish, and the blue is Avon Shock.  After that was all done, I put on a coat of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly and then a coat of NYC Matte Me Crazy.  I wanted a matte finish so the effect was more similar to how the slippers look.

Glitter French Tips

I meant to do this design around Christmas, but never got around to it, so I decided to do it the other day.  I hadn't done french tips in so long!

I started out with two coats of Sally Hansen Innocent Nude.  Then I put on a coat of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly because I used tape to create clean tips.  (The fast drying top coat keeps your base color from lifting up with the tape).

I cut slightly curved pieces of masking tape for my tip guides.  You can buy stickers made for creating french tips, but I don't have any.  You can substitute them by cutting straight strips of tape, or slightly curved strips.  You can also freehand the french tip, but that can be tricky on short nails, like mine.  Here is what the tape I used looked like before I put it on:

It is good to stick tape like this to the back of your hand first to take off a teeny bit of the stickiness.  I applied the tape a little from the tips of my nails and then painted the tips sticking out farther than the tape with Nicole Glitter in My Stocking.  I then quickly removed the tape.  My top coat is old, so it didn't dry as fast as I intended and the tape left imprints in it when I took it off, but my final top coats (two coats of Dries Instantly) totally hid that.  On a few of my nails I accidentally got a little bit of polish under the tape, so the edge was not straight.  I covered this up by adding a stripe of silver to all of my nails, just above the gold.  I used a Salon Perfect striper in Silver Plated.  There are always ways to hide your mistakes!  I never have much patience for removing the polish on an entire nail and starting over.  Haha!

Vintage Lace

I started out with two coats of Milani Rapid Orchid, which is actually a very dark reddish-purple, though it even looks almost black in person.  When that was dry, I stamped on a lace pattern that I found on Bundle Monster's Plate BM323.  I used Sally Hansen White On as my stamping color.  I finished off the manicure with two coats of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly.

So, the story behind my "vintage lace" is simply that the lace did not come out like I hoped it would.  I wanted it to look crisp and clean, but, for some reason, I was just having a hard time with stamping.  So, I am using my imagination and pretending that the lace is supposed to be old, tattered lace.  Haha!  If I think of it that way, I don't think the manicure looks messed up!

I did use my new Konad stamper, but it was definitely not the new stamper that made my stamping not come out so well.  My conclusion is that the generic stamper that I had always used is just as good as the Konad one that I bought.

Horizontal Stripes

I felt like using striping tape the other day, so I created very stripey nails.  This was fun to do, but it did take a long time because of all the coats of polish I needed and because I had to cut 50 pieces of striping tape, put all that on, and take it all off.  So, without further ado, here is the final product:

 I started out with two coats of Avon Sunshine (the yellow.)  I then applied a coat of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly (to prevent the tape from ripping up my base color) and, when that was dry, put on striping tape where I wanted the yellow to show.  Then I painted on a coat of Covergirl Out of the Blue.  I immediately removed the striping tape with tweezers.  There were a couple spots where my tape was not pushed down enough and some of the blue got onto the yellow lines.  To fix that, I used a dotting tool dipped in the yellow to cover up the mistakes.  Nobody will be able to notice if you do that.  I finished off the manicure with two coats of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly.

I made a Youtube channel and a Facebook page for Ten Digit Design.  I have only uploaded one video on Youtube and it is not that good, but it is a small tutorial on how to stamp your nails.  My channel is just called TenDigitDesign and I have a link to it on the upper right hand corner of this blog.  My Facebook page is linked there too, if you are interested.

Also, I got a new stamper!  It is a real Konad one.  I will stamp my nails in a few days and then tell you how that stamper compares to the Salon Express one I have always used.

Pearl Necklaces

A couple weeks ago while I was at church I noticed a couple elderly ladies sitting together.  They both had on bright sweaters and long necklaces.  That made me think of nail art that I could do:

On my ring fingers and thumbs I used two coats of Rimmel Mintilicious.  On my other nails I used two coats of Sally Hansen Coral Reef.  When that was dry, I used a dotting tool dipped in Sally Hansen Hard To Get to make the necklaces on my coral nails.  Then I used a dotting tool dipped in Sally Hansen Dries Instantly to dot on spots to stick the 1.5 mm half pearls on my ring fingers and thumbs to add more texture to the manicure.  I like to add a 3-D touch to a mainly 2-D manicure to make it look more interesting.  

The way I pick up the pearls (or studs) is by dipping a dotting tool in top coat to make it sticky and then I just touch the pearls with it to pick them up.  

When the manicure was done, I put two coats of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly on top of everything.