Rainbow Gradient

For this rainbow gradient look I decided to start at orange on my thumbs and go to purple on my pinkies. I did not include red or indigo. I achieved this look by sponging. I picked out one light and one dark shade for each color on my nails. I decided not to use red because I didn't feel like having any pink.

I started out with a coat of Essie Protein Base Coat and then painted on 2-3 coats of all my pastel base colors. I started with pastel bases because I didn't want to be sponging light colors over dark colors. On my thumbs I used three coats of Essie Haute as Hello; on my pointers, three coats of Sinful Colors Unicorn; middles--two coats of NYC High Line Green; rings--two coats of Essie Borrowed & Blue; and two coats of Rimmel Wild Orchid on my pinkies. After that had all dried I applied one coat of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly so that the sponge wouldn't remove my base color. I then got to sponging. For all of the colors, I put a stripe of my base color and a stripe of my darker gradient color slightly overlapping on the sponge. I then stippled that on my nails and applied more polish to the sponge as needed. I used a couple pieces of sponge and used different sides of them for the different colors. You can get many uses out of one sponge.

Here are the darker shades I used: orange--NYC Spring Street; yellow--Avon Sunshine; green--Revlon Rain Forest (which is actually glittery, but you can't notice it that much with the glitter over top of all my nails); blue--Rimmel Blue Eyed Girl; and purple--Revlon Impulsive. I decided to put some fine, iridescent glitter over top of the gradient (Sally Hansen Diamonds). I finished off with two coats of Dries Instantly.

Hand and Nail Care

Hi guys! I have been really busy and preoccupied, so I haven't gotten a chance to do a manicure. But I am absolutely loving my natural nails and I figured, since they look really nice at the moment, I would show them to you and talk about products that I use.

My hands are very small. My fingers are also pretty stubby, so I have really been enjoying growing my nails a little, instead of cutting them super short. This makes my fingers look longer and slimmer. So, first of all, I will tell you about something that makes my natural nails look a lot nicer when I don't have polish on. A base coat. When I wasn't using one my nails got so stained and I wouldn't ever want my natural nails to be seen. The base coat that I really like is Essie Protein Base Coat:

Taking care of my cuticles is what makes me really like my nails. I am not one of those people with naturally perfect, pushed back cuticles. Mine will grow up and peel if I neglect them. The thing that made the biggest difference for me is Burt's Bees Lemon Butter Cuticle Cream. This stuff is great! I apply it on my cuticles before going to sleep and if I watch TV before bed I put on some cotton gloves and cuticle cream.

Something else that I always do is use lotion. I also apply hand lotion along with the cuticle cream before putting on cotton gloves if I am watching TV in the evening. I don't apply hand lotion much throughout the day because I use my hands so much and I don't like feeling greasy. I always apply it before going to sleep, though. My favorite brand of hand lotion is Camille Beckman. The lotions smell so nice and they are very moisturizing. I think the black tube is for men, but I love the scent! They can be hard to find, but there is a website you can buy them off of.

Something else that I have done for years to help my cuticles is to gently push them back with my bath towel after I take a shower. After you are in water for a while, your skin gets soft, making it easier to push back your cuticles. Something that has helped my cuticles even more, though, is a cuticle pusher. I got a Sally Hansen one from Walmart. I don't use the cuticle trimmer. That is to scrape that old dead cuticle off of your nail. When I tried to use it I took slivers of my actual nail off! The cuticle pusher is so good because it is gentle on your cuticle and you can use it even when your nails are painted because it is rubber and won't scratch your manicure! I'd highly recommend getting one! They are only a few dollars!

My nails have been peeling for some reason. It could be because I would use a very old diamond nail file and it wasn't the most gentle on the nails, so I got a new crystal file! I got it from Sally's Beauty Supply for only a bit more than $3. Crystal and glass files are supposed to be the best for your nails because they are gentle.

Something you can use to get rid of the peeling layers of nail is to use a nail buffer. The one I have has three sides. There are numbers on them so you can know which order to use them in. This gets rid of the peeling layers very efficiently and smooths out any ridges!

You can give your hands a treat by using a hand scrub. I made my own. I got the recipe from Cutepolish on Youtube. It is a lemon sugar hand scrub and it is so nice! You just mix 3/4 of a cup of sugar with 1/4 of a cup of extra virgin olive oil and 1 tablespoon of lemon juice. I mixed this in a separate bowl before putting it into a mason jar. You just massage it all over your hands and then rinse it off and your hands will be so soft! I made mine months ago and it is still fine.

So, these are some things I use to keep my hands looking nice. Nice hands also depend on where you live and how much you do with them. When the weather gets dry here my hands suffer. When it is humid my hands are super nice. When I used to be a cashier at a grocery store I barely ever did my nails because the manicure would be ruined right away because I was so rough on my hands. You have to figure out what works best for you! And never get worried about little imperfections. Nobody can notice that but you! If you have any questions, leave a comment!

Cartons of Berries

Yesterday I went berry picking with my parents. I picked strawberries, black raspberries, and blueberries. Seeing those bluey-green pressed paper cartons really inspired me to create some nail art! Here are some cartons if you aren't sure what I am talking about:

I got a new white polish that I have been dying to try out, so this seemed like the perfect time to use it! I painted on a coat of Essie Protein Base Coat and then two coats of Sinful Colors Snow Me White on all of my nails. This is a really great white polish! It is actually the best I've used! It wasn't streaky and it was totally opaque in two coats! I highly recommend it! I got mine at Walmart for only $1.98! Anyway, after the white, I applied two coats of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly on all my nails except the ring fingers and thumbs because I was not going to do anything else with those nails. On the other nails I applied a strip of striping tape about half way up my nails so I could achieve a very straight line at the tops of the cartons. I then painted Rimmel Mintilicious on the lower half of the nails with the tape and immediately removed the tape. These were the bases for the cartons of berries.

Once those were dry, I took my detail brush and a darker shade of the same bluey color (L'Oreal Now You Sea Me) and created the details on the cartons. I put a horizontal line near the top of the carton for the rim and I also put three tiny lines at the bottom for the vents. Then it was time to add my fruit in the cartons. I only did this on my left hand. My right hand has two empty cartons. I put black raspberries in the carton on my ring finger. To do this I took Milani Rapid Orchid and a very small dotting tool and created little clusters of dots. I think it came out pretty well!

I put strawberries in the carton on my thumb. These were trickier and didn't come out as well. They look pretty good from a distance, but you will be able to see their imperfections in the close up picture down below. To start them, I took my detail brush and Rimmel Stiletto Red and painted on some strawberry-like shapes. I made some upside down and some right side up. After the red had dried I used some Milani Rapid Orchid again and, with the detail brush, painted on lines to show the separation between strawberries. I then used the detail brush again and, using NYC High Line Green, I painted on leaves for the strawberries facing right side up. I then took a tiny dotting tool and my white polish and made tiny dots for seeds. As you can see, they came out rather big. I went over those white dots with a yellow, Avon Sunshine. I finished off the accent nails with two coats of Dries Instantly.

Fish Scales

I got a few new polishes recently, so I tried out two of them today!

I started out with a coat of Essie Protein Base Coat. I then applied two coats of Essie Borrowed & Blue to all of my nails. After that, I applied a coat of Salon Perfect Cosmic Dust on my ring fingers and pinkies. This polish is a very fine holographic glitter. I LOVE it!! It is so pretty! I got it at Walmart for $3.98. It looks amazing in the sunlight:

On my thumbs, pointers, and middles I wanted to create a bunch of crescents. My goal was to make them look somewhat like fish scales. They turned out better than I expected! I started by creating rows of large, alternating dots with a dotting tool. The polish I used is Essie Blue Rhapsody, which I picked up at T.J. Maxx yesterday for only $4.99, which is a really great price for Essie. (This polish looks like it will be great for stamping because it is very opaque like Essie Penny Talk, my best stamping polish.) After the larger dots had dried, I took a smaller dotting tool and my base polish (Essie Borrowed & Blue) and made a dot towards one side of each larger dot. This created my crescents. I wanted mine to be facing the tips of my nails, but they'd look good facing toward the cuticles, or in any other direction. I finished off with two coats of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly. This last picture shows the manicure in the sunlight, as you have probably extrapolated since you can see the grass. ; )

Summer Cabin Moonrise

Yesterday I just felt like doing my nails. I had been wanting to try making crescent moons, but after making one on my ring finger, I thought the manicure looked a bit plain. I have so many nail art brushes, but none of them are super fine, so I had decided to cut some bristles off of one to make it a really nice detail brush:

Since I had this "new" detail brush, I decided to put it to good use:

So, here's how I did this: I first applied a coat of Essie Protein Base Coat and then painted two coats of Rimmel Burgundy Flirt on all of my nails. Then I applied a coat of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly because I was going to sponge on a gradient. For my gradient I used Rimmel Burgundy Flirt and Milani Rapid Orchid. I put a stripe of each next to each other on a makeup sponge and stippled it onto my nails so that the darker color (Milani Rapid Orchid) would be toward the tips of my nails. I then took a dotting tool and made a large white dot on my ring finger. After I let that dry for a while I took the dotting tool again and put a drip of each of the red colors side by side on a piece of paper. I mixed them together a bit in the center with the dotting tool and then put a dot of the color to the right side of the white circle to create a crescent moon. I made sure the bit of the dot with more light red was toward the cuticle side of my nail so it would be able to blend in with the gradient base better.

After making the crescent moon, I thought the rest of the manicure looked too plain, so the idea of painting some silhouettes came to me. I took my small detail brush and some Sally Hansen Black Out and painted a house on my middle finger and a spruce tree on my pinkie. The black silhouettes were hard to see, so I took the same detail brush and Sally Hansen Golden-I and outlined the silhouettes. I am extremely pleased with the result. The gradient looks like a late evening summer sky. The moon has just come up and the tree and cabin are lit from behind by the dying sun. I finished off the manicure with two coats of Dries Instantly. OH! If you didn't know, I also have a Facebook page for Ten Digit Design! Just search Ten Digit Design on Facebook and it should come up! =)

"Three Cheers...

...for the red, white, and blue!" =) I am desperately trying to make my titles a little more interesting instead of complete labels! Haha! I have been planning my Independence Day manicure. Here it is!

I love manicures that don't just have the same thing on every nail! I am trying to get better at mixing it up a bit! I started out with a coat of Essie Protein Base Coat and then applied two coats of each color. On my middles and pinkies, I applied Sally Hansen Thinking of Blue; on my thumbs, pointers, and rings I applied Sally Hansen Hard to Get (a white.) When the polish was still wet, I immediately applied two holographic star sequins to both my middle fingers. I applied a coat of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly to my thumbs to get them ready to sponge, and to my pointers and rings to get them ready for striping tape. I then took some silver and light blue glitter polish and did a slight glitter gradient on my pinkies. I have never done that before, so it didn't come out great, but I am happy with it. Next, I painted stripes of red (Rimmel Stiletto Red), white, and blue on a makeup sponge and stippled that on my thumbs. I then cut twenty pieces of striping tape and applied five to both of my pointer and ring fingers. I made sure the tape was pressed down at the sides of my fingers so the red polish wouldn't go underneath the tape. I then painted on a coat of Rimmel Stiletto Red on all four of those fingers. Before painting the next finger I would remove the striping tape from the one that I just painted. To finish off the manicure, I painted two coats of Dries Instantly on all of my nails, except for my middles on which I applied three coats so the corners of the stars would not stick out as much. Happy Independence Day to the Americans!