Bright Tricolor

Hey, guys!  Happy 2015!  

I started out with a coat of Essie Protein Base Coat.  I then got out my striping tape.  I used 40 pieces of tape in all to create this manicure.  Here is what I did:

I applied a piece of tape about a third down my nail from my cuticle.  I then took Confetti Cherries Jubilee and painted it onto that 1/3 of my nail.  It got onto my cuticles since I was working in such a small space, but I cleaned everything up at the end with a nail art brush dipped into acetone.  Don't be afraid to get a little messy!  You can clean it up!

I immediately removed the tape after applying the color.  I was left with a third of my nails painted.  I made sure to apply all my colors thickly so that I could get them opaque with one coat. 

I applied Sally Hansen Dries Instantly over my 1/3 painted nails.  I then applied two pieces of striping tape to each nail.  I applied one so it just covored the edge of the pink paint so that when I applied the next color you would not see any bare nail between them.  The other piece of tape I applied two thirds down from the cuticle.  I then filled in that middle section with Revlon Vintage Rose. 

Again, I removed the tape right away and waited for the polish to dry.  I then applied another coat of Dries Instantly to protect my progress from being lifted up by the next tape.

I then applied a piece of tape to each nail covering the edge of the rose polish and painted the tips with Essie No More Film, a very dark purple (I love this polish.)  I, again, removed the tape right away.

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

I have a substantial collection of nail polish that I have acquired over the years and I would love to do swatches so I can show you guys nice colors.  I do not buy expensive polishes.  The most expensive I buy is Essie, and I try to only buy ones that are on sale.  So, I am thinking I could occasionally throw in a swatch instead of nail art and maybe you guys would see a color you'd like to buy.  I customize my white balance on my camera to attempt to get a very accurate depiction of my colors.  I buy most of my polish from Walmart.  Buying online can be good too!  How do you guys feel about that?  Would you be interested?

Homemade Valentines

Happy Valentine's Day!  I got over two feet of snow yesterday and last night and I am currently having my second snow day in a row!  My nails came out a little less neat than I expected, but the effect totally reminded me of paper Valentine hearts made by kids!

Before I painted anything on my nails, I took ten squares of masking tape, pressed them on the back of my hand to take off some of the stickiness, folded them in half, cut out a half heart shape, and then unfolded them.  This created a heart shaped hole in the centers that I used as my heart stencils.  This was a lot harder to do than I expected.  Later I realized that it may have been easier if I had folded the tape with the sticky side out.  Haha!  Oh well.  Here is roughly what each piece of tape looked like:

For my manicure, I started out with one coat of Sally Hansen Double Duty, which I was happy with for my last manicure.  (That manicure lasted for five days without chips!!)  Then I painted on two coats of Sally Hansen Coral Reef as my base color.  After that was all dry, I applied a coat of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly so the tape wouldn't pull up my base color.  When that was dry, I applied the heart stencils.  I painted over them with Confetti Cherries Jubilee on my pinky and middle fingers and thumbs.  On my ring and pointer fingers, I painted the heart with Nicole Glitter in my Stocking.  The glitter hearts worked well, but the thinner polish leaked under the tape, even when I thought it was pressed down nicely.  I cleaned up the edges of the reddish hearts by lightly sweeping them with a nail art brush in acetone.  Doing this works because the acetone cannot take off all the other layers of polish underneath because you are not sweeping with force and going over the spots repeatedly.  I actually sort of like the rougher effect since it looks like homemade Valentine's Day cards!  I finished off the manicure with two coats of Dries Instantly.