Inspired By Socks

I was babysitting last week and I suddenly saw inspiration for nail art on one of the children's (a two year old boy) socks. They were gray on the bottom with two bright blue Vs across them. I wrote down my idea so I wouldn't forget it and created a manicure the same day!

I actually started out by cutting forty small strips of striping tape so I wouldn't need to cut it when my nails were tacky. I then applied one coat of Essie Protein Base Coat. After that, I painted on two coats of Covergirl Out of the Blue and then a coat of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly. Then I placed my tape. I applied it to each nail right before painting on the next color instead of applying all the tape and then doing all the painting and tape removal. I wanted the double Vs to go in a different direction on all of my nails to add in some variety. The color I painted over top was Sinful Colors Cool Gray. I immediately removed the tape after painting each nail. I finished off with two coats of Dries Instantly. I am sorry I haven't posted much. When I am busy and the thought of posting stresses me out, I opt out of blogging. I always do a better job if I am in the mood to do it. The best advice I have ever heard from a blogger is to do the blog for yourself. Do not do it for everyone else, or the quality of the blog will not be good and blogging will become a chore instead of a hobby. I will be going away for a few days, but I will be back after that! I hope you are all enjoying summer (or winter if you live on the other side of the world!)

Music Video

I was a bit bored one day, so I decided to watch a music video on Youtube. I watched Katy Perry's "Dark Horse" video, which is quite bizarre, as are most music videos. Then I saw this:

I paused the video and stared at these nails for a bit. I loved them! So, I decided I had to recreate them!

I started out with two coats of Essie Protein Base Coat. I have been having issues with peeling nails, and I finally pinned down that I think I have only been having them as long as I have been using Sally Hansen Double Duty. Don't hold me to that because I may be wrong, but I am experimenting. I had hated Essie Protein Base Coat last time I used it because it had been hard to apply polishes over it. They streaked a lot. This time, though, that did not happen at all. I have no clue why. Now I am reevaluating it. It worked really well this time. I don't know what happened the other few times I used it. So, anyway, after the base coat, I applied two coats of Sally Hansen Golden-I. When that was dry I painted on a coat of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly because I had been planning on using tape as guides to make the blue triangles. I ended up freehanding the blue (Covergirl Out of the Blue), though. I used the brush from the bottle to apply it. I got some on the sides of my fingers around my nails, but a nail art brush dipped in acetone corrected that problem. If I messed up with the blue on my actual nail, I would take a brush dipped in acetone and gently brush it on the nail to remove the blue and NOT the gold with it. That works really well, especially if you have many layers of polish under the color you want to remove. Just don't go over the same spot too many times, because that will start to remove the base color too. If that happens, as it did to me on my right hand, just take some of your base color and dab it on the bare patch. The top coat will smooth everything out at the end. I finished off with two coats of Dries Instantly.

Negative Space Star Trek

So, once again, I have let my inner Trekkie out.  I have been wanting to do another Star Trek manicure and have been meaning to try negative space nails.  So, I decided to combine these two ideas.

I started out with a base coat of Sally Hansen Double Duty.  Then I painted two coats of each color on my nails.  On my ring fingers and thumbs I used Sally Hansen Black Out; on my pointers, Covergirl Out of the Blue; my middle fingers, Rimmel Stiletto Red; and Avon Sunshine on my pinkies. 

Once that was dry, I took a small, flat nail art brush and dipped it in acetone and dabbed and stroked off the black polish to create the Star Trek insignia.  (That is what a negative space design is.  Part of your nail will not have color on it.)  This took a while because I had to go over the same spots over and over, but it wasn't as hard as I thought it would be.  I don't know how well nail polish remover works for this.  Acetone works wonderfully.  I had to repeatedly dip my brush in acetone and wipe it off on a paper towel every few strokes to avoid the build up of too much black polish on it.  I created the insignia the same way I would have drawn it with polish.  I made an upside down "V" shape and then drew a diagonal line from the left side to the middle of the right side and then dabbed off the center.

  

When all that was done, I took some hexagonal, holographic gold glitter (I got a set of 12 colors from Amazon for $7.  The pieces are a little less than one millimeter in diameter.) and applied a line of it around two thirds down each colored nail.  I used Sally Hansen Double Duty to do this because it doesn't dry as fast as a fast drying top coat, allowing you more time to place the glitter.  I applied the dots of Double Duty and picked up the glitter with a small dotting tool.  I also applied a piece of glitter in the center of each insignia.  The lines of glitter remind me of Kirk's uniform in the Original Series.  He has a stripe of gold at his cuffs.  

To finish off the manicure, I applied two coats of Seche Vite.  I am really not happy with this top coat.  It dries super fast and is really shiny, but it does shrink my manicures and the second day I had this manicure, it chipped a little.  Dries Instantly doesn't chip for days!  (I have run out, though.)  Lots of girls say this is a great top coat, so maybe I really do have a bad bottle.  Have any of you tried it?  What do you think of it?      

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.

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."  ; )  

Studs and Stripes

I finally got around to painting my nails again.  College starts for me in a few days so I probably won't have as much time to do my nails then, but I will try to do at least one manicure a week...maybe.  Haha!  Today I felt like using a matte top coat.  Matte polish always reminds me of wax when it is dry:

I haven't been able to get good pictures inside my house, so, again, I went outside to take the pictures.  Luckily, it's been sunny.

I used Rimmel 60 Seconds in Caramel Cupcake as my base color and then applied a coat of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly to make sure that the base was totally set before I applied striping tape, that I purchased from Amazon, to my nails.  After I applied my striping tape and painted over top with Covergirl Out of the Blue, I immediately removed the tape using tweezers.  That left me with a tan stripe across each nail.  I then applied some silver 1.5 mm studs (from Born Pretty Store) using dots of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly as my "glue."  After everything was dry I applied a thick coat of Dries Instantly and then a coat of NYC Matte Me Crazy.  

Five Shades of Blue

Hi!  Work has been busy for me for this past week, but I finally got around to painting my nails again.  I had seen many pictures of this nail art style on the internet and I finally painted it on my own nails.  I used a bunch of my blue polishes and painted a different shade of blue on each nail:

In the top photo I used my camera flash.  The second photo was taken under my fluorescent desk lamp.
On my thumb I used Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure in Thinking of Blue; on my index finger I used Avon Mega Watt in Shock; on my middle finger I used Rimmel London 60 Seconds in Blue Eyed Girl; on my ring finger I used Covergirl Outlast Stay Brilliant in Out of the Blue; lastly, on my pinky I used Essie in Borrowed & Blue.  The 2 mm silver studs are from Born Pretty Store and I used two coats of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly as my top coat.

I can't wait to use different shades of pink to do this style!