Checkers and Microbeads

Hi!  It's been so long since I have blogged!  Since I blogged last I have graduated with an associate's degree in childhood education.  I have been really busy with stuff.  I finally got around to doing my nails yesterday!  I am happy with how they turned out!  

Before I go in to the manicure, I just want to show you a couple cool things!  I got a great pair of tweezers from Amazon that are great for manicures!  I also got microbeads, tiny metallic balls that can be used for caviar nails and other nail looks:

Okay, on to the manicure!

I started out with a coat of OPI Natural Nail Base Coat.  (This base coat is GREAT!  It keeps staining to a minimum.  This is definitely the best base coat I have ever tried!)  I then started cutting pieces of striping tape.  I used 62 pieces in all.  

I then applied two coats of Essie Oui Madame and then a coat of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly to avoid the tape pulling up my base color.  I then began applying the striping tape.  I used my curved tweezers to do that.  It is best to not touch your nails when you are doing them as the oil from your skin can shorten the life of your mani.  I made sure I remembered the order in which I applied the striping tape.  I applied the horizontal stripes first, so when I removed the tape I made sure I removed the vertical tape first.  You remove striping tape in the opposite order from how you applied it

So, anyway, I applied all the tape and then painted over top of it.  I used Milani Sail Away.  I immediately removed the tape with tweezers after painting each nail.  I then took gold microbeads and applied them at the intersections of the criss-crosses on my thumbs and ring fingers.  I used clear nail polish and a dotting tool to do this.  

I finished off with two coats of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly.  The top coat made the color on the microbeads bleed off a bit, as you can probably notice.  The microbeads feel quite scratchy!  

Zigzag and Dots

A couple nights ago I was watching TV when a nail art idea suddenly came to me.  The idea turned into this:

Before I even started painting my nails, I took scotch tape and cut strips of it down the middle with a pair of zigzag scissors.
Then I applied two coats of Rimmel Caramel Cupcake to my nails.  (No, I did not apply a base coat.
Mostly because I didn't feel like spending even more time waiting for stuff to dry and also because this nude color doesn't stain.)  When that was dry, I applied a coat of Seche Vite so the tape wouldn't lift up my base color.  I then applied the tape where I wanted the tan to stay.
I used Milani Sail Away as my second color and I removed each piece of tape immediately after painting on the blue.  The Seche Vite was GREAT for taping over!  The base color did not lift up anywhere!  This top coat is living up to my expectations!
After all the taping, painting, and removing tape, I took a dotting tool and put a dot of the opposite color paint in between zigzags, if that makes any sense (look at the pictures and you'll get it.)  I love this because it looks like the two halves are stuck together like puzzle pieces!  I didn't need to dot on any white because the polishes I used are very opaque.
When everything was dry, I painted on two coats of Seche Vite.

Stamping Again!

Hi!  Today I had a great time stamping my nails!  The colors that I used worked super well and the images came out very clear:

I used Sally Hansen White On as my base color, the blue that I stamped with is Milani Sail Away and the copper is Essie Penny Talk.  The plates that I used were Bundle Monster BM-314, BM-315, and BM-319.  In the pictures I do not have a top coat on yet because I wanted to let the polish dry for a while longer.  I used Sally Hansen Dries Instantly after, though.

I am very happy with how the images came out.  I would highly recommend these polishes for stamping with.  I really like paisley and I decided to do multicolored paisley.  If I had not accidentally overlapped the copper on the blue, it would look even better.

Stamping is loads of fun, but it takes a lot of practice.  I still haven't mastered it.  A really great blog that got me into nail stamping is The Nailasaurus.  You should check her out!  She is a pro at stamping and nail art in general!