Houndstooth Halloween

So, as promised, here is my Halloween post!  I actually did a manicure four days ago and then decided to add to it.  Here's what I applied four days ago:

These are Sally Hansen Salon Effects Real Nail Polish Strips.  The pattern is "Check It Out," which is just a houndstooth pattern.  The strips have held up super well over the past few days.  The trick with these is to make absolutely certain that you do not put them too close to your cuticles and that you run the smooth side of the nail file thing that comes with them all over the surface of the strips to make sure they are secured to your nails.  If bits near your cuticles are sticking up, they will continue to stick up more when they dry.  Then they will start flaking off.  

This time I was super careful and they have not been peeling up!  I actually only used one set (instead of both sets that come in a package) because my nails are small and I can cut them in half and use the excess on my nails on my opposite hand.  You cannot save extra strips because they dry out and are then useless.  So, if your nails are small enough, you can get two manicures out of one package!  

So, anyway, I applied these to my bare nails and then finished them off with two coats of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly.  I wrapped the tips to try to make them last longer.  ("Wrapping the tips" just means running the nail polish brush along the free edge of your nails to seal everything in.)

So, on to the Halloween part!  I decided to use two techniques that I had never used before.  I first used the dry brush technique to rough up the look of the houndstooth.  This means that I made sure that the nail polish brush had almost nothing on it before streaking it over my nails.  You can see what I mean here:

I first used Sinful Colors Snow Me White and then applied some Sinful Colors Black on Black.  After this, I taped up my fingers (as you can see above) so I wouldn't make as much of a mess on my hands.  I used the blood spatter technique (which I have been wanting to do ever since The Nailasaurus did her "Dexter" nails: http://www.thenailasaurus.com/2013/09/31DC2013-dexter-splatter-nail-art.html)

I took a regular straw and two different shades of red.  Here is my straw before and after:

I put down a paper towel to make sure I didn't get paint anywhere and then took my first red polish (Rimmel Burgundy Flirt) and used the brush from it to paint a glob onto the end of half of a straw.  I then would position the straw a few inches above my nail and blow out hard.  It was quite difficult and I figured out why.  That polish was rather thick.  The thicker the polish, the harder it is to do this.   I ended up sticking the actual straw into the bottle of polish to make sure I got a lot in it.  I managed to get some spatters on my nails with this polish, but I then used another red (Essie Wicked--a very dark red) and the other section of my straw to add to the spatters.

This polish was thinner, so was much easier to blow.  I just used the nail polish brush to apply some polish to the end.  If you try this and are having a hard time, it could be because of the thickness of your polish.  

If I were to do this again, I would not have added any extra black on my base.  the black makes it harder to see the red.  Also, I would prefer to do it over a white base.  I want to try that some time.  White would make the red really stand out.  I removed the tape on my fingers and used acetone and Q-tips and a nail art brush to clean up everything.  Cleanup took a while.  I then applied two coats of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly.

 So, without further ado, here is my finished product:

Happy Halloween!

Burgundy French Tips

So, another week has gone by.  I was inspired to do this manicure a while ago when I was looking in a Nordstrom catalog.  I wasn't interested in any of the items being advertised, but one model had dark red french tips and I thought they looked AMAZING!  So, I finally got around to recreating that manicure:

I started out with a coat of Essie Protein Base Coat.  I then painted on one coat of Sally Hansen Innocent Nude, which is a sheer peach-ish color.  When that had dried I painted on a coat of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly so my tape wouldn't pull up my base color.  I took ten french tip guides and stuck them on the back of my hand so they wouldn't be too sticky on my nails (this is pretty important because it is SUPER frustrating when a sticker is too sticky and gets completely stuck to your polish and then ruins the entire painted nail when you pull it up.)

I then applied those to my nails near the tips.  I made sure that I applied them so that entire tip of each nail would be painted red.  I then painted on a coat of Rimmel Burgundy Flirt (which I LOVE-- it is the perfect blood red) and then immediately removed the french tip guides from each nail.  I finished off the manicure with two coats of Dries Instantly.

I love this manicure because it looks super classy and elegant and clean.  This actually lasted for a week on my nails before I took it off!

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! =)

Candy Canes

Again, sorry that I haven't posted in a while.  I have just been so busy!  I only have one more week of school to go before this semester is over.  I cannot wait!

I used two coats of Sally Hansen Hard To Get (the white polish) as my base color for all my nails.  Then, on my pointer, middle, and pinkie, I applied a coat of Sally Hansen Diamonds.  You can't really see it in the pictures, but it is a very fine, sort of iridescent glitter.  It is so pretty and reminds me of sparkling snow.  When that was still wet I applied red and green rhinestones near my cuticles and then used two coats of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly to finish them off.  

For my thumb and ring finger, I put on a coat of Dries Instantly and then, when that was dry, put on some tape.  The thick stripes were achieved with pieces of scotch tape and, for the thin stripes, I used striping tape.  I painted on Rimmel Burgundy Flirt and then immediately removed all the tape with tweezers.  A bit of red paint got under some of my tape, but I used a small nail art brush dipped in white to fix it.  I then applied two coats of Dries Instantly.  I am very happy with how these came out!

Half Moons Again

I really like half moon manicures!  I love how they are actually vintage, too.

My base color is Sally Hansen Golden-I.  After painting on two coats of that, I applied a coat of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly and then, once that was dry, applied half a hole reinforcer to each of my nails.  I made sure each was pressed down tightly before painting on my red, which is Rimmel Burgundy Flirt, one of my favorite reds.  As soon as I painted the red on each nail, I used tweezers to remove the hole reinforcer.  I applied two coats of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly to protect the manicure.  

I really love this look!  Under light you can see the sparkles from the gold through the red polish.  The pictures don't do the color justice.  The red is really a perfect blood red color.  I think this is a great Christmas look.  It is very classy and elegant.   

Oh!  I changed the settings of my blog so that anybody can leave a comment.  If you do not have a Gmail account or anything like that, you can leave a comment under "anonymous."  I am still learning how to use Blogger, so bear with me.  =)