"Supernatural" Nails!

I am really excited about how most of this manicure turned out!  I thought it would look much worse, so this was a pleasant surprise.  So, in my last post I mentioned that I am loving the show "Supernatural" and that I wanted to do a "Supernatural" inspired manicure.  Well, here it is:

"Supernatural" inspired designs

I started out with a coat of Essie Protein Base Coat and then painted two coats of Sinful Colors Snow Me White on all my nails except for my ring fingernail, which I painted with two coats of Sinful Colors Black on Black.  (On my right hand I painted the white on all my nails.)

This was fun nail art to do because there were so many details that, when I waited for one thing to dry, I could work on something else.  I was never waiting around!  The first thing I did was make the blood spatters on my pointer and pinky on my left hand and on all five nails on my right hand.  I took a straw and would dab polish right from my bottle's brush onto the end and then blow through it with it positioned a couple inches above my nail.  I went over some nails a few times until I got the effect I wanted.  I bought a new blood-red polish that was thin enough to blow on to my nails.  I got Revlon Forbidden.

right thumb nail blood spatters

After I had done that and done a bit of cleanup, I painted a large silver (Sally Hansen Celeb City) circle with a small, flat nail art brush onto my ring fingernail.  I had meant to make the outside ring gold, but I forgot.  So, after the silver ring was dry, I took a large dotting tool dipped in Sally Hansen Golden-I and filled in the edges in with gold and left the center silver.  I then took a small nail art bush and some black acrylic paint and painted the small circle around the silver part and put a small dot in the center of the silver circle.  This is supposed to be the base of a bullet casing.  When the gold was dry, I took a toothpick dipped in the acrylic paint and stippled on the words "45 COLT" on the gold part of the circle.  

"The Colt" bullet casing base

I finally got around to buying some acrylic paint and I DO NOT regret it!  I got mine for $.50 each from Walmart!  (The brand is Apple Barrel.)  Lots of nail art people have said that it is so much easier to work with than nail polish and they are 100% correct!  It is easier to use because it isn't as sticky, so it glides on easily;  it washes off with water, so if you mess up you can wipe it right off and start again; it is very opaque; and it dries really fast.  I would definitely recommend anybody getting it for details and such!

I painted on the "Supernatural" star symbol on my middle finger with a small nail art brush.  I used black acrylic paint to do this.  I messed it up a bit.  I am not that happy with the final look of it either, but I was able to clean up the edges of it and add the white spaces inside the star with some white acrylic paint.  

"Supernatural" insignia

The last bit of nail art I did was the license plate on my thumb.  I first painted some yellow and blue (yellow--Sinful Colors Unicorn; blue--Revlon Dreamer) over the white base to create something that somewhat resembles the background of Dean's Kansas license plate.  When that was mostly dry I added a coat of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly to make a smooth, dry base for the rest of the art.  I then used a flat nail art brush dipped in my black acrylic paint to make the border of the license plate.  Then I took a toothpick dipped in the same acrylic paint to write on "Kansas" and the license plate number (KAZ 2Y5.)  

Dean's Kansas license plate

I finished off everything with two coats of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly.

Guys, the best thing you can do with nail art is not be afraid to experiment and mess up a little!  It is okay to make a mess!  And I have discovered that you can usually save a ruined bit of art in one way or another.  I never take off all the art from a nail because I hate starting over.  I just salvage what is messed up.  Experiment!  And even if you are left with a messy nail, people do not notice.  The overall nail art is what people see!  Have fun with it!

Techie Nails!

I am excited about this manicure! I knew I would get back into the mode soon enough! I have been wanting to use the binary code image from one of my stamping plates since I got them a while ago!

I used so many polishes for this manicure! I started out with a base coat of Essie Protein Base Coat. I used two coats of all of my base colors. On my thumbs I painted NYC High Line Green; on my pointers I did a gradient, but my base color was Revlon Dreamer; on my middle and ring fingers I painted Sally Hansen Black Out; and on my pinkies I painted Sally Hansen Celeb City. After that, I got ready to do a gradient on my pointers by applying a coat of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly so I could avoid removing my base color with the sponge. I then got down to stamping on my other nails. On my pinkies I used Bundle Monster plate BM-422. The polish I stamped with was Sally Hansen Black Out. On my ring and middle fingers I used Bundle Monster plate BM-415. I stamped with Sally Hansen White On. On my thumbs I used plate BM415 again and used Essie Penny Talk. On those nails I then applied two coats of Dries Instantly.

For the pointers I created a gradient. I wanted it to be light in the centers and fade into darker blue at the tips and near my cuticles. So, I applied a stripe of Revlon Dreamer in the center of a makeup sponge, and then put stripes of Sinful Colors Rain Storm on either side of that line, and then put stripes of Sally Hansen Thinking of Blue on either sides of those lines. I then used a stippling motion to apply it to my pointer nails. When that was dry, I used Essie Borrowed & Blue and the same image I used on my pinkies (from BM-422). I finished those nails off with two coats of Dries Instantly, as well.

Three Musketeers

My sister, my best friend, and I have always joked that we are the Three Musketeers.  My sister is Porthos, I am Aramis, and my best friend is Athos.  Today I was inspired to create a Three Musketeers manicure:

I started out with a base coat of Sally Hansen Double Duty.  Then I painted two coats of Rimmel Blue Eyed Girl on my ring fingers, thumbs and pointer fingers.  On my pinkies and middle fingers, I applied two coats of Sally Hansen Hard to Get (the white.)  When that was dry, I put a coat of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly on all of my nails.
 

When all that was dry, I took a toothpick dipped in Sally Hansen Celeb City (silver) and carefully drew on the script on my pointers and ring fingers.  I had to use a stippling motion at times.  Make sure you don't push when you do this, so you don't leave gouges in your base color.  My pointer says, "tous pour un," which is French for "all for one."  My ring fingers says, "un pour tous," which means "one for all."
 

I used a striping brush dipped in the same silver polish to make the three crossed swords on my thumbs.  I then used a dotting tool to make the handles.  For the crosses, I cut thin pieces of scotch tape and crossed them on my nails and painted Rimmel Blue Eyed girl over top.  I didn't feel like writing in script on my right hand, so all four fingers on my right hand have the crosses.  These crosses are similar to the ones that would be on the Musketeers' uniforms, which were blue.  I didn't make the crosses as fancy as they would have been because I wanted it to look neat.  I finished off with two coats of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly.  All for one!  And one for all!!

Star Sequins

I FINALLY got around to doing another manicure.  I have to do a quick post because I have to go to work soon:

I started out with a base coat of Sally Hansen Double Duty.  Then I painted on two coats of Sally Hansen Celeb City (the silver) on my pointer fingers, middle fingers, and pinkies.  I applied two coats of Sinful Colors Into The Blue on my ring fingers and thumbs.  Then I stuck some holographic star sequins on my blue nails using  a dot of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly.  I put two coats of Dries Instantly on my silver nails, but three on the ones with the stars because the stars are pointy and I wanted to make them less scratchy.

Metallic Tricolor

I have been wanting to do this design for days now.  It is actually very easy and fast to do!  You won't need any tools besides the brushes already in the bottles of polish!

I started out by painting on one coat of Essie Penny Talk, one of my favorite polishes.  It is so opaque that I didn't bother doing two coats--especially because I was going to add more layers of other colors.  Once that was dry, I used Sally Hansen Celeb City (silver) to paint on the next stripe.  Instead of just striping this horizontally across my nail, I painted multiple vertical strokes from a third down my nail to the tip of my nails.  You can apply tape to get a straight line, but I didn't feel like waiting for everything to dry enough to apply tape.  So, I freehanded it.  I only needed one layer of that, too, because it is very opaque, especially if layered over another polish.  Once that was dry, I used Sally Hansen Golden-I to paint the next bottom third of my nails.  Again, I freehanded this the same way that I did the silver, just further down the nail.  I finished off the manicure with two coats of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly.
This is a super easy and pretty design!  I also love how fast it takes, since all of these polishes are fine with just one coat and you don't need any extra tools to create it.  Also, with metallics like these, nobody can even tell if you don't have perfectly straight, clean lines.  The colors sort of blend into each other because of the shimmer.  
I am super excited because I ordered a Seche Vite top coat from Amazon.com!  I can't wait to try it!  I've never used that top coat before, but have heard a lot of good things about it.   I hope everybody had a nice week!

Stamping Half Moons

I start another semester of college tomorrow, so I wanted to do a manicure before things get crazy.  ; )  I have been fairly busy lately, so that is why I haven't done a post since my slipper pattern nails.  I did do my nails once, but they didn't come out well, so I decided not to post them.  So, I have been wanting to do this manicure for a while and I finally got around to it:

I started out with two coats of Sally Hansen Celeb City, which is a really great, inexpensive, sparkly silver polish.  I then applied a coat of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly so that the hole reinforcers wouldn't pull up my base color.  Once that was dry, I cut some hole reinforcers in half and applied them where I wanted my half moons.  I then stamped on a pattern from Bundle Monster's plate BM 404.  My stamping color was Sally Hansen Black Out.  The stamping didn't come out as well as I had hoped (I have not been having much success with stamping lately, for some reason), so I wanted something else to make the half moons stand out better.  I decided to use a small nail art brush to freehand on the green stripes.  The green polish is an L.A. Colors polish.  I finished off the manicure with a coat of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly.  

I have been lacking ideas for manicures lately!  I have been wanting to do pretty, dainty manicures, but I can not think of any to do!  Any time you guys have any ideas, comments, questions, or suggestions, feel free to leave a response in the comments box!  Anyone can leave a comment because you can comment under "anonymous" if you want to!