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! =)

"Three Cheers...

...for the red, white, and blue!" =) I am desperately trying to make my titles a little more interesting instead of complete labels! Haha! I have been planning my Independence Day manicure. Here it is!

I love manicures that don't just have the same thing on every nail! I am trying to get better at mixing it up a bit! I started out with a coat of Essie Protein Base Coat and then applied two coats of each color. On my middles and pinkies, I applied Sally Hansen Thinking of Blue; on my thumbs, pointers, and rings I applied Sally Hansen Hard to Get (a white.) When the polish was still wet, I immediately applied two holographic star sequins to both my middle fingers. I applied a coat of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly to my thumbs to get them ready to sponge, and to my pointers and rings to get them ready for striping tape. I then took some silver and light blue glitter polish and did a slight glitter gradient on my pinkies. I have never done that before, so it didn't come out great, but I am happy with it. Next, I painted stripes of red (Rimmel Stiletto Red), white, and blue on a makeup sponge and stippled that on my thumbs. I then cut twenty pieces of striping tape and applied five to both of my pointer and ring fingers. I made sure the tape was pressed down at the sides of my fingers so the red polish wouldn't go underneath the tape. I then painted on a coat of Rimmel Stiletto Red on all four of those fingers. Before painting the next finger I would remove the striping tape from the one that I just painted. To finish off the manicure, I painted two coats of Dries Instantly on all of my nails, except for my middles on which I applied three coats so the corners of the stars would not stick out as much. Happy Independence Day to the Americans!

Tropical Gradient

I couldn't wait to do my nails any longer. I am also really in the mood to blog, so I couldn't even put this post off any longer (I did it yesterday)! Haha!

I started out with a coat of Essie Protein Base Coat. I then applied two coats of Sally Hansen Hard to Get, a white polish. After that was dry, I applied a coat of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly so the stippling motion of the sponge wouldn't pick up my base color. I then took a makeup sponge and painted on five different colors. I overlapped each one slightly so they would blend into each other. I had to reapply the polish to the sponge multiple times. Starting at the cuticle, the colors I used were Revlon Dreamer, Essie Borrowed & Blue, Avon Sunshine, NYC Spring Street, and Rimmel Stiletto Red.

I stippled on the color until I was happy with how vibrant it was. I then applied a coat of Sally Hansen Diamonds, a very fine, iridescent glitter, over top so I could have a subtle sparkly effect. (I LOVE this polish! It isn't even hard to get off because the glitter is so fine!) After sponging, I didn't wait very long to apply it because if it smudged the manicure, it would just blend the gradient together even more. I then took a while to clean up my fingers with a Q-tip dipped in acetone and then a nail art brush dipped in acetone to clean up closer to my nails. Then I applied two coats of Dries Instantly. I cut off the painted end of the makeup sponge with a large pair of scissors so I can get many uses out of the same sponge.

Doily Nails

I actually did this manicure months ago. I remember the day I did this I had been wanting to do something super feminine. I wanted pink, but I must have been in strange lighting, because this orangy polish looked a lot more pink than it came out:

I started out with two coats of Sally Hansen Hard to Get and then applied a coat of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly. Next, I applied half a hole reinforcement to each nail so I could achieve a half moon effect. I then painted over them with Essie Haute as Hello and immediately removed the hole reinforcements. After all that was dry, I took a dotting tool dipped in Hard to Get and made a row of dots along the edge where the two colors meet. After that was dry, I took a smaller dotting tool dipped in Haute as Hello and made a dot in the center of each white dot. I wanted a lacy effect. This manicure was not as great looking as I had hoped it would be. It was fun to do, though! I have not painted my nails for a while because my nails keep peeling a little on the tips. I don't know what is causing it, but I thought I'd experiment with letting them stay natural for a while (I don't think I can go much longer, though. Haha!) I will paint my nails again soon, hopefully!

Memorial Day Water Marbling

I wanted to do a nice, patriotic design for Memorial Day, so I decided I would try my hand at water marbling again. I have only done it once before, and not for years. I started out with a coat of Essie Protein Base Coat and then painted two coats of Sally Hansen Hard to Get (white) on all of my nails. For the nails that I didn't want to water marble, I used a dotting tool to apply some Dally Hansen Double Duty to stick my red, silver, and blue loose glitter to. I just made diagonal rows of the glitter. I will now try to explain how to water marble, but you can also watch videos on Youtube about how to do it. It is time consuming, but not too difficult: You will need a plastic (preferably disposable) cup of room temperature water. The temperature of the water affects how the polish reacts to the water. You will also need scotch tape and a toothpick. Oh! And at least two different colors of polish. I have heard that the newer and runnier the polish, the better. The polish I used today wasn't super new and thin, but I got it to work. Just don't use super old polish. I used the scotch tape to cover a lot of the tip of my finger so the clean-up process would be a lot easier. I then unscrewed all of my polishes so that I could work fast. Speed is something you will need, but still be careful. I then began holding the brushes around an inch or two above the surface of the water and dripping the polish onto the surface. It should spread out. I only put three drops on--a drop of each color (red, white, and blue.) You can do more, though. (I dripped the next color in the center of the previous spread out color.) I then quickly took my toothpick and made lines and swirls in the polish to make an interesting pattern. I am not too great at this. Then I put the nail that I wanted the marbling on face down in the spot of the pattern that I wanted to be on my nail.

I held it in there for a few seconds and then began gently blowing on the surface of the water to quickly dry the remaining polish. I left my finger in the water and then took the toothpick and swirled it in the dry polish on top of the water to pick it up and remove it from the water. I finally took my water marbled nail out of the water and carefully removed all the tape. I then used a flat nail art brush dipped in acetone to clean up the excess polish on my finger. There was barely any, since I used tape. Oh! Don't try to dry the nail off! It will air dry! I repeated this for four of my nails. (The blue is Sinful Colors Into the Blue and the red is Rimmel Stiletto Red.

I finished off this manicure by applying two coats of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly. Something that can go wrong is the polish dripping off your brush and settling in a blob at the bottom of the cup. If this happens, just adjust the distance you are holding the brush above the surface of the water. You may need to drip it higher or lower. Just experiment. I am no expert at this technique and I ended up with five blobs of polish at the bottom of my cup. Also, sometimes the polish does not spread out on the water. It sits in a small circle on top of the water. If this happens, just blow on it so it will dry and then swirl a toothpick around it to wrap it up and remove it. I may have had some of these problems because some of my polish was a little thick. I did get it to work, though. The hardest part for me is dragging in a neat design and placing my finger in the right spot. One of my nails on my right and is super boring because I misplaced my finger. (Haha! That sounds super weird!) I hope I explained this so you guys can understand, at least, some of it!

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!!

Beach Nails

Yesterday I had such a hard time figuring out what I wanted to paint.  I considered not painting my nails at all, but I wanted them to look nice, so I chose a color I had never used and went with it.  I ended up with this:

I started out with a base of Sally Hansen Double Duty.  Then I painted on two coats of an L.A. Colors polish (the sheer, sparkly, tannish color).  When that was dry I applied a coat of Seche Vite so the sponge wouldn't pick up my base color.  I took three small chunks of a makeup sponge and, with tweezers, dabbed on the color of the waves.  I made sure I dabbed off the excess polish from the sponge on a piece of paper before applying it to my nails.

First I dabbed on Sally Hansen Hard To Get (the white).  I applied it near to the top of my nails and all the way down to the tips.  I made sure not to make it perfectly even on the top because waves don't go on to a beach in a perfectly straight line.  When that was dry I dabbed on some L'Oreal Now You Sea Me a teeny bit lower down than the white.  At times I made it go completely over the white so that it didn't look perfectly straight.  I didn't bother bringing that all the way to the tips of my nails on all of my nails because I was going to go over it with a darker blue.  When the middle color was dry I took my third piece of sponge and dabbed on Essie Go Overboard.  I tried to make it a little more opaque towards the tips of my nails.

To bring the design to life a little more I painted on a star fish with Avon Blossom and a scallop shell with Revlon Impulsive.  I used a small nail art brush for both of these.  I did not like how my scallop shell came out, but I made it a teeny bit better my adding three small lines of Rimmel Wild Orchid to detail it.  I finished off with two coats of Seche Vite, which has already chipped a lot, even though I have only been wearing this design for one day.  Not impressed.  I am a little hard on my hands and I did work today (I did some cleaning at my job), but I would do those same kinds of things with Dries Instantly and that would not chip.  I actually am really happy with the finished product, though.  Having pictures of my manicures makes me feel slightly better when they get ruined.  At least I will be able to look at them when they were first done and still looking perfect.

Tricolor Gradient

Last night I was looking at my Olay Fresh Effects facial cleanser and I realized how much I liked the colors on the bottle.  So, I decided to recreate those colors on my nails by sponging on a gradient:

I started out with a base coat of Sally Hansen Double Duty.  I then applied two coats of Sally Hansen Hard To Get, a white polish (which I would not recommend, by the way.)  When that was dry, I applied one coat of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly so the sponge wouldn't pick up my base color as I stippled on the gradient.  When that was all dry, I took a triangular makeup sponge and put three lines of polish of different colors on the end.  I put a stripe of Avon Sunshine (a yellow), NYC High Line Green, and Essie Go Overboard (the teal) slightly overlapping each other on the sponge.  Then I started stippling that on to all of my nails, placing the yellow side at the base of my nails.  After every couple nails I applied more polish to the sponge.  After doing all of this, I cleaned up around my nails with a Q-tip dipped in acetone.  This was a challenge to clean up and it took a while.  To finish off the manicure, I applied two coats of Dries Instantly.

Pearl Necklaces

A couple weeks ago while I was at church I noticed a couple elderly ladies sitting together.  They both had on bright sweaters and long necklaces.  That made me think of nail art that I could do:

On my ring fingers and thumbs I used two coats of Rimmel Mintilicious.  On my other nails I used two coats of Sally Hansen Coral Reef.  When that was dry, I used a dotting tool dipped in Sally Hansen Hard To Get to make the necklaces on my coral nails.  Then I used a dotting tool dipped in Sally Hansen Dries Instantly to dot on spots to stick the 1.5 mm half pearls on my ring fingers and thumbs to add more texture to the manicure.  I like to add a 3-D touch to a mainly 2-D manicure to make it look more interesting.  

The way I pick up the pearls (or studs) is by dipping a dotting tool in top coat to make it sticky and then I just touch the pearls with it to pick them up.  

When the manicure was done, I put two coats of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly on top of everything.  

Bird Tracks in the Snow

I do not have any snow where I live right now, but I am hoping for some soon!  I love snow!  So, anyway, I also love how little bird tracks look when they are imprinted in snow.  They are just so adorable.  I decided to paint some bird tracks on my nails:

I started out with two coats of Sally Hansen Hard To Get as my base color.  When that was dry I took a toothpick to make the bird tracks.  I would draw a line first and then make the two little toes coming out on either side of the middle of the line.  I used two different shades of gray for the tracks.  The brownish-gray is Essie Chinchilly and the other one is Sinful Colors Cool Gray.  I finished off with two coats of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly.

Christmas Lights

I occasionally paint my mom's nails and today I decided to take a picture of them:

I have seen many pictures of Christmas light manicures.  My mom wanted some festive nails and she suggested Christmas lights.  I'm happy with how they turned out.

The base color is two coats of Sally Hansen Hard to Get.  I painted on a coat of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly before painting the black wire just to ensure that the white and black polishes wouldn't blend (like, if the white wasn't as dry as I thought it was.)  I used a Milani black striper in Black Sketch to make the wire.  I did mess up a couple times and had some stray black lines, but I used a dotting tool in white to cover them up.

I then used a dotting tool to make green, blue, red, and yellow lights.  I dragged it a little to make the lights oval-like shapes.  I applied a coat of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly at the end.

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!

Dot Gradient

I saw this super cool picture tutorial for this design on my Facebook news feed this morning and NEEDED to try it out.  The tutorial is by Quite Polished.  I just went to her blog and it is great!  You'll have to check it out!  http://quitepolished.blogspot.com/

The green color is Essie Da Bush; the white is Sally Hansen Hard to Get; and the blue is Sinful Colors Rain Storm.  I painted on two coats of each color.  (To be honest, I would not recommend this white polish to anybody.  Two coats is just barely enough.  If my nails were only white, I would need three coats.)  After that was dry, I used a small dotting tool to create the dots.  (I got a very inexpensive pack of dotting tools from Amazon, but if you don't have a dotting tool, a toothpick works.  The colored end of a straight pin works, as well.)

I put lots of dots at the tips-- some overlapping to make them look crowded.  I then put them sort of close together in the middle regions.  Near the cuticles I tried to space them more.  I have not got the gradient effect perfect, but that will get easier with practice.  I will finish this manicure off with a coat of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly.  To tell you the truth, I do not always have a top coat on in these pictures.  A lot of times I take the photos right after finishing the design because I do not want something to happen to them in between finishing them and taking a picture.  Also, if you apply a top coat too soon, the design will smudge.  Sally Hansen Dries Instantly works great when the design is all dry, though.

I used pure acetone on a flat nail art brush to create a clean line around the edges of my nails.  To clean my nail art brushes, I swish them around in acetone and then rinse them in water.  The bristles get very stiff if acetone is left in them.  

Candy Corn & Black+White

I decided to do my nails very festively today:

I will start with the black and white nails.  My inspiration for these is black and white movies.  I know, they don't look like movies...but they are black, white, and grey.  ; )  I guess it sort of looks like static.  I used Essie Chinchilly as my base color and put a coat of Claire's splatter effect glitter on top.  I then applied a coat of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly.

For the candy corn nails I first painted on two coats of Avon Sunshine (the yellow) by my cuticles.  I didn't even bother painting that to the tips of my nails because I was going to cover them with other colors.  When the yellow was dry I took a small nail art brush and painted on the orange stripe in the center with NYC Spring Street.  I then used the same nail art brush and painted on the white tips with Sally Hansen Hard to Get.  Then, when that was all dry, I applied two coats of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly.

I cleaned up the small bit of polish that got on my skin with a nail art brush dipped in pure acetone.

Sugar Skulls

So, I decided to be a little festive and attempted to recreate Cutepolish's Sugar Skull manicure (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLMTXjJyxDU).  Mine did not come out nearly as nice as hers, but I had fun with it.

I painted two coats of Rimmel Hot Chilli Pepper on my thumb, ring finger, and pinkie.  On my pointer and middle I painted two coats of Sally Hansen Hard to Get.  I attempted to draw flowers on my pink nails with a black and a metallic light blue gel pen, but they didn't come out that well and my camera didn't photograph them clearly.  I applied a coat of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly over top.  For the sugar skulls I followed Cutepolish's directions.  I have very small nails, so designs like this are hard for me.  I never have enough room and I forget to make things extra small.  The black I used was Sally Hansen Black Out.  I put multicolored dots around the eye sockets.  The tools I used to do all this were a black striper (for the line separating the upper and lower teeth) and a couple dotting tools.  As always, I used two coats of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly when everything was dry.