Night Sky

I have started another semester of college.  I graduate with my associate's degree in childhood education at the end of this one, so I am pretty excited.  The other night I went to my school for a night class and looked up at the sky.  It was a deep blue which faded into a light yellow at the horizon.  The moon was a crescent.  I was inspired to create a manicure based on how pretty it was.

I started out with a coat of Essie Protein Base Coat.  I then painted on two coats of Sinful Colors Unicorn, a very light yellow.  I applied a coat of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly after that so the sponge wouldn't take off my base color.  

I put four colors on my sponge.  I painted on a stripe of Sinful Colors Black on Black, Sinful Colors Into the Blue, Rimmel Blue Eyed Girl, and a very thin stripe of Sinful Colors Unicorn.  I then stippled that over my nails with the black at the cuticle.  

If I were to do this again, I would have immediately applied another coat of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly to make the gradient blend better.  Since I waited, I was left with a slightly grainy effect.  It's not bad, but it could have looked smoother.  I am really happy with it anyway, though.

I eventually applied a coat of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly over everything but my ring finger.  I used a dotting tool and white acrylic paint to dot on the moon.  I then put a drop of my black polish and my darkest blue touching each other on a piece of paper and I dipped in a dotting tool so I could match the dot which created the crescent moon to the background a little bit better.  In person, it doesn't stand out quite as much as it does in the pictures.

After applying Dries Instantly over all the nails, I applied two coats of NYC Matte Me Crazy, a matte top coat.  I wanted to make my night skies look a little more realistic by taking out the shine.

Veterans' Day French Tips

I have been wanting to do this manicure for a long time now, and I thought it was a very fitting time for it since it is Veterans' Day in the United States tomorrow.  

Veterans' Day french tips

 I started out with a coat of Essie Protein Base Coat.  I then painted on two coats of Revlon Pale Cashmere on all my nails and finished that off with a coat of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly to avoid pulling up my base color with the tape.  When that was all dry, I applied french tip guides on all my nails.  I made sure that I stuck them all to the back of my hand first to make them a little less sticky.  

I then created a red, white, and blue french tip pattern and immediately removed the tape.  The red is Rimmel Stiletto Red, the white is Sinful Colors Snow Me White, and the blue is Sinful Colors Into the Blue.  I finished off this manicure with two coats of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly.

Thank you to all of the men and women who have served America in such a noble, significant way.  I am patriotic because of you.  

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!

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.