Thursday, January 31, 2013

Rockstar Glitter

Rockstar amounts of glitter

Tuesday's manicure was showing a bunch of tip wear and some chips so I got the Rockstar Pink glitter polish out and went glitter goofy. Rockstar amounts of glitter

I covered each nail with another coat of Rockstar, a coat of Matte Me Crazy, and then glittered up just the tips to try and make a gradient. Kinda worked, kinda didn't - but it was definitely extremely glittery and will be fun to try to take off tomorrow!

Tuesday, January 29, 2013

Glitter For Audrey

For Audrey

I didn't have a specific manicure plan this morning. I did know I wanted to use one of my recent Christmas gifts to myself. I specifically bought China Glaze For Audrey because I have a new little niece named Audrey. And it's such a pretty creamy tiffany blue.

Glitter For Audrey

Over my base coat I freehanded a stripe of Orly Angel Eyes that has bright blue itsy bits glitter and silver hexagons and then a small stripe of Sally Hansen Rockstar Pink that has teensy red, pink, purple, and blue glitters. I went a little glitter overboard on a few fingers, but I like it. I still have a teabag patch on my thumb so the glitter covers up the lumpy buffing job I did :)

Sunday, January 27, 2013

Matte Skittles and a few Black Stripes

From Friday night's manicure, only one nail on each hand survived the weekend unscathed! And oddly, both nails had the horizontal stripes. Odd!

And only one nail survived!

The ring finger on my left hand and the pinky on my right hand were the only ones not chipped and flaking after two days at work. I open latches a bunch at work and know those eat polish for dinner, right? I retrieved all the colors from last time and painted each remaining nail a solid color. That didn't look quite finished so I used my new topcoat NYC Matte Me Crazy and it looks all velvety now.

Matte Skittles and Striped

Left hand - I think I'll leave the ring finger shiny instead of mattifying it.

Matte Skittles and Striped

Right hand!

Saturday, January 26, 2013

Black Striped & Rainbow Nails

Watercolor Rainbow n Stripes
I was inspired to try rainbow nails with a pattern of black on top after seeing this tutorial for Mardi Gras Harlequin Nails on Nail Nerd. Instead of painting some skittle nails, I used a tiny little paint brush to dab bits of polish directly on my nails. Dab dab dab dab. That part was fun and I used some jelly polishes and some shimmery ones. Layers of dabbing China Glaze Red Satin, Rimmel Sunset Orange, Wet 'n Wild The Wonder Yellows, China Glaze Cha Cha Cha, Wet 'n Wild Bijou Blue and Eggplant Frost dab dab dab dab. The right hand, I tried to use a sponge to lay on the rainbow gradient and it kinda worked. The dabbing method worked better.

Rainbow Watercolor and stripes
I used a top coat and let it all dry. I tried to hand draw on the triangles in the tutorial...but that just got all blobbity. My nails aren't long enough yet or maybe I need a thinner brush. Instead, I used tape for the design since I have a wee bit of experience with tape manicures. After Christmas, I bought a ton of Christmas themed washi style tape on super sale called Recollections Crafting Tape at Michael's (examples of washi tape in this blog post here reviewing different kinds of washi tape). It isn't as sticky as masking tape and easier to see than trying to use clear tape when laying it on your nails.

This was the part that took forevers and evers. Note to self, cut all the bits of tape when your hand isn't wet with paint. Also, make sure you watch something really boring on TV like "The Bourne Legacy" so it seems like your manicure is taking more forevers than just one forever. This is somehow inexplicably an important part of this manicure....

Rainbow Watercolor and stripes
Right Hand!

Watercolor Rainbow n Stripes
Left Hand!

Rainbow Watercolor and stripes
My favorite two fingers on my left hand. I made most of the rainbows start with red at the nail tip, but my ring finger had a reverse rainbow. I also think the taping came out looking crisp and sharp here.

Friday, January 25, 2013

Caution: Guest Blogger

IMG_20130119_160220
Bean has kindly allowed me to share my nail art on her blog.
With this nail design, I used my Couture gel nail polish. I attempted to do the fishtail design Bean did, but I found the gelpolish to be so self-leveling that it wouldn't hold the lines. I did the purple fishtails from pinky to thumb, but by the time I got done, the lines had melted into an arch. I guess I could have cured each nail separately, but I just went with this double-color french mani look.
Colors are Plum Fancy and After Midnight. :)

Welcome to Nail Town, Population Me!

Night Prowl is black full of purple sparkle
I started reading The Daily Nail blog in 2010 and branched out to follow a bunch of other nail art blogs. I didn't paint my nails much since I worked in a job where I had to wash my hands a billionty-four times a day.

I got a ton of nail art tools for Christmas (dotters, striping tape, manicure scissors, glitter top coats) and have been teaching myself some fun techniques and trying not to buy ALL THE NAILPOLISH EVER!

This post is one of my first attempts at a tutorial this year where I was just so so so happy with how it turned out. I used all Wet 'n Wild polishes with Night Prowl as the base,  Metallica, and Eggplant Frost. With a Seche Vite topcoat. This Fishtail manicure was from Chalkboard Nails tutorial .
Yay learning to paint tiny things on my tiny hands wheeeee!