Thursday, December 30, 2010

christmas nails!


Take a look at the nail art I did this holiday season. I did all the artwork on the spur of the moment and just winged it it really. I painted my nails red and green and thought that was going to be festive enough. But it looked sooo boring. I had to do something more creative than simple colours. So I decided to draw a candy cane. It turned out so well that I experimented with christmas trees, snowflakes and glitter. Each hand is slightly different and I alternated the colour on each hand. Here are some more shots:



Im very excited to do my nails for new years! I havnt decided on a design yet, but I think it will involve sparkle.

Thursday, August 26, 2010

black tips and blue sparkle

i know, i know, i havent posted anything in a while. don't worry! that doesnt mean i havent had anything fabulous done with my nails, it means that i have completely forgotton to take pictures before they have chipped. :( I also (rather randomly) moved about 2 weeks ago...

for the last three days i have been trying to decide on what to wear on my nails this time. i finally settled on doing a simple french tip in black underlined with a blue sparkle colour that ive had for a while but never used before. the camera flash really picks up the blue. it is not that intense in real life. i like it anyway.


Wednesday, August 4, 2010

i got bored and painted my nails again


the title says it all! tonight i decided to swap my purple nails for pink, but i wanted more of a challenge. so that meant water marbling my tips. i tell ya one thing though, i will not be trying to use glitter polish in a water marble any more. the polish doesn't spread out evenly with the other colours. i couldn't get the patterns to swirl the right way at all.

tonight i swirled the sparkle with 3 avon colours in shades of pink: cherry jubilee, mulberry, and viva pink. the sparkle i chose was sally hanson diamond strength in colour 5 - diamond. then i swiped some white underneath with stripe rite to seperate the tips from the base. i used avon's adhesive base coat and then applied a thin coat of sally hanson's hard as nails in colour 9 - cotton candy, which is a shear pink colour and hardly noticeable. then i sealed the whole thing with seche vite. i'm ok with the results. but they are not as spectacular as i anticipated they would be. i actually think the picture makes then look better than they do in real life.

this time, i taped my nails to get the french tip and to avoid massive water marbling-related clean up. i gotta say, using the tape is worth all the hassle. i still need to do a little clean up, but it wont be the hours and hours i took me the last time i did water marbling. i still dont like the feeling of tape on my fingers :(

Sunday, August 1, 2010

Purple Power


i was totally feeling the power of purple and decided to paint a simple french tip with 2 shades of purple. for the base i used a light purple. it's luxe lavender by avon. i'm not very impressed with this polish. the application was very clumpy and uneven. eventually i got it to look ok, but i dont recommend it. doesnt give me much hope about the grey avon colour i purchaced at the same time.

then i free handed a slanted vertical french tip in a deeper shade of purple: china glaze's tempest. i LOVE this colour! i had no trouble with application, except for my lack of skills. but i covered up my wobbly handiwork by painting a black stripe between the 2 colours. i think the black makes the look really pop. i used the stripe rite black, which is one of the nail art polishes with the rally thin brushes. it makes application really easy. i sealed the whole thing off with seche vite.

Sunday, July 25, 2010

some old favs

so i don't have anything spectacular done with my nails right now. the humidity has been effecting my nail polish designing abilities... so ive decided to show you some shots from designs i've done in the past.

blue with white polka dots


i don't remember the specific colours i used for this, but i did the dotting with a tooth pick and a lot of patience. and on the topic of dotting, you should totally check out this YouTube video. while you're there, check out cutepolish's other video's designs. She has got some really good ones!

purple with simple flowers

i know this picture isn't the greatest but i think you'll get the idea. i used a toothick again to dot 5 white dots in a circle then dotted yellow in the middle. its very simple and gives a whole lot of interest to what would be an otherwise boring one colour nail!

Thursday, July 8, 2010

those 70s nails


tried my hand at water marbleing again this evening. i mixed a random bunch of colours tonight and am quite impressed with the results. i learned a lot from my last attempt so hopefully they will last a little bit longer than the last try. the colours i used this time (in this order) are Sally Hansen's Xtreme wear in Going Green, Avon's nailwear pro in sunshine, Finger Paints in Artistic Azure, and Finger Paints in Tangerine Tint, or green, yellow, indigo, and orange. So nice!


You'll notice in the pictures that my cuticles are really messy. the clean up on your fingers after applying the colour is intense. i'm still working on it. i'm really hoping the colour around the edges of my nails will come off in the shower before i go to work. i've grown frustrated with using q-tips and nail polish remover.

oh, i sealed the whole project up with Seche Vite. absolutely fantastic product! it dried super quick, with a nice gloss finish and it feels like it will withstand chipping. but i'll let you know how that stands up as the week progresses.

i love when you use the water marble technique no nail is the same as the other. and with this colour combination i really think it works. look at the difference between my thumbs:











now the only question is what will i do with my nails next?

Saturday, July 3, 2010

this and that

so this week hasnt been the best for my nails. while my marbilized nails looked fantastic, i did not realize how thin the layer of polish on the actual nail was. one slight touch of nail polish remover destroyed hours of work. i was not happy! lesson learned however: only use q-tips to take the excess polish off and use LOTS off top coat!

the rest of the week in polish was no better. every polish i applyed got smudged almost immediately. i was very frustrated. no pictures will be posted. even today, when i finally redeemed my gift certificate for a spa manicure (given by a friend a mere year and a half ago) did i smudge the perfect job the manicurist did within a half and hour after application. erg. but, on the plus side, i found a new amazing colour: An Affair in Red Square by OPI. Normally I prefer pinks to reds, but this one really shines and caught my attention.

last, but not least, i have some fantastic news! Sally Beauty Supply has opened a location in St. John's!!! It is up on Kelsey Drive across from the staples that will be opening soon. I am super happy and spent far too much money there. I love the finger paints brand of polish. you can also get seche vite there, which is afast drying top coat. i havnt used it yet, but when i do i'll let you know what i think.

toodles

Sunday, June 27, 2010

Nails!

So i'm a bit obsessed with my nails and I've have decided to share my pictures of my current styles with you! To start, here is a picture of my nails (almost) naturally. I used a base coat called gold hard by Avon.


I tend to take pictures of my left hand, cause the work i do on that hand tends to turn out better cause i'm right handed. Plus, I hold the camera with my right hand!

Today, I've tried my hand at water marbleing for the first time. It creates unigue swirls in the nail polish colours. I think the reults make the process well worth it! Don't attempt this if you a) don't have nail polish remover and q-tips on hand, and b) you don't like making a mess. The China Glaze website has a good video and instructions on how to do this. The video shows you how to do it with an artificial nail... if you are doing this on real nails, it's going to be a lot more work. i recommend going to YouTube and searching for videos on water marbling and you'll get a better idea of what you're getting into.

I used 3 colours to swirl today, all from the Finger Paints brand. I'm not sure if you can buy these in NL or not, I havn't found them here anyway. I got these at Sally Beauty Supply in Ottawa when I was on vacation. You can also order stuff online. The colours I used are called Pas-Tel Me More, Up & Coming Artist, and Hue Are You. They are all pink shades going from light to dark. Take a look at the results!