Black and Gold

A quick pre-New Year's Eve posting! The base of this mani is two coats of Sally Hansen's Golden.  I couldn't do anything too time consuming since I did these during finals week this semester. But I did want to do some nail art. Simple solution. Lines! I went in with black paint and my home made nail striper (shown below)  to add them to all of my fingers. 

There are legitimate nails stripers for sale online and in beauty stores, but I could care less about expensive nail tools. I got my butt to my local Michael's and bought a long bristled paint brush for maybe three bucks instead. The brush was a little too thick, so I cut off a few hairs with a pair of scissors. You can make it as thin as you want depending on the kinds of nail art you're doing. If you're creating mini portraits on your nails, cut it down to a few strands. It's all up to you!

On my thumb, pointer, and pinky fingers, I made a vertical line slightly off center to the left - according to my pictures. I then painted in diagonal lines coming from the  vertical line that swooped to the left. On the ring and middle finger, I painted the tips black and a line parallel to that about a third way up my nail. I was left with a border that I filled in with five lines perpendicular to the horizontal lines. Two of the lines are hidden because they're painted along the edge of my nails. I finished with a top coat and I was off to my studies.

P.S: Black and Gold is also a fantastic song by Sam Sparro by the way. Give it a listen!! I can't help but sing that song in my head whenever I use gold on my nails!

Ho ho ho

Late Merry Christmas everyone!! I truly wish you all had a family filled day that will forever be remembered! I've been constantly busy this last week like most everyone during this time of the year. I haven't had time to take care of any personal matter (i.e my blog), and I didn't sit down to finish this mani till last night at midnight. This design is of my own creation, finally!

The base is two coats of Sinful Color's Envy. I didn't realize, but I only put one coat on my thumb... Oops!

I bought this really neat glitter polish a month or so ago from one of the latest Sinful Color's winter collections. Cold as Ice doesn't contain the traditional specks of glitter; instead they're mini stripes of white. I hadn't tried it out since buying it, but this was the perfect time to whip it out.

I assumed I wouldn't need multiple coats since the bottle seems to be jam packed with glitter. I assumed wrong. I laid down two coats of Cold as Ice, but my nails were still looking bare with most of the base coat showing.

 (Doesn't it look like there's a snow storm raging inside of there?!)

I didn't want to keep pilling on coat after coat, so I looked to my Christmas tree to pick out silver along with the white. I painted my whole nail with NYC Grand Central Station (I don't know why they had to name a top coat, but oh well) because I wanted my whole nail covered with silver glitter. I took a small paint brush, scoped up some glitter, and then lightly tapped on the handle of the brush above the wet nail. By tapping on the brush, the glitter falls onto the entire nail as opposed to touching the brush to a specific area. I sealed the glitter in with the same top coat.

I left my nails like that for a few days until I found some relaxing time last night. I grabbed some red paint and a long, thin brush to add "ho ho" in lower case letters on my middle finger, "Ho" to my ring finger, and a red bow with silver trimmings to my thumb. Because I used paint on those three fingers, I reapplied top coat.

 There you have it! With time constraints, I didn't want to do anything too wild and extravagant.

TIPS: 

-Adding glitz and glitter is an easy way to jazz up any mani. 

-Creating accent nails (like my thumb, middle, and ring finger) sets up the illusion that you spent more time on your nails than you actually did.

-Tamz

Classy Christmas

Quick post before finishing up last minute Christmas prep!

Again, this is another mani from last year, BUT there's one minor change. If anyone is paying close attention to the pictures I've posted, you can see that my left palm has a black dot on it. This left palm does not, but it looks very similar, right? Well, that's because I do my twin sister's nails as well as my own! Thus, this is her hand with my work on it.

This robin's egg blue is possibly Sinful Color's Be Happy (it's been too long to remember, and if you're familiar with Sinful Color's, you'll know that they have a wide variety of blueish greens that are almost indistinguishable). I wanted to keep it simple, so I sprinkled the tips with silver glitter on all of my nails except the ring finger. I used silver paint to make a squiggle tree on my ring finger. 

How to apply loose glitter to your nails:

1. Apply top coat to the target area. For this design, I only painted the bottom half of my nail.

2. Take a small paint brush and dip it into the loose glitter (with fine glitter I tend to scoop it out). The wet top coat  will "grab" onto the glitter.

3. Touch the glittered paint brush to the top coat areas. I only wanted a light dusting of glitter, but you can always create a gradient effect with glitter.

4. Once the top coat dries, apply another layer to seal the glitter in.

Christmas' in my homestead means decking the entire house out in seasonal decor, so I wanted to keep it simple and classy. Most of the designs I see are extremely intricate, but sometimes less is more. Even for nail art!

-Tamz

String o' lights

On the third day of Christmas, my true love gave to me.. Christmas lights! Ha, okay. That was pathetic, but it had to be done. When do the twelve days of Christmas start? If anyone knows, please inform me ASAP. I heard that it begins on Christmas and ends on January 6th, but I am not quite certain. 

Right, back to the nails. I had this design on two weeks ago (yes, a recent mani!!) to get myself into the holiday spirit. The front facade of my humble abode is lite up with white lights, so I thought I'd pay tribute to them on my nails. The base is two layers of Sinful Color's Sugar Sugar which is a classic red infused with specks of glitter. After the layers dried, I painted in random cords of lights with black paint along with the stem (I don't know the correct term, so stem it is) of the light bulb. Once I finished that, I painted the little white bulbs, and covered it with a top coat. I aimed for the shape of the light bulbs that I'm holding in the picture below, but by the time I reached my pinky, they had turned into mini triangles. 

I cringe at the fact that I forgot to clean off the skin around the bed of my nails.. I could have taken new pictures after cleaning them, but laziness got me. I apologize for the grossness.

One of the problems that I ran into was the bulbs turning into triangles by the end. It's hard to tell and I'm most likely being hypercritical. Next time I try it, I'm definitely going to be more careful with the shape consistency. 

TIPS:  White over red = pink. Obviously. I first applied white paint resulting in pink light bulbs. I went over it again with white polish and hoped for the best. Unfortunately, they turned a lighter pink that time. I'll have to do further tests with the white over red situation and get back to you all. 

The little bulbs can also be swapped out for any color your heart desires: Multi colored, blue, green... anything you want! Christmas lights are a popular object to incorporate into a mani, but they don't have to all resemble each other. Let your creativity take the reins (Personally, I need to work on this..). If you mess up, it's not the end of the world. And you can always redo it a week, month, or year later. 

-Tamz

Santa's comin' to town

Technically, this is the second post of the day, so the Christmas countdown is stuck on four, people. 

I tried out this Santa themed mani last year after seeing it on Google (again, I'm not quite sure what site it originated from). I started off with three coats of Sally Hansen's Stonewall which is a neutral tone that could easily be used in a french mani. I cracked out the red paint to create the red fleece of the hat, and white paint for the plush rim linings and pom poms. I used some black paint to outline the hat and add some creases before sealing it with a top coat.

Whenever I look at these pictures it brings me back to the classic How the Grinch Stole Christmas cartoon because of the hat he wears. I can't get enough of the cartoon look!
-Tamz 

Bow time

Since there are only four more days until Christmas (where did December go?!), I thought I would post a Christmas themed design that I did last year around this time. Since it's from last year, the dets may be skewed, but that's not a biggy.

 As you can tell from the title of tonight's post, the theme is bows. I got the idea from Googling "Christmas nail designs". I thought I'd give it a go since it was beyond cute. I apologize for not knowing the exact site; just know that it was not my own creation! So, bows. Specifically the old school ribbons that were tied into bows, like this one:

I demand that these bows come back into use! They are so charming and romantic compared to the peel-off-the-paper-and-stick-on bows that are used every single year. I suppose it's easier with time constraints, accessibility, etc.

ANYWHO!

I started off with three coats of Sinful Color's San Francisco which is a gorgeous dark green polish that is subtly glittery. With three coats, the polish gets very dark and rich, so the shimmer doesn't pop out unless your nails are under lights. Once the coats completely dried, I went in with some off-white acrylic paint to create the ribbon crossroads on my pointer, middle, and pinky nails. I painted in the vertical ribbon on my thumb and ring fingers, plus the bow on top. Once the paint dried, I applied an outline of Sally Hansen's Xtreme Wear named Golden to the ribbons and bows that I painted. I also went in and added golden "creases" to the bows.

Side note: I love this polish (in fact, I'm wearing it at this very moment). I own a few gold polishes, but I do believe that this one is my favorite because of the constant chrome-like shine. Once everything dried, I finished it off some cheap top coat - Wet n Wild's fastdry - so the paint wouldn't wash off. Contradictory to the top coat's name, it did not "dry fast".

While the design isn't my own, the pictures are!!

And there you have it, folks! Seriously, this design was a fun and easy way to get into the Christmas spirit. Try it out yourselves!

-Tamz

Hello from the start

First of all: Off With Their Nails is not about the ways to de-nail your enemies. And it's not an alternative story of the Queen of Hearts who constantly exclaims, "Off with their nails!!", as a way to torture the people who displease her (although, personally, living a life without my nails would not be a life worth living). 

Let's start with a brief history of my nail polish addiction, shall we? I started off causally painting my nails like most preteen gals. I had a hand full of bottles at first, but eventually, I kept accumulating more and more. And with them my love for the hobby grew till one day I stumbled upon nail designs. I was hooked from the first design I attempted at the start of 2012.

 For two years now, I've treasured the techniques and designs that I've run into. I did NOT want to share them with anyone. BUT, I've been practicing by following other nail artists. I've been hoarding other creative lady's ideas and inventions that have inspired and taught me. It's time to spread the nail-love, people! 

Off With Their Nails is a way for me to document (and possibly share) the nail designs that I've replicated and the ones that I've concocted on my own. I've done dozens of designs that I will post along with the upcoming ones.  

Side note: I have never done anything like this before - which may be blatantly obvious to most - but I'm extremely motivated to blog my heart out! Hopefully, I'll grow as this blog grows, and you all will follow me on my nail journey! 

-Tamz