Xmas

Merry Christmas and happy holidays one and all! It's been over two weeks since I posted anything... Heck, I haven't had the time to do any nail art let alone blog!! Finals have come and gone (all A's, Praise the Lord) along with all of that stress. I have over a week off from both my jobs that I'm living up.. by cleaning my house for today. 

I used two coats of Sinful Colors' Ruby Ruby and two coats of Under 18. I usually would have done four coats of Under 18 to achieve an opaque look since it's a very sheer glitter, but Ruby Ruby helped fill it out. 

 I used Revlon's Golden to paint on ribbons in different shapes and bows with Sinful Colors' Pine Away as an accent color. I absolutely love Pine Away!! I believe I bought it last holiday season; it's a gorgeous, metallic green that is perfect for Christmas. 

I accidentally knocked and bottle of Golden off of the counter I was working on. Guys, it was open!!!!! I almost had a panic attack when I saw a pile of liquid gold on my kitchen floor!! I acted fast enough to brush most of the polish into the bottle so I lost less than a centimeter of the blessed gold. If it was any other cheaper brand I wouldn't have been as distraught, but Revlon? I was only able to afford that because it was on clearance!!

I also used a new striper brush that I found when I was cleaning out a closet. It's thinner than the one I am using now, and I didn't have to cut away extra bristles! 

Tamara

Pillow Time

Finals are dawning upon us all and I am shot, but I always make time for my nails!

Here's three coats of Sinful Colors' Savage; I only needed two, but the edges were rubbed away at work. I was surprised to find that this polish had a matte quality to it that I did not expect.

I got the inspiration for the design from a throw pillow at Burlington Coat Factory that I thought was very eclectic. I like to take pictures of clothes, fabrics, etc that I see in stores that make me think, "that would look amazing on my nails!". 

I used acrylics to paint on portions of the pillow onto each nails. I went for a messy, rushed look since the print on the pillow was textured. I then used a top coat to seal the paint in before topping it off with NYC's Matte Me Crazy.

Rio

I used three coats of Sinful Colors' Black on Black; I would have only used a coat or two, but the polish kept chipping off my sister's nail when she went to work. 

I used feathers once again, but these ones are from a different source.. My Australian parakeet Rio. Whenever he loses his gorgeous feathers, I pick them up and put them in a container for nail purposes - thanks, Rio!

I laid out the feathers on top of a drying coat of black polish instead of applying a top coat . This picture shows the feathers without a top coat, just the feather on black..

.. while this photo shows the feathers with a top coat sealing it down. In person, the feathers were incredibly florescent. The blue became vibrant as if they were under a black light, but my phone camera was not able to capture it. Sigh. 

And excuse the poor clean up, it slipped my mind!

Tamz

Tanzanite

For this design, I used just one coat of Sinful Colors' Midnight Blue. I then did a water marbling design on top using alternating clear coat and NYC's Matte Me Crazy. 

At first, I thought it didn't work, but after a few minutes the matte dried, and praise be.. it worked!! The matte showed up in its curved, dull pattern and I think it looks sick! 

 I wanted to add a little bling, so I grabbed gold glitter to lay along the curve of my cuticle. In the matte portions, I dipped a toothpick into the bottle and dabbed it on the corresponding matte areas before placing glitter pieces onto it. I did the same with the clear polish sections. 

On the thumb and ring finger, I placed the glitter along the edge of the nail to create an accent. I was planning on framing each nail with glitter, but I was too tired last night.. I'll have to try that out another time!

Tamz

Swirl

Happy late Thanksgiving everyone! I haven't had time to do any designs with Thanksgiving yesterday, plus my friends came home so they were my first priority this week.

I used three coats of Sally Hansen Hard as Nails' Punk Rock - a very sheer sea green. For the stamp design indicated below, I used Sally Hansen Hard as Nails Dura-pearl - another sheer, pearly polish. 

 Top coat and down. Excuse the poor stamp transferring job, I did them as fast as I could before driving to my grandma's house yesterday.

Fall Floral

Super quick post tonight! 

My pointer finger has two coats of Went n Wild's Red Rouge; all of the other nails have two coats of Sinful Colors' Nirvana. 

 I tried to find the most fall like stamp and the indicated engraving below was the closest I could find. On the pointer finger, I used Nirvana for the stamp, then dabbed on Sally Hansen Hard as Nail's Mellow Yellow with a small paint brush. With the Nirvana painted nails, I used Red Rouge and Mellow Yellow as the stamps colors.

Tamz

Winterland

I know it's still fall, but it looks like winter in Minnesota! It snowed for the first time on Monday night, and it's remained here, plus the additional slight snowfalls. 

I used three coats of Wet n Wild's Metallic - I've had this bottle for so long that the print on it wore off. I used black paint to create simple, bare trees on each nail along with sky blue flakes of snow. Over that I added Sinful Colors' Cold as Ice for more white snow / glitter.

Tamz

Brown Flowers

I didn't get a chance to do my nails because all of my polish was chipped by the end of my shift at work. Sigh. 

Here's a design I did two years back with two coats of Wet n Wild's Under Your Spell. I know I didn't come up with this design on my own;  I just know I used Google, but The Daily Nail may be the creator? I used gold paint for the flower petals with orange polish for the orange dots with a top coat of course!

Tamz

Halloween evening

Four days late, but I haven't had time to sit done and put this post together!

Started off with two coats of Sinful Colors' Black on Black. I then grabbed white paint to create a large, setting sun to the point where the black polish was covered up to create a black crescent moon. Once I painted on an opaque white moon, I covered that with yellow paint and then dabbed on a minuscule amount of orange around the diameter. The orange had to be blended in with the yellow because it was very segmented, so I used a gradient technique on a smaller scale.

With the background done, I went in with black paint again to free hand some Halloween scenes filled with bats, twisted trees, jack-o-lanterns, houses, graveyard crosses, plus an owl and creepy eyes.

Overall, yes. I loved this mani!! 

Until next time Halloween,

Tamz

Halloween

All Hallows Eve is almost upon us, so here's a design for the big night! 

I started off with two coats of Sinful Colors' Fig and three coats of Sinful Colors' Daddys Girl.which is a dark, glitter infused purple polish. The only problem is that it is an extremely sheer polish as most glitters are. After layering Fig with Daddys Girl I got the shade that I originally imagined. 

I went in with paint to create a witch's profile on the thumb, silver cats on the pointer and ring fingers, a crescent moon + stars on the middle finger, and a silver / black bat on the    pinky. I went with simply images after seeing this design by Robin Moses. I was going to                           follow her design to a greater degree, but this happened instead!

Tamz

Leaves

Another fall nail idea before I switch over to Halloween designs. I am fairly positive that I have come up with an original design technique because I haven't seen anyone doing this! I used two coats of Sally Hansen's  Hard as Nails Stonewall on my sister. 

I was inspired to use real leaves because of my lovely sister Tracy. She has been collecting fall leaves and any other leaves that catch her fancy since second grade. Her teacher had her class go out, find specific leaves that the little kiddies had to identify, and press between pieces of paper. Leaves are pressed within a book so that the pages soak up the water that is inside of the leaf. The pages in turn get water damage so use a book you don't want. 

When applying the leaves, I first cut the desired portion of the leaf I wanted to fit onto the nail. Next, I painted on a layer of top coat followed by immediately placing the leaf onto the nail bed. I adjusted the leaf into place by using my fingers and pressing them down firmly. My first attempt was with an older pressed leaf, so it was thin but non malleable. The edges of of that leaf would not stay down, so I opted out for fresher leaves. 

Luckily I had beautifully changing leaves from my backyard that I had picked earlier in the day. The leaves been drying out for most of the day which flattened them out a bit, but they still retained their freshness and flexibility. I used the same top coat and press technique and it worked much better since the fresh leaves were able to curve along the nail bed.

Although I cut down the leaves to fit the nail, I still had excess that hung over the skin around the nail. I took care of that by pressing the end of my nail tweezers down onto where I wanted the leaf to cut off. I continued pressing until the leaf eventually broke off. Once the leaf fit the nail bed, I applied a final top coat over the leaf.

The next morning, my sister looked at her nails and noticed that the leaves shrunk away from the tips of her nails. We took care of the showing tips by filing down her nails, but I know to press the nails for an extra day - hopefully pressing it for two days doesn't make the leaf to rigid to work with. 

Tamz

Cobwebs

First Halloween nails of the season, woohoo! I want to try to get a few more seasonal designs in before winter comes, plus more Halloween ones, but we'll see. 

I used two coats of Sinful Colors' of Black on Black, then I used white paint to create the cobwebs. I Googled cobwebs and chose a simple image to recreate before starting with the "compass" lines (I don't know what else to call them), and then painted in the arched lines to connect the lines. On the pinky I painted the spider in white and then went over it with Wet n Wild Nerd Alert: Screech to make sure the green popped.I gave the green spider a web to hang off of as well.

Each picture collage has the design topped with a clear coat on the left, and the matte version is on the right. It's hard to notice that their is a difference, but I could easily tell in person.

Tamz

Feathers

Oh no, two weeks without a post! I thought I was busy before, but I've picked up a second job at my old junior high school, so I have zero free days now. 

For today's mani on my lovely sister's nails, I used two coats of Sinful Colors Beau Khaki - a perfect army green for the fall. I decided to use feathers for the very first time after using my foils on the last design. 

The feathers I used were obtained in a.. strange manner. A few years ago, I saw a little ball of crow feathers at the bottom of one of my trees. I decided to pick them up and keep them to use for nail art. A bit morbid, but they were free and real versus the colorful, artificial ones at Micheal's. 

Before placing each feather, I cut off the fluffy after-feathers along with the hollow tip of the feather. I then applied a layer of clear polish, let it sit for thirty to forty seconds, and then carefully placed the feather down using tweezers. When I got it in the correct place, I used a small paint brush to lightly brush the feather down. If there were any bits that weren't sticking, I dipped the brush in clear polish and brushed it over that specific spot. 

Once the coat dried, I applied a final top coat on top to keep the feather safe. Repeat with the other nails and you're set!

Tamz

Hot Air Balloon

Hello all! 

This weekend's mani is based on a friend's precious, little wallet that I adore (shown below).

I used three coats of Sinful Colors' Cool Gray. I only needed two coats, but I waited an extra days before hunkering down and actually doing the design. The tips went through some wear and tear that needed to be covered up with an additional coat. I used white acrylic to paint on the outline of the hot air balloon and a few creases on the balloon.

Okay, my wonderful sister gave me the best Christmas present two years ago that I've been too intimidated by to use. She got me 25 Transfer Rolls of foil plus four free adhesive glue bottles were included! The glue is basically in a slender nail polish bottle, so when you unscrew the top there's a polish brush attached to the cap. She even went to Michael's and put it all in this organized container. Foils and other nail accessories can be found at dollarnailart.com, and as the website says, all of their individuals products are $1 each.

The four free bottles of glue

Once the paint dried, it was time for the daunting task of foiling for the first time. I cut off an inch and a half section of Sea Glass - a metallic, foam green color. I then opened the glue, scarped off the excess glue off the brush, and applied it to the inside of the hot air balloon. The glue goes on white and dries clear; once it dried, I took the piece of foil and pressed it against the glue with the colored / patterned side up. After firmly rubbing down the foil, all you have to do is peel it off and it sticks to the glue. Keep repeating that wherever you put glue and than top it off with a clear coat!

I noticed that you don't have to take extra time to place the foil on, stop, and rub. All you have to do once you get the knack of foiling, it quickly press the foil down and pull it off. I didn't know how much fun foiling would be, and I'm so pleased that it's quick and easy to use! Plus, the foil adds such a neat touch. Yay, foil!!

Tamz