Winter Branches

For those who have been plagued by this year's double polar vortex, the word "winter" may make you cringe at this point. But the seasons play a key role in what I decide to put on my nails. I wouldn't paint a beach sunset on my nails. I would consider that a form of self torture since summer won't be here until, oh, July at the earliest in Minnesota? This week's mani shows the calmer side of winter that would be appreciated more if I didn't run the risk of turning into an ice block by stepping outdoors. 

I started off with two coats of Sinful Colors' Be Happy - I could have did another layer, but the polish turned out to be thicker than I anticipated. Once it dried completed, I painted in tree branches with brown paint mixed with black so the branches would have dark bark. Since paint dries a darker shade then its wet form, I expected the brown to darken, but it didn't. I swiped in lines of black to fix that little problem instead of mixing a new color and reapplying. I painted dark red berries onto the branches on my pointer, middle, ring, and pinky fingers, finishing them off with a little black dot to signal which direction they were facing.

On my thumb I painted a cardinal sitting on a branch instead of berries to create an accent nail and add a little oomph. Add in some falling snowflakes and put a layer of snow on some of the berries and branches, and tada! With the settled snow, I dabbed on white paint with my brush to make the snow look fluffy rather then swiping on white. I did that once and it looked unrealistic, and silly. 

And don't forget the top coat!

Tamz

Tumblr

Hey all! 

I know that Google Blogger may not be a convenient site to access since it doesn't seem to be nearly as popular as Pinterest or Instagram, so I have taken Off With Their Nails to Tumblr. Following offwiththeirnails.tumblr.com will not give you all of the steps and details that go into each manicure, but by clicking on a title, this site will automatically pop up in a new tab. It's just an easier way to keep up with my nails and I if any of you all are on Tumblr. 

I have never used Tumblr in my life, so I'm getting used to managing a website that is foreign to me. And like I said, I will not be going in depth on there. Just the basics for me, thank you! 

A new mani will hopefully be done and posted by Tuesday. 

Thanks all!

Tamz

Glitter Frame

I wanted to do an easy, yet flashy and fun mani this week. You know what that means, right? Glitter!

I used three coats of Sally Hansen Hard as Nails' Dura-pearl - I really should have used a minimum of four coats. With pearl polishes (or any other sheer polish), you have to apply a lot more coats compared to regular polishes to properly cover your nails without your nail showing through.

While the polish was drying, I went into my glitter collection and picked out a pretty aqua to pop against the pale pearl. (Yes. My glitter collection. I have a bag full of glitters just for my nails. I am not ashamed). I get my glitter from Micheal's; I believe the tube pictured below was less than a $2, and it will certainly last me years.

Okay, my process.. I picked it up from thenailasaurus.com a long time ago, but I will recreate it for you all on my blog at a later point. It may seem intimidating, but once you've done it once correctly, you've got it down forever. Trust me, I did the glitter application with both hands. AND I'm right handed!  

The corner of my left thumb nail broke, again, so I was forced into doing my right hand. I never do nail art on my right hand since it's the hand doing all the heavy lifting. Because of the incompetence of my left hand, I only wanted to frame out my nails - a simple feat to accomplish. Once I laid out the glitter pieces, I sealed it up with a top coat.

Pretty good for my left hand, right!?

-Tamz

Tribute

This week's mani was inspired by the John Newman concert that I went to on Saturday night. He's a retro-soul singer that is popular in the UK and around Europe, but he's made his mark on American listeners with his song Love Me Again.

I painted my nails with two coats of Wet n Wild megalast's Deadly Dose before the concert - another gold polish; I've been using golds more frequently than I usually do. After the concert I found a musical note stamp on the m22 plate that I put onto my middle finger with Sinful Color's Black on Black. The black faded a bit once I put on a top coat unfortunately.

I finished the mani off with a dosage of John Newman influence the next afternoon. I Googled his album Tribute and found this zoomed in picture of his album cover:

I saw it and thought, " Oh yeah, I can work with this!"  I mixed a little black paint with red to make the maroon diamonds. I put enough layers to cover up the splotches, possibly four. With that dried, I grabbed that homemade striper brush of mine and white paint. I outlined the diamonds and then painted in a larger white diamond around that. I wanted space on my nails,so I only did that once instead of copying the album cover exactly. I connected the white diamond outlines with a quick line to create the effect that it continues on past the nail itself. 

A top coat to seal the paint in and voila!

-Tamz

Tapestry

I feel like I haven't uploaded new designs in weeks, but it's only been five days..

Anyway, I started off knowing that I wanted to practice my nail stamping, so I picked out the design on the bottom of the m24 plate. Unfortunately, two of my nails broke on my left hand, so I did my sister's nails instead.

I painted her thumb, pointer, and pinky fingers with two coats of Sinful Color's Mesmerize which is a really dark, rich purple that can pass as a black polish in the right lighting. On the middle and ring finger, I used  two coats of Sally Hansen's Golden-I. Once the base coats dried, I went in with the nail stamp. I began with the purple nails, creating the image with the gold polish to contrast the dark purple. I did the opposite with the gold nails, using the Mesmerize on top of the gold. 

With this specific stamp, I had to make sure the design was centered on the nail (I could have placed the image anywhere; front and center happened to speak to me). On the thumb and pointer fingers I aligned it properly, but when I rolled it down, it went off to to side. My sister suggested that I aim for her knuckle which really worked; the rest were straight! 

Another thing I attempted was centering the image itself so it would reflect correctly. I didn't realize to do that on this hand, but I did on the right hand (Not shown). If you look at the images, none of the top part of the image makes it onto the nail.

I tried out a few tips that were posted on the Amazon page for the stamping kit. I used an old credit card instead of the metal scraper to ensure that the metal plate won't get damaged. It works just as well and I don't have to worry about having to replace it in the future. 

There was also a tip about filing the stamper down a bit with a nail file to help the nail polish transfer. It actually worked!! The very first try was perfect (the thumb), but after that it just wasn't working. I tried approximately five times before thinking to file it down again. The transfer immediately following the filing was superb. For the remaining nails, I ran a nail file over the stamper before each transfer. Lemme tell yah, it worked! 

There's the final product - covered with a top coat of course - compared to the plate. 

-Tamz

2014

Happy 2014, everyone!! I'm a few days late, but better late than never, right? I've had a rough start to the year with a nasty cold, so I haven't had the drive to post anything. But, I hope you all celebrated the arrival of the new year in style with your loved ones (whether that be in your home, or out on the town). May this new year be filled with happiness, health, and love for you all!

On New Year's Eve, I painted one coat of Sinful Color's Black on Black onto my nails. I only did one coat because I really do not like black on my nails, so one coat makes it easier to take off. Next, I looked up number fonts and came up with one called Tribal Numbers by ekoed; the numbers looked funky, yet easy to translate onto my nails. I painted "2014" onto my pointer, middle, and ring finger in the font. I had my sister do the "4" because it was giving me some trouble.

That left me with a blank thumb nail AND the perfect opportunity to crack out my newly acquired nail stamps! My wonderful sister gifted me Salon Design's Nail Art Stamping Kit which comes with 100 plates, a scraper, and a stamper. I can't tell you all how excited I was. I honestly teared up a bit. 

When I was looking through the plates, I found the perfect thing for New Year's Eve.. A champagne glass with bubbles! It took me a good dozen tries (and some frustration) to get a decent image transfer onto my thumb. It was weird, I tried it with a Sally Hansen's Hard as Nails Silver to no avail. The stamper would only pick up bits of the design - my best try resulted in half of the glass which was unacceptable. I ended up grabbing a cheap bottle of Wet N Wild Shine's Metallica to practice more before using better polish. Low and behold, on the very first try I got practically the whole image transferred onto the stamper. Go figures! 

I had to paint in a few missing bubbles and a star that didn't make it onto the stamper. Those add-ins are the darker silver bits as opposed to the lighter silver. I didn't want to go over anything in case I messed it up, so I left it as is. For a first time nail stamper, I think it turned out well! 

There's the finished product with NYC's top coat on top. I'll need to get some more practice in with nail stamping - challenge accepted!

-Tamz