Spring Plaid

Spring time is here in Minnesota! This week has been very rainy - nonstop rainfall and winds - but that's all apart of the season, so I'm not one to complain. At least it's not snow!! This weekend I transferred a plant into the pot pictured below which is my inspiration for this week's nail art. 

I started off with three coats of Sinful Color's Pull Over. I thought this polish would be more opaque since it's a golden yellow, but it was on the thin side. I could have applied another coat, but I feel like I'm wasting polish if I apply more than three. I took the purple and green stripes from the pot and mixed together shades of my own - the green is barely visible, but it's there. I opted out of the full plaid and instead fewer lines to make it looks less crowded by using my stripped brush. Top coat to finish it off.

It was raining outside so I took the photos inside by my glass deck door, attempting to have natural light hit my nails. The sun wasn't showing itself, so sorry for the dull shots! 

Tamz

Robin Egg

Happy Easter to all the Christians out there and happy Sunday to everyone! A quick post before I go to my family gathering that I'm already late for.. This is two coats of Sinful Color's Be Happy. I used a saran wrap technique that I saw on WeHeartIt to create a robin egg mani which is pretty popular. 

Saran Warp Technique:

First step: Tear off a small piece of saran / clear wrap and wad it up into a messy ball.

Second step: Paint a small area of the saran wrap with polish. I used Wet N Wild's Deadly Dose shown here.

Third step: Dab the saran wrap onto the nail. Keep dabbing until the polish has transferred, or until the desired amount of polish is achieved.

Fourth step: Repeat the steps on all of your nails and apply a top coat when it has dried.

And volia! Deadly Dose turned out lighter than I was hoping, but I'll try out a darker gold next time!

Tamz

Palm Leaves

Hello all! This weeks mani was inspired by Palm Sunday. For those that don't know what the heck that is, it's a Christian feast that occurs the week before Easter. I started off with three coats of Sinful Color's Snow Me White. I mixed together a gold with paints by using yellow and a burnt gold. The resulting color was not the gold I was expected, but I really loved it; it turned out to be a shimmering golden-mustard in the light. In a classroom setting with those horrid florescent lights, the color was described as a, "nasty mustard color" by one of my dearest friends. I can see where she was coming from! 

I applied the paint by dipping the tip of my pointer finger into the paint and dabbing it onto the areas random spots I wanted the color to be. It took several coats to get the darker gold while the light yellow sections only got one run through. It had a more gradient look to it, but I still had paint leftover that I didn't want to waste..

I put a top coat over that before mixing the green for the palm leaves. The green took on a slight teal tint. I envisioned a dark green, but what I used works better since the lighter green complements the dark shade below it. I began by painting the stems of the leaves with a long striper brush with a thicker end and thinner tip. I had the stems overlap the background splotches in directions that "moved" similarly with the gold. I ended up painting in one side of each stem with leaves first. I was planning on filling in both sides, but I loved the one-sided palm leaves since opposite golden side could still be viewed. Top coat time to finish it off!

(My favorite: the thumb!)

Tamz

Flower Silhouette

Spring is here in Minnesota!! The snow is gone (besides the piles of dirt-snow), the sun is setting at 8 p.m, and the temps have been 50 and above for a week now. Tomorrow will be 70 degrees; summer weather for a day, woah! 

To kick of the warmer temps, I painted my nails with two coats of Sinful Color's Song of Summer; a springy, light green that is a shade darker than pastel green. I knew I wanted flowers for this mani, but I didn't have any flower inspiration. Five months of winter = what are flowers?! I looked at a design on dressupnails.com that I've had saved for quite a while and basically copied her design - tried to. First I took black paint and painted the flowers/foliage on each nail, tweaking it to fit onto my shorter nails. After that you take white paint and add outlines of the black images on top of it, creating a silhouette effect. Top coat to seal everything in!

 Looking at the original compared to my attempt, I'm disappointed with the result. But I still really like it and the concept. Kudos to the person who did it first!

Blah.. My least favorite nail for my mani.. The thumb. I have never been able to draw/paint/color flowers like these. I start off strong, but by the least petal, it becomes wider, shorter, and uneven. I definitely rushed through this one!

Oh! I was able to take the pictures for this design outside with natural lighting instead of my high watt desk lamp. I think it looks 100 times better, and it took me three minutes tops. What do you think of the pictures and my version of the design?

Tamz

Bastille

Guess go went to a Bastille concert last night?! THIS GIRL!! I still can't believe I was blessed and lucky enough to be invited to see their sold out show (Thank you, Tina!!). I went with a simple yet effective mani for the concert starting with two coats of Sinful Color's Black on Black. I applied one coat of NYC's Matte Me Crazy onto all of my nails. I went in after the show to paint in the triangle that Bastille uses for their A in white paint. An example of it is shown right below on their crazy, cool concert shirt that I got - its in a movie poster format, so creative! 

Once the triangle dried, I ran a clear coat over it followed by Matte Me Crazy. I wasn't sure it the matte would smudge the paint or not, so I played it safe with the clear. 

You can tell the difference between matte and regular polish/clear coat above. The matte turned Black on Black into mini chalkboards on my nail beds. Literally a chalkboard. I took a piece of chalk and wrote and drew on my nails, no joke. Once you apply the matte coat, you can watch the gloss fade away right before your eyes; it's magic. I wanted to show you ladies that matte works. I'm a true believer telling you from my own experience! 

Thanks!

Tamz