Fall Stripes

This was a quick design to get into doing nail art again, so it's not as sharp and clean as I imagined it being. I used two coats of Sinful Colors' Rich in Heart and then used an orangey chrome foil on each nail called "Daybreak".  I laid a strip of glue done along the edge of the foil and placed red glitter done. I added a parallel line of Sinful Colors' Hot Hot Heat on the foil to add another element of red, but I'm not crazy about it.

Top coat!

Tamara

Hozier

 Last Thursday I was able to go to the Hozier concert when he came to Minneapolis! I had seats in the very back of the balcony along with my sister (Tracy) and my friend Jenny. It was actually a great spot - I could see the entire crowd enjoying the performance, but mainly, I didn't have a giant person in front of me. I had a clear view of that beautiful being and he put on one of the most amazing shows I've ever had the pleasure of attending.

I had to do design my nails after the concert, so I used the shirt I bought as quick inspiration. I used two coats of Sinful Colors' Black on Black. I went in with white paint and tried my best to copy the font - I think it turned out pretty well! For the splatter, I watered down the paint a bit and dipped the end of a coffee straw into it. I tired to blow the spots onto my nails. No go on that technique. I ended up bending the straw upward and letting go of it to get the paint to splatter. Top coat to finish!

Tracy got this shirt. I feel like it should be framed, or cuddled in bed with.

Here's the real show stopper. After the show, the three of us waited out by Hoizer's buses with a group of people. After an hour of waiting in the cold while I had a cold, he finally came out at midnight. He only was able to sign things which was upsetting because I wanted and still would have loved a picture with him. BUT the important things: we all got our tickets signed and Tracy still snapped a shot of the man himself.

 Tamara

Spray Marble

Another huge gap of time without doing my nails or posting.. I wanted to get back into the nail art mode by doing a simple technique: spray marbling. This was my very first attempt and it was so fun, easy, and eye catching! 

I started with painting two coats of Sinful Colors' Gold Medal. I set out my usual water marbling equipment: container of lukewarm water, a tooth pick, napkin, acetone, and glue. Plus, I had only one polish - Sinful Colors' Secret Admirer - instead of two or more to use, and hair spray. I started the spray marble process by painting glue onto the skin around my nail bed to my first knuckle. The glue is there so the nail polish doesn't stick to my skin. The polish gets on the glue and I am able to peel it off at the end instead of rubbing polish off my skin with acetone. 

So, I painted the glue on and waited for it to dry. Then I used three drops of Secret Admirer and briefly waited for all the polish to spread out. I used three drops so the polish would turn out black instead of grey. If you look below at my pinky, you can see that the polish is lighter than my other fingers because I only used two drops. 

Once you have your polish in the water, you take your hairspray and aim toward the polish. The polish ends up opening up; all you have to do is pick the spot you like the best and dip your nail into that portion of polish.

I waited a moment before taking my toothpick and clearing the water of polish around my finger. I repeated the process with all of my nails - drop polish, spray, clear the water. When I dipped my fingers in, the glue moistened once again, so I had to wait for the glue to re-dry before peeling it off. God bless, glue!! I barely had any polish to clean off of my skin besides right around my nail bed and under my nails. Top coat and done!

Tamara

Dry Marble

It has been over a month since I've posted any nails designs because I've been constantly busy with my summer course. Believe it or not, I've only painted my nails twice in the past month.. It's been a rough stretch of time.  

I wanted to try dry marbling after seeing sprinklenails' 4th of July design. It is absolutely gorgeous! Although I've seen dry marbling done often, I have never attempted it, instead going right to water marbling. After this design, I think my go-to will be the dry option from now on!

I put down one coat of Sally Hansen's Hard to Get to begin with because I chose Sinful Colors' Pink - a classic neon - as one of my three colors along with Sinful Colors' Sugar Rush and Heavy Metal. 

To begin with, I cut out a square of wax paper. I then painted a stripe of each color onto the wax paper right next to each other like sprinkleanails' tutorial. I folded the wax paper several times until I liked the marble effect that the mixed polish created. Like water marbling, you have to choose which area of the marble that you want on your nail before you apply the wax paper to your nail. I gently rolled my finger over the wax paper so the polish would transfer onto my nail bed.

Repeat with each nail, reapplying new polish when it runs out. 

The clean up took some extra time because Heavy Metal is packed with glitter, but no complaints! I adore how it subtly blended into the pink and blue, yet it still was distinct in certain spots. I LOVE how it turned out!

Chipped right hand that was finally treated to a design!

Tamara

Heart Beat

It's been ages since I've painted my nails, let alone designed them!! I won't have a lot leisure time to do my nails for the next month or so. I'm taking some summer courses that are throwing buckets of work at me, yay..! 

But, here's one coat of Sally Hansen's Hard to Get with two coats of Wet n Wild's Nerd Alert: Screech. Nerd Alert: Screech needs to have white underneath it, otherwise the nail bed shows through no matter how many coats you apply. I found this really neat heart design online, so I decided to paint it on my nails. I used black acrylic to paint a heart with a heart beat inside of it wearing headphones on my thumb and ring finger. The other fingers got musical notes painted onto them.

Tamara