31dc2013 Day Twenty

31dc2013 Day twenty: Water Marble


         First off I would like to say this was another first for me. I never tried this technique before simply because of how labor intensive it seems/ looks. I've also read that it's pretty hard to perfect. For me it seems like another design that works best for people with long or bigger nails then I, but i suppose it wouldn't be a challenge if it was all easy right? So here we go with my attempt, and by the way, I chose to only do my thumbs middle and ring finger with the water marble technique. The rest of my fingers I kept plain-ish.

     Since it was my first time trying this out I wanted to start simple with a 2 color marble.

       Sorry that ones a little grainy, I have a few other shots that will hopefully show the look off a little better.

        The two colors used are Sinful Colors "mesmerize" which is a dark blurple (blueish purple, purplish blue?) and Julep "Sasha" a nice coral shade.

      I added the dots with a dotting tool to add some more color and interest to the finished look. My top coat smeared it a little bit but you certainly couldn't tell from a distance.

      The finished result was kinda trippy and cool. I want to try this again the clean-up wasnt nearly as bad as I feared. I liberally applied cuticle oil around the nails before the water-marbling to make it  a bit easier. So there it is!

   Steady hands to all!

31dc2013 Day Sixteen

31dc2013 Day sixteen: Tribal print

      Okay, I didn't make it to the store. I still wanted to give it a shot anyway. Since my delicate print was such a fail, I decided to only try to do the tribal print on my middle finger and thumb. I also tried a new (to me) technique on my pointer and pinky fingers called saran wrap nails. I also added a glitter nail (my ring finger).

      Not sure who coined the term, but I suppose this would be called a skittlette manicure.
On my thumb and middle fingers i started with two coats of julep "niecy" Which is a bright bubblegum creme. For my pointer and ring finger I started with a coat of "Rainstorm" by sinful colors. After that dried I painted a thin coat of julep "jessica" and took some bunched up plastic wrap and dapped up some of the color to create a marble look. To me it almost looked like acid washed jeans which looked pretty cool with the bright pink! For my ring finger I added 3 coats of julep "oscar" a pretty dense gold glitter.

     Once my base polish was dry I free handed a simple design over the pink nails. Finished it all off with a coat of extra shiny top coat and voila!. Not the best but certainly better then my previous post. What's your favorite nail art tool for doing small line work?

    Steady hands to all!

31dc2013 Day Thirteen

31dc2013 Day thirteen: Animal print

     As mentioned in my previous post i've been a little uninspired lately, so excuse the lack of imagination for my animal print. Just a simple leopard print from me today.  I do love me some leopard print though.  I also love the combo of glitter with a creme polish.

    For the base I used sinful colors "zincing of you" which is a sheer shimmery gold with extremely tiny micro multi colored flecks. I used three coats for full opacity.

    I then took my dotting tool and made brown spots with china glaze  "Mahogany Magic". Once that dried I used my black nail art pen to go around the brown. Topped it all off withe a generous amount of top coat.

     Voila! easy peasy. This is such a fun easy look that can be done with practically any color combo. It's a go to design for me. What about you?


   Steady hands to all!

31dc2013 Day Eleven

31dc2013 Day eleven: Polka dots

    Hello again! Today's challenge is polka dots. There is something so simple and smart about polka dots. It's such a happy print in my opinion. I've already done a polka dot manicure using black and white for day 7 of the challenge, so I wanted to do something a little different. I've seen this gradient style polka dot manicure floating around the web for a while so I figured I would give it a shot.

    I started this look off with a coat of sinful colors "last chance" which is a dark green jelly polish. Then I did a diagonal sweep across the top of the nails in julep "Melisa" which is a opalescent topper.

     I then did a line of polka dots in Melissa along the line then continued on to the green. Then I used the green over Melissa. over all a very easy look to accomplish.

    I really like the way Melissa looked in different lighting. It had this very pretty shimmer to it.
Well that's all folks!

   Steady hand to all!

31dc2013 Day Eight

31dc2013 Day eight: Metallic Nails

   Typically i'm not a huge fan of metallic polishes because they become streaky or they can be rather sheer. Two of the 5 metallic polishes used for this look were quite sheer.

    The photo above is one coat of the each of the four polishes I used for this gradient. On my thumb is sinful colors "hot wired" which is a dark silver/pewter color which is very sheer. On my pointer (top right) is sinful colors "super nova" which is a shimmery light gold which was the sheerest of the bunch. On my middle finger is Julep "dakota"  which is a nice rose gold that has pretty good coverage, and on my ring finger (far left) is one coat of Julep "Rachel". Rachel is a nice rich shimmery copper color that is richly pigmented, but tends to get that streaky look. Now back to the final product.

    I started this look of with a coat of China glaze "attraction" which is a dark grey metallic color from the Magnetix collection. Since it's a magnetic polish it's super saturated and only needed one coat for full opacity. Unfortunately I didn't snap any photo's for the process of this manicure, just the finished product and some swatches... Oop's!

   I painted a gradient of hot wire, super nova, dakota, and Rachel onto a make-up sponge and then sponged each nail with the copper colors closest to the tips. Almost like a rainbow of metallic polishes. I finished the whole thing off with a coat of Sephora O.P.I. "It's real" 18kt gold flake top coat. I LOVE this top coat! It has the prettiest matte gold flakies in a really nice thick (but not gloopy) clear base. Although I would never pay the original $30 price tag for it, I was totally happy to snag it for $6 when it was marked down on the sephora web-site. It adds an almost marble/stone effect to this look, but look great over pretty much any colors especially darker vampy colors. Thanks for reading!

    Steady hands to all!