Coral and Flowers

I was going to use my Konad stamp set last week, but got lazy, and didn’t want to stretch the polish job out over two days again. Instead, I opted for what I like to call “manicurist flowers” – those simple little flowers made of dots that it seems like everyone ends up with after a trip to the manicurist. They’re simple, easy, and I added a rhinestone to the center for a little “dazzle”. Not too bad, though I was in a hurry, so my dots aren’t all that straight.

What I used:

1 coat Nubar base coat
2 coats China Glaze Coral Star
Sinful Snow Me White for dots
Clear rhinestones
2 coats Nubar top coat (which bubbled…could be the Sinful dots)

I’m less than pleased with the Nubar top coat…the tips are pulling back already, and my index fingernail has a chip starting. I know the China Glaze polish wears better than that, so it has to be the top coat. Luckily, payday is Friday, so I’ll head over and get another bottle of OPI since mine is all “gooey”. I do need to grab some “non-big 3 free” top/base coats to use with my new Essie polishes, and I’ll be able to use those with my Sinful polishes as well.

I entered my Hearts and Pearls design in the March nail art contest over at trendyprincess.com...maybe I'll win some more nail art stuff!

I’m looking forward to greens, with St. Patrick’s day coming up. Maybe I’ll go green next week…

Hearts and Pearls

My mother-in-law called my nails “romantic” this week. I don’t normally consider myself a romantic, but I will admit that the soft colors and “girly” design do give me that warm, fuzzy feeling.

Hubby’s choice for color this week was one of the “Moodies” color-changing nail lacquers that I ordered from Nubar this month. It’s “Purple to Pink” and quite soft and lovely. The thing I love about Moodies is that since my nails are long, when my hands do get warm, the tips stay cool, so with this particular one, my nails turn a lovely shade of light pink, and the tips are purple – instant French manicure! I bought a “Silver to White Linen” as well, and can’t wait to try that out.

Nubar is a great company – they sent free base and top coats with my polishes, and I ordered an electric nail polish remover (keep reading) that they sent extra sponges for as well! I was quite pleased with all my little “extras”, and the Moodies polish went on smoothly and dried quickly.

What I used:

1 coat Nubar base coat
3 coats Nubar Moodies “Pink to Purple”
1 coat Nubar top coat
Flat heart charms and flat-backed pearls
1 final coat Nubar top coat to seal
Qtica half-time drops
This art is pretty self explanatory. I centered the hearts first, then put the pearls on in a “necklace” layout that I hoped would mimic the natural smile line that would appear when the polish color changed on the tips. For the most part, I think I did pretty well, considering my hands were cold at the time, so my nails were completely purple. I’ve been having great fun showing off my “mood change” nail polish to friends and making it change color for them (I stick my hands under warm water to turn the nails all pink, then let the tips turn purple again as they cool off). Fun! Yes, the little things really do amuse me…

I think I might enter these into Felicia’s nail art contest for next month…the hearts and pearls are from her TrendyPrincess store (linked to the right).
The power polish remover I also ordered from Nubar is a fun little gadget, and makes it super-easy to remove the polish from my nails! Each of those little sponges is in it’s own little bag, and you just pop the whole thing in the cup at the top of the machine. Then you fill the bag with nail polish remover to saturate the sponge, stick a finger into the middle of the sponge, and press the pink button. The machine turns the sponge around and around, removing the polish! I did have to touch up the edges with a q-tip, but it was a lot faster and easier than cotton balls and polish remover. We’ll see how it does with these nail charms later this week…but it really takes the “work” out of removing nail polish, for me anyways. Nubar sent me enough sponges for 6 months – you toss the sponge, bag and all after 10 nails, so one per week. The packaging says you can use a sponge for cuticle softening too, just put cuticle cream on your finger, then put it in a clean sponge. That can be reused much longer, according to the packaging. Very cool.

I was going to do another Valentine’s design for next week, but now I’m not sure. I have some holographic China Glaze colors I’d like to try, and some Essie colors, so we’ll see what strikes my fancy later in the week (or my husband’s fancy).

Gold Stamped

I finally took the time last week to really get cozy with the Nail Art Diva machine. By that, I mean that I polished my nails one night, and then did the stamping the next. Needless to say, it was a far better experience than my first, and I do think I’ll get a lot of use out of this little machine.

What I used:

1 coat OPI base coat
3 coats OPI 18k Ginza Gold
3 coats OPI top coat (you’ll see why the extra below)
Qtica half-time drops
Black nail art paint from Nail Art Diva (NAD)
2 coats NAD top coat
I started with a basic polish in gold (hubby picked the color – he likes to do that). I did three coats of top coat after reading in the NAD instructions that top coat would leave room for fixing stamped mistakes. Then I let it dry, and the following night, I set up at the dining room table with everything I’d need (including a glass of orange pop, which kind of matched my nails!).
The NAD machine is very simple. There’s a suction cup on the bottom that sucks it to the table to hold it in place. There’s a place for the metal plate with the designs cut into it, a silicone stamper, and a metal scraper. At the other end, there’s a spot for your nail to sit, with an adjustable edge to position the center of your nail where the center of the design will be. The gray part moves back and forth over the whole thing like an old credit card machine.

The trick is to have everything set up, the design in place, and your fingernail already on the nail rest before you start. The polish holder they give you is great – it holds the bottles very steady, since you’ll only be using one hand to apply polish with. When I was ready, I put my nail on the rest, grabbed the brush, and started counting.

One-thousand one, one-thousand two, one-thousand three, one-thousand four, one-thousand five.

In those five seconds, I put the polish on the metal plate, then slid the gray shuttle back over the plate, tapped the stamper to pick up the design, slid the shuttle back over my nail, and tapped the shuttle again. Everything goes very quickly. I cleaned the metal plate a few times, but not after every nail, and most of them came out very nicely, as long as I moved quickly enough.

The mistakes were easily fixed with a little polish remover on a q-tip…I simply rubbed off the design, and started over. The extra layer of top coat ensured that I never got down to the polish layer, protecting my gold manicure.

When I was done with all my nails (they dry super-fast), I brushed a couple coats of the NAD topcoat over them (basically a resin), which also dried fast. The entire project took all of half an hour, and that’s with set up and cleaning up the machine with nail polish remover afterwards. Waiting to do the stamping until the polish layer was completely dry the next day was key to my success…not having to worry about messing up a manicure really makes it much easier.

Next time, the first of two weeks worth of Valentine’s Day nails. Hearts, anyone?

Bows & Teardrops

I decided to try entering an ongoing nail art contest at http://www.trendyprincess.com/, and see if I could win some nail art supplies. I came up with this simple little design using rhinestones I bought from that site, since they want pictures of artwork using their products. My manicure obviously isn’t perfect by any means, so I’m not sure if I’ll even be in the running, but we’ll see. It was fun to play around with, anyways, and the contest is a monthly one, so I can enter again later if I want. I think it looks elegant, though I’m not sure how the bows are going to hold up, since my nails are naturally quite rounded, and the edges of the bows are not adhered to the polish surface. Surprisingly, they haven't gotten snagged on things like I was sure they would - even doing the dishes, laundry and such. I did put a nice thick layer of top coat over them though, and while it etched the big bows somewhat, it left the teardrops sparkly.

What I used:

1 coat OPI base coat
2 coats OPI Russian to a Party
1 coat OPI top coat for rhinestones
Bow tie and tear drop rhinestones
1 coat OPI top coat to set design
Qtica Half-Time drops (they’re magical, I tell ya!)

I think I’m getting better at taking pictures (not "good" just yet, but better). I think I just need to stop trying to take them at night, and take them in natural daylight instead. I’ll do that next time, and see how it turns out.

I have some time this coming weekend for trying out the Nail Art Diva machine again - this time, I'll let my nails dry completely before messing with it, and see if I can't do some nice stamped art for next week. Cross your fingers!

I Got the Blues

I tried the Nail Art Diva machine this weekend. It was fun for the first nail, then aggravating after that. It didn’t help that I wasn’t really in a great mood to start with, and wasn’t feeling terribly patient at the time. I ruined a perfectly good polish job, and fought with the thing long enough to contemplate sending it back. But in the back of my mind I knew I was just trying to rush things too much, so I’m going to try it again later, when I’m calm, patient, and ready to wait until my base polish job is completely dry to commence with stamping art on my nails.
So I went with ultra simple this week – as you can see. A stripe of silver and a light blue rhinestone in the center of each nail, to match this gorgeous blue polish I got last week from Zoya. My only complaint is that the Zoya Armor topcoat etched the top of the rhinestone, making it opaque instead of all sparkly like it started out! Memo to self – use OPI topcoat to set rhinestones on Zoya polish…

What I used:

1 coat Zoya Anchor base coat
2 coats Zoya Kotori polish
Stripe Rite in silver for stripes
2 coats Zoya Armor topcoat - They say to use one coat on the bottle, but I used one as a base for setting the rhinestone, and one over the top, as I normally do.
Qtica Half-Time Drops – I got these free with my Zoya order, and I have to say, they work *perfectly*…my polish really was rock hard all the way through in just 10 minutes or so!

The picture above is without a flash, the one below with. I’m still playing with the new camera, but these pictures don’t do justice to the sparkly nature of this polish, unfortunately.I got a few more new polishes last week, and an OPI pig from EightyEight Beauty Supply! How fun is that – pictures of her next week (fitting too - I do love my OPI)! OPI is half the price from there, so I’ll definitely be ordering more from them in the future. I also got my order from TrendyPrincess.com last week – rhinestones, a box to keep them in, and a little tool to pick them up with that came in very handy when doing my nails this week. She also sent some fun extras that I will have to play with later – some extra bow-shaped rhinestones, gold glitter, and pink hearts. Fun! I put links in the Nail Art section for the companies I’ve been buying from, if anyone is interested. I don’t get any kickbacks or anything, but I’m finding that it really is cheaper to buy polish and supplies online.

I haven’t decided what to do next week yet. If I can find the time, I’ll try the Nail Art Diva stamper again. If not, I’ll figure something out. I have the Konad stamp kit as well…maybe I should try that one out instead.

Tuxedo Nails

My husband’s holiday party was last Saturday night, and while I wore black pants and a sparkly black sweater with heels, my nails were dressed formally in tiny tuxedos, accented with a rhinestone in the center of each bowtie. I also did the undersides of my nails red, but didn’t get a good shot of those. The “finished” picture you see here was taken with (drum roll, please)…the new digital camera we bought this weekend! I should be able to get much better nail shots now, as soon as I learn how to use our new toy…

I took some pictures of the steps I went through to get this look, in case anyone is interested. I used Sinful colors this time, because I just can’t afford to buy *all* OPI! Unfortunately, I did have some bubbling, possibly due to the OPI topcoat over the Sinful polishes.

What I used:
1 coat OPI basecoat
1 coat Sinful Snow Me White
1 coat Sinful Tokyo Pearl
Sinful Black on Black for the tips and buttons
StripeRite black for the bowties
2 coats OPI topcoat
First, a coat of the Snow Me White to create a white opaque base. Sinful polish is thick, so it was streaky going on, but with the pearlized finish going over the top, I didn’t worry about it.
Next, a coat of Tokyo Pearl to make the shirt finish more satiny. Yes, I know, I make a huge mess of my fingers when I’m polishing them. My secret is, I do them at night, then in the morning, I let the shower soften up the skin and polish on my cuticles, and pull/push the polish off my skin with a plastic orange stick I keep in the shower just for that purpose. Voila, nice looking manicure.
Next, French chevron tips in Black on Black. I don’t use a guide or anything, I just start at the side of my nail where the tip extends out from my fingertip, and brush it on diagonally out to the tip. I repeat on the other side, and then fill in any missed areas. I did have a little trouble with the thick nature of the polish, which is why I didn’t do dress fronts on some fingers too – too difficult to control curved lines with this polish.
Then I did the bowties with my black StripeRite polish. I should have taken a picture of the brush – it’s very long, and skinny, perfect for drawing lines. And that’s just what I did to make the bowties. I drew a small elongated “x” at the base of each fingernail, then filled it in with lines inside those one at a time. You can see in the finished picture that they aren’t the neatest lines ever, but they aren’t too bad.
After that, time for the buttons. I waited to do the buttons last, so that I could use them to “straighten” the lines between the “jacket” and the bowtie. I just brushed a little Black on Black onto a piece of plastic, then used my dot tool (toothpick works too) to make three dots on each nail. That gives the illusion of a straight line in most places.
After all the main art dried, I brushed a coat of topcoat over each nail, placing a rhinestone in the center of the bowtie as I went along. I let that sit for a few minutes, then put one more thicker coat of topcoat over the whole thing to set it.

So there you have it – tuxedo nails, start to finish. My hubby loved them, and had me showing them to everyone at the party…they were a big hit! I’ll keep them until Friday (Thurs. is my birthday – dinner at my parent’s house). The edges are shrinking a bit, but they should be okay until then. I have my nail stampers, so next time, I’ll do some stamped nail art. I placed a way-too-big order for Zoya polishes from Art of Beauty last week, and they should be here Thursday, so something fun from their line for the base color, I think.