Malibu Pearls

The folks at The Painted Nail and The Nail Files were kind enough to send me three bottles of polish to use and review. The polish is made by Nubar, and I have to say, "Malibu Dreams" is probably my favorite hot pink polish ever (and I don't normally care much for hot pink). It has a blueish base, and tons of tiny sparkly glitter that makes it look wet even when dry. Great formula too (as expected from Nubar). So this week I started with two coats of Malibu Dreams (over a coat of Seche Vite base coat):

And then got out my large rhinestones (provided by Born Pretty Store) and pearls for a little "nail-lace" on each (one thick coat of top coat to set them in). The turquoise and pink combo reminded me of someplace warm and sunny and bright like Malibu. I set the big rhinestone first in the center of the nail. Then I placed the little pearls on each side. Super, super easy. If the top coat is wet enough, you can slide the stones around a bit until they're where you want them, so working fast is helpful (but not necessary).

I only did one more thickish coat of top coat (Seche Vite) to seal, because the stones were set pretty well in the first coat. These don't stick up too far, so it shouldn't be an issue. They feel very solid.

Sorry - no video this week. I shot some, but didn't have time to edit it. Next week a Fourth of July design, and I'll have time for video since I have a three-day weekend. :-)

Until then, happy polishing!

Tanzy Citrus & Nail Files

This week's manicure is a bright summer design - I'm hoping if we celebrate the first day of summer properly, the nice weather will stick around awhile. I even have a video for you, although it's a bit blurry right where it counts (good grief - third time is a charm?).  But first, lemme show you the polishes that I received yesterday for review from The Painted Nail via the publicist for Nail Files, a new TV series that starts tonight. They were kind enough to send me a video of the show, and I watched it last night. I thought it was great - it's about a salon owner in Hollywood. Super dramatic, of course, but most reality TV is. In any case, I'll be watching online since it's on the TV Guide channel and I don't have cable. Anyone going to watch with me?

These are the polishes they sent - and the photo does not do these justice. Nubar is the maker, and the colors are just fabulous and sparkly. I'll have a manicure with these for next week.

So...back to the citrus. I started with one coat of Seche Vite base coat, and one coat of Finger Paints "Well-cultured Pearl" to provide an opaque base. Then I layered two coats of Zoya's "Tanzy", which I am completely in love with. It's so sparkly and shimmery - even when it's dry, it looks wet due to all the sparkle. Nail bling!

I set the clay canes in a thickish-coat of Seche Vite top coat, making sure to press the edges down as well as I could. Clay can be kind of rebellious, and tends to curl at the edges sometimes. The nice thing is that even if it sticks up a bit off the nail, the edges are blunt enough on a round cane that they don't get stuck on things often.

Here's the video - apologies for the blur!

And the finished look once more, all cleaned up.

Next week, I've got my sights on that "Malibu Dreams" - the hot pink polish above from The Painted Nail.

Until then, Happy Polishing!

Wearing O'The Green

It's still Tuesday here. ;-) I'm afraid I don't have a tutorial for you (because I've been a total slacker), but I have three green manicures to share for St. Patrick's Day this week...

All of these designs were done with 1 coat Seche Vite base coat, 2 coats base polish, and the stones set in two coats of Seche Vite top coat. I should buy stock in Seche Vite...

First off, we have my favorite green polish, China Glaze "Emerald Sparkle", tipped with OPI's "Here Today, Aragon Tomorrow" (which looks black, but is really very dark green). I added light green rhinestones to the center for interest. I love this manicure - super simple to do, yet casual/elegant. 

 

Next up, I used a base polish of Rimmel's 60 Second polish in "Camouflage" - a lovely color, but as you can see I had some trouble with tip pull. Gotta remember to wrap the polish at the nail edge, peeps! Then I put a swoop of white diagonally across the nail, and a glittery gold Sinful color as a base for some large and small light green stones. It was really much more subdued than the picture shows - apologies for the flash. 

 And of course this week, it's back to my favorite Emerald Sparkle, with more of the light green rhinestones arranged into shamrocks on three nails each hand. Aside from my thumb (which I tried to make 4-leaf), they turned out nicely, I think.

Larger rhinestones compliments of the Born Pretty Store, and I purchased the smaller stones from Nail Delights. 

Finally, I saw Nail Art Tuesday mentioned in a blog round-up recently, but I can't find the post again. :-( Whoever you are, thanks so much for the mention! I appreciate it. :-) 

Next week, back to tutorials. Until then, Happy Polishing - and Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Coppery Fall

Apologies for disappearing, fellow nail art lovers. October kind of got away from me in a big way, and I dropped the ball here. But things are back to normal now, more or less and should be from here on out.  Ready for more nail art? Me too. :-)

Last week after all the Halloween hoopla, I decided a lighter fall manicure was in order. I started off with two coats of Zoya "Penny" over Zoya's Anchor base coat (above). Then I went over the tips with Zoya "Kalima", which is a gorgeous bright orange copper color. I really love these two polishes together...

You know I can't resist bling...so I dug out some yellow rhinestones, and outlined the smile line with them on my thumb, plus added one more to the tip. I decided the smile line was too much, so I just placed one stone in the point of the other nails. All stones were set in one coat Zoya Armor top coat.

Then I sealed it with two more coats of top coat, which you may note bubbled a bit. My top coat is old...I sense a nail supply order in my near future...

And voila! Simple coppery fall nails...super-simple and pretty subtle overall.

Next week, something darker under the last of my yellow rhinestones...until then, thanks for visiting and happy polishing!

Black Splats

 

My apologies for missing last week - I did a candy corn manicure I thought was an abject failure, though I got a ton of compliments on it. This week I was going to do orange "splats" on my black nails, but decided I liked this gold glitter instead. Unfortunately, it's insanely hard to photograph - which is too bad since I love how it turned out. 

I used stencils ordered from Nail Art Delights - these fun paint/blood splatter marks. 

Since I was originally going to use orange, I started by painting the undersides of my nails with Pure Ice orange for contrast. 

Then I did the tops with two coats China Glaze "Liquid Leather" over one coat China Glaze base coat. I love LL - the best shiny black out there, in my opinion. 

This is when I started experimenting. I had Sinful Colors "All About Me" on my manicure tray - it's a transparent gold glitter. I wanted to see what it looked like over the black, so I brushed a coat over my pinky nails. 

I wish it would photograph better - it looks almost brocade-like. So I decided to do my splats in that, and started with a coat of fast-dry top coat, and then secured a stencil over my thumbnail. 

Filled it with the gold glitter...

And pulled it off. A word of warning on these particular stencils. Due to the wide open spot in the center, it's hard to get these off without warping the design. Go slow, and don't just pull from one corner, pull evenly along a whole side. 

I finished the rest and sealed the design with two coats China Glaze top coat. I used one of the Avon nail art corrector pens for clean-up...the only problem I have with these is they run out too quickly. I need to play with the refillable style again. Here's a yellow photo that shows the design just a bit better: 

And one in regular light: 

Next week, I'm doing a glow-in-the-dark webs design for our annual Halloween party. Until then, happy polishing!

Purple Bows

Keeping up with the light-colors theme for my super-short nails...I like how this simple design turned out. And I love how easy it is to make precise designs with these stencils! I bought them from Nail Delights and plan on ordering more soon.

I started with two coats of Avon's "Luxe Lavender" polish over a layer of China Glaze base coat. I like this purple...the perfect pastel, I think.

I put one layer of China Glaze quick-dry top coat over to seal and dry everything quickly, and then started at my thumbnail. Remember when using these stencils to take most of the glue *off* by sticking them to the pads of your fingers a few times...it doesn't take much glue to keep them on the nail.

Then just stick some polish on the stencil - I used Sinful Colors "Daddy's Girl" for the bows...

And pull the stencil off before the polish sets. Voila! Sparkly purple bow.

I finished the rest one at a time - it goes really fast with virtually no work.

And then I finished it off with a little purple rhinestone in the center of each bow, and two coats top coat to seal.

You might notice my nails are cleaned up in this last photo - I've finally discovered a polish remover pen that works extremely well for me. Avon's Nail Corrector Pen is quick and easy with less wear & tear on my cuticles than my old shower method, and I'm ordering two more tonight. Something you may want to try if you're looking for a fast & easy way to clean up after a manicure. And no, I don't sell Avon (used to, but haven't for several years) or get anything from the company for this recommendation, I just really like the product. I'm seriously considering trying their cuticle oil pen too...

If you know me at all, you know I *love* Halloween. I even have a Halloween scrapbook blog. In any case, I'm declaring October "Halloween Month" here at Nail Art Tuesday...check back for the first Halloween manicure for this year next week.

Until then, happy polishing!

Blue Foils & Broken Nail

When I ordered from Adell at Nail Art Delights last spring, she was generous to include a free roll of nail foil, and a bottle of adhesive. I've been meaning to try them all summer, and last week, when my index fingernail broke off below the tip of my finger (meaning I had to cut all my nails way short to match), it seemed like the perfect time. If you haven't tried foils before, they're super-fun and easy...but I'm hoping those of you who have tried them can help me - see the end of the post.

First, photos of my poor broken index nail. For some reason, my nails always seem to break off *below* the tip of my finger, so I can't actually do much about the cut until the nail grows out. Here's the difference in length after I cut my index nail down:

*sigh* And here are my poor nails after being hacked off. I've always been very sensitive about my fingernail length for some reason. When I was in elementary school and was made to cut them super-short for piano lessons, I cried. Seriously.

You can see the break there. Painful stuff. Don't mind the roughed up surfaces there - I'd just filed and buffed the tops to prep for polish.

So I started with 2 coats of China Glaze "Blue Island Iced Tea" - one of my favorite sparkly blues.

Pretty, yes? After the polish is dry, it's time to apply the adhesive. It only takes a thin coat, and you have to let it dry until it's just tacky on the nail (I lost my instructions, so if this is wrong, someone correct me, please). You can do designs, or stripes, or whatever - the foil will only stick to the adhesive. When it's tacky but dry-ish, it's time to foil. As you can see, the foil has two sides - the side you can see the design on, and a brown side:

The brown side goes on your nail. You can cut it, but I'm too lazy - I just start at the end, and press a section to the prepared nail. You can use a cotton ball, I just used an orange stick to smooth the foil over the nail surface, and make sure it makes good contact with the adhesive.

Then you just pull the leftover clear plastic off, and voila! Pretty foil on your nail.

Here's what four looked like, and to the left you can see the used foil paper. If you miss a spot, dab a little adhesive on and let it dry, then just use one of the smaller unused bits still on the backing. Super-easy.

So here's my problem. When I tried to put China Glaze top coat over it, the foil smeared. Zoya worked slightly better, but still tore the foil. Any foil mavens out there? What do you use to seal your foil designs?

I ended up having to redo these the next day - foil has no staying power without some sort of protection. I have *plenty* left though, and will be ordering more, so stay tuned for more of this technique later.

Next week - glittery gold and rhinestones. Until then, Happy Polishing!

Revvv It Up

It's been raining for days. I'm not really a happy camper in the rain - gray, cold and wet is just not my thing. So I went with a dark charcoal color for the week, with rainbow mica embedded for those rare moments when the sun peeks out from behind the dark clouds. Naturally I added some rhinestone stickers for a little extra dimension.

I started with 2 coats of Color Club's "Revvvolution" over China Glaze base coat:

You can see all the pretty colors embedded with the flash. These normally aren't visible unless the lights hits the color just perfectly.

Then I took these lovely Cina nail art stickers - basically just rhinestones arranged on adhesive backs:

...and placed them simply on each nail.

Two coats of China Glaze top coat and clean-up, and voila. Very simple dark design that still pops.

With any luck, the rain will stop by next week, and I'll be ready for something brighter again. ;-)

Until then, happy polishing!

Autumn Crosses

We'll get to the nail art in just a minute, I promise. First, thanks to Rachel for emailing me to let me know that Nail Art Tuesday made the SpaSchools.com top 50 nail blogs list! I'm number 13...which is very cool. Go check it out, along with all the other fabulous blogs on the list!

On to this week's design. My "finished" photos are dark for some reason - sorry about that. The base color is Finger Paints "Autumn Blazes", and is a dark berry wine color that I just love. This was my first experience with Finger Paints polish, and i have to say, I really really like it. Super nice formula, goes on great, highly pigmented - excellent overall. I doubt this will be my last bottle.

This is a better photo of the color, though a little bright due to the flash. After two coats of the base polish (over China Glaze base coat), I got out my white Cina nail art pen and put the first cross on each nail. I tried to offset the intersections, and vary the heights for interest.

Then I got the black nail art pen out, and went over them again, making a second cross just next to the first.

I was going to stop there...but it needed...something. So I grabbed my rhinestones and put a clear one at each intersection for a little extra 3D bling, set in a thin layer of China Glaze quick-dry top coat.

One more coat of top coat to seal, and clean up in the morning - voila! A very simple, yet interesting design.

Next week...hmm. Maybe something gold, I think.

Until then, happy polishing!