Monday, June 30, 2014

Sunny Gradient Triangles


I loved this manicure!

Colors Used:
  • Base
    • Sinful Colors-Snow Me White
  • Gradient
    • Sinful Colors-24/7
    • Sally Hansen-Sun Kissed
    • OPI-Need Sunglasses
For this manicure, all you have to do to get those cool triangles is use tape on a completely dry white base to tape off where you want your triangle, then sponge your gradient on over the tape.
As you can see, the process looks pretty messy in the middle of it! If you use enough tape when taping off your triangles, however, they should cover your cuticles and therefore help you avoid that awful cleanup afterwards!
That's all there is to this manicure! What do you think? Summery? I think I would like it more if my nails were grown out more so the hot pink and the yellow were more visible!



Sunday, June 29, 2014

Sunset Gradient

Colors Used:

  • Base
    • Sinful Colors-Snow Me White
  • Gradient
    • Funky Fingers-Power Play
    • Sinful Colors-24/7
    • Sally Hansen-Sun Kissed
    • OPI-Need Sunglasses
  • Design
    • OPI-Black Onyx

This design was pretty easy to do, but I wasn't super happy with how the palm trees turned out. I should have used a much thinner brush! Oh well... All you do for this is a typical gradient, using a makeup sponge and painting on stripes of your 4 colors, then rolling it onto your already white nails. Go over that a couple times, then use a nail art brush with your black color and paint the design. Done!

What do you guys think?

Wednesday, June 25, 2014

Back to School Mani!


Colors Used:
  • Paper
    • Sinful Colors-Snow Me White
    • Essie-Bikini So Teeny
    • pink color was a blend to match the pencil eraser 
  • Pencil
    • Sally Hansen Insta Dry-Lightening
    • Claire's-unnamed two-way silver striper and pen
    • pink blend 
  • Chalkboard
    • OPI-Black Onyx
    • Sinful Colors-Snow Me White
  • Apple
    • OPI-Big Apple Red
    • OPI-Don't Mess With OPI
As you can see, this mani was relatively complicated and while the designs themselves weren't that hard, it took me a while because I had to keep switching up my colors for each nail. This was probably the first complicated mani I did! Looking back on it now, I can see the mess but I remember being so proud of it and showing it off on my first day back in school!

Tuesday, June 24, 2014

Scuba Diving Flag!

back in the days when i didn't know cleanup was a thing....or nail shaping
Colors Used:
  • OPI-Big Apple Red
  • Sinful Colors-Snow Me White

This one is a super easy tape manicure! In celebration of being about to achieve my divers license, I decided to copy the dive flag
As you can see, it's a super simple design. I just cut strips of tape in half and taped diagonally across my nails, then painted with Big Apple Red. When that was dry or close to it, I peeled the tape off and carefully filled in the stripe with Snow Me White. Done!

Sunday, June 22, 2014

Cute Floral/Stripe Mix

again, you have to excuse the quality of my nails/polish/photography (i'm so sorry)
Colors Used:
Stripes
  • Revlon-Flirt
  • Sinful Colors-Snow Me White
Flowers
  • Sinful Colors-Snow Me White
  • OPI-Strawberry Margarita
  • OPI-Black Onyx
  • L'Oreal-Creme de Mint

How to:
I started with a base of 2 coats of Snow Me White on the flower nails, then used a dotter to apply my flowers in Strawberry Margarita. Once those were dry, I used a smaller dotter to apply the centers of the flowers in Black Onyx and another dotter (that I dragged a little) to create the leaves in Creme de Mint. 
On the stripe nails, I did 2 coats of Flirt and then used a striper to apply Snow Me White in big vertical stripes. Done!

Do you like it? Offended/blinded by the state of my nails/cuticles?

Multicolored Zig-Zags


Now I know that these photos aren't very neat but I LOVED these nails when I had them on :)

Colors Used:
Base
  • Sinful Colors-Snow Me White
Zig-Zags
  • Essie-Full Steam Ahead
  • Essie-Bikini So Teeny
  • Essie-Haute As Hello
  • OPI-Strawberry Margarita

How to:
This one is pretty self explanatory, start with two coats of white and then use a nail brush to carefully draw your zig-zags. It does take some patience and a steady hand, and you can see I couldn't get my lines perfectly. However, when I looked at my hand as a whole, it still looked pretty darn cool :)

Cherry Blossom Nails

Now, I have to warn you that this was before I learned how to clean my cuticles very effectively..

Do you like it?
Colors Used:
Fresh Paint-Pistachio
OPI-Black Onyx
OPI-Sparrow Me The Dream
OPI-Strawberry Margarita

I know this is rather messy, but I remember being quite proud of it at the time! 

How to:
I started with a base of two coats of Fresh Paint Pistachio, then once it was dry I used a nail art brush to draw my branches in OPI Black Onyx. I then used a dotter to create my flowers on the various branches, using OPI Sparrow Me The Dream for the petals and OPI Strawberry Margarita for the center. Super easy, super cute if you don't mess up like I did!