Dots-A-Lots

It was a busy week last week!  I had meetings every night and didn't get a chance to change my Love Bug nails until yesterday/today!  This one, I admit, looked better in my head, than it did in reality, but it was fun just the same!  "Dots-A-Lots" looks pretty cool on my fingernails as I tap away on my keyboard, just not as cool up close looking at all the little flaws.  All in all, I like it!  I've got another idea for dots, so be on the look-out for it! 

Here are the "Dots-A-Lots"

I started with a base coat of Sally Hansen's "Color Quick" Fast Dry Nail Color Pen in Turquoise Chrome.  The color is great,and it does dry REALLY fast, but it seems to come off really easily, too, and leave behind marks if I run my nails across paper or anything.  So if the next time I use it, I'll put a top coat on as soon as it's dry.  Anyway, after that base coat I added dots using Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in "Black Out" and "White On".  I wonder what this would look like with red underneath?  Or pink?  or lime?  I may have to experiment.  It was a fun one to do...they all are!  

Love Bugs

Happy Valentine's Day!!

Keeping with the holiday theme - here are some Love Bugs!

I started with a base coat of Pure Ice Splash then added Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Black Out on the tips.  I used Kiss Nail Art Paint in black to do the stripes and hearts.

And....I also painted my daughter's fingernails this weekend, and she wanted me to put the pictures on here...

Hartzy-Schwartzy

This nail art could be called "Hartzy-Schwartzy" 

OR

"How to Cover Up Problems In Your Base-Coat"

"Hartzy-Schwwartzy" sounded better, don't you think?

First the pictures, then I'll explain the alternate title...

Obviously, I didn't hide all the problems, but this Nail Art design covered up most of them!

Here's what I did:

I applied my two coats of Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Bubblegum Pink in the morning as I was getting ready.  Then, in the process of getting my daughter and I out the door in the negative degree temperature, I nicked, bumped, and gashed a few places.  Not to mention the fact that I couldn't wear gloves - not a good idea!  Then later in the day, I did put gloves on and managed to mess up another one!  I was a little frustrated until I thought up this idea - to add hearts in different colors and patterns to cover up the problems!  I used the Kiss Nail Paint that I used in the "It's All In The Family" Nail Art a few weeks ago to add hearts as needed to cover up the nicks, bumps, gashes, and other imperfections.  You'll have to add this to your arsenal of things to do when you mess up your own base coat!

Big Game Nail Art

Green Bay Packers vs Pittsburgh Steelers

Packers

Steelers

More Water-Marbled Nails

Do you love Water-Marbled Nails?
If so....here are some more!


I went to visit my family this last weekend wearing the "It's All In The Family" nail art I posted last week.  While we were there, I HAD to do some new nail art before the KU vs KSU basketball game.   I did KU water-marbled nails on my own nails.  Then my Mom wanted water-marbled nails, too, so I did hers pink and while.  Then, my Brother K's Girlfriend E wanted to see how it was done, so I did hers lime, black, and white.  And here they are....

All In The Family (Review of Kiss Nail Artist Kits)

Hello....it's me...I'm still alive, really!

Life's been a bit hectic and I haven't had/made the time to do my nails very often.  On top of that, I had a few days of "junk nail" manicures that didn't go well, nails that broke or split, and then there was the way I sliced my thumb with a knife preparing oranges and the way I grabbed a hot pot and burnt two of my fingers...they didn't make for very pretty hands to photograph!  Anyway....here's the latest one.  

Remember a few posts back I told you I had these new Kiss Nail Paints I wanted to try out?  Well, this manicure was all about using those Kiss Nail Artist kits.  I challenged my self to use any kind of polish for a base coat and then use only the two Kiss Nail Artist kits to do the rest of the manicure.  So I did a manicure where each nail represents a member of my family, now that there are ten of us!  (Isn't THAT convenient!)  I'll provide my review of the Kiss Nail Art Paints, stencils, guides, and decals as I do.

*Note: I did not receive any compensation for this review.  I was not given these kits to review.  I bought them with my own money and am providing this review because I want to. *

Pictures?

Here are the polishes I used

And here are just the Kiss Nail Artist Kit Contents

The brushes in the paints are long and thin like this

This proved to be a challenge for me because I'm used to working with my embossing tools, (see Thanksgiving Nails here).  Using a brush that was soft and moved in a way that is not quite as predictable as a rigid embossing tools will take some getting used to.

On to the nails!

These represent my Dad and Mom

• Dad:  railroad tracks because he builds model railroads.  I used Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Blue It as the base and Kiss Nail Art Paint White for the tracks
• Mom:  flower because she loves gardening.  I used a nail stencil for this tulip.  The stencils are kind of paper-ish and can only be used once, which is a bummer.  As I was taking the stencil off it tore in two. I used Pure Ice Splash for hte base and Nail Art Paint White for the tulip.

These represent me and my Husband

• Me: just a cool design!  :D  I used Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Celeb City as the base with lines of Kiss Nail Art Paint in White, Black, and Soft Blue.  This kind of striping worked really well using the Nail Art Paint!
• Husband: Anchor...because he loves sailing and he's my anchor (everybody on three...awwww)  I used Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear as the base and Kiss Nail Art in White for the anchor.  The anchor turned out really well with these paints.  The hardest part was getting that little circle at the top.  I haven't quite got that figured out yet with the paints.

This represents my Daughter

• Daughter:  cute daisy.  I used Pure Ice Splash for the base and Nail Art Paint White for the daisy.  The brushes worked well for this.  First I drew straight lines where I wanted the centers of each petal to be, then went back and made the petals.  The paints dry pretty quickly so you can't really do a "dot and drag" like you can with regular polishes, which made the petals kind of thick.  The jewel decal is great because it's nice and smooth, rather than rough like some, so it doesn't catch on things as easily.  Plus, it's pretty flush and doesn't stick up too high, which I like.

Brother C and Girlfriend M

• Brother C:  KU for the best University on the planet!  Sally Hansen Blue It for the base and Nail Art Paint White for K & U.  Again, getting the brush to make the U was kind of tricky.
• Girlfriend M: an owl because she likes them.  I used Pure Ice Splash for the base with back Nail Art Paint for the artsy owl, plus two jewels for eyes....ain't he cute?

Brother K and Girlfriend E

• Brother K: FLAMES!  This one was by far the hardest one to do!  Since my challenge was to use the Nail Art Paints, I had to apply the base and then use the nail art paint to black-out the non-flame part.  Plus this is on my right hand so I painted it with my left hand and was still trying to get the hang of predicting how to make shapes I wanted with those long skinny brushes!  A challenge to be sure!  I used Pure Ice Hot Tamale and Kiss Nail Art Paint black.
• Girlfriend E: I used the chevron nail guides for this one, can you tell?  I used Pure Ice Creme WIld Thing for the base, then used the chevron guides to make the black, then free-handed the Nail Paint in Silver Glitter and Beach Pink.

Baby Nephew D

• Baby Nephew D: an artsy representation.  He has this awesome hair and hairline that I tried to replicate and that strange shape in the middle is supposed to be a pacifier, but again, still getting used to how to make these brushes do what I want!  I used Pure Ice Creme Wild Thing and Nail Art Paint black with a jewel.  After I took this photo, I decided to add top coat just to help keep the jewel on and the Nail Art paint streaked...badly!  So in the future, I'll be gentler and thicker with the top coat.

All in all, I'm looking forward to using these, but don't think I'll be using them all the time.  I need more practice so I'm sure they'll show up again.

Next: I hope to do another KU Jayhawk manicure as we take on our rivals the KSU Wildcats on Saturday (which is the state of Kansas' 150th Birthday)  The game is on ESPN GameDay!  

Until then, happy painting!

TUTORIAL - Water-Marbling

I did it!
I have made for you, a water-marbling tutorial!
It was a challenge, let me tell you.  With lots of trials and lots of errors, a digital camera sticky-tacked to the top of my coffee-maker, and a living room lamp, I did it!  


Here's the finished nails, and then I'll guide you through it step-by-step!

1)  Gather your supplies and set-up your area.  You'll need :

• Nail Polish in chosen colors - as many or as few as you like.  It generally works best if they are the same brand, but mixing brands sometimes works, too.  I used Sally Hansen White On, The Real Teal, and Purple Potion and Pure Ice Creme Wild Thing.  
• Small plastic container for the water - I used a yogurt tub
• Toothpicks for marbling
• Masking tape for fingers (that will make more sense later)
• Plastic store bag (like from Wal-Mart or Dillons)  This means that as you create trash, you just drop in on the plastic and you can roll up the whole mess when you're done.
• Room-temperature water
• Q-tip
• Fingernail polish remover

2) Apply one coat of a light color for the polish to stick to.

3)  Apply masking tape to finger or fingers.  One strip should go along the sides of your finger, around the tip and along the other side.  Another strip should go around your finger just behind the back cuticle of the nail.  See two pix below.

  

4)  Now the fun begins!  Drip fingernail polish onto the top of the room-temperature water.  As you drip each color on the water, let it spread out before you add the next color.

5) As you add colors, concentric circles.  You can add as many or as few colors as you like.

6)  Next, take on of the toothpicks and carefully, slowly, swirl the polish on the top of the water to form the marbling effect.

7)  Slowly insert taped finger into the water.  See pictures below for how I think it works best - the first photo shows the finger not yet in the water so you can see the angle of entry and the second photo shows the finger tip in the water.  Do NOT pull finger out of water yet!

8)  Leaving finger submerged in the water,  wait until the polish still on the top of the water, then use the toothpick to gather it off the water.  (This is a pretty cool trick!)  But you have to leave the finger in the water.  If you don't then when you bring it up out of the water, the polish still on the top of the water will stick to it as you bring it out, with disastrous results.

9)  After you've scooped out all the extra polish, bring your finger up out of the water and admire the cool marbling on your nail and the tape.  Oooh-Aaah- how do you do it?

9) Carefully remove the tape - watching to make sure you don't smudge your still-wet nail.  This is where using masking tape is great because the exposure to water causes it to lose some of its stickiness, making it easier to take off.

10) Repeat with other fingers.  You can a) tape them one at a time, then add polish one at a time, b) tape them all then polish them one at a time, or c) tape and pain them in groups.  Below I did three fingers all at one time.

Below- before clean-up

You can see my pile of tape and toothpicks

10)  Dip Q-tip in fingernails polish remover and clean-up around places where the tape didn't cover your fingers.  DONE!  And below is the all-clean!  Then you can just scoop up all the tape and toothpicks into the plastic sack and your mess is all clean!

So there it is!  A tutorial for the water-marbling.  I hope you found it helpful.

The color possibilities are endless!  It's easy!   And oh-so-impressive!  

Hope you have fun!

If you try it, comment below - I'd love to hear all about it!