Thursday, January 29, 2015

Piggies in Love!

Welp, in case you hadn't noticed, JANUARY IS ALMOST OVER! I can't believe it. This month has flown by! That being said, I decided to do a fun little Valentine's Day mani. I was looking through my stamping plates trying to decide what to do, and I found this cute little piggy in the Cici and Sisi set I have (plate 05). I also saw a full-nail heart stamp on the same plate, so I decided it had to be done! Also--please excuse my DISGUSTING cuticles! I've been purging film at work and the files dry my hands out BAD! :S

I started with a base coat of Zoya Dove on all the nails. Once dry, I added KBShimmer You Rock My <3 to the pinkies - this polish can be a little tricky; the pieces will tend to want to wad up in a ball with each other and look poopy! Try: dabbing the polish on a plastic baggie and using a toothpick or dotting tool to place the pieces on the nail where desired; applying thin coats at a time; or using nail art tweezers if there are pieces overlapping that you don't like. 

For the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th fingers, I used Zoya Shelby (light pink) and Caprice (darker pink), and Nailtini Bloody Mary (red). I added these in strips across the image, then when I scraped the excess off, I was left with ombre hearts!

Finally, for the cute little piggy on the thumbs! I decided to try "reverse stamping". If you haven't heard of this, YouTube it! It is amazing the designs people do! Anyway, I'm doing one of the simpler versions. So I used a black by Orly (I can't remember the name and I'm too lazy to get up and check! LOL!! Any black will do though) and picked the stamp up on my rubber stamper. Using a small dotting tool, I dotted Bloody Mary on the cheeks of the design. Then I used Caprice to fill in the nose. Last, I filled in the body with Shelby. Then I just stamped it on the nail! Easy as that! I also used the dotting tool and made two hearts with Bloody Mary and Caprice! 

I finished all the nails with a coat of Seche Vite!

Now tell me--do you guys like Valentine's Day, or are you black-hearted Scrooge's like me??




Monday, January 26, 2015

Glow in the Dark Chevron

So, super easy design for you guys today! I started with a base of Serum No5 Indi-Glo. When dry, I used Zoya Dove and Born Pretty Store plate L006 and stamped the chevron pattern on all my nails. I finished with a top coat of Seche Vite. Call me 3, but I LOVE glow-in-the-dark polish! :) Plus, this one glows an awesome blue, not just the "traditional" yellow that glow-in-the-dark things usually are. Thooper cool!! 😎


Saturday, January 17, 2015

Panda Water Decals on Gradient

Today's mani inspo comes from madmoonpolish.blogspot.com. I got my decals from BornPrettyStore (you can get them direct from their website or through Amazon) and the studs are from Claire's.

I put a solid coat of Zoya's Tilda on fingers 1, 2, & 5, then added a black circle stud near the cuticle. On fingers 3 and 4, I did a gradient with Tilda and Zoya's Blu; I kept Tilda closer to the nail tip and Blu over most of the rest of the nail. I added a quick dry top coat, and when that dried, I added the panda water decal, then added another coat of Seche Vite. And that completes the mani! What do you think?



Monday, January 12, 2015

Geometric Nails Using Stamps

I was kind of in a funk about what I wanted to do with my nails today, so I looked through my stamps and decided on this one; I used a plate from Born Pretty Store (BP-25).

I started with a base of Lime Crime's Lavendary; I added a quick dry top coat so I could move on to stamping quicker. I then stamped the design on each nail with Zoya's Kelly. I used a dotting tool to randomly fill in a few of the plus-signs. I finished with a coat of Seche Vite! 


Tuesday, January 6, 2015

Monopoly Nails

I've been doing a weekly nail art challenge for the last couple of weeks and I thought this one was SO worth posting! I don't think I've ever seen Monopoly nail art before...maybe because I've never looked for any! I'm sure there's some out there, but I digress.  

For this one, I started with a base of Nailtini's Legitimint. All the rest of the colors are just acrylic paint. You could totally do any of the properties or squares you want; you could even pick out a few of the challenge cards and try one of those. The only problem was the writing has to be SO small--I tried making it legible for the first two and then thought Why the heck am I doing this?? It looks just as good with the little scribbles, IMHO :)

So what do you think??