Saturday, February 27, 2016

40 Great Nail Art Ideas Does Fashion

This weeks 40 Great Nail Art Ideas challenge is fashion.  I've been watching Project Runway lately so the first thing that came to my mind was behind the scenes of fashion which is what I decided to do for this weeks challenge. This is what I came up with!

 

Started with a base of two coats KBShimmer Owl Miss You; this is with no top coat.



Added a coat of Girly Bits What A Rush QD TC before stamping.



Stamped using images from Vivid Lacquer VL039 (dress mannequin on pinky, scissors and sewing machine on ring), Messy Mansion MM30 (tape and buttons on index and button on ring), Marianne Nails n.38 (designer at the drawing board doing conception drawing on middle) and Marianne Nails n.28 (model on thumb).  Used Funky Fingers Dark Knight as stamping polish.



Vivid Lacquer VL039



Marianne Nails n.38




Topped with Girly Bits What A Rush to finish.



Here's the other fashion inspired mani's!


An InLinkz Link-up

Thanks for looking!

Thursday, February 25, 2016

Crazy Polish Lady Violet Hills

This was a quick and easy mani I did one night when I didn't have a lot of time which unfortunately, happens more than I like to admit!  I love that even when you don't have a whole lot of time to do your nails, you can still come up with some interesting nails thanks to the variety of polish and plates available!


Started with a base of three coats of Crazy Polish Lady Violet Hills; this is no top coat.  I've had this polish for a few years now but have never gotten around to wearing it.  It is scattered holo in a jelly base.


Added coat of Girly Bits What A Rush QD TC before stamping.

Using Funky Fingers Dark Knight, stamped using an image from ZZ Abstractos 2.


ZZ Abstractos 2

Top coated with Girly Bits What A Rush QD TC to finish.


Thanks for looking!

Monday, February 22, 2016

Happy (Belated) Family Day!

Last Monday was Family Day here in Ontario; while I had the best of intentions of sharing the nails I was wearing for the day, I was super busy and it was all I could do to get my Digit-al Dozen mani posted so thought I would share now!  Here's what I came up with!


Started with a base of Dance Legend Fresh 74.  Love this green but unfortunately, I did have some nail staining even with a coat of base coat.


Topped with Girly Bits What A Rush QD TC before doing the gradient.  


I tried a new to me latex barrier product and was surprised to discover it dried clear (I guess I didn't read the description very well when I ordered it because it clearly states "clear"!)  This is Top Shelf Lacquer Clean It Up clear latex.  


Did a sponged gradient using Dance Legend Fresh 76 and 78.


After latex remover and cleanup.  I had no issues with the removal of the latex at all.


Topped with a coat of Girly Bits What A Rush QD TC before stamping.


I used the stick family images from the FAB UR NAILS WON-FUN plate after shrinking them using the UberChic luxe stamper.  Unfortunately, I couldn't get the dog on the plate to shrink enough to fit on my pinky so used an image from MJ II for it.  The words on the thumb are from NailMatinee NM12 and Nailways Back to Basics ABC 123; Funky Fingers Gesso was used as the stamping polish.


NailMatinee NM12



FAB UR NAILS FUN-WON





Topped with Girly Bits What A Rush QD TC to finish.


This is my little family; hopefully your family had a great Family Day if you had it off!

Thanks for looking!


Friday, February 19, 2016

Digit-al Dozen Does Nail Heroes; Day 5

Today's mani is doing double duty; it's Day 5 of nail heroes week for Digit-al Dozen as well as 40 Great Nail Art Ideas with the challenge of red; I had added prompt of negative space. I used a stamping plate from Messy Mansion as my tribute to my last nail hero for the week, Julia the owner of Messy Mansion.  Not for her plates because Messy Mansion was included in yesterday's nail heroes, but for the new methods that Julia has brought to our stamped nails being the stamper decal and lead lighting.  Both of these new methods have made more interesting, creative and more awesome nails than we had ever seen so thank you Julia for thinking outside the box and coming up with these techniques!  I really wanted to do a lead lighting or stamper decal mani but because I was combining themes and especially when I had red and negative space, looking at the plates I would have used for them, I just couldn't come up with anything so ended up using a Messy Mansion plate; here's what I came up with!



Now, don't go laughing too hard, but what I used for the stamping polish and the base polish are both Girly Bits Fire Engine Red!  I initially stamped the two accent nails using Giry Bits Fire Engine Red using an image from Messy Mansion MM29.  I then gathered red cremes to try to figure out which one would match it the closest then thought why not just use the stamping polish as the base and then I know it will match exactly?!! So that's what I did!  One coat was good coverage but I did two because my application wasn't the best on the first one so needed to do a second to get closer to the cuticles, edges, etc.  No top coat is shown on the pix below.



Messy Mansion MM29


Topped all with Girly Bits What A Rush QD TC.  This was how I had initially planned to leave my nails but I couldn't stand the look of the free edge on the tips of the two accent nails being different than the rest of the nails.  Note to self; negative space is not the look for you; never do it again lol! Actually, I might not have minded this look so much if my nails weren't stained so badly; they actually weren't that bad until I had really bad staining earlier in the week from a green Dance Legend polish :(



Decided to do french tip using tape and same Girly Bits Fire Engine Red stamping polish.  While I liked how this looked, decided I wanted a little bit more!



Added a few studs for interest.



Decided to add them to all fingers although I don't like this look nearly as much as without no studs or just on the solid ones.




Here's the other Digit-al Dozen Day 5 nail hero mani's!




All the red manis with the various prompts for 40 Great Nail Art Ideas challenge!


An InLinkz Link-up

Thanks for looking!


Thursday, February 18, 2016

Digit-al Dozen Does Nail Heroes; Day 4

Continuing with the theme of nail heroes, today I am honouring all the nail art plate makers!  When I started stamping years ago, at the time, there was only Konad plates and few fauxnads.  Some of the very first "indie" if you will plate makers were Chez Delaney with the D plates, Dashica with the A-D series, and FAB/early MJ plates (which were the combined work of the ladies now behind FAB UR Nails {who now has FUN plates} and MyOnLineShop {who has MJ plates} if I recall correctly).  Since then, we have BundleMonster, Wistonia, Cheeky, FAB UR NAILS, MyOnLineShop, Creative, Moyra, Girly Bits, It Girl, Delush, NailMatinee, Nail Art Diva, Nailways, Hot Topic, Betina, BFF, Apipila, Lily Anna, Messy Mansion, Cheeky Beauty, Marinanne Nails, Lilic, NailzCraze, Sugar Bubbles, Vivid Lacquer, MoYou, MoYou London, Born Pretty, Essense, Mango, UberChic, Pueen, CICI & SISI, DRK, Emily de Molly, B. Loves, Red Angel, Mash, LLC, Pueen, Mundo de Unas, Rica, Wistonia.....did I forget anyone?  Some of these makers are companies; some are just one person who does it all.  Some are no longer around or are no longer making plates and others are brand new on the market.  And don't forget that if there's an image you can't find, there's always Fig Tree Stamps who will make you your own plate!  We stampers have never had so many options!  As a long time stamper, I thank all of you!   You collectively are my nail heroes as otherwise we'd all be using Konad plates and the A, T, H, XL plates, etc. that were only available back in the day!  I can't pick a favourite brand; it would be like picking which one of my children is my favourite and that's just not right! I do find that I may go through ebbs and flows of using a plate brand; I may use a lot of a makers plates for a period of time, then might not use them again for months; it isn't that I don't love them any less, just that they may not have the images that I'm looking for at the moment.  

For my nail hero mani, I've put my spin on a mani from the last blog post from FAB UR Nails blog, simply because she is one of the few makers who actually actively does mani's.  Here's what I came up with!


Here's my mani inspiration from FAB UR NAILS, photo credit to FAB UR NAILS


For the base, I thought I'd attempt a water marble; in fact, this mani was my very first time! (Although I shared one a few days ago, this mani was done first and the Valentine's Day one was my second).  This is two coats of OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls and what I thought was sufficient Girly Bits Border Patrol but it wasn't as I had polish much further down my fingers as well as on the backside of my fingers.  I still need to figure this part out.


Used polishes from Pipe Dream A Night In Vegas collection for the water marble.



The water marble mess!  I don't know why the water marble has the little bubble looking drops on it in places (see index finger) or why it bubbled and broke (see middle finger) as not experienced enough in this nor did I do a lot of online research for tips and tricks, but if anyone happens to know, I'd love the answer! Overall though, I was pretty happy how this turned out for my first attempt!  I also think some of the better parts of the design went on my skin but I hope with more practise, placing it on the nail will get better, just like with stamping.


After clean up.


Topped with Girly Bits What A Rush QD TC before stamping.


Stamped using Funky Fingers Dark Knight using an image from MJ III.


Topped with Girly Bits What A Rush QD TC to finish.


I look forward to how far this nail stamping journey will go and the continued release of some amazing nail art images from all the plate makers!  

Here are the other ladies Day 4 nail heroes!



Thanks for looking!

Wednesday, February 17, 2016

Digit-al Dozen Does Nail Heroes; Day 3

For Day 3 of the Digit-al Dozen nail heroes theme, my hero is MeganChair and her cleanup method!  I'm not 100% sure who started the cleanup around the cuticle using a brush but from my first recollection seeing it out there in the nailesphere was MeganChair.  I actually believe I seen it first in MakeUpAlley and she did a subsequent blog post here about it.  I know some people complain about the gap but it certainly does tidy up the nail look and I just can't imagine doing my nails without cleaning up even if I wasn't taking pix!



These are my current favourite brushes.  When I first started nail clean up, I used an eyeliner brush (I think it was) from an Elf compact; I didn't like the Elf brush at all!  I've only been using it a couple years and am lucky enough to have a few of the older style of brushes before the whole bristle change. At the time, I wasn't too keen on it as I didn't think it picked up enough remover and was too time consuming, plus had another product that was working just as well at the time.  The first brush is one I picked up at a local nail supply; I actually like it when I'm doing my first clean up especially if its a real messy one and I would say I've been using it and the Elf brush for a good many years before the FAB UR Nails and UberChic came on the market recently.  I still use the big one again for the first cleanup around the skin but not as close to the edge of the nail because now use either the FAB UR Nails or UberChic.  I find the FAB UR Nails works really well along the sides and the UberChic along the cuticle and curve of the nail if that makes sense.



I thought I'd share one of my better cleaned up mani's (in my mind anyway!).  Although to be honest, this polish pretty much applied itself! Here's what I came up with!



Started with a base of three coats of Scofflaw Diamond Dogs, no top coat in pix below.  Two coats gave good coverage but I did a third to cover at the tips.



I'm all about flakies right now and them along with the beautiful colour of this polish made it a must have!





Topped with a coat of Girly Bits What A Rush QD TC before stamping.


I went with some fancy swirls so as to not cover the base polish that much; this is an image from Moyra Stamping Plate 03-Ornaments.  Stamping polish is MdU 19.



Moyra Stamping Plate 03-Ornaments









Finished with a coat of Girly Bits What A Rush QD TC.






Here's a few other of my (unsung) nail hero tools; the UberChic lux stamper to help shrink stamped images (game changer for me and my small nails), my go to regular stamper being a FAB UR NAILS semi squishy, non sticky (I dread the day it stops working!), lint brush for stamper cleanup, and my current favourite two clear jellies right now which again, life changing in the stamping world for placement.  I still use a Konad scraper; I know there are many others on the market but this is just my favourite.  (See those four containers around the stampers?  Full of stampers and stamper heads and that's only a portion of them; can you say stamper problem?  I also have 5, maybe even 6 of the double sided Konad stampers (go to choice for making stamper decals), maybe 6-8 of the smaller Konad stampers, who knows how many of the Mango stampers even though I still can't get any of them to work well.  Seriously, I don't know why I even bother with all the rest when the little stamper in the silver cap shown here is used 99% of the time, other than with the others shown know which have their time and place.  I seriously do have nightmares thinking about what will happen if it kicks the dust.  Or I lose it.  I have tried others and nothing else works like it).



A few more nail staples for me; my go to base of Duri Rejuvacote Beauty Secrets Pure Acetone and beside it is a nifty bottle I picked up at Sallys for $1.99 that just makes life a little easier for me.  I pour acetone in it then use it to fill the cap of the bigger bottle for clean ups, I dribble it on nail plates for clean up, and on a cotton round to clean my stamper.  I've had this one for almost a year and no issues with the acetone.  I also use the claw from Sally's for plate cleaning to save the mani!



I love this little bottle!



Here's the other ladies Day 3 nail heroes!


An InLinkz Link-up

Thanks for looking!