My Spring Garden Fail

Once again, I've got an interesting story to share, and a somewhat failed manicure at the end of it all. It wasn't horrible, but it wasn't altogether successful, either. It all started in the scrapbooking aisle...

We'd gone walking again, as we so often do. I don't like going for walks outside for several reasons- temperature fluctuations, bugs, traffic, etc. But mainly I find that it's really easy for me to overdo, and with the fibro I often won't realize I've done too much until exhaustion slaps me in the head and I just can't go any more. If we're walking at a shop, most of the time my husband can go pick up a scooter and I can make it back out to the car without having to call 911.

Having to call 911 isn't fun. People stare. :D

So, a few days ago we were walking through the scrapbooking section of my local big box store and I saw a punch I absolutely needed to have. It's the cutest little flower, and while it's a tiny bit large for nails, it's definitely doable.

Of course, the moment I saw it, I could envision so many ways to decorate it- adding a rhinestone in the center of it, adding glitter pieces to the center, making polish strips with swirls or gradients to use with it.

I knew this was going to be a fun one. I just didn't realize how MUCH fun it would be!

The first thing I did when I got home with it was to make some polish strips to punch flowers from. Once again, I primarily used the China Glaze Electropop polishes, simply because they're so versatile. I did several patterns- basic yellow with a topping of Love My Nails Dazzling, a set of diagonal stripes. a set with blobs of color painted on semi-randomly, and a strip of light pink topped with round stamps of yellow and red.

I knew these strips wouldn't result in actual flower-like patterns, but I was ok with that. I wanted something whimsical, and this worked pretty well!

While those were drying, I decided to experiment with a piece of foil my son had brought me. He'd gotten a jar of Nutella and thought the seal from the jar might make interesting nail decals. He's so sweet! He was right, too... the foil was sturdy enough to punch and lightweight enough not to be problematic.

I managed to get 28 decals from the foil. The best part? They're double-sided, gold on one side and silver on the other. I get to choose what side I want to be the top when I use them.

Once the strips were dry, I punched them as well. I got a lot of decals from the few strips I made, and I let them dry for a couple of days before putting them in the box to store them.

I love how these turned out. The colors on them ended up looking sweet, and there's so much variety even with the few I made. Note the decals that aren't complete- these aren't a waste. I use these on the edges of my fingers to make it look like the pattern continues off the nail. Don't toss the incomplete ones!

Speaking of storage, I went with this cute little favor box I found on sale after Valentine's day. I got twelve of them for something like a dollar. LOVE sales!

Since I have so many of the boxes, I decided to label the top of this one and make it clear what was inside. Instead of writing on the box, I dabbed on a bit of clear polish, then pressed a decal into place. Another coat of polish on top and now I know at a glance what's in the box!

Finally, the manicure! This was easy, but took quite a bit of time. I ended up using quite a variety of things to make the centers, like loose glitter, glitter polishes, and rhinestones. I think I'm wearing five different colors/shapes/sizes of stones! Over the top? Actually, it kind of works.

And since it's once again 3:30AM and I'm tired, I'll just share the photos. The process for these was easy- base coat, 3 coats of Gaga for Green, dabs of clear polish to set the flowers into, dabs of clear polish to set the stones and glitter into place, and finally quick dry top coat to finish it all off. Took me about two and a half hours, but lots of that was me trying to decide what to use for centers!

The big blue rhinestone is from Born Pretty, the pink flower is from my Fing'rsnail gem kit, and the black rhinestone is from Viva la Nails.

Unfortunately, my polishes didn't play well with my quick-dry top coat this time. Maybe it was the number of layers of polish, I don't know. But the next morning, I noticed these two enormous gouges in my left thumb! So sad.

I didn't remove this, though. I figured you couldn't really see the gouges unless you were super close to  my nails, so I didn't worry about it.

Frankly, if someone is 6 inches from your nails, you've got bigger things to worry about than your nail polish!

Ok, now it's time for me to see if I can convince my brain to shut off for a while so I can sleep. I'm starting to feel better overall,which is making me feel more creative. Unfortunately, creative doesn't mesh well with sleep!

Various items have been provided by the manufacturers for consideration.

See my disclosure statement for more information.

Custom Nail Decals Redux

Do you remember that post I wrote a while back about making your own custom nail decals with nail polish and scrapbooking punches? Then I wrote another post with a photo, implying I had something fun to show you if it worked out?

I've still been fiddling with them, trying to see just how much I can do with them. The verdict is in... they're lots of fun! Turns out they're even more versatile than I thought, which means lots of fun for everyone!

So, what would be a fun way to embellish punched nail decals? Since I had an adorable cupcake punch, I decided to play around with those. It was a perfect chance to fiddle with multicolor polish strips. Once I punched out my cupcakes, I wasn't happy with them, though. But then I realized they needed something else- the proverbial cherry on top, if you will.

I pulled out my plastic bags again, along with some clear nail polish and the adorable Fingr's Flirt nail and body jewels kit I'd been sent ages ago to evaluate. Those are the cutest little gems, tiny and perfect for nail art! I put a tiny dot of clear polish onto the bag for each cupcake, then pressed it gently into place so that it wouldn't be moving around. Then I added a tiny dab of clear polish onto the top of each cupcake and pressed a stone onto each one to represent a sparkling cherry (or other cupcake decoration). Once that had dried, I added a coat of topcoat to seal everything together and held my breath.

As you can see, they worked out wonderfully! I wanted to make sure there wasn't a lot of excess clear polish around each decal, so I used my cleanup brush with some acetone to remove any extra that had gathered around the edges of the decals. I also added different embellishments to some hearts and butterflies. Some got gems, some got glitter.  All got a coat of topcoat and cleanup afterwards.

I found out you can really play with the dimensionality of the decals once they're set up like this. For the tiny heart I mixed some Isis brand glitter in the color Coral Beach from Nail de Royale with clear polish into a thick paste, then mounded it onto the tiny heart. To my surprise, it stayed mounded once it was dry! So cute... I may have to make some more of those...

This pic should give you an idea of how large these decals are... that's my index finger it's sitting on! So teeny and cute... I love it!

I also experimented with another substance for decals. I didn't like how the nail polish decals can crack, or melt and smear with topcoat. I started thinking, and realized I've had success peeling acrylic paint off of my palette once it's dried. It was time to experiment some more!

As you can see, they turned out nicely! I had some old cheapie acrylic paints that came with a kids' art project years ago. They were super-thick with age, so I smeared them onto my plastic bag with a craft stick and let them dry.

Some of them turned out pretty thick, but it was still proof that the idea works. These decals end up
sticking well to the plastic bag, so I didn't have any problem with them getting stuck together or cracking or anything. And with a dab of clear polish, I was able to combine decals for bold color, or to add rhinestones or glitter to them. I am SO in love with these!

So there you have it- even more options for creating your own nail decals! I've had much too much fun making these, and now that I know I can use my acrylic paints? I may need more storage just for the mini punches I plan to acquire!

I know, I know, it's a sickness... but at least it's a productive one!

Various items were provided by the manufacturers for consideration. Links are in the post.

See my disclosure statement for more information.

Scrapbook Punch Nail Decals

This Studio G punch cost
$0.97 at WalMart!

I've done a post about this before, but I'm doing it again because I found the most adorable punch while walking! I love being able to customize my nail art, so the idea of punching decals from whatever polish combinations I choose makes me super happy. As you can see, it make four tiny little hearts with each punch!

I had to test it out as soon as I got home. Sure enough, it made absolutely adorable decals that are the perfect size for nails. Seriously, these things are adorable!

So- how would you go about making these? It's seriously simple. You need a few items to start with...

• The punch(es) of your choice
• Nail polish- can be nail art polish, colored, or clear
• Any other items for decorating the nail polish sheets:
• glitter
• nail art pens
• brushes or dotting tools
• Plastic zipper sandwich bags

I painted strips a bit wider than the punch.

It's a very simple process. First, you paint strips of your choice of nail polishes across the zipper bag. I'm using a small bag used for packaging jewelry, but lots of smooth plastics will work. Do a test spot first, though, to make sure the polish will come off once it's dried.

I find it helps to do two or three coats of polish, to make sure the resulting sheet is strong enough to hold together. This is a perfect opportunity to use cheap clear polish just to build up the thickness.

Also, this is a great time to play with wet marbling. On the bottom row, you can see where I experimented with marbling different colors together. You can also do stripes, dots, wavy lines... whatever you like!

The next step is the hardest for me- waiting. The polish needs to be completely dry before you remove it from the plastic, otherwise it can bunch and tear, wasting your polish and your time. You can give it a day to dry, or even a week or more. The longer you wait, the easier it is to remove from the plastic as well.

Eek! I'd been wiping the tip of my
skewer on my thumbnail while
marbling the bottom row. Sorry!

Once it's thoroughly dry, removal is a snap. I fold back the corner of the bag under the polish and sort of roll it away from the polish. The polish lifts away easily, leaving you with a sheet that's entirely polish.

The benefit of using these instead of nail stickers is that they're so easy to remove! Because they're nail polish, they meld into your background polish, and easily dissolve in nail polish remover.

Unfortunately, that's the same reason they can't be used as glitter in nail polish- they'll melt back into the liquid polish. Such a shame... =/

An interesting thing about the polish strips: I noticed that the various polishes have much different textures and qualities. I applied basically the same thickness of polish for all of the strips. However, they had very different textures once they were dry. The neon polish (middle of the top row) was very thin, had dried very quickly, and was very brittle. The glass fleck polish on the top right was flexible and sturdy, and the black on the bottom right seemed almost like latex- very pliable and sticking to itself easily.

It would seem that the brittle polishes wouldn't wear as well as the pliable ones. I'm not sure if that's the case... it would be interesting to experiment with!

Ah well, I digress. Back to the tutorial... the next thing is pretty much the last thing- punching the hearts. I find it much easier to use the punch upside down, because I can see exactly where I'm lining up the punch on the polish surface. This is especially useful when punching patterned polish strips.

Unfortunately, when you punch upside down, you often get little hearts everywhere. I found hearts in interesting places after doing this. It's amazing how those little things can fly!

Now I'll share some pic spam showing the finished results. It's really cute!! I'm thinking you could also use the leftover polish bits as well... trip them to fit your nail and apply them in a band. It's an idea!

Four marbled harts in a row. Black on red is striking!

Hearts, hearts everywhere!

Stored in a plastic bag, you can see the variety of hearts I made. What, me obsessive? Noooooo..... :D

So, the next thing to do is to use some of these in a manicure! Sounds like a plan, eh? But first, I've got another tutorial I shot last night to use for sponge painting your nails! I'm all about frugal...

Til next time!

Some polishes were provided for consideration.

See my disclosure statement for more information.

Weird Wedding Nails & a Giveaway Reminder!!

Lovely (?) nails celebrating the royal wedding.
Image courtesy of Beautylish.com. 

I get some strange email sometimes. Last night, I was flipping through emails and I saw one from Beautylish showcasing three fun looks for the upcoming royal nuptials. One was a sweet nude nail with a ring finger inspired by Kate's engagement ring. Next was an absolutely gorgeous butter London shade named No More Waity, Katie, and let me tell you I'm loving the looks of that one!

The third one, though... I'm just not sure about this one. Someone decided to combine two exciting trends: they took the royal engagement photo and had it printed onto nail decals. Now, maybe it's just me, but I'm not sure about this. I don't even know them! Maybe I'm just too old to understand this craze. I can understand doing nails in her wedding colors (if they're known), or perhaps using things inspired by the couple themselves.

However, I just can't quite accept the idea of having some couple I don't even know hanging out on my fingernails! What's next, the queen mum in one of her cute little hats? Maybe the royal pets? I'm just too stodgy, I suppose, but I think I'll just pass on this one.

However, if you'd like to own a fun bit of history, you can buy your very own royal wedding nails here! With luck, you'll get a giggle out of it too!

Also, if you haven't joined my giveaway, you'd best get to registering, because there's only a few days left! You can't win if you don't register, and if you don't register, you're missing out on a chance for some fun stuff!

Til next time!

I want a personal air-conditioned bubble around me for summer!

See my disclosure statement for more information.

Hello Kitty Loves Pink Confetti

Hello there! I hope the weather is treating you better than it's treating me. Honestly, it's bizarre to have snow in Louisiana in February! I've been snuggled up in my fuzzy socks, trying to keep warm while I dream up new things to do to nails.

Speaking of nails, I finally got around to testing the Confetti polish I bought a few months back. I know, I know, I'm so behind on things. I'm getting there, though! I chose a sweet pink glitter polish with multicolor transparent glitter in multiple sizes called Pink Confetti. I know, it's an original name, but it fits!


I wanted to see just how much color this polish had, so I put it over a white base. I put one coat on, then added two more coats to the top half of the nail. As you can see, you wind up with a lovely sheer pink with tons of glitter. Looking at it now, I think I'll have to test it over some dark colors next to see if I can bring out the colors in the glitter.

However, that's for a future post. Instead I decided to try out some decals I made a while back. You may or may not know this, but I absolutely love Hello Kitty. Since I couldn't find any HK decals that I liked enough to buy, I decided to experiment a bit and see if I could make some.

So, how did I make these? Easy enough, if somewhat fiddly. I went online and searched for Hello Kitty images. I saved several of my favorites, then resized them in Photoshop. Once I had them at a size I thought might be appropriate, I decided I needed to do a test print to see if they really were a good size. It's so hard to tell on the computer!

I saved the image then printed it on regular white printer paper with my laser printer. Once I had the test print in my hand, I realized that hey, I might be able to cut these out and use them as they are! I spent a few minutes cutting with my teeny manicure scissors, hoping I could cut them neatly without losing any details. Sure enough, I wound up with the tiniest little Hello Kitty wearing her cute glasses! I added a dab of clear nail polish and pressed the paper decal onto the nail, then topped it with a thick coat of clear polish, and what do ya know... I had Hello Kitty on my nail!

Then I remembered my Fing'rs nail gems. That set has lots of shapes of gems- hearts, teardrops, and one that looks like a dog bone... or a bow! I pulled the set out and realized that it would fit perfectly, so I quickly pressed it into the wet nail polish, and you see the end result! Hello Kitty has a sweet, dimensional bow.

What can I say, I think I love this look. Once my nails grow out a bit, I'll definitely have to try this on my own nails!

It's weird to see a celebrity you like, but not talk to them because you don't want to disturb them.

See my disclosure statement for more information.

Happy Holidaze the eigth- punch out your nail art!

We're taking another break from my marathon session of decorating nail tips today so I can show you something I worked out over the last few days. I apologize- I don't have pretty nails to show you, because due to splitting and chipping I had to file my nails back to nubs. I consider it a fresh start, and I'm hoping that with the new nail strengthener I'm using I'll see some good growth soon.

All that blahblah aside, I have something fun to share, now that I've figured out the various bits. I've had it in the back of my mind for a while now that those tiny scrapbooking punches could make some adorable nail decals, if only I could figure out how. Well, as you can see in the photo to the right, I've figured it out and now I'm sharing it with you!

This is a scrapbooking punch.
Make sure yours is small enough to fit on a nail!

The first thing we need are some scrapbooking punches. These things used to be expensive, but now you can pick them up for next to nothing! The three I've grabbed this week were a dollar each- two were at Big Lots and one was found in a bin of sale punches at Michaels. Can't beat that, especially if you're a frugal person like me! I picked up a heart, a star, and a cute little swirly design, but I also saw a dog, a cat, a dragonfly, a hand, a sun... there really are a lot of designs you can find!

Then I had to figure out how to use a craft punch on liquid nail polish. Kind of a tough idea, yea? I tried painting it onto thin paper and punching that, but it was hard to get it to apply nicely to the nail afterward. Same thing happened with thin plastic. And yet... I remembered that nail polish pulls away from zipper sandwich bags nicely once it's dried thoroughly. So... if I were to paint it in a sheet...

That's just what I did. I painted a strip a bit wider than a nail onto some plastic I cut up for the occasion, then let it dry for a couple of days. I know, I smudged the heck out of it because I am incredibly klutzy. It's a miracle I manage to get my nails dried ever.

I also tried punching directly from the plastic, but that only worked partially, and it resulted in me patiently fiddling with tiny stars and hearts, removing the plastic backing from them so they would work on the nail more effectively. Oh, the things I do for nail art...

Once the strip had dried, I very carefully bent the edge of the plastic down away from the polished edge. I sort of pulled/rolled it down, so that it pulled away from the polish. Once I had enough polish free of the plastic, I was able to gently pull the strip free, and I was left with a sweet strip of pure polish.

I'm once again reminded that I haven't quite got the hang of photoing processes for the blog, because I have no pictures of me actually removing the strip of polish. All I have are photos of the dried strip on the plastic, and then pictures of the strip off the plastic.

This is because I am a minor fail. I am, however, decent with words, so I can at least partially describe the process for you. Hopefully it's enough. I will say that it really is important to let the strip dry for at least 24 hours, preferably 48. Otherwise, it hasn't had time to do its polishy-drying thing, and the chemical reactions involved with drying haven't finished. Once it's thoroughly dried, it's much easier to work with.

Once the polish is dried and peeled, you're left with... a very dodgy strip of nail polish. Well now, this is useful... right?

Actually it is. Even if you don't have punches, you could cut this into strips with your regular scissors, punch holes in it with your office hole punch, or cut shapes with your scissors or an xacto knife to apply to your nails.

We're going to use this strip in our punch. Remember, it's fragile, so be careful with it as you slide it into the punch slot. Practice with a sheet of paper to make your first few punches so you can get the feel of the device. Once you're comfortable with paper, you can move on to the polish strip.

I prefer to work with the punch upside down, so that I can see through the opening that I'm getting a solid shape without having pre-cut areas poke in. If you work with it right-side up, you may have problems getting the strip positioned correctly.

Once you've pressed the button and punched out a shape, this is what things look like. You've got a sweet pure-polish decal and a strip of polish with a heart cut out of it. It didn't occur to me until I was writing this that you could place your punch in the center of the strip then cut the strip of polish so that you've got a contrasting stripe in the punch color with the heart shape punched out.

You could then apply this strip onto a different nail as an accent nail, letting the heart stand out in your base polish. It's an idea I'll have to play with once I've got some more time. It would also work really well with nail tips.

And that's all there is to it! To use these, I painted my nails, topped them with a coat of Seche Vite, then let that dry for 5-10 minutes. It was dry to the touch then, so I positioned the heard where I wanted it, then pressed it down with my thumb and forefinger of my opposite hand. The polish in the decal stuck to the polish on my finger! Then I added another coat of Seche Vite to keep things in place, and there ya go- sweet nail art with super-crisp edges that's all polish! Removing this will be super-easy because there are no plastic bits to resist the polish remover!

I got five decals from this sheet, and I wasn't being terribly careful.
Imagine the possibilities!

I don't know if you can tell, but I'm super-excited about this. Imagine the possibilities- using a tiny hole punch to make polka dots! Making your own holographic nail accents! Paint marbled swirls for accents, or even strips with stripes and dots! I'm seriously giddy here.

So what do you think of these? Is this something you'd be interested in doing yourself? Would you be interested in buying decals like these, especially if you could choose the polish color yourself?

Hard Candy Beetle was provided by the manufacturer for consideration.

See my disclosure statement for more information.

Little Fing'rs "Girlie Nails" Nail Art Variety Pack

I think I'm in love. For years I've had a massive obsession with penguins. Big ones, small ones, real ones, stuffed ones... I don't care, I love them all. So when I saw on Scrangie's blog that Little Fing'rs has penguin nail decals I went nuts! Every time I went to a store that might carry Fing'rs products, I'd check out their cosmetics department, digging through the decals, hoping to find the penguins.

I kept failing.

I found awesome punk rock decals, I found lots of the typical floral decals. But I had checked 5 or 6 stores and still no penguin decals. That is, until I found them. It turns out I'd actually passed them by on more than one occasion, simply because they had cheerleading decals on top. Unfortunately, I'm not sports-inclined, and the idea of doing my nails up to support some sports team just didn't interest me. I never thought to look at the stickers under the top sheet!

But I finally found them, and my husband didn't even complain when I stuck them in our shopping cart! He knows how I am with my penguins...

I love this set even more because of the monkeys. My husband loves monkeys almost as much as I love penguins, so the idea of monkeys and penguins living happily together on the sticker sheet and later on my nails feels like an omen, a sign that we truly are destined to spend our lives together blissfully happy. (Because clearly 17 years of happy marriage isn't enough to show me that!)

The surprising thing is that I really like the other sheets, even the cheer sheets! There are lots of decals I can see myself using, which makes me really happy. (Now to see if I can convince myself to actually USE the decals!) Check them out!

I can't wait to use them and see how they work on. I'm curious- what do you think of them?

More DIY Decals Using the Essence Stampy Set!

I started thinking a few days ago, which isn't necessarily a good thing. But this time I started thinking that hey, if I can stamp onto my nails, why couldn't I stamp onto plastic and make decals.

Well, the main reason I could think of is that there's just so little polish deposited. And yet... This definitely needed experiments.

I pulled out my stuff: a small zipper-top plastic bag, some masking tape, some styrofoam, my Essence Stampy kit and some nail polishes. I figured it would be helpful to stabilize the plastic, so I used the masking tape to adhere the bag to the styrofoam very tightly. That kept it from slipping and sliding, and kept me from cussing and beating my head into the wall.

So, I picked my polish and did some test stamps. They looked fantastic, but when I tried to take pictures about halfway through, I realized that white nail polish on clear  plastic over white styrofoam is really hard to see. I added some red stamps and finally got a somewhat visible photograph.

After filling up my little piece of zipper baggie, I realized I'd done about as much stamping as I could. I was now starting to run into previous stamps, which just will not do!

So give the decals a bit more thickness and stability, I put a layer of clear polish over them, waited until those were thoroughly dry, then added yet another layer of clear topcoat. I hoped this would help them to join together into one layer of polish I could just peel up.

Did it work? Oddly enough, it did! I think I'd be much more careful with both the stamping and the brushing on top coat in the future, but these came out adorable! The best part is that if you screw up a decal, you wipe it away and start again. There's no manicure to worry about messing up!

I noticed that my clear polish seems to have reacted a bit with the white polish, causing a bit of cloudiness to form. I'm hoping that's not a huge deal. Tomorrow I'll be working on doing my nails, so I'll let you know what I find out!

Now, I'm sure some of you are wondering why on Earth I would stamp onto plastic to make decals, rather than just stamping directly onto my nails. Several reasons, actually. First off, and this is a huge part of it: I'm not very good at stamping yet. This way, I'm getting practice in without actually having to redo my nails every time I mess a stamp up. But not only that, there's another benefit to making stamped decals: you can flip them, so that you have a mirror image of your stamp. It gives you more freedom to design, and I think it's a fun idea. You might even be able to trade stamped decals with friends who have different image plates than you do!


So give it a try! You may find you enjoy it lots! If you do try it, let me know in comments, I'd love to see what you can do!