New Animated Nail Art Tutorial- Tropical Garden

Oops. I completely forgot to share my latest animated tutorial from YouTube. I'm starting a series of these, since people seem to be enjoying them. They're fast and easy to follow, and fun for times I haven't got something more complex recorded.

So tell me what your feelings are on these animated tutorials: Do you like them? Would you like to see more? Do they need music or a voice-over? Tell me what else you'd like to see!

Some polishes were provided by Jessica Cosmetics. I used them because they're gorgeous!

See my disclosure statement for more information.

Storage Ideas for Your Frugal Finds!

Welcome back! Did you enjoy my tale of rhinestone and stud shopping? I hope you've found some of your own as well, and that this post will help you store them sanely!

Don't do what I did- I put them into a single box which did me NO GOOD. Instead, I needed something that will let me sort my various stones and studs by size and color. But how to do this without spending a ton of money?

First I checked the crafts department of my local big box store. I found a cute little 6-well container for only $1, but I have WAY more than 6 colors and sizes to sort. This could get expensive, fast... I decided to look around for a better deal.

Since I'm not terribly fussy about things LOOKING a certain way, I headed over to the pharmacy department where I found this adorable little medication organizer for a whole 88 cents! You do the math- 6 sections for $1 or 14 sections for 88 cents... that's a no-brainer!

Unfortunately, I have even more things to sort, so I'd still have to spend several dollars to get things sorted the way I need. I decided to take my shopping online to eBay. Wouldn't you know, I found an amazing deal?

5 of these for less than $4? Sign me up, please!

The seller mokimay had a listing for a set of 5 empty nail art wheels with 12 wells each for around $3.72 and free shipping and tracking! Considering I'd need at least 2 of the pill boxes, this seemed like a total no-brainer. I haven't received my order yet, but I know it's shipped (the next day!) and I don't foresee any problems.

So, when in doubt, hold on to your debit card and check eBay before buying. You may find the perfect solution for less than you expected!

I love getting a good deal...

See my disclosure statement for more information.

Building a Design on a Background

Yesterday I posted photos of a nail design that was in progress. I could have happily worn that design on its own, but I wanted to add another design element to it. I decided to go with a tropical theme and add some big flowers.

I worked on two nails this time, one with a pastel gradient and one with the white pinstripes over the pastel gradient. I used creme polishes in bright pink and orange for the large flowers, and then added smaller flowers in a light dusty blue. I used deeper tones of pink and orange to add a bit of dimension to the flower centers, then used tiny white dots to help tie everything together. I also added leaves in a couple of shades of green to help fill in blank space. I did same thing to the nail with the white pinstripes.

Comparing the two, I think the nail with the pinstripes is a bit more finished-looking. I'm not sure why, but I feel like the white lines somehow add more of a unified feel to the design. That's always a good thing, right?

Now I find I'm wanting to experiment with another floral design, this time all in pale pastels. What's wrong with me?? *laughs*

I'll leave you with more photos of the pretty...

Some polishes were provided by the brand for consideration.

See my disclosure statement for more information.

A fun floral look

While using the camera flash, the colors
are washed out but you can see the depth
of the blue background.

Whew, I just woke up from sleeping almost 24 hours! I'm not exaggerating, either. My husband was in the hospital over the weekend, thankfully for a false alarm. But I spent 3 days "not sleeping" on the awful pull-out loveseat, being worried sick and waking up every time something beeped. In short, I didn't really sleep for 3 days.

I'm super-thankful, though, because my husband is ok! All the tests showed that his heart is strong and healthy, so now we get to follow up with the primary care physician and go from there. We can do that. I just want to keep him around. 20 years together is a good start, but he can't go anywhere yet. :D

The good news is that while we were waiting (and waiting and waiting!), we came up with a TON of great blog ideas! Since it's going to take me a while to get them started though, you get to see this older nail doodle I did and then forgot to post. Oops!

This is actually a very simple look to create. Let me list the polishes I used before I get started, just to make it easier.

1. Nutra Nail Gel Perfect in Two-Step
2. Jessica Strawberry Shake It from the Gelato Mio! collection
3. Jessica Tangerine Dreamz from the Gelato Mio! collection
4. Jessica Lime Cooler from the Gelato Mio! collection
5. Zoya Evvie from the Designer collection
6. Orange loose glitter

Natural light shows the actual colors of
the polishes I used.

I know, it looks like a lot. It's easier than it seems, though, I promise! I started with Two-Step (1) to create a gorgeous background with a lot of depth. I then put down a drop of both Lime Cooler (4) and Evvie (5) next to each other, then
dipped my brush into both. This let me slightly mix the two, but still get striations of both colors through the leaves and stems. I think this gives an interesting look to them.

For the flowers, I put down a large drop of Strawberry Shake It (2) on my palette, then used my large dotting tool to make 5 dots in a circle around the top of each stem. I went back with a bamboo skewer and drew from the center of each dot to the center of the circle the dots made. This gave me a five-petaled flower at the top of each stem!

To complete my flower, I put down a dot of Tangerine Dreamz (3) in each flower center. After that dried, I realized I wanted a bit more sparkle there, so I put a dot of clear polish on each flower center, then put a bit of loose orange glitter on top of the clear polish. Unfortunately, it went everywhere, and I didn't notice that until after I'd put a coat of Seche Vite over everything. That's why there are bits of glitter on the petals and the stems.

Overall, I like this. It's fairly simple to do once you get started, and it's a fun happy design! You could use any background and flower color you like!

As for what's coming up? Stick around, it could get fun in here!

Polishes were provided by the brands for consideration.
I make no money from the links provided. They're just for your convenience.

See my disclosure statement for more information.

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.

The Dotted Line- an experiment in black and white nail art...

Man oh man, was last night rough. I think I should be sleeping right now, but I'm too tired to think about it. I was up all night with nausea and praying to the porcelain god, and I didn't even have the fun of getting drunk first! Oh body, why do you have to be so eager to host such disgusting viruses?

As a result, the fun nail designs I've been working on are stuck in a holding pattern while I get over this ick. Good thing I've got some stuff in the archives I hadn't posted yet! Today I'm showing a look I did with black, white, and silver holographic glitter. I mean hey, glitter is good for everything, right?

Don't answer that... :D

This is a super-easy design and you don't need that much to do it with! I used my Wet n Wild white polish, a silver from a Sally Hansen gift set I grabbed a couple of years ago on sale, a black striping polish, silver holographic rhombus glitter from Born Pretty, and a black stone from Viva la Nails.

It's super simple to do, too. I'll list the steps in order...

1. Base coat. Always always always use a base coat to protect your nails and make your manicure last longer!
2. Paint entire nail white. Use 2-3 coats to ensure opaque coverage.
3. Paint one side of nail silver. I painted around 1/3 of the nail silver.
4. Paint black stripe dividing white and silver. This can be as wide or as narrow as you want.
5. Add white dots down the black stripe. I used a dotting tool, but you can use a bobby pin, a toothpick, a ball point pen... use what you've got!
6. Add silver glitter pieces in the shape of a flower. If you don't have the glitter, you can paint flower petals on.
7. Place a black stone in the center of the flower shape.  Again, if you don't have the stone, you can paint a dot, or use a drop of glitter polish, or a piece of glitter from a glitter polish. Do what you like, make it your own!

Of course, this could be done in any colors you like- pink and blue, red and black, green and yellow... That's one thing I love about nail art... you're free to pull inspiration from anywhere, and tweak it til you like it. Have fun with it, it's only nail polish!

Til next time!

The glitter and stone were provided by the shops listed in exchange for an honest review.

See my disclosure statement for more information.

An Easy Floral Nail Art Design

I hate to admit this, but I'm not sure if I posted this nail or not yet. If I have, then I apologize for the repost. If I haven't? Wheee, fun nail art!

I was going through nails I'd painted before I got so sick, and found this one.  I really do like this, it's fun and would be easy to adapt with different colors. If it weren't for that pesky bubble, I'd love it!

It's a very simple technique, although as always, I'd be glad to post a tutorial if you'd like to see one. I simply painted a few 5-stroke flowers, added a yellow/orange dot for the center, then put a yellow rhinestone from my Born Pretty rhinestone wheel for the center of the main flower. I then filled in the empty spaces with varying-sized yellow dots.

I'm pretty sure that yellow is Hard Candy Splendid, although I have no idea on the other colors. My memory is not so great these days. I should start keeping a nail art journal with samples and a description of the colors I used. Add that to the list of things to do... :D

This could be fun in lots of color combinations... I can imagine lots of variations, but you won't have to! I mocked up 5 different varieties quickly, as an idea of just how different you can make this design look by using different colors.

 

As I hope you can see, even changing the color of the flowers and their centers can make a huge difference, even on the same background color! You can change it up using holos, duochromes, glitters... it's all up to you!

Also, if you haven't already, why not stop by my giveaway and enter! I'm adding fun things to it, just to make it more fun for the winners!

Til next time!

Some polishes may have been provided by the manufacturer for consideration.

See my disclosure statement for more information.

Ready for a Spring Manicure?

Whew!! What a day! I've been off wandering with my husband and our son, enjoying the wonderful weather and trying to work out some of this fibro stiffness I've been fighting with. We've been having a lot of fun looking at various home items and dreaming about our ideal house. We do this periodically, looking at furniture or appliances. Lately, though, I've been really drooling over electronics.

I wish I knew why I was so into shiny new gadgets. HD video cameras, Nikon dSLRs, home theater systems, CD changers, flat panel TVs... I could look and look and look for hours, it seems. My husband is no better. Anytime I lose him in a shop, all I have to do is wander over to the electronics department and there he is!

It's been fun. Exhausting, but fun. Still, I think I've been overdoing. It felt good to sit down and spend an hour doing nothing but painting my nails! This time I went for something springlike because I got the most gorgeous yellow polish I think I've ever seen! I've always shied away from yellow because it's seemed to hard to wear, but Hard Candy's Splendid is actually good with my skin tone! Then, when I held it next to my Essence Lime Up! I realized they were absolutely perfect together, and I was going to need to do a fun manicure using them both.


First off, before I get to that fun green & yellow mani, let me talk about Splendid first. You know how yellow is always a pain in the butt to apply? Well, this one isn't. It's creamy and opaque and almost a one coater! I was stunned at it, seriously. What you see in the main picture to the right is two coats. Gorgeous... absolutely GORGEOUS!

I also checked to see how well it stamps over both black and white. I wasn't expecting much, because yellow is traditionally a sheer color whether it's in nail polish or artist pigments. It's just really tough to get an opaque yellow! But Hard Candy have done it, as you can see. It shows up beautifully over both black and white, and is such a cheerful color! What can I say, I'm sold!

So... back to the mani. I started with a base of Splendid, then used Essence's Lime Up! to paint 1/2 of each nail on a diagonal. My ring fingers got the base green, the rest got green tips. I was going to apply some pink flower decals over this, then realized I wanted something with a bit more punch to try and pull it all together, although this is cute enough to wear as-is.

For the record, this would also be a great base for a full-nail Konad stamp. Can't you see it- stamping with Lime Up! over the yellow background, so that there's a green print over the yellow? I think it'd be adorable...

Ah well... I decided to use my silver Art Deco striper to paint a line along the join (and disguise some of my wobbly edges), then to put silver pinstripes along the green sections. I added pink flower decals from Viva la Nail for a bit more punch and decided I was happy with things. All in all it was a simple manicure that ended up looking a bit more complex than it really was!

And for once, I decided to do something I rarely do... I'm showing BOTH HANDS! See, I really do paint both hands the same, even if my right hand rarely comes out quite as well as the left. This one was pretty easy to do, though.


So even though it's actually fall and cooler weather is coming in, I needed to try something a bit brighter and sunnier. I think this fit the bill! What do you think?

Items have been provided by the manufacturers for consideration.

See my disclosure statement for more information.

Simple Nail Art Designs Using Konad Stamps as a Base

Have you ever wanted to do a fun nail art design, but had absolutely no idea how to get started? That's how I felt right before I started this look. I was so excited because I'd gotten a couple of KISS Nail Artist Nail Paints, but I had absolutely no idea what to do with them. I just don't paint all that well. Then I had an idea:  I would look through my Konad/Fauxnad plates to see if anything grabbed me.

Before long, I'd settled on image plate m76. I like the flower design I chose for several reasons. It's fun, it's cute, but most of all it has lots of open spaces. I can paint those open spaces with other colors to make it look much more complex than it really is. Plus, I don't have to worry about drawing the design, or if I'm doing it right. It's like doing a paint-by-numbers kit, only I get to choose what colors go where!

Granted, I only had room for the pink KISS striper, but that's ok. I can use the blue some other time. I know I'll use it because it's a gorgeous shimmery royal blue, and I have a thing for shimmery royal blue!

So, next I had to decide on a background color. I made a somewhat strange choice, but I think it worked out well in the end. I put three coats of Maybelline Express Finish in Golden Plum. This pink is absolutely divine, my lovelies. It's bright, but it's also sheer, so that you can get away with it in lots more places. The glass fleck in this polish is so, so pretty. There's something about the depth that I love! I could have left this as is with just a coat of topcoat, but no...

I wanted more.

That's where the Konad stamping comes in. This part was actually pretty easy, if somewhat nitpicky. First, I stamped my chosen image. (Come on, you're still with me, right? I just showed you that picture. Scroll up if you have to!) I decided to use white for the stamp, so that it would look nice against the pink. It looked cute on its own- my husband actually preferred it without filling in the colors. Oh well.

Then it was just a matter of filling in the various bits with color. I think the animated gif I made explains it a bit better than I could with words. Honestly, isn't that usually the case? I used a variety of polishes for the various colors. The petals were KISS Nail Artist Nail Paint Soft Pink, the flower center was a mixture of Sinful Colors Let's Meet and Love My Nails Hot Tamale, the leaves were a mixture of Wet n Wild Wild Shine Carribean Frost and Sinful Colors Happy Ending, and I put Sinful Colors All About You over the various bubbles and things in the design. Sinful Colors All About You is a gorgeous mix of golden and coppery glitters, so it added an interesting punch of color from the right angles.

As I was painting, I wasn't sure if I was going to like it or not. In fact, up until I put the topcoat on, I was half sure I would hate it. But as I put the topcoat on, I realized that the combination of polishes reminded me of cloisonne, a surface treatment in which compartments are filled with enamels or inlays. Something about the way the flower petals were surrounded by the white of the Konad stamp really reminded me of the way the metal barriers contained the enamels in cloisonne beads. I didn't hate it after all!

I also learned something new with this particular manicure. I'd read about repairing broken nails with a tea bag, but had never actually had to do it. Thankfully I had both nail glue and tea bags on hand, because I was walking through my hallway, tripped over my own feet, and managed to split the nail on my left hand ring finger down the center. I was lucky that it didn't go past the white part and didn't hurt or bleed or anything, but I was so upset. That's my swatching hand!! I've got a lot of stuff to show, what do I do?

Well... I mended my nail using a tea bag, my nail glue, and the sweet KISS manicure kit I've been holding on to. Luckily, it had a sanding/buffing block that let me smooth everything after it had dried, as well as emery boards to smooth the end and file off the extra glue-saturated tea bag. I'll talk more about my manicure kit later, but just know that it saved my butt with this! Can you see the repair in the pictures?

So that's my nail adventures for the week! I learned, I experimented, and at the end of the day I was pretty darn happy! What do you think of this faux-cloisonne look?  Do you think you'd try it?

The KISS Nail Art Paint and manicure kit were provided by KISS's PR company for review.

I used them because I like them, not because I'm being compensated to use them.

See my disclosure statement for more information.

I have teh deth, so here...have a cookie!

I know, I'm late posting about this method I figured out for getting better stamps from your nail stamping systems. Unfortunately, I tried to photograph it and ended up with some very awkward, unusable photographs. So, I tried to draw some illustrations about the method, and quickly found that it's hard to draw when you're feeling ill, having problems swallowing anything, and am falling asleep at random with no warning. I've come back to the computer several times to find that I've moved files, I've cut bits off the image that I want, etc.
It's just bad.

So, to spare you from the rambles, here- enjoy something from a few days (weeks) back. Instead of stamping, you get decals!! TADAAAAA,,,

 That's exactly what I did here! It's a simple process. I used a tiny ziploc bag, my normal dotters and brushes, and my nail polishes to paint little 5 petal flowers and more intricate roses onto the plastic bags. The roses I picked up from iheartpjab's youtube video called rose nails --updatedz. Everything else was just me playing around. Granted, they could all stand to improve, but for a first attempt I'm pretty happy.

After the roses, I put some little five petal flowers onto another little ziplock bag. I'd picked these bags up when I was making jewelry. I didn't get very far into that because all of a sudden, out of the blue, I was showing signs of carpal tunnel. Hmmph. But that's then, and this is now, and now we're talking about these little flowers!

These were an experiment. I put two colors of polish side by side, a silver and a deep pink. I used a dotting tool to make a dot, then drag the edge to the center. I didn't think much beyond that, and I think it shows. But hey, maybe I could put a little rhinestone on the inside of the flowers? Whatever, they're still cute!

Then I put them into my little Altoids case I'm keeping them all in. I'd planned to keep them on the bag until time to use them, but they weren't going for that. No, they started sliding off the plastic as soon as I started  handling them. So, here's the collection of what I've got so far in homemade nail decals. In the tin already were some skulls and some red glitter bows.

The skulls are mostly WAY too big. I need to work on this size thing, but overall I'm starting to like how they're coming out. This is one of the biggest roses on my thumb, and while it's big, it's not quite too big. I think I kind of like it.

You can pick up one of the decals, place it onto a bot of top coat, and then seal over it with a full coat of clear polish. That way you're good to go!

Also, you could place one of these on the edge of your nail, secure 1/2 the rose onto your nail with polish or glue, then use your nail file to file straight down at the edge of the nail, gently removing what's left. One more coat of top coat so seal it all in and you'd be good to go!

So, what kind of nail decals do you think I should try making next? Do you think you'd try to make nail decals? What do you think about nail decals in general?