Awesome Fan Submission!

I got the sweetest email last night. Earlier in October I got an email from a reader named Sara. She was having problems with the gradient/ombre tutorial I have up, and her sponge seemed to be melting into her polish, leaving little chunks of sponge in the polish on her nails. She wanted to know if I had any suggestions on how to remedy the situation.

I suggested she experiment with various sponges around the house. I also explained that if you test your sponges on paper, you don't have as much of a problem having to clean your nails over and over again til you find a sponge that works.

Last night I got another email from Sara, and this time she was successful! She was so sweet, and since she included a photo of her nails I wanted to share it with all of you. You guys are the reason I do what I d, after all!

Remember- if you use a technique or a design that's inspired by me, then snap a few photos or a video and share it with me. I'd love to see what you're doing!

Later!

If you use techniques or designs from my blog or videos, send me photos or a video. I love seeing what people do!

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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.

Acrylic Rainbow- a new take on an easy gradient

Hey, does anyone remember when I teased this photo, and said I was working on a video for it? Well, this is the finished nail from the video, and I absolutely love it! I FINALLY finished the darn thing, and maybe figured a bit more out about how to do some video editing. Whatever, I suck...

But it's READY! And it's EASY! Seriously, if you can brush back and forth, you can do this! And look at the finished product! They're filled with brush strokes and beautifully imperfect, so no matter what you do with it, it comes out gorgeous!

The video is right here, so if you'd like to learn how to do this, spend 5 minutes with me and see how it's done! If you like it, you can always subscribe, hit the thumbs up, tell your friends, whatever... it's all good. :D

 

 Rainbows!! Color!! I'm such a child...

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Rainbows... yes, it's ANOTHER gradient video!

Does anyone remember a nail design I did a couple of years ago that looked like this?

I got quite a few requests for a tutorial on how to achieve this look, but I was never able to capture the process using photographs. Now, however, I have a brand-new tutorial showing you what you need to make your own soft, streaky rainbow! It's coming soon, so let me know if you're interested!

Yea, it's a teaser. Sue me. :D

See my disclosure statement for more information.

Orange Rays

Wow, looks like I had a couple of extra Halloween nails hiding that I didn't get to share with you. That's ok, though, because this is a lovely technique you can use with any colors you like, to create something soft and subtle or bold like I'm showing.

I started this nail using a Milani's High Speed Fast Dry Polish in Jiffy Orange, an intensely pigmented orange creme that does indeed dry quickly. Once it was dry, I added strips of nail striping tape radiating out from one spot on the lower left of the nail. I made sure to cut the tape long enough to leave excess on the end so that I could remove it easily once the next polish was on, and I pressed all the strips down carefully to make sure they were solidly adhered.

Again, let me repeat that it's crucial that your polish be completely dry for this step. If it isn't, you end up with some really funky stuff that needed to be removed so you can try again. It's not worth trying to rush it.

Once the striping tape is applied, I went over the top of the whole nail using Wet n Wild's Black Creme, which is unsurprisingly a black creme polish. As soon as the polish was applied I pulled each strip of tape off one by one, leaving crisp orange lines across the nail. Once again, I let this dry for a few minutes.

Because I felt the nail was still lacking something, I decided to add a spot of glitter. I used Milani's Gold Glitz, which added a bit of glam to the design. After giving this a couple of minutes to dry I then topped the whole thing off with a couple of coats of ProFX topcoat and called it a day.

I've put together a few examples of different color combinations to show just how versatile this design can be. I think it would be fun to do a rainbow ombre for the base coat, with an opaque creme on top. Or you could do the base coat in a dark glitter like Milani's Silver Dazzle and a bright gradient on top!  Hopefully you'll see something that inspires you to play!

Some polishes were provided by the brands for consideration.

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.

More Experimenting With Striping tape

I recently mentioned that I've been experimenting with striping tape. I've got an in-progress design to share with you tonight, and I'm absolutely in love with this one! It's pretty labor-intensive, but it's a really special look and it's not all that difficult.

For this design, I started with a sponged gradient. I chose five pastel polishes that looked soft and pretty together. I created my sponged gradient onto this nail (and another, which you'll see in my next post) and let it dry. It's important to let this totally dry, because if the polish is at all wet, the striping tape will make quite a mess.

Once the nail was dry, I started cutting pieces of striping tape to apply to the nail. I tried to keep the tape fairly evenly spaced to create a diagonal across the nail. This was harder than I expected, but I still think it's something that can be done if you really want to. You could also leave wider spaces between the tape to end up with something like my last design. The tape is going to be a mask for our next layer of polish, so the more open space you leave between the tape, the less of the gradient you'll see once you're finished.

Once all the tape was in place, I applied a fairly thick coat of white polish to make sure it was opaque. Then while the polish was still wet I peeled the striping tape off. You can see toward the middle of the nail where I tried to pull two pieces of tape off at once and actually lifted some of the white polish right off the nail. Oops!

I then let everything dry for a few minutes, then added a coat of Pro FX. Unfortunately, my bottle had gotten a bit thick and I tried thinning it down right before applying it. Talk about a bubble fest! If you need to thin your topcoat, do it a few hours before you need to use it!

That's all there is to creating this look! If you find the written instructions confusing and would like to see a video on how to do this, leave me a comment. I could probably be persuaded to show you how to do this on YouTube. :D

Also, be sure to come back tomorrow to see how I dressed this patterned nail up! I'm super happy with how this came out, and I can't wait to share it with you!

Some polishes were provided by the brand for consideration.

See my disclosure statement for more information.

Zoya Diva Collection Gradient

This month's pain doc appointment came around and I was feeling the urge to break into the fall colors. I decided to go with the Zoya Diva collection, a collection of metallic polishes that absolutely sing to me. I chose three colors: Elisa (red), Suri (purple), and Song (blue). I had a feeling these would be absolutely gorgeous together, and they really were.
However, I had a small problem. I didn't take my own advice and either tape around my nails or use a cuticle cream before stamping on the gradient. This left me with a lot of heavily pigmented color around my nails, and oh my gosh, was that ever annoying!

I cleaned around my cuticles, I swear I did. In fact, I cleaned around my cuticles for 75 minutes with acetone. No wimpy polish remover would work for this, and I was prepared. I went in with the big guns, and the big guns failed. After 75 minutes of cleanup, I finally gave up and said to heck with it, what I had was good enough.

This was very, very depressing. It didn't look quite this bad in person, but you could still see that I had pretty screwed-up cuticles. So, learn from my mistakes:  if you do a gradient like this, please use tape or something. This is just no fun to clean up!

... it sure was pretty, though. :D

Polishes were provided by Zoya for consideration.

See my disclosure statement for more information.

Let's Get Bronzed- Jessica Pumpkin Delight topped with Jordana Bronze Fest

Jessica Pumpkin Dreams in the bottle

You know how sometimes you get a new nail polish and you're almost obsessed with it? I have to be honest here- Jessica's new Pumpkin Delight (from their Fall 2012 Spicy Dreams collection) is one of those polishes for me. I've worn it twice, and I am absolutely in love with it!

This really is my sort of polish. It's a shimmery metallic bronzey golden duochrome that has flashes of red and gold and copper that's almost impossible to photograph. I finally managed a couple of decent photos, after taking probably 50 or more bottle shots alone!

Jessica Pumpkin Dreams in the bottle

This bottle shot gives you a slight idea of the complexity of this color. At the top of the bottle you can see reddish coppery tones with sparkles of red and green, while at the bottom of the bottle there are golden-greenish shades. If you never enlarge any other photo here, enlarge this bottle shot to the right. You'll be amazed at the flashes of color, and how stunningly beautiful this polish is!

Ah well, enough babbling about Pumpkin Delight. I love it, and it's obvious. Hopefully it's obvious why as well! But now I have to explain the next step I took. It was a rather odd one, but I think it worked out nicely...

If you've been a reader for very long, you probably know I have a thing for glitter. Big glitter, small glitter, holographic glitter... I love it all. So when I got the Jordana collection of special glitters I sort of lost my mind a bit. They're amazing, and I'm having problems picking a favorite. Heck, I don't think I can even pick five favorites... they're just that awesome!

Jordana Bronze Fest in the bottle

Enter Jordana Bronze Fest. Can you see that amazing collection of coppery, bronze, and gold glitters? There are large hexes and tiny microglitter, and flashes of so many shades... It's definitely one of my favorites.

As I was looking through the box I got to thinking... what if I did a gradient from Pumpkin Delight to Bronze Fest? They're very similar in tone, and I liked the idea of going from small shimmer to large glitter. Why not, right?

People? Let me just tell you that I fell in absolute LOVE. They aren't quite as close in color on the nail, but they look fantastic together. It's definitely a magpie heaven! Unfortunately, no matter how much I tried to photograph this, it just didn't work. I tried natural light, I tried flash, I tried in shade and full sun. I finally gave up and shot a video. Hopefully this can convey a bit of this polish combination's amazingness!

Polishes were provided by the brands for consideration.

See my disclosure statement for more information.

Princess P-Nut's Zebra Nails

Ahh, weekends! We went to our friend's house again yesterday and this time I brought my nail polishes with me! I'd planned to do nails for more than just her daughter, but the fibro monster reared its head and said, "Nope, you're done!" At least I was able to get hers done!

We decided to call her Princess P'nut, courtesy of her mom. They'd seen my video on making sponged ombre nails and P'nut was really wanting rainbow nails. She also loved the zebra, so together we picked out the colors for her gradient. She chose different colors than I'd used, and I think they worked well together!

She also chose to put rainbow sparkles over the rainbow gradient but under the zebra stripes, unlike the way I'd done mine. I used Jessica Silver Holographic topcoat for the sparkles this time. I love that polish!

Since I'd left my acrylic paints at home, I used Princess P'Nut's acrylic craft paints to do the zebra stripes. As you can see, they came out just as well as with my artist's grade acrylic. Proof that you don't need to spend a ton on acrylic paints!

However, it's obvious that even though I brought my cleanup brush, I'm just not as good at cleanup on other people as I am on myself. I clearly missed lots of stuff, but my that point I was pretty tired and shaky. Ah well, it'll come off in the bath!

Princess P'nut absolutely loved her nails, and kept looking at them off and on. I was so happy! I love sharing the fun of nail art, and she definitely enjoyed it!

The rest of the day was lots of fun too! P'nut's mom made burrito fixings, and those were absolutely delicious! Then she'd made a blackberry cobbler, and we brought chocolate chip cookies. Way too much deliciousness... but who's complaining?

I can't talk about visiting without mention the snugglebunny animals. When I first sat down, Rico ran over and hopped into my lap! He let me scritch him for 10 minutes or so, then was finished. Cats are so mercurial!

Later in the day, we all went to sit in the grass and watch the chickens play in the leaves... such cuties! My husband snapped this gorgeous shot of Rico blatantly ignoring the chickens. He's so beautiful!

There's just something about orange cats that I love. I've yet to meet an orange tabby that wasn't a sweetiepie!

Finally, I have to share this picture of Boo the dachshund. Poor baby had been lying on the back sofa cushions and ended up slipping down behind them. He tried and tried to get out, but his little legs were just too short! Meanie that I am, I just had to get a picture of him looking so dejected.

We helped him up not long after this photo was taken. Surprisingly enough, he ended up sitting on my lap for a good two hours! Normally if his favorite person is home, he's sitting with her. But even though she was home, he'd decided he was snuggling me instead!

At one point, he'd been lying with his front half draped across my lap. He stretched and rolled over onto his back, with his little front legs sort of poking into the air, and he leaned his head back and started making the cutest little wheezy whimpers of contentment! I was absolutely squeeful!

So yea... yesterday was filled with lots of laughter, good food and good friends. You can't ask for more than that!

There's a reason I'm not a nail tech.

See my disclosure statement for more information.

A video tutorial on doing a sponged gradient nail!

I got such a great response to the sponged gradient tutorial I did. Unfortunately, quite a few people posted that they didn't quite follow my steps, so I decided the best thing to do was to do a video tutorial! That way, it's clear what I'm doing and when.

Recording the video didn't take all that long, but holy cow did editing it take a long time! Thankfully it didn't make me want to scream or cry this time. I just need more experience editing, which is a good thing. That means you'll get lots more videos to come!



I'm also working on the followup to this video, where I'll show you how to add the zebra stripes. That's actually a pretty doable process, if I can get the energy and the time to shoot it!

Since I'm doing more videos now, why not leave me a comment to let me know what sort of tutorials you'd like to see? I have several planned, but I'm always looking for more ideas.

Thanks for watching, and if you liked this video why not thumb it up and subscribe? It would totally make my day!

Wheee, I'm finally enjoying making videos!.

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Easter Means Crawfish!

Boiled crawfish and a sliced bulb of garlic, yummy!

Ahhh, Easter. I'm not religious, but most of my husband's family is Catholic, so every year they throw a huge crawfish boil. It's the perfect occasion for catching up with family, eating til you think you're going to explode, and just letting the good times roll.

Oddly enough, I'm really not a big fan of crawfish. I'll eat them in things like crawfish etouffee or crawfish pie, but I'm just not fond of peeling boiled crawfish. So, I end up sitting and eating a hot dog or something while everyone around me slurps and cracks and does all those other icky things. :D

Anyway, on to the fun stuff- nails! I'm kind of frustrated, because while this was an adorable design in my head it just didn't work so well in reality. I did a base coat of China Glaze Dance Baby, followed by two sponged coats of a gradient from Fuchsia Fanatic to Gothic Lolita (both China Glaze as well). Then I stamped on some flowers in Scherer Chameleon's Blue Sky. I topped it off with my Best Nail Treatments topcoat, which I've found works beautifully for stamping.

I think I would have liked this better with a lighter stamp, or a lighter background. The Chameleon polish stamps really nicely, but it just didn't show well enough on this background. The pink-to-purple gradient was nice enough, but... I don't know. Something about this just didn't work for me.

Ah well. It wasn't awful, it just wasn't what I had hoped it would be. I did get compliments on it today, though, so all's well that ends well. And now, picspam.

Mmmm, nothing like small boiled crustceans.

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