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!.

See my disclosure statement for more information.

I'm seeing spots! I call this one ElectroDots!

After wearing the pastel gradient for a day, I needed something else with a bit of graphic pop. I thought about zebra stripes, or a leopard print. I thought about plain stripes. But I decided to go with plain old polka dots.

Speaking of, have you ever wondered where the term polka dots originated? I'm a bit of a word geek, and decided to track it down the other day. Turns out, the dotted pattern was named for a dance called the polka in the 1850s. The dance was such a craze that there were lots of things named after it! It was that crazy pop music of the time, apparently. Call that your weird fact of the day.

Unfortunately, my dots aren't nearly as neat as I'd hoped they would be. I'm still getting the hang of using my dotting tools again! Still, I'm really happy with these, and they look much better at normal viewing distance. (You know, when the camera isn't making my nails as big as my head!)

I chose Gothic Lolita from the Electropop collection because it went to perfectly with these colors. I promise I'm going to use some other colors eventually, but I love these so much! This was one giveaway prize I was thrilled to win, because these colors have my name all over them!

The process couldn't be more simple. I pulled out my palette (which is actually a packet of nail decals) and put a drop of Gothic Lolita onto it. Then I used my largest dotting tool to make dots on my nails. It's really super easy.

Now, you may find it hard to do a consistent pattern. I've struggled with that as well, so this is how I worked around it. I start with a dot in the center of my nail, then put one above it and below it (in a line). Then I go in between the dots to one side, and then to the other. I also try and put partial dots where they would be if they're going off the nail. That always makes things look nicer to me. I quick clean up with my brush and acetone and I'm ready to go! It ends up looking something like this.

Unfortunately, now that they're on, I'm strongly tempted to put small dots inside the big ones. I can never leave well enough alone, but how cute would little dots in the pastel colors look, with the purple framing them?

Sometimes my brain just won't stop tormenting me with ideas. It gets tiring!

Aah well, check back tomorrow to see what I've done with them. Who knows!

I only wish I got paid for every post I made using the China Glaze Electropop collection...

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.

Tutorial- How to make custom sponge tools

Whew, it's been a busy few days! But I'm finally back with the tutorial I referred to a few days back. I'm going to show you how to make your own sponge tools for fun and interesting nail art!

Before you start, you need to gather your supplies so you won't have to stop halfway through and bug your family about helping you find the glue stick, the way I might have done here.

The list is simple enough. Basically, you can use whatever you have on hand!

Supplies for sponge tools:

• Sponges
• Don't feel like you have to use what I used! Use whatever you have around the house...
• Kitchen sponges, makeup sponges, whatever sponges you
• Scissors
• Sticks of some kind. I used coffee stirrers and bamboo skewers.
• Some sort of adhesive. (Not pictured)

After that, it's really simple- cut the sponges and stick them on the end of the sticks! However, I went to a bit more trouble and showed different options you have.

To start with, I used the sponge from an old set of sponge rollers I have on hand. This particular roller had broken, so I decided to recycle the sponge into a tool for sponging.

I decided to cut it into different shapes to see what sort of effects I could create. I cut off small round sections from the end of the sponge, then cut them into half-circles and quarter-circle wedges.

I also cut the sticks into small segments that would be easier to control. I eventually cut the ends of the sticks into points, but I don't have pictures of that. I kind of forgot...  oops!

Then, I decided to cut a small opening into the sponge so that the stick would go inside of it. That would make it a bit more stable when stamping, I think.

This was so awkward to photograph, since I needed two hands to actually work the scissors and hold the sponge! So, pretend this photo is of me snipping into the bottom of the sponge segment.

You can also use your sticks to just sort of tear into the bottom, if you like. It all depends on what shape the bottoms of your sticks are. If you're using a bamboo skewer, you can just sort of shove it into the end of the sponge.

At this point, you would put glue on the end of your stick and shove it into the little hole you'd made in the base of the sponge. Unfortunately, I'd lost the glue stick I'd gotten out to do this tutorial with as soon as I started photographing, so after looking for a good 45 minutes, I decided glue wasn't important and I made do with what I had.

Instead, I painted the stick with a glob of nail polish and shoved it in. Surprisingly enough, this worked really well! I did find the glue stick after I'd finished this tutorial (of course!), and used it on later sponge tools... but the ones with nail polish held up just as well!



Who knew?

And now comes the fun part... seeing the different patterns and stamp styles you can get with the different tools! Believe it or not, they really do look different...

No matter how I tweaked this, it was hard to make it understandable. The colors basically match up the sponge shapes
to their patterns when stamped onto paper.

Stamp pattern of the center of the flat side of the half-circle section.

Stamp pattern of the edge of the quarter-circle wedge.

Stamp pattern of the flat edge of the quarter-circle wedge.

Stamp pattern of the side of the round.

Stamp pattern of the flat portion of the round, by the hole.

Stamp pattern of the flat portion of the round, by the hole.

Stamp pattern of the scratchy side of a kitchen sponge.

That last photo shows what the scratchy side of a kitchen sponge looks like when you stamp with it! I actually think it's pretty... very interesting, almost like when you splatter nail polish from a straw!

So, the idea here is simple: don't feel like you always need to spend money on expensive nail art tools. Sometimes you can do cool things with stuff you already have around the house!

Til next time!

My mind never stops with the ideas...

See my disclosure statement for more information.

Tutorial- How to Create Sponged Gradient Ombre Nails

Yes, this is the same
gradient as the tutorial
title image! :D

Ombre- it's everywhere right now. Ombre hair, ombre clothes, and ombre nails. While I can't help with the clothes or hair, I can show you how easy it is to do your own ombre manicure!

It's much easier than it sounds! It is time-consuming, though, and it uses up quite a bit of polish. Still, you could do this with any polishes, even going from black to white if you wanted to! You only need a few things...

This one's a LONG post, so I'll be cutting it to save your blog reader!

Happy Holidaze the eighteenth- How to take it all off again.

I've shown a lot of different nail art here over the last few weeks. I've done glitter looks, rhinestones, lots and lots of layers. Tonight, I'll show you how I take my nail polish off. 

I know, you're thinking you already know how to take off nail polish. I thought I did too. It was no fun, it was tedious, and if I were wearing glitter it was downright painful at times. The scrubbing of cotton pads against my nails would make my nail beds sore. When you consider how much I love glitter (and wear it), you'll understand why I hated removing nail polish.

Then one day I saw a video from Colette of My Simple Little Pleasures, and my entire nail polish experience changed. I tried her method and was stunned. I told a friend, who actually avoided wearing nail polish because of how frustrating removal was. I told another friend, and another, and finally realized that hey, most people don't know how to remove nail polish easily!

It's time for that to come to an end. There's no reason to hurt when you remove your nail polishes. Even glitter is easy to remove when you do it this way. All you need are two things: cottonballs and nail polish remover. Leave the acetone on the shelf, you won't need it today!

I use the large cottonballs, and tear them into small pieces. I can take off all my nail polish with 2 cottonballs, even when I wear glitter polish!

The nice thing is that I don't need an enormous amount of cotton for this method. All I need is enough to cover my nail and get it nice and saturated with nail polish remover.

You need to saturate the small section of cotton and place it onto your nail. Squish it down nicely with your fingers so that it soaks the nail evenly with remover. This will hold the cotton in place while you repeat the process with your other fingers.

By this point, you're seriously stylish. It's an attractive look, what can I say?

Then you wait. You only wait for a few minutes, but it feels like an eternity while you can't use your hands. I tend to do one hand at a time so that I'm not totally helpless.

After a few times of doing this, you'll figure out how to know if it's been sitting long enough. You'll be able to feel the polish wiggling under the cotton when you press on it. It's hard to explain, but trust me, you'll know.

Once you've reached that point, you simply press firmly on the cotton and slide it off your nail. The polish will slip right off with it!

As you can see, the process took off almost everything in one swipe, leaving the edges of my fingers clean and keeping any glitter or leftover color inside the cotton instead of on my skin. I fold the piece of cotton so that the polish is on the inside so that I can use a clean edge to wipe down the grooves at the sides of my nails.

Don't worry, it sounds more complex than it is. You're really just trying to capture all those little edge bits that didn't come off with the main swipe.

As an example of how well this works, I took pictures of a couple of pieces of cotton right after sliding my polish off. As you can see, the water decals I'd been wearing are still almost perfect, as is the polish in all its layers.  None smeared around, getting on my skin or requiring scrubbing to remove!

For the record, I used this method tonight to remove the new Milani One-Coat Glitter polishes. This was an intense amount of polish- base coat, two layers of super-intense glitter, and two or three layers of topcoat. The polish removed just as easily, leaving no glitter on my skin and requiring no scrubbing. It's made such an amazing difference for me that now I'm willing to wear almost any polish at least once!

So the next time you're faced with taking your polish off, try this method. It may save you time, energy, and even a bit of pain!