A Followup to My Last Post- Nail Art Storage Wheels from eBay

You know how sometimes you find a great deal on something, but then you realize you have to sort the items and place them into storage? My nail wheels arrived safely from Hong Kong, and I am absolutely thrilled with them. On the other hand, I spent something like 6 hours sorting rhinestones and studs, and that is... tedious, to say the least.

When I started sorting, I had no idea it would take me so long, but boy did it. I used a tray with raised sides to corral the various goodies, and I used my homemade rhinestone-picker-upper (for lack of a better term) (it's a bamboo skewer with a teeny bit of poster putty on the pointy end) to pick up each individual piece. Keep that in mind when you look at these next photos.

Image from DollarTree.com

Now, I have to be honest- my recent splurge only filled three of these wheels. However, once I went to put them away, I realized that one set of nail gems that was in the original container had spilled once again into the box I keep it in. This is at least the third or fourth time it's happened, so I figured to heck with it, I'd put them into my empty wheels.

Once I'd finished that, I realized I had several bottles of the Donna Michelle nail art embellishments that just didn't store well and were a nightmare to try and use as they were. So yes, I added them into the nail wheels as well. Once I was finished, I'd filled all 5 wheels and I realized that I want to buy more- at least 10, maybe 20. I figure they won't stay empty for long! So, feast your eyes on my newly-organized goodies!

These rhinestones came from my clearance splurge.

These are the Donna Michelle glitters and shapes. Much easier to use this way!

More goodies I had stashed away. I think I'm more likely to use them now that I can see them easily!

Can you see how many studs are in here? I'm so excited to play with these!!

 

And yet more studs and stones to play with. SO COOL!!

So, to sum up, I managed to get some wonderful, compact, usable storage for a whopping $3.70 and now most of my nail art embellishments are stored in a way that they're both easily accessible and easily viewed. I am SO in love!

If you're interested in picking up some of these nail wheels, you can take advantage of the same deal I did- you can get 5 brand new, unused nail art storage wheels for approximately $3.70 US dollars. It does take a while for them to arrive, but you aren't paying for shipping, so it's hard to complain.

Next time, I'll be sharing a nail design I called Martini Summer. You don't want to miss this one, so stick around!

Til next time!

I love finding good deals on eBay!

See my disclosure statement for more information.

A New Layniefingers Video Series - Tips & Tricks

Hi! I'm so excited to finally have some new content for everyone! While recording some videos, I realized I have lots of little tips that don't really need a whole 5-10 minute video explaining them. So, I'm going to do these as they come to me and collect them into a playlist of tips and tricks!

This first one is extremely useful, and I use it fairly often! I find that the cotton swabs you buy tend to be large, so when I'm trying to either clean up my cuticle area I take polish off my nails accidentally. Plus, if I make a mistake on my nails, they're entirely too big to do a quick spot removal.

The solution? If you have a toothpick or a bamboo skewer, you can make your own tiny cotton buds for easy cleanup! Watch the video to see how.



Be sure to leave a comment if you find this helpful. Plus, let me know if you have any quick tips you'd like to share or see!

*Edited to add: For those of you who saw the first tweet about this post, I apologize. Apparently, I am still quite a video editing noob and ended up only posting MOST of the video. When I went to add in the annotations at the end, I realized that woops, I messed up. It took about 5 hours to reupload the fixed version... ahhh, my internet sucks. :D

Sometimes the best tools you have are the ones you make!

See my disclosure statement for more information.

Another quick tip- how to remove stubborn polishes

Whew- this video took AGES to edit! I shot this over the weekend and have been editing it ever since. But finally I got it all neat and watchable, and it's under three minutes!

I wanted to share how I remove stubborn polishes, like glitter-heavy polishes, or nail decals or stones. I used to dread using those because removal left my nail beds sore and irritated. Once I found this method, it's been smooth sailing! Now it's time for me to pass this on to you, and I hope it works as well for you.


Leave me a comment if you found this helpful. Also, if you enjoy the videos, why not subscribe on youtube? A thumbs up never hurts, either... :D

Patience, young padawan...

See my disclosure statement for more information.

A hint about homemade nail polish decals...

I hate my blog posts without pictures!

I love you guys, you know that?

Because I don't want anyone to go through making the same mistakes I've made (and also because it's just plain funny), I'm sharing a simple tip to make life easier for you if you decide to make custom nail polish decals.

If you need to sneeze? Turn your head. If you happen to have a couple of hundred tiny little nail polish decals drying on a sheet of paper and you sneeze over them? They're light enough to be moved by the resulting breeze.

Did I say moved? I think that's too polite a term...

... these things blew all over the place.

One sneeze, and suddenly my paper full of decals wasn't quite so full anymore, and there were tiny bits of dried nail polish everywhere except where I wanted them. I groaned, and I may have said a not-so-polite word. My husband, ever supportive and concerned for my well-being, immediately asked what was wrong.

I didn't want to tell him.

I did, though. I explained that I sneezed, and scattered the nail polish bits from here to kingdom come.

I'll give him credit. He did try not to laugh. He failed though, and pretty dramatically. He apologized through his giggles, and when I didn't laugh along, he said, "But baby, you have to admit... it is kind of funny."

Eh, who am I kidding. At that point I started to laugh too, and suddenly it wasn't quite so overwhelming anymore.

I hope this gives you a giggle...

Also, I'm experimenting with embellishing the nail polish decals, seeing just how far I can expand this idea. So far? I have so many thoughts! Here, have a simple teaser...

And now, back to the drawing board. Or sleep... sleep might be good right about now... Whatever. :D

Til next time!

Sometimes I think my life is written by a soap opera writer.

See my disclosure statement for more information.

Tips & Tricks- How to Restore Your Seche Vite!

If you're a fan of nail polish blogs, chances are you've read rave reviews about Seche Vite, the super-amazing quick-dry topcoat that smooths out bumps, dries your nail polish in 5 minutes flat, and makes your polishes look super glassy. I'll be honest- I didn't think a topcoat could be worth $10 when I read the reviews. Once again, I thought polish was polish, and didn't see a reason to spend $10 when I could buy a topcoat from Love My Nails for $1.

Like I said in my last post, I'm frugal.

Then I worked on a set of nail tips that needed to be leveled out, so I splurged on a bottle. I figured hey, once I sell them I'll get the money back, so it's worth it. And I was amazed at just how different this top coat really is. Then I used it on my own nails as an experiment and was astonished. It really is that good!

Unfortunately, as I continued to use it, I found out what everyone else already knew: as you use it, it gets thicker. And thicker. And thicker. It gets so thick that eventually you can't use it, and it does it quickly. By the time I'd gotten halfway through my bottle, it was like trying to paint my nails with molasses!

I was absolutely disgusted. What's the point of spending $10 on a bottle of topcoat if it's going to be unusable halfway through! It's a total waste, I thought. I decided to use my nail polish thinner to try and salvage what was left in the bottle, and while it's usable, the magic is gone. It's no longer the amazing topcoat it was.

Then I learned something amazing. This morning I was chatting on twitter when @the_asian_girl told me her secret: Seche Restore. This isn't a solvent that thins polishes. Instead, it actually replaces the volatile chemicals that have evaporated from the bottle of Seche Vite, restoring it to its original magical state!

Do I even have to tell you how excited this made me? Seriously, I am absolutely giddy. This means I am once again willing to buy Seche Vite because I'm not going to be wasting half the bottle! I have no idea how I managed to miss this information, but I'm so glad I learned when I did!

Adding Some Fun To My Mani- Custom-Mixed Pink Dots!

I have such a short attention span. After wearing my grownup manicure for all of 6 hours, I realized I was bored to death with it. I also was dealing with a bit of anxiety from a morning meeting (LONG story), so I decided to do a bit of modification to my manicure. Those of you who follow me on Twitter got a sneak peek of this one. (Hint hint- you can follow me too!)

I thought for a while, and decided that baby pink goes well with cocoa brown. The problem? I have no pink that I felt was appropriate. That's ok, I can mix colors! I pulled out my polishes and started looking. I seem to have mainly one type of pink in my collection- HOT. That wouldn't do.

However, then I realized that if I mixed my pink Kiss Nail Art Nail Paint with my Milani Bare With Me, I'd end up with a pink very close to what I had in mind. Looking back, I'd probably want to warm it up a bit, but I'm pretty happy with it as it is.

I ended up using some recycled plastic cups to mix polish in. My step-grandmother is in a nursing home, and they bring her medications to her in a little plastic cup. Since she gets them 2-3 times a day, that's a lot of cups. She saves them because she thinks they're so cute, and doesn't want to see them thrown away. When she heard I use them for nail art, she wanted my step-mother to bring them to me. That made my day, you know? Just a little peek into my life.

Now, one problem I ran into is that while I mixed enough to do all my nails, it ended up starting to dry out and be unusable by nail 3 or 4. That's easy enough to fix, though. I put a single drop of Orly Nail Lacquer Thinner into the mix, stirred it well with my dotter, and the polish was back to new again. I ended up doing that three times total, and had no problems with getting the dots done.

A quick note about nail polish thinner: it's a must have if you paint your nails often at all. There are lots of brands to choose from, of varying costs. It will totally rescue your thickened, goopy polishes and return them to brand-new consistency without affecting their drying time. Some people will say you can use nail polish remover for this, but don't: it will ruin your polish instead of fixing it. Thinner is inexpensive and fairly easy to find, and it's worth the effort.

Back to the nails, already! So, once I had my pink mixed, I used a homemade dotting tool to put teeny little dots on my nails in a semi-regular pattern. It was simple enough- put a dot in the center of my nail, put one a bit higher up, then a bit higher up. Put a dot under it, then another... all about the same distance apart. It's so much easier to explain with an animated .gif!

Yes, some of the dots went over onto my skin. I did that so that the dot would look like it was continuing off the nail. Once they're dry, it's very easy to clean up the few dots over the edge using a brush and acetone. It makes the whole thing look more consistent, in my opinion.

Once the dots were dry, I applied my topcoat, then used the brush and acetone to clean up all my edges. I am loving using the brush for cleanup, now that I've figured out how to do it. It took a bit of practice to get the hang of it, but I think it's working well now.All I have left to figure out is exactly how much to clean off around the cuticles to get that amazing look I see on so many blogs. But that will come with practice.

And there we go- I went from a very plain, neutral manicure to a fun dotted girlie one! You could even add a pink rhinestone in here and there, or do a pink french tip- that would be adorable if my nails were long enough!

 Polishes were provided by PR for evaluation.

Simple Storage for Tiny Nail Art Supplies

Let's be honest- if you're into doing nail art at home, you've probably got a bunch of supplies that you're not quite sure how to store. There are hundreds (if not thousands) of conversations all over the web about how people store their nail art items, brushes and polishes, striping tape and rhinestones. Many  people use a carousel or a rhinestone case to store their rhinestones and other tiny decorative items. The problem is that these can be hard to find locally, and expensive to buy online once you pay for shipping.

I ran into this problem with my order from Viva la Nails. They have so many fun things for your nails, but they come packaged in tiny bags. This is great, because it's a low cost way to package the items, and those low prices get passed on to you when you buy. However, trying to use the items from their little baggies is a pain in the butt! What to do, what to do...

Well, I found a cheap solution that works like a dream. I was shopping in Walgreens yesterday when I saw it- a medicine organizer! Most of the time these are fairly expensive, but Walgreens has simple translucent seven-compartment pill organizers for $0.99! I think it's perfect for the job because the compartments close securely, are transparent, and are the perfect size. I don't have to worry about them popping open and spilling tiny bits everywhere, and I was even able to label the back with where they came from!

To label the back, I cut the label away from one of the small bags and used clear tape to affix it to the back of the pill organizer. This way, I don't have to rely on memory to know where the goodies came from! I can easily open one compartment, use a picker to grab a single rhinestone or whatever, without having to worry about things sticking to the adhesive strip on the baggie or spilling it everywhere. I love my little organizer, and it's totally worth the $0.99 I paid for it!

What about you? How do you store your tiny bits for nail art? Leave me a comment, I love learning new ways to do things!

Nail art supplies were provided by Viva la Nails for evaluation.
See my disclosure statement for more information.