I'm Seeing Stars

I've got another Halloween nail design for you! I wanted to do something with a bit sparkle to it for this design, but at the same time I didn't want it to be too complex. I think I hit just the right balance with this one!

Instead of trying to paint stars and keep the glitter in the spots I want it, I went the opposite direction. I started this nail out with a bright, deep orange. Once that was opaque I topped it with a golden-coppery glitter and added a coat of quick-dry topcoat.

I then let things dry for half an hour or so. Once things were dry, I took a piece of masking tape and punched little star holes from it. Those stars are the key to this manicure!

A quick tip: Make sure the sticky side of the tape is facing the opening of the punch instead of toward the die-cutting part. This way you can use tweezers or a dotting tool to remove the star cutouts.

While I was punching my stars, I stuck them to the edge of an Altoids tin to keep them organized and sticky. Once I had them punched, I applied them to the nail in a simple pattern. I tried to leave enough space between them to make sure they would show up as stars in a black background. It also helps with removal to have a piece of the star hanging off your nail.

Once my stars were in place, I topped things with a coat of black nail polish. I used an opaque black so I would only need one coat. Before the polish dried, I peeled the stars off leaving the bright orange sparkly stars behind. I let this dry for a minute or two, but I should have waited longer because I did smear the edges of my stars on one side.

Once your top coat is on, you're done! You could do this with any shapes you want- even round dots from a traditional hole punch would look adorable!

Leave me a comment if you like this one. I'm really enjoying it right now!

Some polishes were provided by the brands for consideration.

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.

Happy Tuesday, it's a giveaway!

 
I'm having a giveaway! What's the reason? Well, that's a good question... I'm not at any particular important number, be it pageviews or followers or whatnot. It's not a special occasion... but I figured it out!

It's the Layniefingers Happy Tuesday giveaway! Who needs a reason to say I love you? Certainly not me...

Several people had mentioned how they'd love to have some mini punches to make their own nail decals with. I can't send punches to everyone, but I can help a couple of people out!

So I've got a small gift, but one I hope you'll enjoy as much as I do. There will be two winners who each receive a mini punch and a set of four gorgeous string glitters!

This is the punch I used in my nail decal tutorial. So tiny, so cute!

This punch makes a sweet heart with an arrow through it!

Mmmm, sparkly metallic bar glitter...

So what are you waiting for? Click the Rafflecopter buttons and fill in your information! I wanna get these out of my house before I'm tempted to keep them for myself!

Sorry, but this giveaway is only open to the US and Canada. I'm paying for shipping on these, and I just don't have the money to send overseas. I wish I could though... I love you all!
  a Rafflecopter giveaway  

Happy Tuesday!

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.

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.