Sparkly Starry New Year's Nails!

Sorry, guys! I know I've been lazy and taking pictures with my webcam, its hella blurry compared to my digital camera... For this, I used Martha Stewarts Onyx glitter mixed with clear acrylic to do the black tips, I also threw in a tiny scoop of her tinsel glitter in Sterling. then I stuck on a few silver star confetti I got at Michael's (I think there's like 2-3 thousand stars in a bag for like $1.99). Then I gobbed on a top of clear acrylic to seal them in. It took me forever to file off the silver tips I had on for Xmas that I didn't take a picture of. I feel like I was just filing my nails for 3 hours. (I was.) Happy New Year's everyone!

Minnie Mouse

AGAIN I tried to do something for Xmas, see I started out ok... I painted on Wet N Wild Red Red tips, then white polka dots and then I couldnt help but draw on black bows like Minnie! I'm doomed! I can't get into the Xmas spirit for my nails!!!

Neons

I tried to do winter colors this holiday season, but it just wouldnt happen. I like having bright, colorful nails, and more importantly, neons. So heres a basic design with orange, yellow and green; the colors are the same on the other hand but in a different order. Black stripes and rhinestones. Short post- laters!

Cute ribbon stripes

I saw a design similar to this somewhere online, but unfortunately I'm unable to credit anyone because I can remember who it was, or even if I saw just a picture of it or on a nail tutorial on YouTube. sorry! But anyways, I wanted to do a design that looked like a present or nails wrapped up with bows, but I couldn't commit to holiday colors again (as I kept my candy cane nails for the weekend) so I caved and went with pinks and purples. I added some rhinestones but I know I will regret then later today when I'm cooking or trying to open up bobby pins.

Candy Cane Tips

Holiday design #1: Candy cane nails! They really look good enough to eat (aside from the layer of glitter on top). They really looked like candy before I put the glitter topcoat on. I just painted on white French tips, and used a red Art Deco striping brush (a gift from Harmony for my birthday). I originally did thick white and red stripes but then a looked at actual candy canes I had in my room and realized they have many thin red stripes as well so I just did really thin lines in the middle of the white. Voila!

Pretty :)

This design I snagged off Love4nails from YouTube because she's amazing and if you havent checked her out yet, you totally should! I used a neon hot yellow and painted black, white and silver stripes with a few dots on top. Her original design had a hot pink background, but my hot pinks are shimmery and the cremes are thickening.. and I wanted a creme color as a base. But personally I think this color looks better on my skin even though pink is my favorite color. I'll try to edit this post and swap with a better picture once I find my camera cord.

Finally Leopard

Finally have a computer I can (easily) update my blog again. As for the last few months I havent posted, I will prolly quickly upload fuzzy pictures of my iPhone shots> Also, I finally started doing my acrylics again after a long break for baking and present-making.

The colors I used in this is Apricot Beige by Caronia (I've never heard of this brand but just got a load of colors from my dads house). The spots on the leopard print is a mixture of the Apricot Beige and a dark brown and orange; lined with NYC's Plaza Plumberry. Now, on to updating...

Louis Vuitton Sample Nail

Wanted to do a LV nail design, but didn't want to take my nail polish off, so did a sample nail (glued to a pencil) I'll prolly blog later on in a few weeks with this design on my hands! Love it!!

This is my nail box, there are many like it, but this one is mine...

Here is all my nail stuff. I had all this stuff out on the floor next to th computer while updating my blog... I needed it to refer to specific colors. I decided to snap a pic of it so y'all could see my madness. The pink lil bag is my acrylics, liquids, files and buffers, nail clippers, acrylic brushes and tips. And the big box is tons of polishes, rhinestones, dotting tools, little stars, glitter, pearls, stickers which I dont really use, acrylic mixes I've made, razors, striping brushes, blah blah blah... and of course my 2 Martha Stewart glitter sets <3

Mosaic/Stained Glass

This design I called a stained glass style because I outlined these little random shapes with a silver, colored them in, and then re-outlined with black. I didn't take a picture of it, but from the underside of the nail, you can see the design very clearly, so the clear tip is like a window. It's a really easy design, and is great for both hands, because it doesn't have to be perfect, so left handed is real simple.

Erin Go Braugh

It's a little early for St. Patty's Day but I wanted to try an Irish design for my girl Erin, aka Ireland- I ended up looking like a total weirdo for a few days. Asian girl with Irish nails.... Not a good look for me.

Intergalactic Fun with Martha Stewart Glitters...

FINALLY! I got the Martha Stewart glitter set!!!! (From my loving boyfriend for my birthday!) I made tons of mixes already and this is the acrylic mix I made last and have had on for about 2 weeks now. Its the Sterling (silver) glitter mixed with Lapis Lazuli (blue), Verdalite (green), and Tourmaline (pink) tinsel glitter (skinny rectangles). I thought it looked like a space party, so I painted on an adorable yet ominous UFO to match. Messed it up while drying in the 2nd picture on one of the UFO windows, but still cute.

Fun With Mylar Flakes

Mylar Flakes aka Party Ice Confetti, is the arch enemy to my boyfriend. The poor guy already has to deal with drops of nail polish on his sweatpants, acrylic/monomer spills on the bed sheets, glitter EVERYWHERE, and now these flaky, light strips of, basically, pretty garbage plastic landed in his printer and is making it very very hard for him to print out his papers for school. :( Nevertheless these mylar flakes are gorgeous as pseudo French tips. I filed my acrylics down very thin and applied glue to my tips like a French tip, and rolled my fingers in the flakes. I shaped the smile line using an orange stick and covered them with clear acrylic. After filing, shaping and buffing them to perfection, I topped them with just top coat for a few days and then painted on these flowers and Konad flowers later on. This flower is from a previous post, but added a pink rhinestone to the center and then in a really subtle silver, stamped on Konad plate m5 (I'm pretty sure) to the other nails. I'm pretty happy with the way they turned out. I a fairly large bag of these Mylar flakes in the confetti section at Michaels, I think they were$1.99. I don't think I'll ever finish using this bag though because a little goes a really long way.

Spiderman.. Spiderman...

For my darling Kevin, who love Spiderman and Venom. In the background you can see some sketches of the Venom smiley face and the atoms from the science nail designs. The background of the first picture is Kevin's Complete Spiderman Encyclopedia or something like that; I used it to see detailed pictures of Spidey's mask and Venom's face. These Spidey designs are on my right hand which is usually never photographed. So each design was painted with my left hand! I did this because the science nails were painted on my left hand. Eat your heart out, Mary Jane.

Freaky GEEKY Friday!

For my MOM! who is a geeky lil scientist lady, I bring you: The Science of Nail Art. You're fully equipped with a bloody syringe, an atom, Zinc's square in the periodic table, some graduated cylinders, and some kind of amoeba or bacteria or something. For you,Mom, you never get your nails painted anymore, but maybe this will change your mind about it. Love you! Kisses :-*

Simple Neons

"Sunny Side Up" is my all time favorite color, (it's this orange pictured here). And lucky me! It's only 99 cents (Wet n' Wild). This summer has definitely been the summer of hot pink, green, and orange; and I just might make it the winter of neons too... The green is "Can U Dig it?" by LA Girl Disco Brites. Which needs at least 3 coats to reach full opacity! And takes about an hour to dry! Which is why I only painted one nail green. The pink is NYC Prink Promendade Creme. Which looks great in the picture, but after a few days, I think it turns into red... It might just be me though.

Punk Inspired Nails

I was fully through painting cute butterflies and flowers on my nails and wanted to move onto something a little racy... Here I have my black & neon stars, skulls and what have you, a neon pink set with a web and a matching spider (spider webs aren't just for Halloween! I have a house full of them to prove it), and a racy little corset design where I actually left the middle part unpainted to give it a nude effect (oooh la laaa). Enjoi.

Make a Wish Foundation!

My girlfriend Harmony and I were lucky enough to actually get to help make a wish come true for the Make a Wish Foundation for a little girl named Cassandra, who is just about the sweetest thing around these parts. She wished to become a rockstar and since my girl Harms and her crew are filmmakers, they produced a pretty rad little music video for her and this song she wrote called "Butterfly". (This is why I made that butterfly post a while back; I was practicing different butterfly designs for the project.) Anyways, H and I were the lucky hair and makeup girls and had a blast. Cassandra is so sweet. She had on chipped hot pink nail polish, and when I told her I'd be doing her nails, she of course, wouldn't have anything but more pink laquered on. That and light pink butterflies and pink eyeshadow... My picture of her nails is totally a blur, because everyone was trying to take pictures of her after she'd gotten the rockstar treatment and was blinged out on her hands and Gaga-ed in costume... Hope she enjoyed her wish and may God bless her.

Harmonious Paisleys (for Harmony)

I'm so behind posting, but luckily I still took pictures of my designs from August, so I'm going to attempt to upload them all today (or at least the ones I like). Harmony, you already saw these when we did Make A Wish, but I'm uploading for your viewing pleasure. Here's my Harm's-inspired paisley print nails for a girl who loves everything and all things paisley. I'd love to do these on your beautiful nails when you move back to the east side ;). Represent.

Tried this in a rainbow of colors; looked horrible. Black and white kinda looks like a bandana. Gangsta. Sorry so short, but there's not much to say. Black french tips with white striping brush designs.

Love4Nails Inspired Waves

These nails are sooooo pretty! And not that hard, just took me forever because there are so many layers. I stole this design from Love4Nails on YouTube. She's got great tutorial videos so check her out if you haven't already. I started out with a regular French tip of Wet N Wild "French White Creme" then coated that with Sally Hansen "Diamonds" a white glitter. Then started on the stripes. I painted a coat of "Rain Check" Wet N Wild, it's like a very light purple-silver. Then made my stripes of blue with Sally Hansen "Blue Calypso" and then striped another coat on top of them with the blue glitter L.A. Colors "Blue Glitter", and silver glitter Sally Hansens "Strobe light. This took forever to dry, with so many coats on and then felt really 3-D so I covered it THREE TIMES with Sally Hansen No Chip Acrylic Top Coat, a REALLY thick top coat, and then my nails felt super smooth, not like sandpaper where the glitter polishes were.

Can You See Me?

Inspired by my boyfriend's Call of Duty game, he asked me to make some camo nails. I would have never thought about doing it, but I figured it out and they were super easy, especially for my left hand. Of coure, after I did this I covered it with glitter. The colors are Sally Hansen "Green with Envy", the purple is the green mixed with a drop of NYC "Plaza Plumberry" the beige is the green mixed with a drop of Milani "Awesome Orange" and the black is just whatever black, lol.

Kirsty's Flower Power Hippie Nails

Butterflies for Harmony

DIY: Custom Striping Brush

If you don't want to drop $8 on a tiny tube of nail art polish, here's a super cheap (free) and easy way to make striping brushes out of your old nail polish.

You will need:
A bottle of old nail polish (that you do not use anymore)
Nail polish remover
Paper towels
Scissors

Step #1:

Take a bottle of nail polish that you no longer use. (I am using this bottle of white nail polish that is too thick and chunky to use anymore.) Take the cap/brush off and wipe the excess nail polish off with a paper towel. Before it starts to dry, clean the bristles carefully with nail polish remover. I like to fill the cap of the NPR with it and soak the brush for a few seconds, swirl it around until the color comes out.

Wipe the brush clean with a paper towel or cotton ball to dry. Note: all nail polish brushes are different! If you clean the brush off too roughly, you could easily pull the bristles out! So be careful if this is your first time; the brushes are sometimes very fragile.

Step #2:
Using your fingers, carefully split the bristles into two sections: a section that you want to keep, and a section that you are going to remove. I have split off roughly 15-20 bristles here that I want to keep. The less bristles you have, the thinner the stripes will be.

Step #3:
Use scissors to carefully cut off the sectioned you have decided to remove. Cut as close to the base of the brush as possible. If you are afraid to cut off too much, I would say just cut off half the bristles; you can always remove more later.

Step #4:
Test out your new custom made striping brush!! I drop a few dots of nail polish on a piece of paper and dip my brush in it to apply.

This is a really great way to make use of your retired nail polish, especially if you (like myself) have a problem throwing things away. Also, you can make them as thick or as thin as you want so you have just the right striping brush for you. You don't have to be a slave to the nail art polishes anymore. Hope this helps, and thanks for following!