Getting Closer to Halloween Gothic Stamped Blacks

 

As Halloween approaches I decided to goth-up my almond acrylics and paint them jet black. My boyfriend didn't like it. I used 3 coat of Visually Slimming by SPOILED, and can tell it's not the blackest of blacks. It almost looked like the darkest grey in the bottle, but I thought I'd give it a try. I got it from CVS a while back and it was so runny and watery, I thought after a year of sitting in my drawer it'd thicken up, but to no avail- three watery coats to full opacity. They look like press on nails. I tried to spice it up by stamping on gold ivy from BM plate 309. It will do until I repainting this Sunday. Hopefully I'll be more inspired to do Halloween nails next week.

Valentines Mani #2: Jungle Funky French

This wasn't what I had in mind when I sat down to do a second valentines mani- it just happened. It's a super sparkly animal print funky French that had tiny pops of pink (it looks purple but it's pink) inside the cheetah print. I used metallic pink hexagon glitter to and outlined it in black to make a cheetah print. Underneath this is a white French tip, covered in Metallica by Wet n Wild, with an unnamed silver glitter on top of the silver part. Then I added a black zebra. It's fun, sparkly and is definitely a contender for actual Valentines day nails.

Striped Nail Art Inspired by New Striped Apron

I've had this brightly colored pink, black, and green fabric for a long time now and always thought about using it for an apron but never got around to it. I've been wanting a new full sizes apron as my other one is white and horribly stained. So I whipped this cute pink and black one up today and did a quick (albeit, sloppy!!) nail art to commemorate!

I used a hot pink Baby Cakes by Jessie's Girl, light pink Raise Awareness by Essie, lime green Green WIth Envy by Sally Hansen, and strippers in green, pink and black. I just followed the pattern on the fabric to make vertical stripes as carefully as possible and topped with lots of topcoat to smooth out the seams. :)

Deborah Lippmann Happy Birthday Dupe Franken

So I got a lil mad scientisty and tried to make a dupe franken of Deborahh Lippmann's Happy Birthday polish! I just dumped red,gold, silver, green, blue, pink, and purple metallic 1mm hexagon glitters and green, blue and purple fine glitters into a bottle of clear coat that I never use. I painted just one coat on top of Black Out by Sally Hansen. Its not perfect, as some of the green and blue color of the hex glitter washed away in the bottle; and my dupe franken has fine glitter and not tiny square glitter. Might fool the untrained eye, but hey, it's DIY or die!!!

Red and Black Bunny Set - RIGHT Hand

Yay! I finally got to do a set of bunny nails!! I decided it was time to do my right hand over because they were empty for a few weeks! And I'm so glad I did because they turned out pretty snazzy for applying with my left (non-dominant) hand!!

On my middle finger, I put a bunch of 1.5 mm red rhinestones on because my black stars were not encased deep enough in clear acrylic and when I was filing my nails, I shaved off half of the large cutout star :-/

Here's all the stuff I used in this set ^^

My glitter mix was clear acrylic, red hexagons, silver tinsel glitter by Martha Steward in Sterling, and black fine glitter also by Martha Stewart in Onyx.

(My NYE 2010/11 nails were this mix minus red hexagons.)

Aaaand here's my bunny heads and stars in the cap waiting to be placed on my nail. :)

30 Day Nail Challenge - Day 24 - Inspired by Fashion

Thanks, to my hand model Oddrey, I was able to do posts for my challenge without taking off my current nail design. I searched the word "fashion" on Google Images and found this trio of Gucci dresses that I picked as my inspiration for fashion nails. I used black, white, and Mellow Yellow by Sally Hansen, with a darker golden yellow (that is unnamed) on top to match the yellow in the dresses. I'm pretty happy with this design, too bad it's not on my hands!

30 Day Nail Challenge - Day 21 - Inspired by a Color

For "inspired by a color" I was inspired by my hair color! My hair is Ion Color "Darkest Brown" with a chunk of Manic Panic "Atomic Turquoise". It's a pretty simple design, as my hair is pretty simple. Just black tips, with 3 streaks of Sally Hansens "The Real Teal" on one side. But matches my hair perfectly!!

30 Day Nail Challenge - Day 19 - Galaxy

 Well, I was worried that I wouldn't be able to recreate my previous post of galaxy nails, so I tried to do it in different colors and I'm pretty happy with this! I did a black base coat and then cut a skinny piece off a makeup sponge to sponge on purple and light purple... Then sponged on a black with silver glitter in the dark spots. For the stars, I used 2-3 holo dot cut outs (the eyes that punched out of my playboy heads, I saved in this little jar). Then the pointy side of an orange stick for medium stars, and the pointy side of a sewing needle for the tiny stars.

For some reason, it doesn't look glossy despite my efforts with 3 coats of Beauty Secrets Top Coat!! Maybe its the color combo?? I'm going to add a few more coats tonight, so maybe I'll switch out the pictures if it works... :-/

30 Day Nail Challenge - Day 18 - Half Moons

I actually really liked this design when I was finished (granted it took me 3 tries to get it to come out like this... I was just so shaky tonight! I used two coats of Milani Neon in Neon Orange as a base coat, then freehanded these half moons on black (prolly why I kept messing up) then used a silver Art Deco striper to make this spider webs. The reason you can't see my ring finger is because I thought one would look cute with a coat of glitter topcoat, but it didn't and then I thought I'd put some stars on it, then decided to take them off but they had left an impression.............anyways it looked bad. Happy Halloween! Muahaha...

30 Day Nail Challenge - Day 17 - Glitter

I didn't do this for my nail art challenge, I did this because I haven't painted my right hand this whole challenge and I wanted to do something crazy for that hand because it was naked these past two weeks. I then decided that it would be perfect for a glitter post because it is so sparkly and glittery...

I used LA Colors Allure, a pink-orange shimmery neon for the tips, and a black and purple striper to make the wispy lines, then I dumped some Sally Hansen glitter topcoat in Strobe Light and used my striper brush to paint lines on top of the purple and black. then glued on glitter dots randomly, flatback pearls, silver holo Playboy heads, and square and circle rhinestones in different sides. then like 6 coats of top coat.....

I like it, but to paint my other nails and remove with cotton balls, I have to wear gloves .

Glitter!

30 Day Nail Challenge - Day 12 - Stripes + Pink Wednesday

I've been neglecting my pink wednesdays but I'm back on track! I used Wet N Wild Dream Poppy to make a base French tip and striped on these weird intersecting lines in white and black for my challenge for today which is "Stripes" 

It took me 4 tries to even figure out a design for today, so I don't have too much energy to write anything else. Oh yeah I'll say this: I'm so over the 30 day challenge. Who knew it would take like...a whole month? Sheesh!

30 Day Nail Challenge - Day 11 - Polka Dots

I don't know if this counts as polka dots, but there certainly are a lot of dots here. I used Chrissy and my Franken "Ashy Wang" to make clean French tips, then added large dots of black, white, and Jessie's Girl "Baby Cakes" (hot pink). Then a couple of tiny dots coming off the cluster. I super enjoyed this design and will def be trying it again in different colors!

30 Day Nail Challenge - Day 10 - Gradient

Day 10 of the 30 day challenge is gradient. I am through with the full-nail polish application, but luckily, with this design I gave myself a little space in my pink french to do a corner fading to black. I used NYC Charming Rose Creme for the pink and sponged on black in the corners. Those little black specks you see is actually a sprinkling of jet black glitter from Martha Stewart.  I thought it gave the effect of spray paint splatter coming from the corner.

On to Day 11- I'm a day behind posting!

30 Day Nail Challenge - Day 7 - Black and White

Black and white... such a challenging challenge. I've been meaning to try to paint brass knuckles so I thought this would be a good time to try it. It didn't come out perfect, but for the first try, I'm happy with it. Also it seemed kinda plain so I junked it up with chunky circle and square rhinestones (for Chrissy who loves azn junk nails). I had tons of fun doing this mani and it will be a shame to take it off for tomorrow's rainbow challenge (grumble)......

30 Day Nail Challenge - Day 1 - Red + 2 Quick Reviews

I've started the 30 Day Nail Challenge and day 1's category is RED. That's all it says. I actually hate red nail polish because it's my least favorite color, and even if I use a basecoat it stains my acrylics. I only have like 2 reds anyways and THIS ONE I actually bought for 4th of July 2010! (Wet N Wild - "Red Red") It was super thick but with a few drops of Beauty Secrets Nail Polish Thinner, I brought it back to life.

Quick Review on B.S. Polish Thinner: Works great, smells awful (duh), you get a lot for a few bucks, comes with a spout on the cap but you really need an eyedropper to be precise. Also I (stupidly) stored it on it's side inside my drawer and it leaked out and melted the rubber no-slip mat!!!

OK so what I've done here was a quick swipe across the tip in Red Red not completing a French smile line on one side. I completed the smile line with 3 black glittery stripes that intersect at the other side of the nail. Then I placed black holographic cut out stars and the punched out centers around the nails randomly and topped with a few coats of Beauty Secrets Hardening Top Coat.

My Quick Review on B.S. Hardening Top Coat: high gloss but needs at least 2 coats, takes a while to dry (at least 10 minutes for each coat), super fun huge ball-like bottle and about $2 cheaper than Seche Vite Dry Fast + it's a bigger bottle. I would buy this again if I when run out Seche Vite is not on sale. (This is why I decided to try it in the first place.)

And one more thing, readers: I still cannot comment on anyone's posts! When I write my comment it asks me to sign in again and repeats this over and over. If anyone knows what's going on, please help me! I really want to tell you all how much I love all your posts!!

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!

99 cent Wet N Wild tips

French tips with wet n wilds red red and blazed.



Wet n wilds black creme



Both of these have wet n wilds hallucinate glitter top coat on the tips and clear top coat over the nail bed. A large chunk of my polish collection is wet n wild, obviously because it's cheap!