Lime Foil Nails

Hello! Today I have a quick post about a quick mani. Nail foils are such an easy way to get an incredibly striking mani--as long as you aren't worried about lasting power. Big night out? Special occasion? It's perfect!

I laid down a base of a similar nail polish--Zoya Midori--and then applied Luau Lights, this stripey green foil from dollarnailart.com. It's gorgeous, even though my application wasn't entirely perfect. They gleam brilliantly from every direction!

(click to enlarge)

I took these photos without topcoat, because I still haven't found a good one that doesn't ruin the mirror-like finish. I applied Seche Vite before going out, which dulled them a bit but did at least ensure it stayed on for a few days.

This foil, along with tons of others, can be found at dollarnailart.com. They ship worldwide, and if you buy 6 or more rolls, you get a bottle of adhesive to apply them for free :D

Thanks for reading today! I'll have some proper art for you next time xoxo

Christmas Bows Feat. Dragonfly

Hiya! I'm super tired, so let's get right to it :) I have another Christmas mani for you, featuring another of my new piCture pOlish shades--Dragonfly by Lucy's Stash!

Outdoors in sun

Snowflakes on Silver Tips

Hello, my dear readers! Happy Wednesday! Work is about to get hectic as balls for the next couple of weeks leading up to Christmas. I'm going to do my best to make sure my nails stay in good condition, dressed for the season, and photographed for you!

Snowflakes are one of my favourite things in nature. So orderly, beautiful, and delicate... I have about five snowflake necklaces, two pairs of earrings, and of course a nail stamping plate. So for today's mani, I have a soft white/silver gradient with some stamped snowflakes and silver microbeads :)

Firefly's Frisky Feathers

Hello hello :)

Today's mani is a pretty multichrome with some striping tape and glitter...

Click the jump to see all the ingredients for this gleaming look!

#31DC2014 - Day 8 - METALLIC nails

Hello and welcome to day 8 of the 31-Day Challenge! Today I am rockin' some foil nails for metallic day :D

This post is a bit more pic-heavy than my other challenge posts (so, more like my normal ones), so click below to continue and see them all!

Fantasy Fire Layering & Stars

Hullo, my beauties :) Today I have a pretty layering combo to show you. I went out with some friends I haven't seen in months, and did these nails to match my primarily blue and silver outfit :D

Nina Star Bright & Striping Tape Bow: An Impractical Yet Adorable Mani

Hola, mis dulcitos! :3 Who's ready for a mani that's pink and girly and entirely impractical to wear whilst doing anything, but is super cute?

Matte + Shiny Stripes: Blue for Autism Awareness

Hello! I hope everyone is having a lovely weekend so far.

After my last post, I wanted to play around more with multi-finish looks--I think a combinaton of matte or wax finish & glossy just looks so chic! I also wanted to do a blue manicure to honour Autism Awareness month. So, with those two concepts combined...

 

Silver Metallic Matte + Foil Tips

Hello, lovely ladies and gorgeous gentlemen!

Sorry for the delay in posts! In preparation for some renovations starting tomorrow, we've been tearing the house apart and packing things out of the way, and my poor nails had to be neglected. The good news is, I didn't break any and I'm all caught up on manis and I have posts scheduled for the 5-6 days I'll be out of the house. You won't even know I'm gone ;)

Today's design was inspired by this awesome design by More Nail Polish. I don't have any gold foil, and unlike Cathy, I prefer silver over gold--so I used that instead!

Nail Wheels for Art Show [pic-heavy!]

Hiya! Today's post will be a first for this blog, and I'm pretty excited about it! But first... *tosses hair* notice anything different? Hehe :) I've been playing with the blog layout and background. I love the blue glitter, and I think the lighter body colour in here will make the pics look better. What do you think?

Okay... *deep breath* here goes!
Last November, the office where I worked held an art show/craft fair. Quite a few of us have artistic hobbies--one lady makes scarves, another does jewellery and metalwork, one of my friends makes the most beautiful soaps, lotions, body products, etc, and yet another friend paints on canvas. There are so many talented people there and it was so much fun!

My contribution was designing some sets of false nails (and sold four of them!), but I also made these nail wheels just for display, and I've wanted to show them to you for a while:

This is a REALLY picture-heavy post (I'm talking like, 15 in total) ... so the rest are after the jump!

Rainbow Foil Hearts

G'day my friends :) I hope you're having an awesome weekend!

Today's mani uses another of my dollarnailart.com foils!

I apologise for the picture quality--I had no sun today and these look so gloomy! I may update this post tomorrow if I can get some sunny photos. It will make the rainbow so much nicer.

The base is China Glaze Liquid Leather. 2 generous coats gives you a nice, shiny, solid black.

I used foil glue and a tiny brush to paint on the hearts--small scattered ones on some nails, one big one for an accent on the ring and thumb nails. Once that dried (takes about 5 mins) I took the foil called Primary Colors (which is very pretty... a nice shiny foil that starts off red, then fades into all the colours of the rainbow, ending with purple and then fading to red again) and dabbed bits and pieces of each colour over the areas where I'd applied glue. I wanted this to be sort of patchy and stained-glass-like.

Success! ...but the hearts were a bit indistinct. Kind of hard to tell what's going on. So I grabbed a metallic silver gel pen and outlined each one. I intentionally made this a bit rough and sketchy and imperfect as well. It looked much better!

Middle nail is my favourite--the outlines touching on the bottom two is really cute!

Gel pens are the best for nail art, I swear.

I love the way this heart came out :)

I got all the above pics before topcoat, because I wasn't sure how the foil would hold up, plus I was again afraid of smearing the gel ink. But I was quick and careful and it went nicely! Two coats of KBShimmer Clearly on Top, and the finished product was shiny and sealed in!

I hope you liked this fun look. I sure do! The only thing I'd do differently is skip using the purple part of the foil... it was quite dark and didn't really show up on the black. Some of the larger areas that look blank are really purple, I swear ;)

See you next time! xoxo

Red & Silver Foily French

G'day lovelies! As promised, I have a design to share with you from before Christmas. It was actually the design I wore to the Margarita Society charity ball (probably the last one I'll ever get to attend) in late November. Click here to see the crazy blingy design I wore to it in 2012!

This year I wore a floor-length, slinky red dress with a high slit and no sleeve on one side, solid and long-sleeved on the other side. It was so nice and flattering on my figure, which not everything is, so I felt super pretty. I accessorised with silver heels, bag, and jewellery... and did this manicure to match! All materials described below are from dollarnailart.com :)

The bottle shown is China Glaze Love Marilyn, but I did not actually use it in this design. I just posed with it since it matched. It's a yummy dense red and silver glitter mix, and I had it on my toenails for this special night :D

I started with a base of a generic red polish (cannot remember, but it was probably Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Rapid Red... doesn't matter, you can't see it) and then applied a thin layer of foil glue roughly 3/4 up the nail starting from the cuticle. Once it dried, I applied the foil called Red Glitter.

Then, I applied more foil glue, this time starting at the tip and using a detail brush to draw lines coming down over the red. I wanted it to sort of resemble icicles. Once it dried, the silver foil I applied is called Silver Dots. (Both have the same sort of look--round-glitter shapes with a holo aspect, although the holo was much more apparent on the silver.)

Do you think I got the icy look I was going for? :)

I loved the way it looked, but knew it would rub off quickly without topcoat, so I grudgingly added topcoat. It didn't crinkle the foils very much, but it did make them slightly less shiny and foily-looking. If anyone knows a good topcoat for putting over foils that doesn't do that, please enlighten me! I'm thinking of trying regular artists' varnish, although it will take ages to dry...

After topcoat. Still pretty and got lots of compliments, but... I wanted ALL the holo.

Hope you enjoyed this post, even if the holiday look is a bit late at this point. I'll get some fresh work done before long. See you soon! xoxo

Alphabet Challenge: S is for... Swirly, Starry Spectrum

Good day my lovelies! I have been such a naughty blogger lately. I'm up to V on my fingertips and am only just now showing you S! Perhpas this week will be a flurry of updates. Maybe.

(I wish I could do daily updates, and get samples from nail polish companies, and be one of those cool nail bloggers in the cool nail blogger circle. But I just can't >.< )

ANYWAY! Letter S, and this happened to coincide nicely with the arrival of a new nail product I had never tried before--foils! I have watched the very talented Robin Moses demonstrate her methods for using nail foils in loads of her videos, and finally gave in to the temptation to order some. I have watched her so often that I was eager to put her techniques to the test, and I think it came out pretty nicely for my first try at it!

SO SPARKLY

Pretty!

I started with a base of Spectrum, from the Sally Hansen HD line. A yummy sparkly turquoise/teal blue-to-pinkish duochrome, this is sheer (great for layering!) or builds up nicely alone. This is three medium-ish coats. (Afterwards I tested on a nail wheel, and one coat of this over OPI Can't Find My Czechbook looks just the same. May do that next time to save polish!) Here is what it looks like alone:

I love how shiny and sparkly it is, and that strong pink flash is <3

Once that was dry, I poured out a wee bit of the nail foil glue from dollarnailart.com, added a few drops of water to thin it down (Robin recommends this so it's easier to work with, and doesn't get all gloppy or peel off), and used it to paint on some stars and swirls with my detail brush. I acquired a decent striping brush like... two days after I did this design. Wish I had waited, as the lines could have been thinner. Oh well.

The glue goes on sort of a milky-blue-white, but dries clear and very sticky. I then took the foil called Silver Dots, from the same retailer, and pressed it gently over the nail. It sticks to all the areas where the glue was applied. It looks so pretty over the blue! Waited about half an hour and then topcoated with a slow-drying clear coat from Nailene to protect it.

Fast-dry topcoats are what I use 99% of the time, but they can cause foils to crinkle up and look all meh. They do react a little bit to any topcoat, but slow-drying ones are easier on it. As long as you can sit still for ages and not smudge it. I am so spoiled on these quick-dry ones, I swear. That was by far the hardest part--the waiting!

After topcoat. Apologies for the kinda weird angle. This was so shiny it was hard to find an angle where you could actually see the design!

Verdict: nail foils are reeeeeeeeally cool! Especially if you're willing to practice a bit to get the feel of how they work and master it (I am) and are into super shiny bling (I so totally flippin' am). Can't wait to play more with these!

Thanks for stopping by :D see you next time! xoxo

Alphabet Challenge: R is for... Right and Rapid Rhinestones

Good evening! Back to the alphabet challenge, and I wanted something simple yet striking. I've had red-with-black-tips kicking around in my head for a while, and it just so happens that both of my favourite polishes in those colours start with R, so this one pretty much took care of itself!

Indoors with flash. I think this combination is so lush yet edgy!

I actually cut my length down for this one! I thought this would look better on shorter nails.

The base red is a single coat of Sally Hansen Insta-Dri in Rapid Red. The polishes in this line are well known for being great for one-coat coverage and quick drying. (And they work for stamping wonderfully too!)

The tips were carefully painted on with Piggy Polish Right BLACK At Ya. And finally, two small black rhinestones on each nail. I got these from dollarnailart.com. (I got some other things from them too--can't wait to show you one of them next time!) Topped with Seche Vite for über-shinyness.

And outdoors in sunlight.

The wear time on these was really great. Black tips mean visible tip wear is pretty much unavoidable, but I wore this for a week (this is insane for me!) and all the gems stayed on perfectly :D

Thanks for stopping by! Join me next time for the letter S and me playing with a new-to-me nail product. Can't wait! xoxo