Cocktail Party Nails

A friend is having a nice cocktail Christmas party this Friday night, so I of course want to do my nails for the occasion. 

There are many ways I could go, but decided I wanted to do something simply, and a bit elegant, while still being a little festive. Black and glitter is always a perfect combo in these situations. 

I went with a thin coat of a sheer silvery holographic glitter, with black tips, and a little black squiggle Christmas Tree, with red glitter accents. (and threw a black snowflake on the thumb for good measure)

I've recently broken most of my nails, which is why they are all so short. And yes, my nails are a bit discolored. This is what happens when you are bad at caring for your nails and don't use a base coat...especially when wearing heavily pigmented reds & blues. I should know better, and I DO know better... I just rarely take the time. In person, the discoloration isn't very noticeable, so it'll be fine for the party. 

I did my nails so early, because lately I have been hard to please with my nails, so wanted to make sure I had enough time to redo them at least once. Luckily, I am pleased with these. 

First day of Snow!

Since I am new to living somewhere with actual seasons, yesterday was the first time I've had/gotten to drive in the snow.
So, to celebrate the first day of snow, yesterday I did a snowflake manicure.

Grays for winter days

I have been having a hard time lately picking polishes I am content with. I sometimes have been changing my polish multiple times a day. And haven't been posting because I wasn't happy with any of the results.
Finally though I was able to settle on a gray gradient a few days ago. I used striping tape to block each color.

Pretty Little Neutral Fishnet

Just wanted a simple, pretty paint job this go'round.

So I went the lazy route and used stamp plates.

All that Jazz

I dressed in a 20's style costume tonight, for a Halloween themed show at ComedySportz. I like dressing up, and like being realistic and authentic in my approach. Now, that doesn't mean I stick to EXACTLY was what worn in the 1920's, however, what I do wear and do is based in reality.
In the 20's, nail polish/enamel was just hitting shelves, and women could now lacquer their nails. It was all the rage to paint your nails leaving the moon & tips free of polish. And Red was THE color to use.

I wanted to pay tribute to this trend, but not do exactly this, I wanted it to coordinate more with my getup. 

My outfit is black and gold, and I was wearing a headdress with Peacock feathers. 

At the same time that nail polish was becoming en vogue, makeup was also becoming more mainstream. In previous generations, only "THOSE" type of women wore makeup, but the 20's saw women boldly wearing very thick & heavy eye makeup, typically in black or grey, but also surprisingly turquoise was a popular choice. SO... because I was using Peacock feathers, and turquoise was a popular choice in the 20's, I chose to paint my moons turquoise. 

I am a big fan of Art Deco, so painted the remaining portion of my nails in black with a geometric design in gold.  

It isn't true to what was worn int he 1920's, but it takes elements of what was popular at that time and does a modern twist with it. 

Here's my makeup that went with it... heavy black and grey around the eyes, except for the inner corners, I did a thick turquoise liner. 

And of course, a red lip. 

Official Halloween nails

Yes, I know it is a weird angle, but was feeling two lazy to take & post two pics, so I took two dozen pics before I was able to get a close-enough-to-good pic :) Yes, I realize the irony of this.
Anyways... I give you... Halloween nails!

Pre-Halloween Frankenstein nails

There are so many different ideas I have for Halloween nails, that I felt I needed to so some early, so I could try as many as I wanted. Next week for Halloween I'll do the more creepy crawly Halloweeny nails, but this week I wanted to do something cute. 

And what could possibly be cuter than a little Frankenstein? 

I love my googly-eyed little Frank! 

Concession to Fall

I've been resisting, wanting to stick with the bright vibrant colors of summer. But, today felt like I should be using more fallish colors, deep brown, burgandy and subtle gold.

Lacey Granny Flowers

I know, I know... I just did my nails last night, purple polka dots. But, I woke up this morning and I just wasn't feeling the purples. I love purple, but it just wasn't all that interesting to me, there was no excitement to them. They didn't FEEL like travel appropriate nails (I am heading to Monterey for a few days tomorrow, for work reasons, but there will definitely be plenty of me time too!)
So, I decided to re-do.
And voila!

Much more interesting, right? 

Grapey Ombre Polka Dots

I'm not yet ready to accept that fall colors are appropriate, but feel like it's time to begin moving away from the summer brights. I wanted to do something quick and simple, but bright. 

I mixed different amounts of the medium purpley color that I used for the largest dots with a bright pink to get the different shades. 

Turns out to be a good transitional season color scheme I think. 

Skittles for Nat

My sister's "adopted" 13 yr old daughter informed me last week that I would be painting her nails for her today. And as we typically do for her, the reply was "Okie dokie".
I guess she was in a Skittles mood, because she was hoping I would show up with skittles for her.
I didn't have Skittles, but I said we could do a Skittle manicure. A Skittle manicure is one where the nails all are painted differently.
It took quite a while, but Nat finally picked a cherry based design, and all the colors we'd use.

Simple Polka Dot Lace

I've been lax lately. I have been keeping up painting my nails, but haven't been taking pics. And frankly, the paint jobs I've been doing have been rather basic, by my standards. 

So for the beginning of this week, I decided to go with a brightly colored lace like manicure. 

The color is actually a neon coral, but looks hot pink in these pics. 

I painted a diagonal of black at the inner edge of my nails. 

 Next, using my larger dotting tool I placed evenly spaced dots along the diagonal.

I then placed coral dots within the black dots, using a smaller dotting tool. I also put a couple dots in the black space.

I wanted to do a arch of dots over each dot, so on my pinky I decided to do this completely free form. As you can see, it didn't so much arc over each dot as it just sagged. So sometimes it doesn't always go as planned. 

 I decided to try a different approach, so I first placed dots in the space between the larger dots.

Then to make the arch, I placed dots over the top of the larger dots, which worked out well and gave the look I was going for. Yay!

Cherry Blossom nails

Did a simple cherry blossom manicure today. Nice neutral colors, and a very pretty feminine look. 

Looks even better after I cleaned up the edges of extra paint :)

These are a few of my favorite things!

Decided to do my nails today with three of my favorite things: polka dots, rainbow & bright colors. 

This is a simple manicure with a high level of pop. It is bright, fun, and cheerful. I love it! 

Nothin like Chucks

Those that know me even slightly know that the likelihood of them finding me wearing tennis shoes of any sort, if I am not on my way to, in the middle of, or returning from a hike, is a slim chance. But, being that I am now living in Idaho, it makes sense to try and be a little more relaxed, a little less "me" on occasion. (I have to say a friend of mine told me this weekend she was THRILLED to see a picture of me posted to FB with no makeup, ratty clothes, and hair in a bun. It's not that I'm always put together, just that I'm not usually totally undone). Anyways...
So, because I still don't OWN any tennis shoes, I figured the best way to start would be with my nails. Maybe comfy looking nails would help encourage me to purchase tennies.

These nails are really simple to do, and look adorable! 

I started with nails colored in a variety of colors, that are Chuck appropriate.

Next are white french tips. I painted these on freehand, but if you want a little guidance, use a rubber band as a guide. Stretch the rubber band over your nail, and paint everything below the band. Then just gently lift up the rubber band and there you go! After applying the white tips, I used a quick dry clear coat so I could move onto the fun detail quicker.

After the white has dried, using black striping polish I drew a line for the detail on the sole.

Using my white striping polish, I placed six tiny dots on each nail. These I am using as my guide for where the laces get drawn.

Draw thin lines between those dots, like playing connect the dots for the laces.

I finished off with little glittery silver dots for the lace holes. Finish with a quick dry top coat and then you're done!

A dot dot dot

I have been a total slacker lately. Not necessarily in regards to painting my nails, but in posting the pics of them. No reason for it either, other than I'm a slacker :) 

I had seen a manicure similar on another blog, and liked that it looked like more work than it was. So I decided it was my turn. 

I painted all nails except my ring finger with one coat of Sinful's Snow me White, and one coat of Tokyo Pearl to give the solid, pearly white color. 

My ring finer is Pure Ice's Wild thing, with a coat of Rimmel's Cocktail Colour Cutie Colada. 

All very inexpensive polishes. 

One my nails were dry, I poured out a small pool of black wet n'wild polish that I get around Halloween for $1.

Using my small dotting tool, I began to make clusters of 4 dots in rows. I started in the middle of each nail, then did the cluster above, then the cluster below, and then those on each side. Don't worry too much about spacing, it's ok if they aren't perfectly lined up. Almost all of my clusters ended up being slightly wider than they were tall.

As you can see with the closeup of my thumb, not all dots are the same size, and not all clusters are the same shape. It's ok, that won't be as noticeable with the next step.

Pick however many colors you want for the dots, and pour a small glob of each out. In reality, it is probably best to do one color at a time, otherwise your drops will start to dry, and they'll "string" as you try to leave dots. Then you'll have to pour out more polish. I did them all at the same time because it looks better for the pic. I ended up pouring out more of each color. (I believe in reusing as much as I can, so those old bills are used as my color pallet :) gotta make them useful for something!)

Randomly place dots of each color in the center of the black dots. You can keep the colors in order, or make them completely random, as I did.

This would be a lot of fun to play with variations...make the center dots in each row all one color, or make the center dots black and the base dots multi colored. 

Natural Turquoise Nails

One of the manicures I've seen done by other bloggers that I have wanted to give a try is a natural marbled stone look. In particular, I wanted to try emulating turquoise. I couldn't decide which shade of the color I wanted to use, so I chose to do an ombre effect. When in doubt, pick all the colors!

Right hand

 

Left hand

To get the black polish to have that lacy look, I did a modified water marbling. On my pinky fingers, the turquoise is so dark it is hard to get a pic to show the black well.
While it may look like it took a long time, once the base color was fully dry, the black marbling was a very quick process. Clean up took a lot longer than the polish application. It took less than 10 minutes to do the marbling.
I really liked the effect, but wanted a little more "oomph" to it. So I decide to add a little bit of gold streaking, since turquoise often has copper streaks in the marbling.
To get streaks that are not predictable, I pulled the cotton off the end of a cotton swab, and left some of the fibers trailing.

And here is the result:

I love the addition of the little bits of gold. It is very subtle, and gives the outcome an overall more natural look. Definitely a fun look.

I think my favorite turned out to be the lightest color on my thumbs. I like the contrast. 

Cuddly Critters

I have seen many manicures online with cute creature faces, and wanted to give it a go with putting my twist on it. I didn't take step by step pics, because I wasn't sure how it would turn out. And I'm glad I didn't, because I'm less than thrilled with the outcome. I am posting anyways, just to show that even someone who does their nails all the time and is at least at an intermediate skill level can have flops.

 They didn't turn out bad, just not as cute as I had imagined in my mind.

Mr. Giraffe definitely looks a little... um... wonky.
Part of it is because I wasn't using the right sized brush.  And part of it is just because.

I think Mr. Hippopotamus is my favorite. 

4th o'July Polka Dots

I know I'm posting just a few days late, but better late than never, right?

For the 4th I just did simple polka dots. Nothing complicated, but fun nonetheless.

Being new to Idaho, I didn't know what to expect of the holiday around here. What I wasn't expecting was the volume and saturation of fireworks displays in each neighborhood. It was a constant cacophony of booms, pops, whistles, hisses, snaps and cracks, that lasted for many hours with no lull in the sound. 

Oddly though, throughout the night I didn't hear any sirens. 

I hope everyone's 4th was safe and a celebration worthy of our independence. 

Tequila Summer Sunset Nails

I decided that I wanted something summery, but different than the polka dots I often do. A fabulous summery drink is a Tequila Sunrise, and I love the colors, but wanted to incorporate purple, so decided why can't I have a Tequila Sunset?

I decided to use this as a great time to test base colors also. Many of us who are "into" the whole nail art thing emphasize base color importance, and I wanted to see if it always makes much of a difference. 

So, on my left hand, each nail is painted a different base color. (1 coat each, except the pinkie which is 2 coats)

Thumb = China Glaze Avalance - a nice gunmetal charcoal color

Pointer = some old, random, obscure brand in Silver - a nice metallic opaque silver

Middle = Sinful Colors Snow Me White - a very opaque white

Ring =  Salley Hansen Insta-Dri In A Flash - a shimmery, white-ish nude

Pinkie = Wet'n'Wild megalast Sugar Coat - a slightly pinkish nude, no shimmer or sparkle

Once my nails are dry, it is time to move onto the coloring!
Take a regular makeup sponge, and dip it into water to get the sponge damp. Dry off the outside of the sponge. This is to help the paint not dry up so quickly on the sponge.
Paint a stripe of each color you want on your nail, onto the sponge.

Dab or roll the sponge onto the nail to apply paint. You can tape off around your nails, or apply Vaseline around your nails to make less of a mess, or to be lazy like me just paint on your fingers and clean it up later.

This is one dab/roll across each nail. I reapply a small amount of paint to the sponge between each nail.
If you like the base paint peeking through, or like the lighter more pastel color scheme, you can stop here, apply some top coat and be done.

I would like my colors more vibrant, so I will do another dab/roll cycle for each nail. This tends to make the colors blend just a little more, and they are much more bright. Wait at least a few minutes between each coat, otherwise the sponge will pick up as much paint as it is laying down.

Once my nails are colored to my liking, I use a Q-Tip dipped in acetone to removed the color from around my nails.

To protect the color, I added a quick dry clear coat.

I thought the nails still needed a little more, so I added some iridescent glitter polish.

I really can't see any difference in the outcomes of each nail. So in this instance, the base color didn't really matter.
On my right hand I didn't use a base color at all, and the results are the same. So if you're going to make your colors dark, and opaque, the base color is optional. The results do look a bit different, and that is because the nails of my right hand are shorter than those on my left, and there wasn't as much room to get as much purple on there.

These are the colors I used for this manicure
Mabelline = Plum Paradise
Sinful Colors = Cream Pink
Salley Hensen Insta-Dri = Lightening
Pure Ice = Don't You Wish