Blue Year 2008

Okay, so it wasn’t really a “bad” year, just difficult in the last month or so. But I’m glad it’s almost over anyways – time for a fresh start!

For some reason, New Year’s just screams out “blue” to me. So this year, I snapped up this China Glaze “Blue Island Iced Tea” for the base (2 coats), and I’m completely in love with it, and all the little silver sparkles infused in the polish. It's slightly lighter than the picture shows - I had to use a flash for both pictures to get the "bling" though. My tips are two coats of CG “Tinsel”, another new favorite, and appropriately “bling-y” for ringing in 2009, I think. I swiped a light coat on the undersides of my nails as well, just for a little “extra” (keeps the tips nice longer too). A few little shiny silver stars that really pick up light from all the way across a room, and I’m ready for New Year’s Eve.

Base and top coat are Zoya, as usual.

A quick tip to end the year with: I was having problems getting the clay cane images off my nails without them taking part of my natural nail with them. Most annoying. But when I went to remove them this week, I simply swiped over each nail just a couple of times, enough to remove the top coat, but not the polish underneath. Then I took my metal cuticle pusher, and gently pried off the cane disks with the pointy end before removing the polish. I think what must have happened earlier was that the canes sunk onto my nail bed too far when I was removing the polish (softening w/remover) around them, and ended up sealing to the tissue. Needless to say, taking the canes off before the rest of the nail polish left me with intact nails once again. Much better.

To nail fanatics everywhere (and everyone else too): Best wishes for a healthy and happy new year, filled with bright colors and many sparkly nail jewels!

Santa Canes

Santa Claus is coming - are you ready? I hope he brings me some fun new nail art stuff...

This week's manicure is all about China Glaze and clay canes. I started with CG "Emerald Sparkle", and topped it with a thin coat of CG "Tinsel" for that frosted, sugary look. Then just a coat of top coat to set the cane Santas and candy canes in, and another top coat to finish. Unfortunately, I didn't get the clear clay in the crook of the candy canes pressed down tightly enough, so you can still see them if you look close enough. But I did get them sliced fairly thin - they stick up less than a regular rhinestone does above the polish. I wish I could have gotten the Santas sliced a bit thinner - it's hard to see where to slice on the white cutting board I've been using. Time for a colored board, maybe?

Here's a flash picture - in the right light, these are very sparkle-y nails (though for some reason, the flash makes the clear clay around the Santas stand out more - that doesn't actually happen even in bright light):
I *will* get the hang of cutting the cane slices thinner - it's a resolution for the new year!

Merry Christmas, everyone! Have a safe and happy holiday... and beautiful nails, too!

Peppermint Gifts

I know, it's not Tuesday...but I was going to try to get a better picture of these before posting. Doesn't look like that's going to happen (the better picture) - just no time, so I'll just post them as is.

I had grandiose ideas for swirly peppermint red on white designs, with the clay cane peppermints on top. Things have been a little crazy around here lately though, so I had to go for "quick and easy" instead. They still turned out pretty well, I think...

The base is China Glaze "Ruby Pumps" - one of the most popular polishes ever, and also one I just got finally after months of watching other people wear it! It's very sparkly, a bright blue-toned red that is perfect for Christmas. The white stripes are just Sinful "Snow Me White" using a striper brush, and of course the peppermints are from a clay cane that I sliced. I'm very proud of myself for slicing them super-thin this time...they barely stick up off the nail at all (less than a decal/sticker would). Woohoo! I'm getting better...

Next week, full-on Christmas nails for the holiday.

Snowflakes

I was lazy this week – and conveniently enough, I had some snowflake decals that had come on Avon emery boards. I grabbed “Blair”, this lovely burgundy metallic from the Zoya Pulse collection, and did my best by the light of the Christmas tree last night. Needless to say, the light of the Christmas tree really isn’t very good, but it sits where my lamp normally sits, so what’s a girl to do?

I had some problems with application…but I don’t think it was the polish. My base coat is thickening, and I need to just toss it and open a new bottle (I have a new bottle in the cabinet). I really love this color…it’s very “garnet-y”, and festive without being seriously red.

Next week I’ll get on the Christmas train for real…maybe some peppermint nails next week.

Tomorrow, my order from 8ty8 Beauty Supply is supposed to be here. And I am super-excited! I ordered a deluxe nail art kit with tons of little odds and ends to play with, some new nail art brushes, and some new polish (of course):

China Glaze
Emerald Sparkle
Ruby Pumps
Tinsel
Blue Island Iced Tea

OPI Brand New Skates

I also broke down and ordered the Lippmann “Party Like a Rock Star” collection…which I really shouldn’t have, but seeing it swatched on blogs all over, I just had to have it. *sigh*.

Indigo Snow

I wasn't quite ready for Christmas this week, but snow was coming in this week (indeed, it's snowing outside my window now), so I decided on a snow ball theme. The base color is Zoya Indigo, a very dark navy with tiny sparkles, which shows a little better with a flash (below).
Unfortunately, the flash makes my super-shiny topcoat seem a bit mangled, but you can sort of see what a lovely dark blue Indigo is there. I used Sinful "Snow Me White" for the snowballs, with crystals here and there for subtle random sparkle. The design was shamelessly copied by Never Too Much Glitter's First Snowfall post. I'll admit, I was first going to do the snow drifts, with teardrop rhinestones falling from them, but it was late at night (again) and I just couldn't make it work. Next time, maybe.

I got a fun new toy yesterday too - the Spafinder manicure/pedicure set from Avon. I bought it for my toes - my one experience years (and years) ago with an electric file on my fingernails was not good, to say the least. But I put the batteries in, and the filing cone on last night, and decided it wasn't powerful enough to do *too* much damage. So I used it to file and buff my fingernails last night, and wouldn't you know - it worked great! No tip damage, although I will have to be careful with the buffing tools, and I think it actually took longer than just using a glass file like I normally do. Kind of fun though, and I'm sure it will work great on my toes (the metal files are for feet, in case you were wondering).

Next week starts three weeks of Christmas manicures...

Fun with Fimo (Clay) Canes

Last week, I couldn't help myself, and ordered some clay canes from BeautyTech (linked to the right). Basically, these are made from fimo or other clays, and rolled together into a pattern, then reduced to itty-bitty diameters for nail art (and other things, of course). Above you can see some of the canes I bought - I picked out several, and got two "grab bags" of ends/imperfects. I'm pretty pleased with what I ended up with...

So of course I had to try them out right away when I got them on Friday, and decided the green leaves went best with my green marbled nails. You can see how small they are in the picture above. These particular canes are baked before they're sent out, and then you have to slice them yourself. This isn't too difficult, except the thinner the slice the better, and that really does take practice. You really want to just shave off a very thin slice, which is easier said than done. But I didn't do too badly, I don't think. I'll keep practicing. Here's how those turned out (bad flash, sorry):

So this week, I wanted those red maple leaves on my nails. Unfortunately, I didn't get them sliced as thinly as I'd like, and I think what I may do with the rest is go back and hold them with wide stamp tweezers so I can slice them thinner. They don't look too bad as is, I don't think - just like transparent bubbles on my nails with leaves suspended in them. The ones on my middle and pinky finger are the thinnest I sliced - both are thinner than the average 3-D nail sticker.

I did get them sliced thinner than the leaf cane, so even just two canes into it, I'm getting better at slicing. It's occured to me that I need a teeny tiny little mandoline for slicing (like I have in the kitchen for onions & tomatoes). That would really make easy work of it, and I could adjust the size of the slices as needed (sometimes it would be nice to vary the heights and layer them). Maybe I'll see if I can make one out of a wood planer or some such tool.

This week's polish is China Glaze "Cross Iron" with a stripe of OPI's 18k Ginza Gold on top.

It was quite a lot of work to get the clay slices back *off* my nails last night - especially since I ran out of my favorite Zoya polish remover. I think I may have to soak my nails for a few minutes in polish remover with the clay. Once they're on, they're on! I just applied them in a coat of wet topcoat, then a very generous top coat layer to finish.

I'm hoping to get some more fun nail art items in the near future, but these should keep me busy for awhile. I do love playing with new things!

Green Marbled

Last night, following instructions from the Mini Nail Blog (link to the right) on marbling, I tried it again, with some success, I think. I used her method of dotting the different colors on, then swirling them with a top coat brush (I had an older top coat that got thick, so I used that brush). I did better this time, though I think I need to work on my “swirling” techniques, but they didn’t turn out too bad, overall.

I’ll be honest though – I didn’t care much for them last night after I was done. It was only this morning after I’d cleaned up my fingers and gotten all the excess polish off that I decided I liked them well enough. Today you get pictures of both hands, since they turned out so differently.
Next time, I think I’ll use more colors, and a darker base color. I used China Glaze “L8R G8R” for the base, with Zoya “Felicity” and Sinful Colors “Snow Me White” for the swirls. Predictably, the Sinful white bubbled on a few of my nails. *sigh*

A pig !

Here it is - my first expirience of teh cross stiching.

Fall Plaid

Welcome to the new blog! As you can see, I've copied some of my favorite designs from The Variety Pages to get started. Here's my design for this week.

Last night was an exercise in frustration for my manicure. I wanted to do some marbling...but the "dot and swirl" method wasn't working, and neither did the water marbling method. Apparently I need to read up on those more, and figure out what I'm doing wrong.

So I finally settled on this fall plaid pattern, and while it could be better, I don't think it turned out too badly....

Colors Used:
China Glaze "Cross Iron"
OPI 24k Ginza Gold
Milani "Mr. Sandman"

I am going to figure out the marble effect one of these days...I almost had it with the water method, so hopefully I'll be able to pull that off soon!

Blue Wisdom

Deep Red

Haloween spirit

Nails and pumkins made for haloween this year.

Political Yin-Yang

Yep, it's Election Day! As an independent voter, I'll be voting for candidates of both major parties today, and possibly even a Constitution Party candidate (luckily I still have a few hours to make up my mind). This is my nod to politics for the week...yin and yang, checks and balances, all the things that make democracy great.

These are Zoya Colors - the red is Valentina, the blue is Kotori. I love them because they're so sparkly, but not thick glitter, so they'll still come off easily. I did the red first, then layered the blue on top, and used the white stripe in the center to hide my not-so-straight lines.

Whatever you do today, and whatever your nails look like, don't forget to vote!

Shadow Webs

Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday…it’s all good, right? At least I managed a manicure before the party we have to attend on Saturday night, even though I do wish I’d gone with my original idea now. Oh well. No time to change it, so what I have will have to do.

I have so many Halloween nail ideas in my head (especially after spending a lot of time lurking on a professional nail art board lately) that I couldn’t decide what to start with this week. On the one hand, it feels a bit early for Halloween nails (even though I’ve been living and breathing the holiday for several weeks now), but on the other, I’m totally into it, even if other people aren’t yet.

In any case, as you can see, I decided on webs this week. They’re easy to paint (I used a black striper brush), and personally, I don’t think they should look “perfect” (which is probably because mine don’t). Why yellow instead of orange? Because I wanted to save the orange for the actual Halloween week…heaven forbid my nails are the same color twice for Halloween.

The real beauty of these though is only evident at night. I started with two coats of OPI “Mega-Watt?” yellow, and covered that with two coats of Fantasy Glow-in-the-Dark polish (which has a yellow/green tint, but dries to nearly clear). The webs are painted on over the glow polish, so at night, my nails light up bright green, and the webs are highlighted as black shadows against the glow. Very cool.

Unfortunately, I’m still trying to figure out how to photograph my nails in the dark while they’re glowing. Even under a black light, I think my dig. Camera gives off too much light from the buttons and display. So this weekend, I’m going to get my old web cam out – the one with no lights, no flash, and see if that will work. This design really is more impressive in the dark, and I’d love to be able to show it off! So hopefully next week I’ll have pictures of that to post.

Rose on blue nails

Color Expotion on the nails

After couple weeks that i was playing with the stamping kit, i finally et missed to the real hand painting nail art, which result in this crazy "color explotion" desighn. By the way right now i am all in the pink color, like trying to catch leaving bright summer. So i think that with pink outfit those nails may look interesting. I used regular wet technique .

Simple lines

This design works on any polish color, any nail shape, any ocation and even on any moode.
Really easy and fast to do, so i call it lazy solution he he. I just drow black and silver curved lines on the pastel purple base.

Off the Grid

Another rushed nail job last night…but they didn’t turn out too badly. I really need some more nail “jewels”…so I’ll have to place an order soon. I need to replace my Stripers too, but I think I may order some nail art pens from Nubar, for better control.

In any case, I like this design. It’s edgy, simple, and Nocti’s Nip and Tuck is a great “in between” summer and fall color. I did manage to ruin a thumbnail last night, unfortunately, but these things happen…

Purple Butterfly Wings

Zippy Bolos

Some happy brightness after a week of rest for my nails! This color went on so smooth and I was really rushing to get it done in a hurry with so much to do last night. It turned out quite well for the rush though, I think. I was going to make the silver lines fragmented, so they would look like zippers with green rhinestone pulls. But my silver polish is about gone, and it’s getting thick, so easier thought than done. But they don’t look too bad as bolos or necklaces, do they?

The color is Zoya Audrina, and it’s not only the perfect pinkish purple, but an amazing formula that is super-easy to apply without lines or bubbles. I was very impressed!

Black Alure

Tender pink nails

Could not resist to try my stamping kit again! I am absolutely in love with tis product. This time doing those nails took me about 20 minutes only. I found online an advise to use stamping kit with the turned off air condition.Sounds crazy, but this time it all worked just fine, even the green side of the stamper. And also this time i made much less mess. The trik is to use a paper towel to clean the scraper instead of the cotton party, so the fibers wont stik on the scraper and image plates. I am absolutely in love with my nails with this design. Base coat is Loreal 230

Toe Nails Stamping

Another try of stamping, now on my pincky toes. For some reason it was harder to place the image on the toe nails, and for sme reason the smoller side of stamper does not stick the image any more. I think my mistake was to clean it with the polish remover. Well, anyway, i still in love with this product. Here is the result of 30 minutes of hard work lol

Wall Street nails

finantional reports are puted ander the layaer of clear acryl.
I like the look and the idea , because modern women dont want to be limited with only dry flowers on their nails.
Right on time for me, because i just knew that i was accepted to the graduate scool in college of buisness!!!!!! Yuppy-yaaa!!!!!! It was a greate chellenge for me to get in where.

Konad Stamping nail art

Yestoday received the package with my Konad stamping nail art kit.

I have ordered it from www.wowsocool.com, and i am very satisfied with the service and quality of the product. Service was really amazing, they kept in touch with me all the way - sent me lots of notifications on e mail, and i even get a chance to talk with them on the phone. The package was delivered in only 3 days from California to Colorado. So i advice this company for everyone who would like to order konad stamping nail art. And i swear that this is not a commercial but just a summery of my own my honest experience.
Actually this is the one of only 2 sites i have found on the interent that allow you to build you own kit. Even though the other site seem to sell it cheapper, i have red a bad reviews about them, that they sent just a regular nail polishes, which is useless, instead of the "special ones" And after all this other company is located in Singapore.

So i didn't really order a kit, but i have got all the polishes plates and tools separately, and for my 45$ - i have got 3 image plates ( M53, M60, M36), 3 special nail polishes (white, Dark purple and Gold), Image plates holder, scraper, and 2 sides stamper. Actually getting a 2 side stamper was the mail reason was essential for me, since my own nails are really small, i expected that smaller green side may be more comfortable to use fro me.
Sertanly as soon as i got my package i immediately started to play with it. Even though where is a lot of complains in the internet that it is hard to make this stuff work, i didn't find any difficulties with it. Nice, fast and easy. In the beginning it turned to be a little messy, but i believe with practice i ll get better with not making a mess. Also in my very first try for some reason, i couldn't make the image stick on the stamper. Later i realized that the only reason it wont stick, is because i had to use stamper faster - as fast as it possible, right after scrap a polish from the image plate. Another thing is that you have to scrap it really fast too or not all the polish will be removed. But once picture is on the scraper, you don't have to harry any more, even after five minutes it sticks on nails just fine.
i also have tried to use it with the acrylic paint instead of the special polish, it worked, but not as good as with special polishes, so i don't really think that acrilic paint can be an option. In fact the thin layer of the polish that last on the image plate, turns into a thin plastic film, and sticks on the stamper. This is pretty much like making your own nail stickers, except that it is much thinner.
As about polishes my only disappointing is gold one. I actually mentioned before - watching numberouse examples of designs, that most of them use white, black, dark purple ( which in fact look more interesting when just black) red and blue. And in fact i think that all those pink, blue ad reds, does not provide and impressive effect. The best look is with withe and dark purple. But i still decided to try the gold one. Well, it is absolutely useless on the light polishes, and you actually can see it only on black. It even does not seem to be visible even on the dark red and and blue base polish :(
Actually interesting detail is that you can mix the polishes and make a new colors.
Here are the pictures of my very first try of this product, and in fact i d like it a lot, and i do not think that it is bad first try.

Stamping Nail Art

Toe Nail Design

Some cool summer designs for toe nails that i made today for me ( green) and my friend Lena.
Both designs are wet manicure flowers, just with the different colors.

Sugar Stripes

Today’s nail art is brought to you by…my feet. Yep – I simply copied the very simple diagonal stripe pattern that I did on my toes a couple weeks ago to my nails. Easy, and I think it looks like stripes of sugar. Felicity is a nice, light polish for summer, though I’m not sure about the color with my tanned fingers. It will definitely be lovely next spring though, against my normally ghost-colored winter skin!

What I used:

1 coat Zoya Anchor base coat
3 coats Zoya Felicity
Clear glitter Stripe Rite polish
2 coats Zoya Armor top coat

Next week, some lovely pastels from Zoya…gotta wear them before fall gets here!

Flowers on the nails

Inspired by the flower that drow to Oksana, did those nails for myself. May sounds silly, but i really for years didnt know how to drow the flowers like this, even thouth i knew the "wet manicure" method. And i am not a big fan of wet nails, because it is messy, and hard to apply on my smoll nails. But this flowers openings and new horisonts for wet technics now for me, and i allready ahve an idea that i will try preaty soon.

Tender French Manicure

This is a "Wet French Manicure" that i made today for Oksana. I also applyed some of the silver glitter in between empty spots.

Blue Lagune

Had a hard time taking the pictures of this nail design. Sometimes it looks really much better real when n the picture. I wish i knew some tips how to take pictures of nails with not so fancy camera. Anyway, even thouth my nails are short now, i really like this simple blue design

Elena Evtuhova - my favorite nail master

Here are some of the works of one of my favorite professional nail master. I get a greate inspiration from her workd and really admire it. Even thouth i am not a professional and nail-art is only my hobby.

Picture are from the web site http://www.nogti.com/