Mega update! Acrylics & Shellac

Been working a lot at the salon so I don't have much time to do my own nails but here is a mega-update of client's nails I've done :)
Been trying to work on my smile lines (French acrylic)

Pink & White with 3D acrylic bows

Teal  with glitter fade

Did these on myself, pink/purple glitter fade

Black glitter with 3D acrylic bows

Shellac with glitter

Leopard mani

Shellac with glitter & hand painted leopard

Shellac with glitter accent nails

Gunmetal glitter fade
These are all various UV Gel Polishes (Shellac, Gelish, ManiQ)

with glitters & hand painted designs :)
Enjoy!

Happy (Belated) Vday!

Happy belated Vday!

Here was my Valentine's Day mani.

Super cute heart leopard print!

Colors used for this mani:

- Sinful Colors "Fusion Neon" 

- Love, Charlotte "Bright Purple"

Heart Shaped Ikat for V-Day!

I decided to do some heart ikat nails to get in the Valentine's Day spirit!

These are done just like the regular ikat design, except in a heart shape instead of the typical oval!

Colors used:

OPI - "Pink Friday" (base color)

Black & white nail art stripers

Sinful Colors - "Fusion Neon" (pink inside of the hearts)

Essie - Luxe Effects glitter topcoat "A Cut Above"

What are you doing to get into the Valentine's Day spirit? :)

Pink Gradient & Hand Painted Lace!

Hand painted lace over a pink sponge gradient! :)

Here is the pink gradient before I added the lace

Colors used, from darkest to lightest:

Love, Charlotte - "Hot Pink"

Sinful Colors - "Fusion Neon"

Pastel Pop - "Pink"

OPI - "Mod About You"
& the black lace was done with acrylic paint :)

Tutorial: Leopard Print

This week's tutorial is easy & simple Leopard Print nails!

How To Choose Colors For This Design:

You can use any colors you'd like!  I chose 2 bright contrasting colors and then a black for the outside borders of the spots.

Suggested Materials:

ANY brand is fine, listed below are the ones used for this particular mani

- Base coat - Seche Clear

- Fast dry top coat - Seche Vite

- China Glaze "Turned Up Turquoise"
- Sinful Colors "Fusion Neon" (pink)
- Spoiled "Visually Slimming" (black)

- Nail dotting tool, such as the ones pictured above.  (image via)

- A clean, small paintbrush or cotton swabs, for cleaning the cuticles afterwards (optional)

- Nail polish remover (optional)

Before You Begin Painting Your Design:

These steps are optional, but definitely recommended!

- Put down some paper towels in your work area, in case of any spills.

- Be sure to remove any old nail polish.

- Gently file nails into desired shape and remove any ridges with a buffer.

- Push back cuticles with a cuticle pusher or orange wood stick and trim if desired.

- Apply a base coat to protect from potential staining from color polish; wait for it to dry completely.

 **- If you have never worked with a dotting tool before, you might want to practice by putting some drops of polish on a piece of wax paper, and do a few test dots on the paper before moving on to your nails!!**

Step 1:

Apply 2 coats of base color & allow to dry 

 Step 2:

Using the largest nail dotting tool you have, create large spots on your nail with the second color.

You can do the entire nail or just part of the nail, that is up to you!

Step 3:

Using the smallest dotting tool you have, use the black polish to create borders around the color spots.

The best way to do this is to do a bunch of small overlapping dots right next to each other, forming a curved line down each side of the large spot.

Step 4:

Using the small dotting tool still, fill in any blank areas with tiny black dots.

This works best if you do almost a triangle of small overlapping dots.

 

Step 5:

If necessary, carefully clean up cuticles using polish remover & a small paint brush or cotton swabs.

Top it all off with your favorite top coat!

Here's the final product!

I simply alternated the base color and spot colors :)

Springtime Watermarble!

As you may know, I've always struggled with the water marble technique.

I wanted to practice, so here's a little something I did the other day!

Colors used:

Essie "Mint Candy Apple"

Essie "Off The Shoulder"

Essie "She's Picture Perfect"

The colors are very cute together & remind me of Springtime!

I think I am getting a little better, but no matter what I try I can not perfect it!

Fashion Inspired: "Neon & Nude"

 I typically hate nude colors on myself but..

I was inspired by a recent post by my BFF Cassi over at the fashion blog The Granny Treatment!

She was discussing the fashion trend of mixing nudes and neons, and it just so happens to be a fabulous combination!

image via

She also mentioned that if you don't want to dedicate your entire outfit to this trend, it could me really cute as a mani!

Well here is what I came up with.

Colors used:

Nude - "Sand Tropez" by Essie

Purple - "Dream On" by Sinful Colors

Yellow - "Yell-Oh!" by Color Club 

Blue - "Aquamarine" by Sinful Colors

Pink - "Fusion Neon" by Sinful Colors

Orange - "Orange Knockout (Neon)" by China Glaze

Tried to do it as a tape mani but it was not cooperating so I ended up hand painting the chevron -_-

I absolutely LOVE this color combo!

 It's totally perfect to get into the mood of springtime :)

Would you rock nude & neons?

This week so far! UV Gel & Acrylics.

 Here's what I did in school this week!

We had a representative from professional nail product company Young Nails come to the school and do a demonstration, and I got to be the model!

She gave me a bunch of different Holiday themed nails :)

 Here's a simple holiday mani I did on a class mate.

It's UV gel as a base with Shellac gel polish on top, and on the accent nails I added some encapsulated glitter and hand painted candy cane stripes!

Here is a full set of tips, each nail is a completely different design!  There are various inlays of acrylic including marbles, mylar flakes, glitters and confettis :) 

The shiny stuff on her cuticles is actually just cuticle oil, I always use cuticle oil to help replenish any moisture that might have been lost during the nail service!

Another view!

 This is a sculpted set of stiletto nails.  There were no nail tips used, instead I sculpted the acrylic on a form into the shape that she wanted!  

On the accent nails there are 3D acrylic black roses and hand painted black chevron tips over OPI's "Pink Friday" polish.

Chevron is a style of a French tip, in the shape of a V rather than the classic U shape, and I suggested it to her because I thought it would look very sexy on a stiletto shaped nail!

We also did a variation of "Louboutin" nails, but instead of red bottoms, we went with black bottoms to match the pink & black theme!

I really love these nails!

Haul, Review & Gradient Swatch: "Love, Charlotte" Polish

A few days ago I got these really awesome nail polishes at a store called Charlotte Russe.

It was very unexpected because Charlotte Russe is known for reasonably priced trendy clothing & shoes.  

I don't shop there, but my friends wanted to see what they had.

I'm glad we stopped in there because I never knew they had their own brand of polish called "Love, Charlotte"!

I was a little hesitant at first, because I figured they would have a really bad formula, but I tested all of them in the store and the application was great and not streaky at all.

The colors don't have names on the bottle but I got a light pink which was "Pastel POP" brand, hot pink, purple, fine silver hologram glitter, large silver holo glitter & a large mixed light & dark purple and silver holo from the "Love, Charlotte" brand.

 

I decided to do a sponge gradient (click here for a mini-tutorial on sponge gradients)

I used the light pink, dark pink & purple and topped it off with the fine silver holo glitter!

 The sun finally came back out so I got a shot in the sunlight too!

If you live near a Charlotte Russe store, I would totally recommend stopping in to check it out!

They do have some polishes on their website, but there was definitely a better color selection in-store.

They were also on sale in the store but not online!

They were 2 for $3 and I also got an extra 10% off my purchase for giving them my email address, so I got all 6 polishes for around $18. 

Have a wonderful Sunday :)

Mega Update!

Dearest readers, I have not forgotten about you!

I was very busy this week with school, crafts (you will see these soon!)  and I even had some visitors from back home.

Here is a mega-update for the week, you can click on the photos to enlarge to see the details:

I finally had a chance to finish this acrylic set in school.  I am very pleased with the way it came out!

There are many different types of inlays in this set: marble, glitter, heart & star confetti, polka dots.

Here is a UV Gel set I did with glitter inlay and encapsulated hearts.

 2 of my lovely friends, Debbie & Ayana, drove down from New York to visit!

 

We went to the beach.

 Stayed long enough to see a nice sunset.

 

Visited some stores and found the world's cutest pomeranian puppy.  I named him Charlie.

And of course I did their nails!  Here is my first try at a 3D acrylic cupcake on Ayana.

 

 And a hand painted french manicure with Hello Kitty & 3D acrylic bow for Debbie :)

What have you all been up to this week?

Have a wonderful Saturday!

Learning: Acrylic & Gel Inlays

 Here's a little update on what I've done at school.

The latest things we have learned is called "inlays" or "encapsulating".

This can be done with UV gel or acrylic.

The trick is to work with very thin layers & creating a base, color, an item to be encapsulated, and then a clear layer over the top to seal it in.

You can encapsulate almost anything: glitter, confetti, lace, googly eyes, candy wrappers, feathers, etc.!

Here are some encapsulations or inlays I've done on classmates.

 This encapsulated glitter was done with UV gel and a brush. 

UV gel is a bit different than gel polish, it's VERY sticky and can be a lot messier!

 Here are some acrylic inlays, done on the end of a French tip and some fades as well.

4 different glitters, acrylic polka dots, heart & star confetti and marblized acrylic!

Here's another view of the acrylic.. and some palm trees in the back haha (so difficult to get a good photo of these nails!)

Tutorial Tuesday: French Manicure

I've been very busy this week so I chose something simple and practical for this week's Tutorial Tuesday..  
French Manicure!
This French mani will be done in almost the exact same manner as the Half-Moon Mani and will require the use of paper reinforcement stickers.

You can purchase these at any office supply store, and I've even seen them at dollar stores.

How To Choose Colors For This Design:

Any colors your little heart desires!
Just make sure the tip color is opaque enough to cover the base nail color!

Suggested Materials:

ANY brand is fine, listed below are the ones used for this particular mani

- Base coat - Seche Clear

- Fast dry top coat - Seche Vite

- Nail color - LeChat UV gel "Midnight Pearl" with Young Nails "Funkadelic" glitter
- Tip color - Spoiled "Visually Slimming"

- A clean, small paintbrush or cotton swabs, for cleaning the cuticles afterwards (optional)

- Nail polish remover (optional)

Before You Begin Painting Your Design:

These steps are optional, but definitely recommended!

- Put down some paper towels in your work area, in case of any spills.

- Be sure to remove any old nail polish.

- Gently file nails into desired shape and remove any ridges with a buffer.

- Push back cuticles with a cuticle pusher or orange wood stick and trim if desired.

- Apply a base coat to protect from potential staining from color polish; wait for it to dry completely.

Step 1:

Take a circle sticker and stick it to the palm of your hand.  Remove it, and re-stick it 4 or 5 times.  

This is to reduce the stickiness of the tape and makes it much easier to peel off of your nails later on.

 Step 2:

Apply 2 coats of the base color and allow to dry.

You can use any brand of fast-drying top coat to speed up this process.

Don't worry too much about being super neat, you can remove excess polish from your cuticles later.

**It is VERY important to allow all polish to dry before applying the tape over it, otherwise the polish will get stuck to the tape and come off**

Step 3:

Gently  apply the circle stickers.  

Place the top half of the circle near the free edge of the nail, the bottom half of the circle should be over the rest of your nail. (You can click the photo to enlarge & see it better.)

I aimed for approximately 1/6th of my nail. 

You can do more or less, depending on how big you want your French tips to be!

The nail naturally curves, so the sticker might need to be adjusted a bit near the free edge.

*Try to avoid any bubbles near the edges of the tape because the top color could get into the bubble and you'll have to start all over!*

 Step 4:

Beginning at the outermost edge of the circle sticker, paint 1 or 2 coats of the French tip color over the base nail color.

It's better to paint a tiny bit over the sticker this way your edge will be clean.  

You can click the photo to enlarge & see a little better.

 Step 5:

Gently  peel the sticker off once the tip color is mostly dry.

Be very careful not to rip it off too quickly, or the polish could come right off.

Also, be careful if the polish is still very wet on the top of the sticker, it could get onto your base color.

Use a new sticker for each nail, since there will be wet polish on the used ones.

Step 6: 

(Forgot to take a pic sorry!)

If necessary, clean up cuticles using polish remover & a brush.

Top it all off with your favorite top coat.

And there ya go!

Simple & easy French Mani :)

For all past Tutorials click here