Not a whole lot to say about this… I got a few bottles of Essence Mrs. and Mr. Glitter on sale at Fred Meyer’s a couple weeks ago (part of a HUGE haul) and I KNEW I had to use it for glitter placement. Super cute. Unfortunately I had a bit of tip wear before I was able to get a hold of the camera… (It’s been really hard to get the camera lately. I still have a mani to put up from last week but I had to use my phone to take the pictures so they’re not very good. My mom was on a trip to the beach with her high school bestie and they took the camera with them. Worst part? They never even used it. Boo.)
Fun fact: as I was doing the glitter placement during my sister’s birthday party (it was a sleepover and at this point everyone was lying down and watching Good Burger - I wanted to watch it too but I also wanted to do my nails, so I used my flashlight app on my phone and did it by the light of that), a couple girls came over to see what I was doing and were super wowed by it. I wanted to be like “psh, you think THIS is amazing? You haven’t seen the stuff I NORMALLY do,” but, y’know. Don’t wanna be a showoff. They were already floored by the polymer clay jewelry I gifted to my sister. It’d be rude to upstage her at her own party. :P
Products used:
fshdfkshdlf EEEEE!
So these are probably going to be some of the strangest nails you’ve ever seen. They are certainly the most detailed and time-consuming ones I’ve ever made, and there is a very good reason why.
These are a Valentine’s Day/birthday present for my girlfriend. Yes, her birthday falls on Valentine’s Day. Kind of a funny thing, and I bet it’s annoying for her on some level, but it sure makes it easy to remember. XD
Anyway, I realize these are an odd present, but someday, I promise to paint all the fandom goodness she wants on HER nails rather than mine. Distance is one heck of a burden, but she’s worth it. :)
So in case you have no idea what’s going on here, allow me to explain: I have painted some of her/our favorite pairings from fictional series we enjoy. Well, I’m not into Merlin (yet), but the brilliant fanfic I’ve been beta reading and editing for her is slowly converting me. ANYWAYSSSS
Obviously, the captions in the pictures point out who the couples are, but I have to give special mention to Holmes and Watson. Holmes and Watson are the reason she and I met. Even before that, the couple held a lot of special meaning to both of us, but now they mean so much more. Not only that, but they are our friends. ;) Yes, we met because of those two Twitter roleplayers I just linked to there. It was just sort of this coincidental run-in, as we were on two different “sides” of the followers, so to speak, but somehow we started talking, and we just couldn’t stop. I remember the first few nights we were literally up all night messaging each other because we simply couldn’t shut up. It was so exciting. We still get like that sometimes.
I have known her for a little over two years now. I am immensely thankful that I met her.
I love you, bb. I know this present isn’t much, but I put a lot of love into it and I hope you like it anyways. Happy birthday, and happy Valentine’s Day. <3
Now onto the technical stuff…
Products used:
Yes, that is all I used. Still, this was a very labor-intensive mani, as I’m sure you can imagine. HOURS. So many hours. My back hurts. Still worth it.
I used these pictures for reference:
That’s about it. Happy Valentine’s Day to everyone, and happy Singles Awareness Day to those of you who aren’t so lucky to be in love. I send my love to you! <3
P.S. Sorry about my gross cuticles, my fingers have been getting really beat up lately. :< Ouch. Also, I didn’t win Kelsie’s Nail Files’ nail art contest. That’s okay, I’ll keep trying~ Next one!
Bling bling!
Products used:
- Zoya Trixie (best silver polish ever)
- Unnamed Color Workship silver glitter (very small)
- Unnamed Hard Candy silver glitter (mixed sizes)
- Super glue
- Large glass rhinestones (got these at a surplus store, don’t know the brand)
- Seche Vite Dry-Fast Top Coat
I felt like having some super glittery, sparkly, blingy nails, so I did this simple mani. It’s SOOOOO much sparklier in real life. It’s blinding. It was so hard to capture properly on camera. :( Oh well, hope you enjoy!
This is my entry for Kelsie’s Nail Files’ 1 Year Blogiversary nail art contest! Sorry I haven’t been posting much, as I’ve mentioned in previous posts I’ve been dealing with some personal issues and I just haven’t felt up to doing nail art. (Or when I have, it’s either been a copy of something someone else did because I had no inspiration, or it turned out simply awful.) I’ll try and remedy that soon… I am actually working on some DIY decals for an upcoming mani, and if it turns out as good as I’m hoping I’ll definitely be posting that. Anyway, back to the contest!
So the main rule was this: you had to base your nail art on something she had on her nail inspiration board on Pinterest. As you can see, I chose this… butter…zebra…phant… thing. (link to her original pin of the picture)
For some reason, this picture stood out to me the most and just really caught my eye. Probably the bright color combo and all the patterns! So I just knew this was the one I’d have to recreate on my nails.
Products used:
This mani looks a lot more complex than it really is. I started off with a base of French White Creme, then sponged an ombre gradient of French White Creme-baby pink franken-Bubblegum Pink-Candylicious-Revlon Red. The red ended up not showing for the most part in the final manicure, but oh well. I then used Nerd Alert: Screeh to paint the tips. I just used the bottle’s brush since I wasn’t too concerned about getting a perfect straight-edged tip… I knew it’d get covered up by lines in the end, anyways.
I used a coat of Seche Vite at that point so I wouldn’t have to wait for it to dry before I started using the paint, and also because it makes it a lot easier to fix mistakes with the paint - just let the paint dry and use an orange stick or toothpick to carefully scrape away at the mistake, and because the top coat is there to protect the nail polish underneath, none of that work will be affected. I used my medium-length striper brush and black acrylic paint to add all the details. That was definitely the most time-consuming part, but it wasn’t very hard, either.
This is the first time I’ve ever entered a nail art contest… I’m excited, but I’m nervous too. I’m proud of how this turned out, but I don’t want to get my hopes up too high because I know there are SO many amazing nail artists out there and a lot of them are far more talented than me… Kelsie has a lot of readers, too, so there are probably going to be quite a few entries to compete with!
The grand prize is a $40 Cult Nails shopping spree, which is super awesome! If you’re interested, go check out the rules on Kelsie’s blog! Wish me luck, and good luck to anyone else who is entering, too. :)
poppingnails:
OK, so here it is, my 1000 followers giveaway! I decided I didn’t want to do a random giveaway so I decided to do my favourite things. In this giveaway there are:
- 50 nail swatch sticks
- 2 nail wheels
- 2 packs of rhinestones
- 4 brushes cut to the sizes I use
- Sally Hansen Insta-Dri
- Gosh Holographic Hero
- Barry M Silver Glitter
- Barry M Mint Green
- Barry M Coral
The rules for this giveaway are:
For one entry you MUST
- Follow me on my tumblr
- Reblog this post
For extra entries you can
- Like this post
- Follow me on my blogger
- Comment on my giveaway blog post saying what your favourite nail things are to use (also say who you are on tumblr so I know you follow me)
These will all give you one extra entry each so there is a total of 4 entries available per person!
I would rather the winner be a nail art blog or someone who is interested in nail art rather than someone who wants free stuff so please make sure you want to win this for a good reason.
This giveaway will be open for two weeks and will close on 26th December and I will announce the winner on the 27th and inbox them as well
Good Luck
Charlie x
What an awesome prize! I’m especially eyeing the Gosh holographic and the brushes, but it all looks great… good luck to all who enter!
Hey, I actually got a pretty nice quality picture with my phone, as far as I can tell! I have such a hard time getting perfect ones with it, though, so once my computer is back (which should be soon) it’ll be back to the digital camera.
ANYWAY.
Products used:
Wet ‘n’ Wild I Need a Refresh-Mint
Wet ‘n’ Wild On a Trip
Binder reinforcement stickers/painter’s tape (I’ll explain why I use both for half moons in some other post… eventually)
Dotting tool
Seche Vite Dry-Fast Top Coat
So I’m actually technically not done with this mani yet. That’s because I’ve only finished my left hand. XD I wanted to snap a picture and post it right away, though, because it’s super cute and I love it.
The color in the middle of the spots is actually the two polishes I used mixed in equal parts! I think I’m going to use this trick again in the future. Actually, this reminds me a lot of my first nail art. I did leopard print, no half moons, but it was all done with just two polishes: China Glaze For Audrey and some cheap black polish I don’t remember. I just used the black to darken For Audrey by a shade or two. The effect was fairly similar to what you see here… just picture it as all blue instead of blue and purple. Wet ‘n’ Wild I Need a Refresh-Mint (the blue I used here) is actually a dupe of For Audrey, so that helps in the imagination process, I think! Technically I have a picture of it but it’s a webcam picture and you can barely see them. Also… it’s on my computer. Perhaps another time…
On another note, it’s been FOREVER since I did nail art (like, with a pattern or whatever) with nothing but nail polish. I admit acrylic paint has become a bit of a crutch, but it’s cheaper and easier to work with. Nail polish tends to dry up too fast on the palette so I end up having to put more and more on it and I feel like I’m wasting it. :(
Ta-ta for now, hope you like this one because I LOVE it!
My computer is currently kaput because the power supply failed the other night, so here’s a quick and messy post on my current mani.
Products used:
Zoya Dove
KBShimmer Elle
Wet ‘n’ Wild Candy-licious
Binder reinforcement stickers/painters tape
Seche Vite Dry-Fast Top Coat
Will update with proper formatting, watermark and links once my computer is up and running again.
I got my very first indie polishes in the mail just a few days ago. They’re KBShimmer, and they are GORGEOUS. Obviously I got Elle, which has turned out to be a surprise favorite. The other colors I bought are Toucan Touch This and Oh Splat. I expected Toucan to be my absolute favorite, and I do love it, but there’s something so elegant yet still fun about Elle. I was reaching for a way to incorporate these polishes into nail art… Oh Splat is the only one I haven’t used at all yet, but I have a great idea for it which will hopefully be my next mani.
Anyway, sorry about the low quality of the picture. This is all being done on my phone since it’s all I’ve got. Hopefully it won’t be too long before I’ve got my new power supply in my hands and things will be back to normal. Until then, see you!
Here’s a really fun one… it took FOREVER, but it was SO worth it.
Products used:
As I said, this took me quite a while. The glitter was placed one by one… and trying to come up with different designs for almost every nail was a bit time consuming as well. Ah well, I still had a lot of fun with it, and enjoyed wearing it.
Last time I posted I promised a review of the Influenster Beauty Blogger VoxBox… I unfortunately failed to deliver. :( And now the time for that is up. Honestly, things have been a bit tough here at home lately, so it’s been keeping me from doing a lot of the things I enjoy, including nail art and blogging about it. So I probably won’t be posting much… not that I’ve been posting a lot anyways. Sorry about that. D:
WHAT?! I’m back ALREADY?! And with more cupcakes, to boot… WTF? :P
Eek! My cuticles are gross, I’m so sorry. >.< I didn’t realize it until it was too late… ah well… uh, happy early Halloween? XD
Products used:
So you may be wondering… why replace the other ones so quickly, especially if I’m just replacing them with MORE cupcakes? Well, a couple reasons. First of all, using Revlon Whimsical as my base color in the last one lead to a SUPER thick manicure, which meant globular nails. Not so fun, at least, not for me. Second, I just wasn’t as happy with the color scheme I chose as I thought I was going to be. Lastly, I came up with a few ideas for how I could do things differently the next time around… so I did it!
The colors I used for these cupcakes were based on a necklace I made a few years ago:
I have just looooved the color combo of this charm ever since I first made it, so I couldn’t help myself from using it as my inspiration. Also, hey, a cherry on top - I could add a little bling to represent it! So cute! :D
So yeah, you can probably tell from looking at the picture that some of my technique was slightly different this time. I made the darker and lighter colors slightly less contrasting, so it wasn’t as starkly outlined and cartoonish-looking. I also tried to make the lines on the cupcake base a bit more delicate this time. I’m much, much happier with these, and I hope you guys will like them too!
Would anyone be interested in a tutorial for this look? I think this is actually a pretty good one for… well, not total beginners, but people who might be a bit newer to nail art and want to venture out to do something that looks complex but is actually quite simple. It looks more detailed than it really is! And it’s not even too tough to do on your non-dominant hand… and this is coming from someone who at the moment has little to no motivation to do ANYTHING, so that’s saying a lot. :P Anyways, please let me know if you’d like to see a tutorial for this! It’s simple, cute and SUPER versatile! Who doesn’t like that?
CUPCAKES!
Hey, guys. Again, so sorry about the absence. :( Like I said last post, I just haven’t been doing so hot emotionally, and I’ve been really disinterested in… uh… everything. Also, my sleep schedule has been 100% backwards… so I’m nocturnal now, which makes getting much of anything done impossible. However, the other night, my sister and her friend wanted their nails done, and I was feeling nice, so I obliged. I was tired and in a lot of pain after I was done, but a few hours later, I got a sudden urge to do my own nails. Real nail art on my own nails for the first time in… probably at least a few weeks. Ugh. Anyways…
Products used:
I have to admit I’m a little disappointed that the background glitters didn’t show up so much in the final manicure, because they would have been so cute with the cupcakes. It all would have worked out fine if a couple of my nails hadn’t broken right as I was removing the old manicure in preparation for this one! >_< They had just gotten SO long! Sigh.
Anyways, aside from the glitter not showing as much as I like, I do really like how this turned out, and I think I’ll be using this design as a basis for any other future cupcake-based manis I do. ^_^ And I’m sure I’ll do more, because I looooove cupcakes!
btw, special shoutout to any new followers who may have found their way here from The Daily Nail! Melissa’s blog was the first nail art blog I ever saw, and she’s the entire reason I got into nail art in the first place, so I was extremely honored to be featured in one of her Reader Nail Art posts this week. I submitted this one last minute for the last day of the features, so hopefully it’ll get in too… fingers crossed. Even if not, I’m still so happy she put my rainbows and sunshine design on her blog!
In other news, I’m working on a review post that will hopefully be done within the next few days. I was selected to be part of the Influenster Beauty Blogger VoxBox program, which means I got a box with various beauty products to try out and review. I’ve already tried out a few of them, others I’ll have to wait for for reasons you’ll see when the post has been made. So yeah, keep an eye out for that…
Thank you for continuing to follow me despite my silence. I really hope to get back in the swing of things soon. It’s been a bit of a rough patch, but I’ll try. One thing that might help is if you guys send me ideas/requests for manicures! Go nuts, I’ll start making a list. If I use one of your ideas, I will absolutely give you credit, of course. :) Send those ideas to scarletwiththerope(at)gmail(dot)com! Thank you!