Geometric Nail Art

Hi everyone! I’ve been having a lot of firsts lately. Last week I decided to try my very first chevron design. This week, I was feeling brave and decided to try some geometric nail art! What do you think?

When I finished this design, I wasn’t too crazy about it, but it’s really starting to grow on me! For this look, the most important tools I used were Seche Vite, scotch tape, and a thin nail art brush. My first step was painting my white base (2 coats using Milani White). My second step was to add a coat of Seche Vite, for two reasons. One, this topcoat sped up my drying time (because really I have no patience lol). Two, having a clear coat was helpful after my third step, using tape to create the black geometric designs. Let me explain.

After I did my coat of Seche Vite, I placed the tape where I wanted my design to go and painted that section in black. In most cases, when I removed the tape immediately after painting the black design, I had a perfectly clean line. (Note: It’s best to pick up the tape immediately after painting while the coat is still wet. If you let it sit and dry too long, when you pull up the tape, you may also pull up some of your base coat.) However, because I’m not perfect (Gasp! I know, right!), there were a few instances where I pulled up the tape and some of my black polish had seeped underneath, creating an uneven line. When this happened, I simply pulled out my thinnest nail art brush and 100% acetone. Using the brush dipped in acetone, I was able to paint over the imperfect black lines and “erase” the imperfections to create straight black lines. In order to help contour the black lines, I had to sweep my brush over my white base (which should have gotten messed up, being that 100% acetone really eats through polish). However, because I had first applied a coat of SV (between my white base and black geometric shapes), my brush only affected the clear top coat, leaving my white base underneath untouched!

I just read that over and I know it’s a bit confusing. I really hope at least some of that makes sense lol

Anyway, not too shabby for my first geometric right?

Like what you see? Check out my other designs on pinterest!

Milani - White
Milani - Black Swift
China Glaze - Salsa

Shiny Chevrons

Hey you guys! I'm so happy it's Saturday. Aside from sleeping in and being in pajamas all day, I finally have time to blog and share a design I wore recently.

So the past few weeks, I've noticed that chevron nail art has become a thing and I wanted to try out the look for myself. For my base, I used Essie's Beyond Cozy, which is a silver glitter polish with slight gold undertones. I was originally attracted to Beyond Cozy precisely because it isn't your typical perfect silver polish. In person, it almost looks like its muted silver with a bit of tarnish to it. Although Essie does not list Beyond Cozy as a textured polish, it does dry kind of matted and grainy. I liked the way it looked when it dried, so I stamped over it and decided to skip topcoating altogether.

Although most people use nail vinyls for chevrons, I used a chevron design from one of my bundle monster plates to create this look. I haven't experiemented with vinyl's yet, but I definitely want to pick up some soon. Does anyone have any suggestions on brands I should try? Leave me a suggestion in the comments section :)

Like what you see? Check out my other designs on pinterest!

Essie - Beyond Cozy
Konad Black
BM423 -  Chevron Pattern

Black Roses

Afternoon fellow polish lovers! This week, I decided to challenge myself and leave my stamping tools at home. What do you think of the results?

So this past weekend, as I was packing to go to my boyfriend's house, I grabbed all of my nail polish/nail art supplies. But literally, just as I was about to leave my house, I decided to leave something at home...

Pause for dramatic affect...

My stamping tools! Although I felt like I was abandoning my babies, instead of grabbing my stamper and scraper, I grabbed some nail art brushes to practice my free handing.

See, normally when I set out to do a free handed design, my process goes a little something like this...

Step 1: File nails
Step 2: Paint a fun base with a fabulous color
Step 3: Attempt a free hand design
Step 4: Scowl and search for my nail polish remover
Step 5: Grab my stamping tools

But with a little patience, encouragement from the best boyfriend in the world, and some inspiration from Chalkboard Nails, this was my end result. I am so happy with how these came out. In all honesty, I can't even believe these are my nails! But you know what they say...if at first you don't succeed...grab your nail polish remover, your favorite polish, and try again!

*I did the stripes using tape. I may be good, but I'm not THAT good lol

So I definitely want to keep practicing my free hand skills. In the comments section, let me know what free hand design I should try next!

Perseverance is the hard work you do after you get tired of doing the hard work you already did. ~Newt Gingrich

Like what you see? Check out my other designs on pinterest!

Kleancolor - Mellow Khaki
Essie - Shake Your $$ Maker
Milani - Blaack Swift
Color Club - Lumin-icecent
LynBDesigns - Eloquent Dust

Glue all the Things!!!

Hello lovies! Gradient + Stamping = AWESOME.

Don't ask me why, but this combo is one of my favorites. I love putting stamping and gradients together, because it really plays tricks on the eyes. Between the fading colors and a crisply done stamped design, I don't know where to look.

To create my colorful base, I did one coat of China Glaze Sunshine Pop which is a super bright yellow creme polish. I think my yellow base is what really helps the colors in this mani pop. I love how vibrant it came out! 

Eseentially, this look is pretty straightfoward. However,  I did learn quite a few things while doing this mani. 

1) China Glaze polishes are good for gradients (especially bright colors).

2) Essie polishes, not so much. They are kinda watery and not so good for gradients. The green at the base of my nails is an Essie polish and of all the colors, came out the least vibrant.

3) Use Glue! I know that sounds crazy, but simple Elmer's glue is essential for any mani involving gradients or stamping. I tend to be a bit messy when doing a gradient/stamp and get polish all over my fingers. However, after some recommendations from fellow bloggers, I decided to use Elmer's glue to save clean up time. I don't know who came up with this technique, but it's absolute genius.

After I painted my yellow base coat, I used a nail art brush to paint a thin coat of elmers glue around  the skin surrounding my nail (especially around the cuticle). Once that dried completely, I did my gradient and stamping. When both those coats were dry, I simply peeled the elmer's glue off my skin along with that pesky leftover polish. Almost no clean up time = LOVE.

SIDENOTE: Yes, the glue will feel messy and a little weird, but  let it dry completely and do it's magic. It's best to glue all ten fingers at once and let them dry so you can manuever your polish, brush, stamp, etc. 

EXTRA SIDENOTE: My boyfriend was with me when I did this mani and had way too much fun helping me peel the glue off.

So in conclusion, GLUE ALL THE THINGS!

 

 Like what you see? Check out my other designs on pinterest!

China Glaze - Sunshine Pop (Yellow)
China Glaze - Salsa (Red)
Essie - Shake Your $$ Maker (Green)
Revlon - Siren
Konad Black
Moyou London Pro Collection (XL) 06 - flower/leaf pattern

Snow Storm Featuring Zoya Dream

Today's design was inspired by the one thing we didn't get a lot of this holiday season, snow!

I am a huge fan of snowflake mani's and if you guys wouldn't get sick of them, I would probably spend the entire winter season doing nothing but snowflakes!

So recently, I started working with NYC Fashion Blogger Ashlie, from aasshhlliiee.com. Her site is filled with creative fashion looks and advice! Aside from her amazing fashion sense and fabulous wardrobe, she is also a nail junkie!  1-2 times a month, we get together, bring our favorites polishes and nail art tools, and come up with fun designs. During our last nail meet up, she introduced me to the color I used for this mani, Zoya Dream. Check out the look we created here.

OMG. 

I know it's an old color (from Zoya's 2013 Winter Collection, Zenith Holiday), but the second I saw it in action, I fell in love. Hard. Dream is a stunning cerulean blue polish with scattered holographic glitter (the holo is easier to see in person). The formula was a good consistency and easy to work with.  Though typically I only need one coat for Zoya glitters, I used two here for full opacity. 

So after doing Ashlie's nails, I felt inspired to do my own! I used Zoya Dream as my base and then stamped on some snowflakes using a Moyou London stamping plate. To really make this mani look like a snow storm, I then added some glitter around the snowflakes using Julep polishes, Paris and Kirby. And bam, instant winter storm :)

Thanks for stopping by everyone! I hope you guys have something fun planned for today! I plan on sleeping, getting some yummy greasy food, and doing my nails!

Like what you see? Check out my other designs on pinterest!

Zoya - Dream
Julep - Paris
Julep - Kirby
Moyou London Christmas Collection 02 - Various Snowflakes