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Thursday 26 July 2012

White tips and Gems

I fancied a bit of a change from full colour nails, so I decided tips were the way to go.
I have never been very good at doing tips but after coming across a link on pinterest about using ring reinforcements, I thought it was worth a try.
When I had done the tips and removed the 'rings' there was a little bleed through, as i had put a base coat on first I couldn't really use nail polish remover the 'clean' them up. I have bought lots of gems recently (cheap from china via ebay) so I thought I'd best start to use them.  I attached the gems using topcoat 'spots' on the back of each gem, I have also done a top coat over the end result, just to help protect the gems and hopefully secure them for longer. I should have used my nail glue really for long wear, but I forgot.
Here is  a few photos at the different stages of the process. I don't think it really needs a 'how to' as I think it's pretty easy to figure out.
Enjoy, hope you like them.





Tuesday 17 July 2012

Water Marble Nails, I think I have got it!

Tried water marble nails ages ago, but they didn't work out so I just carried on with freehand art instead.
Recently a friend encouraged me to try again (thank you Tracy!) so I decided I would. The first ones were bad so I removed them straight away without letting anyone see them. But I still wanted to try again so I panted my nails and used silver glitters to water marble a design on top. Those I kinda liked so I photographed them and wore them to work all weekend.




Got really positive feedback on them from my colleagues so I decided I would give full on proper water marbling a go again.
This is my journey...

My starting point was a base coat of Sally Hansen continuous treatment base & top coat, followed by one coat of my base colour Barry M 310 Mushroom. Now I am lazy and couldn't be bothered taping up my fingers so I just got to picking the colours for the marbling.


I picked Cutex 'Strong Nail' nail enamel in eggplant, huckleberry & sweet pea.

I need to stress how important it is for the water you use to be truly room temp. I think this has been my problem with getting to grips with marbling as I have used both cold and hot water without success so I think water temp must be a high priority in order to get marbling to work. I had the water sat in the chosen bowl for a good couple of hours to make sure it was the right temp this time.

As you can see this ruins bowls so make sure it's one you don't mind getting dirty for life.

Next point is make sure you open all the pots so you can drop the polish colours on the water quickly as you have a short amount of time to get this done, pattern made and on the nail before it starts to dry.
now drip one colour at a time into the centre of the bowl and watch it spread then add the next drip, and so on. I used 3 colours and dripped each one twice as shown below.


now the next step is to make your design. I used a kebab stick, you can use anything really, cocktail stick, orange stick, pin, etc,etc.

Then you submerge your nail into the desired part of the pattern and keep it there whilst gently blowing on the paint on the surface of the water to dry it. Then twirl your stick in the now dried paint to separate it from your finger. Once the surface of the water is clear of polish remove your nail and leave to dry, repeat until all your nails are marbled. Your should end up with something similar to the photos below.



Messy but now marbled, any excess can be removed easily with a cotton bud soaked in nail polish remover, take care around the edges of the nails or you may just remove the pattern from your nail too.

Once cleaned up here is the finished product...



This takes time and a good bit of polish, but the results are well worth the effort and with practise they only get better!

Hope this helps.

Wednesday 20 June 2012

Paint Splatter Nails

Hi all, been a while since my last nail art post, had plenty personal drama, etc but now getting back to the nail art. :)

I got an email today from Refinery 29 showing fab nail art, so I thought I'd give it a go. Here's a link to the video how-to from refinery neon splatter nail art.

I didn't exactly follow it fully. I skipped the tape bit as basically I couldn't be bothered, feeling a bit lazy tonight :-s

I also didn't use a paper plate.

I basically painted my nails with two coats of a metallic champagne colour and let it dry.
Then I got my chosen colours yellow / orange and a straw. I used a pad of paper for under my hands to catch the splatters that missed the nail.
I did one colour at a time on all nails then switched to the other colour.
Needless to say there was a bit of paint splatter on my fingers but this was easily solved with cotton buds and nail polish remover.

Here is the end result, I'm pretty happy with it for a 1st attempt.





Friday 27 January 2012

Dark Side of the Moon

Think week I was really struggling for ideas and my usual google search of nail art didn't bring up anything that caught my eye so I went to get myself a drink and the radio was on in the kitchen playing 'Pink Floyd - Money'.

That's when I thought, yeah that's what I'll do!

So I googled Pink Floyd, and most of the pics that came up were variations on the Dark Side of the Moon cover.(Shown below for those of you who don't know what it looks like)

Pink Floyd - Dark Side of the Moon
The plan was to do the prism on one nail and the light and rainbow on the other nails, only problem being I painted it on my ring finger, so if I'd have done as I was first planning, the rainbow would have looked funny as it wouldn't have been coming off the prism at the right angle and that would have annoyed me greatly.


Cut to plan B, new idea was now to do the prism on all nails, after doing my fingers on my left hand I had a brain wave and decided it would be a good idea to write 'Pink Floyd' in their style writing on my thumb.

I did it and it looked really good. Slowly it started dawning on me that to look even I would now have to paint my left hand the same. The prisms took a while, especially getting the rainbows done.


 Then I came to my thumb. Now i'm ok at drawing simple patterns with my left hand, but as a rule I don't usually write with my left. I thought about it a bit, then just bit the bullet and had a go, after all I could have always rubbed it off and started again. I managed to do it 1st time with a LOT of time, patience and concentration. It looks different to my other thumb nail, but doesn't look awful.


I'm pretty happy with how this nail art turned out. It's the first time any of the male friends have been the first to 'like' it on facebook.











Now to see what work think of it :-s And to start thinking about ideas for next weeks art....

Saturday 21 January 2012

My past sewing adventures

I have not had chance to do any sewing recently but thought I would take you back on a look through what I have made.

Mostly I have sewn dresses for Jessica (my daughter) and Elisabeth (my niece), mainly because they are quick to do as they are both under 5 years old.



I want to sew more for me, I just tend to get bored part way through.





Also I hate cutting out the pattern and fabric. I think basically I enjoy the sewing and seeing it come together, but don't enjoy the boring preparing bits.
Guessing I'm a bit lazy really *blush*

I am determined that this year I will make time to sew.

My sewing exploits can be found in My Burda Style Studio The next time I dust off my machine I will blog it as well as Burda Style it.