First Konad Experience!

My Konad and Bundlemonster plates FINALLY came! I watched a few youtube tutorials and looked at a few designs to see what I wanted to do and I was all set to do something complex and intricate... but then I fell back to my favorite safety net, leopard print. For those who don't know, I'm a huge leopard print freak. In fact, my next tattoo is going to be a quarter sleeve of leopard prints on my right shoulder. I was excited to get stamping but quickly learned a few things.

Some polishes do not stamp well at all. I thought it was just me but after several trials, some of my polishes just aren't meant for stamping. That's fine, because a lot of them work just fine but a few were just not gonna happen. Also, I learned to work quickly but with a steady hand. Since you have to scrape the polish, it makes the polish still inside the design very thin and will dry quickly. I have to press pretty hard to get the whole stamp evenly. I was also really concerned about excess polish getting on the stamper and would try to re-scrape but it would always dry before I could stamp the image so I learned to just stamp it as is, clean it up on the stamper (it won't dry as quickly on there) and then stamp my nail. I also have pretty long nails and they're not flat so I have to be very precise about where and how I stamp on the actual nail. I wound up liking how the whole mani came out though.

I started by doing a white base but realized that I'd just done a white-based leopard mani so I started over. I wanted a brighter color so I went with Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure in Grass Slipper. I love the brush in CSM and the finish is great. I tend to use creme polishes over any other finish and this is a great bright green creme.

Because of how long my nails are, I had to stamp the leopard print on each nail twice, horizontally instead of vertically like the stamp is shown on the plate. I thought this was going to be a huge mess and an ugly disaster, but for my first time? I thought it was pretty good. I originally put white dots in the 'holes' in the print, but it wound up looking like snakeskin and actually showed up pretty dumb. I love that there's a clear 'animal print' feel about this.

My peacock tattoo on my foot decided to make an appearance :) My other 'animal print' love is peacock feathers. I'll probably be doing an peacock mani in the fall. I'm pretty devoted to brights for the summer. 

I'm thinking that the leopard Konad plate will be my go-to if I hit a nail rut. It's simple, yet fun.

Now I'm waiting on a haul of Essie, OPI, China Glaze and Orly polishes. I can't wait for them to get here! I also got some great dotting tools and I'm eager to try Essie's Matte About You. I have a few of the OPI matte shades and originally hated the matte finish, but I've seen a few blogs where it's used and it actually turns out really nicely. I'll be trying my hand at matte-ifying a few mani's in the near future. Enjoy!

Tutorial: Pac-Man!

Today I decided to do a nail design that my husband would enjoy. He's the typical guy, he sees my nails and 'Oh that's nice...' so I figured that I would put something on there that he would pay attention to. I still don't have my Konad stamps so I went back to my nail brushes and googled some pictures and decided that I'd do a little Pac-Man scene and this time, I took pictures of each steps so I could put together a tutorial as well. So productive today!

What I used:

From pinky to thumb, I used

Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure Right Said Red (best true red ever!)

OPI That's Hot! Pink

Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Blue Me Away

OPI In My Back Pocket

OPI The 'It' Color

Stripe Rite Black

Stripe Rite White (Not pictured, I thought I was going to use Whirlwind White but changed my mind)

Start by painting each nail a different color. Order doesn't really matter but the thumb has to be yellow.

Then I used the Stripe Rite to draw the bottoms of the ghosts, just three little trangles at the tip of each nail.

On my thumb, I drew a V down from the tip of my nail to just above the center, like a < sign, but enough that it will look rounded when you're done. I filled that in with a regular black polish since the Stripe Rite can clump if you try to use too much of it. After that, I essentially did an inverted french tip to finish the half-circle shape of Pac-Man and filled it in as I did before.

With the white Stripe Rite, I added the eyeballs for the ghosts

Add little black dots inside the eyes so the ghosts can see

Finally, you add an eye for Pac-Man. Finish with a top coat, but make sure everything is completely dry. There are a lot of little details that can very easily smear if you drag a top coat across it.

When I finished it, I called my husband to come see the Pac-Man nails and he loved them! He didn't want to admit that he thought nail polish was cool, but he couldn't resist something nerdy :) It's actually pretty easy to do once you break it up in steps, but the most important thing is to just let each step dry before starting the next to avoid smudges and smears. Enjoy!

Bases and Top Coat: My Essentials

I've been asked by a lot of people about my nails. They're very real. I've had long nails for as long as I can remember (except for a period where I was wearing gel tips after a period where they were breaking and refusing to grow for whatever reason). I was even all set to not wear any fake nails for my wedding until two weeks before when my husband-to-be sat on my hand and broke my pinky nail down to the skin. He's lucky we actually got married after that ;) Since that incident, I attempted to get it to grow back as much as possible, but it didn't happen and I wound up having to go with the gels. I'm very happy with how my nails turned out though. I didn't want to do the typical bridal french, so I went with the basic french with black and hot pink (our wedding colors) color bursts. I think they came out great!

Now since 'The Incident', as my nail tech refers to it, I've gone to great lengths to insure that I do not have another break as bad as that one. It's been over a year and the only time my nails have been shortened has been when I've clipped them down a bit. I owe that to the three products that I swear by for nail growth and strength. All of these can be purchased at Sally's Beauty Supply and are pretty inexpensive (though the prices are escaping me right now)

The first of these three is my growth encouraging base coat. It's called Growing Nails with Garlic. The main thing to note is that this product does NOT smell like garlic. It says on the bottle 'odorless garlic' and I honestly smell nothing but usual nail polish. I put a coat of this on as soon as I take off my polish and before I reapply any new polish (if I go a day or so unpolished).

Next, I use a second base called Gelous Advanced Nail Gel Coat. This product is similar to what would be on your nails if you were to get a full set of gel nails. This stuff seems pretty thick but it dries quickly and really does it's job of protecting and strengthening nails.

Finally, my topcoat doubles as a hardener and a high gloss topcoat. I use Beauty Secrets Hardener. If I'm not wearing a polish, I always wear these 3 together. That horrible break before my wedding actually was grown back in full within about 2 months. I tend to have trouble sticking to beauty routines, but this one is something that I never skimp on.

Macho-Man Randy Savage-1980's Neon Zumba Pants-Orange Tiger Stripes

I wanted to play with some more brights, but I wanted to do a tiger stripe with my new China Glaze polish. I bought Celtic Sun (Ink Collection) and Sun Worshiper (Poolside Collection) recently. I really like both colors, though I've only used Celtic Sun on my toes. It's a great bright yellow neon, but it is REALLY thin. I don't want to dedicate twelve coats per nail, so I start with a base of flat creme white polish first (my go-to is Sally Hansen InstaDry Whirlwind White) but just make sure the white base is totally dry before starting to layer with Celtic Sun. My big toe wasn't totally dry and I got a huge streak that wasn't going to be fixed unless I took all the polish off and started over.

Sun Worshiper, on the other hand, is a bit thicker and goes on pretty well in two coats. The only thing is that it actually dries with a matte finish and if you want it to shine, you need a top coat. I didn't mind that since I rarely go without one. I actually applied the top coat before adding the stripes, just in case the black was going to smear.

I followed the Things Every College Girl Should Know how-to on zebra print nails. I will admit, hers are MUCH more perfect looking than mine, but I was going for more of a tiger look than zebra and I think they fit the bill. Here's my finished result!

I love how they turned out. My thumbs look a little funny (which is why they aren't shown :) but I'm a lot happier with this mani than I thought I would be. I had to redo my right thumb after a day because the black stripes completely wore off, even with the top coat. That's never happened to me before and it hasn't happened again. Completely weird freak occurrence? Maybe.

What I used:
China Glaze Sun Worshiper
Stripe Rite Black

Neon Leopard

I LOVE leopard print. My laptop is leopard, my garter at my wedding was pink and black leopard, my couch pillows are leopard, you get the point! I'm actually working on getting a quarter sleeve leopard print tattoo soon. I can't wait! I never tried leopard print nails before and thought it would be way too hard but I surprised myself! I practiced with a few pictures online, but I don't have any brown polishes so I decided to go for the neon leopard to match my computer. This was also my first successful use of white polish on anything that isn't a french manicure. Usually I have TERRIBLE luck with white. Either it's too thin, not the bright white shade that I'm looking for or it's so thick that it never dries and always gets smudged or scraped. I found another gem in the Sally Hansen collection (I'm starting to sense a trend here. I might be hooked on Sally Hansen next...) with the InstaDry Whirlwind White. It's the exact white that I want and the brush is awesome. It's a wide flat brush, as opposed to the more rounded shape that most polishes come with. I can usually get my whole nail done in one stroke. It's also a perfect base for neons or thin polishes that need a little bit extra behind them to make them really pop.

Here's my first leopard manicure. I originally did every other nail to avoid it being too loud, but I didn't like how it looked and went back to fill the rest in later. I also should probably add that most of my pictures are taken pre-clean up to get them while they're still fresh. Don't worry, I clean all that extra off!

What I used:
Sally Hansen InstaDry Whirlwind White
Stripe Rite Neons (Pink, green, yellow, orange and purple) and Black

Inspiration for this nail design and the how to came from The Polished Medic. I've been following her blog for awhile and LOVE the way she does her nails. I also love to see long, natural nails being done in more colors than just red and french-tipped :)

After doing my own mani, I decided to give my kitty her weekly mani as well. She wears Soft Claws to cover her front claws since I don't declaw my kitties and this week, we were matching once I put on her pink and blue caps. We had also just finished listening to some Lady Gaga so I felt compelled to snap a picture of my own little monster. Allow me to introduce, Peppers!

Peppers, put your paws up!

Poolside Polka Dots

I was being a bit of a nail polish snob for awhile and using exclusively OPI polishes until I started poking around in my sister's polish collection one day. She had a big mix of color, a lot of which can be found at the drugstore. After testing some out, I actually found my new favorite color and it was NOT an OPI! I've been obsessed with Sally Hansen Extreme Wear in Mint Sorbet. It's a great color for spring and summer (especially on toes, it really stands out against a suntan) and pairs pretty easily with a lot of color for designs. I'm (im)patiently waiting on my shipments of Konad and BundleMonster stamps and will probably be using this color for my first stamping experiments. My only complaint about Mint Sorbet was that I wish it were a teeny tiny bit more green. When I wear it, I tend to see a little bit more of a blue tone, but that might just be me.

 No flash,  Mint Sorbet and Blue Me Away, the other color that I used in this design

With flash

What I used:
Sally Hansen Extreme Wear Blue Me Away!
Sally Hansen Mint Sorbet

I painted every other nail in each color ( I believe 2 coats each- both colors are the perfect consistency and don't require too many coats and don't get lumpy like a lot of creme polishes) This was also before I had my dotting tool and I had to make do with what I had. I had to very carefully clean off the brush before using the flat bottom part of the brush to make my dots. I actually liked that method since they came out in near perfect circles and the consistency of the color made it so I didn't have to go over them multiple times. Finish with a top coat and you're done!

Stained Glass

 This was my first nail adventure that I thought to photograph. It's taken with my phone, so I apologize for the quality, but I didn't expect to be publishing them! I wanted a bright look that was more than just a solid color one day and just started experimenting with color. You don't have to do these exact colors (I thought of doing different blues or pastels, for instance) but try to keep them all the same finish so the end result flows nicely together.

What I used:

OPI That's Hot! Pink
OPI A Grape Fit
OPI The 'It' Color (by far, my favorite yellow)
Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure Grass Slipper
OPI Dating A Royal
Stripe Rite Black

This is actually a lot easier than it looks and application doesn't have to be perfect because you're filling in where the colors meet with the black line. Simply paint shapes in each color on the nail, as carefully as you can (but once again, any goofs can be covered by the black polish) and outline the area where the colors meet in black or any thin stripe of an accent polish that you choose. I wish I'd taken pictures of the steps so I can show how easy this really is. Your end result will look like a stained glass window, but I like to think of it as a paint by number :) Get creative- you don't have to put the same pattern on every nail and the same colors don't have to always be touching. Have fun!