Independence Day Nail Art

Happy Independence Day Weekend, everybody!  And happy regular weekend to my non-American readers ;)

The Fourth of July was the very first time I tried my hand at nail art - you can see my 100% freehand, no-tools flag design in last year's post.  Ever since then, I've enjoyed playing with different designs to celebrate the holiday.

This year's design is inspired by Jamberry's wrap design  Black and White Quad.  I've been doing abstract designs for the past two years, and I kind of wanted to stick with that.  I'm also really proud of how not-yellow my nails are right now, so I wanted to show them off with a bit of naked nail art!

The colors I used are the same as always for the 4th: OPI An Affair in Red Square, China Glaze Blue Iguana, and Sally Hansen Hi Ho Silver.  My bottle of An Affair in Red Square is quite old and I didn't add enough polish thinner to it - so it was actually really hard to get even coverage across the tips of my nails.  It was so thick and gloopy that even with two coats of fast-dry top coat, plus a few coats of Zoya's quick-dry drops, AND washing my hands a few times in cold water, it was still wet enough to get dinged and smooshed after a few hours!  It may be time to retire this beauty :'(

So, after I'd painted the silver base on my left hand, I was suddenly struck with inspiration to use my Crackle polishes.  I tested the idea out on my right ring finger and I liked it so much that I went a little crazy with different combinations!

My silver crackle is Sally Hansen Fractured Foil, while the blue is OPI Turquoise Shatter.  I used the same red, blue, and silver underneath the crackles and decided to see what crackle looks like over naked nail because why not?  I think my favorite look on this hand, especially for the Fourth of July, is my ring finger.

What do you think of this mixed mani nail art?  Which style is your favorite?  Got any exciting plans for the holiday?  Let me know in the comments!

Christmas Crafting: Nail Polish Ornaments

Got any nail polishes that you love the look of but never wear and don't want to get rid of?  Do you own any Mentality nail polish that you don't feel safe wearing?  Or are you like me, and have a ton of polish and want to actually use some of it up?  Then I've got a craft that I think you'll enjoy!

 

I got this idea from Elizabeth of My World Sparkles Lacquers.  At first I was a little weary to dump out significant amounts of polish at a time, but then I was like "oh please, look at how many bottles of nail polish you have! Do iiiit."  So I bought a 12-pack of small glass ornaments from JoAnn Fabrics (I assume you can find these at most craft stores and pretty much anywhere with a good selection of ornaments) and decked them out!

Elizabeth used much bigger ornaments, so she set hers up on top of open mason jars while they dried.  Since the ornaments that I bought are so small (probably about 1.5" in diameter), I propped mine up on top of opened lotion bottles and their caps.

The process was simple, though a bit lengthy:

1. Pour polish into bulb

2. Swirl polish around, coating entire interior

3. Pour out immediate excess (back into polish bottle - no need to waste yet!)

4. Set ornament tilted downwards, so that no polish will drip out, and allow excess to gather

5. Pour out excess polish (at this point, it's probably thickened enough that you won't want to put it back into the bottle.  I laid out paper towels and newspaper.)

6. Set ornament upright

7. Repeat steps 4-5 if necessary

8. Set ornament upside down and allow to drip out. (Keep an eye on it, though - I let too much polish drip out of one of them and it ended up less opaque than I wanted it!)  Elizabeth put paper towels into her mason jars for this step, but I didn't really want to clean out all of my lotion bottles.  What I ended up doing was only dripping out one ornament at a time into an empty water bottle.

9. Add a second coat if necessary, and repeat steps 1-8 (but don't pour the excess back into the bottle in step 3 if you're using a different color!)

When layering different polishes in these, be sure to do it in the opposite order of painting your nails!  Apply glitters/toppers first, then the base color.

Since I was doing so many of these, I usually started the next ornament after step 3 of the previous one.  It was so much fun!  My dining room was filled with lots of odd scents between the opened lotion bottles and all of the nail polish!  Not exactly the smell I'm used to when decorating for Christmas. :)

Here's a video tutorial of my process:

 

I'm so excited to hang these on our tree this year!  Since we don't have a tree yet (it's in the mail!), I used a bobby pin and my regular light box to take photos of my lovely new ornaments.  Pretty crafty, eh?

Sinful Colors Twilight Twinkles and Sally Hansen CSM Hi Ho Silver

I actually bought Twilight Twinkles specifically for this craft!  I'd hoped that I would use most of it up, but there's still plenty left.  These small ornaments probably only use about 1/4-1/3 of a full-sized bottle of polish.  If you really want to use up a whole bottle of polish, either get bigger ornaments or do multiple ornaments in the same color!

Twisted Colors Elf Vomit and China Glaze White on White

I was hesitant to use Twisted Colors polishes in these ornaments, because sadly Twisted Colors has closed their shop, possibly forever.  But the three Christmas polishes that I got last year are just so perfect for these that I decided to sacrifice some future manis.

Jior Couture Son of a Nutcracker

Nicole by OPI Heavenly Angel and Zoya Mosheen

I considered adding a white background to this one, but I rather like it clear!  Hopefully I can place it strategically in front of a light bulb on the tree so the light can sparkle through.

Ellagee Jeweled Egg Hunt

Okay, I'm going to need to swatch this one soon.  It's amAzing.  All that density is in only two coats!  I'm sure that on the nail, one coat would be almost completely opaque.

Wet n Wild Rockin' Rubies and Sally Hansen CSM Red My Lips

Youch, my phone really messed this one up.  It's nowhere near this neon red in person - and it's actually quite sparkly!  But cameras hate the color red, as I've learned quite well over the past year.

Twisted Colors All Spruced Up and Spoiled by Wet n Wild Green to be Heard

I mean, how could I NOT use this one for an ornament?!  It's so perfect!

Wet n Wild Back Alley Deals and Sally Hansen CSM Blue My Mind

This is the one that I accidentally let too much polish drip out of.  Oops!  I still like it.

Wet n Wild Diamond in the Rough and Hi Ho Silver

The Wet n Wild polish is actually pretty black, but even two coats of it was super sheer in the ornament.  I chose to use a silver background because I figured black would be a bit too dark for a Christmas ornament!  (As in, literally too dark.  Not that I think black is too depressing or whatever.)

Twisted Colors Star of Wonder and Essie Style Cartel

Unghhh. So pretty!  It's much darker and more sparkly in person, but as always, dark colors + camera = bleh.

 

Jior Couture Means a Little Bit More and 

Creative Cuticles Nail Polish Please Have Snow and Mistletoe

I couldn't decide which of these glitters I'd prefer to use, so I mixed them!  I really like the glitter ornaments that I didn't add a background color to.  They look like snowglobes!

Wet n Wild 24 Carats

The little flakes don't show up so well in this shot, but this polish has some gorgeous red flakies in it!  It's super gorgeous and very Christmasy.

Have you ever done anything like this?  What are your favorite Christmas/holiday decorations?  Let me know in the comments!

Gothic Gala Lacquers Holo-Deck Collection

I'm a Trekkie.  I like the new reboot movies and I've seen most of the original movies (minus the ones that were evidently so horrible that my Dad banned them from the house as I was growing up), and I'm not too proud to admit that I watched a handful of Enterprise back in the day, but I am a Next Generation girl through and through.  The show may have ended when I was three, but I grew up watching reruns and taped episodes.  (Remember the days of VHS?)  When I was in elementary school I got in an argument over whether Star Wars or Star Trek was better, and I almost ended a friendship over someone thinking it was called "Star Track."

So when Gothic Gala Lacquers announced the re-release of their Holo-Deck collection, I was ecstatic!  I'd seen pictures of it from when she first released it a year ago and I was really disappointed that I'd missed it.  The moment I saw the photos on her Facebook page I knew I'd need the entire collection.  At first, I thought it would have been inspired by either the original series or the reboot, so I was extra excited when I saw the names and realized that this collection gathers its inspiration from Next Generation!

This post is going to be incredibly photo-heavy, because I couldn't resist capturing tons of macros of these amazing polishes.  To save a little bit of time, the formula on these polishes is all pretty much the same: opaque at two coats, a tiny bit streaky but evens out perfectly with top coat.

Make It So

Inspired by Captain Jean-Luc Picard and his favorite way of issuing an order, Make It So is a lovely raspberry-red scattered holo.  It's a bit less raspberry and more true red in sunlight, but inside it definitely has that juicy, berry-red look to it.

The holo effect is pretty subtle in the light of my lamps, but take it outside and WOW!  Truly stunning.  I hadn't had enough holos in my life until now.  I'm very happy that I bought this collection in its entirety!

My Partner In Crime

This mustard-y yellow polish is inspired by the character Geordi La Forge.  Normally I wouldn't be crazy about this shade of yellow, but it is absolutely the EXACT shade of yellow that Geordi and the other engineering officers wear in Next Generation, so I love it.

The holo effect is much more subtle than Make It So.  Unfortunately I didn't have any direct sunlight when I swatched this one, but you can see it pretty well in this bottle shot:

The Enterprise

It should be pretty obvious what the inspiration behind this polish is - the Federation Starship Enterprise herself!

The Enterprise is a lovely shade of gray.  Inside, whether under artificial light or indirect sunlight, there's a hint of purplish undertones to it, though my camera didn't really pick that up.  The holo sparkle is absolutely brilliant!

It's Green, Sir

This lovely forest green shade is inspired by Data.  (If it's inspired by Data, shouldn't it be called "It Is Green, Sir"? hehe.)  Data has been my favorite character for my whole life.

 

This shade of green is super versatile.  I can see it working perfectly for a Spartan green-and-white mani, a Christmas mani, and pretty much any time I need a holographic green.  It's a totally true green - doesn't really lean yellowish or blueish.

Are you ready for this storm of macros?

The Dancing Doctor 

Inspired by Doctor Beverly Crusher, The Dancing Doctor is a gorgeous shade of blue.  Like It's Green, Sir, it's a true blue that doesn't really lean greenish or red - although in some lighting, it does exhibit ever-so-slightly blurple undertones.  But in most lighting, it's very very blue.

And the holographic sparkle is quite pronounced, even in dimmer lighting!  I love it.

When taking macros of this one, I thought perhaps I was moving too much and that's why the sparkles never appeared to be in focus.  But I think that the holo dust in Dancing Doctor is actually shaped like little Ts!  They looked like that in every macro, no matter how still I held my hand.

I thought I'd try out a new angle for a macro shot - what do you think?

The Search For Spock

The Search For Spock actually takes its inspiration from the original series - it shares a name with the third Star Trek movie.

Oh. my. goodness.  This polish is absolutely 100% breathtaking.  It has some small flakie glitters that none of the other polishes in this collection have, and it totally looks like space.  It's like a one-step galaxy mani!  I'm totally in love.  The holo effect is the most prominent in this one, reflecting rainbows even in dim indoor lighting.

The formula was a tiny bit thinner than the others - it was mostly opaque at two coats, and while there wasn't really a visible line where the whites of my nails start, it definitely looked lighter at the tips of my nails.  I used three coats of The Search For Spock in the photos.

This collection is sadly no longer available in Gothic Gala Lacquer's shop as of 9/20/15, but who knows, maybe Gothic Gala will reboot these beauties again in another year!  If you missed out on these, I highly recommend checking out some of Gothic Gala's other holo polishes - I haven't used any myself, but judging by the photos, they all look just as incredible as these six.

Which polish from this collection is your favorite?  Are you also a Star Trek fan?  Let me know in the comments!

4th of July nail art - then, now, and then!

Happy Fourth of July, everybody!  Yay America! :)

You get a bonus post this week because I have too many posts waiting around and I didn't want to hold off on posting this one or yesterday's post.  Woohoo!  You also get some bonus nail art because the very first time I ever did a special themed nail art design was for the 4th of July in 2013.  So I find that this is the perfect time of year for me to look back and watch my nail art skills grow.

We'll go in chronological order, shall we?

July 2013

Two years ago, I had no nail art tools or brushes.  I used a toothpick for the white dots, and I freehanded the stripes!  The red was my ONLY red nail polish at the time - OPI's An Affair In Red Square, gifted to me by my mother before she moved to Greece for 3 months.  It is our absolute favorite red polish and I don't know what I would do without it!  The blue is China Glaze's Blue Iguana, and it's one of my all time favorite blue polishes.  And the white is the only white polish I had at the time, the white end of Revlon's Killer Watt duo.

July 2014

For last year's Fourth of July, I decided to go a little bit more abstract.  I had dotting tools and striping brushes by then, so it was all much easier for me!  The red and blue are the same as 2013's nails, and the silver is Sally Hansen CSM's Hi Ho Silver.  Silver metallic instead of white creme = more bling!  The design on my thumb, pointer and pinky fingers was inspired by reddit user Lyongirl.

July 2015

This year, I decided to stick with the abstract theme - and also with the same trusty red, blue, and silver polishes.  The design on all of my fingers except my ring finger is inspired by Robin Moses on YouTube- though admittedly, it didn't really turn out quite the way I wanted it to.  My striping brush was too thick and stiff to get those wonderfully smooth, swirly lines that Robin made.  Oh well, I still like it!  Hooray for abstract designs!  The blue stripes over the red tips is Sally Hansen CSM Blue My Mind, and the red stripes over the blue tips is Sally Hansen CSM's Red My Lips.

The background on the abstract nails is Nails Inc, London's Radnor Walk, while the fireworks background is Zoya's Ryan.  I'm really glad that I decided to throw in the fireworks nails!  I think they turned out awesome  The red is the OPI red, and the blue is the Sally Hansen - because the China Glaze blue was too sheer to show up over Ryan.

So there you go!  Three years of experimenting with themed nail art.  I can't wait to see what I'll come up with for next year!  Which design was your favorite?  Have you ever done some awesome Independence Day nail art?  Let me know in the comments!

Have a splendid holiday weekend!  Look forward to next weekend, too - I have something special planned for next Saturday. ;)

Holy Late Posts, Batman: New Year's Eve 2014

I have been SO lazy when it comes to editing photos and writing blog posts!  Boo!

For New Year's Eve this (last?) year, I decided to go with the classic black and gold, and add a touch of silver.  I also decided to pick up on the 3D trend and use some little studs on my nails!

The black I used is Nina Ultra Pro "Black," and the silver and gold are Zoya "Trixie" and "Ziv," respectively.

The design ended up looking a little more stripe-y than I'd hoped; what I wanted was a half-moon-and-French mani.  But my half-moons ended up a lot thicker than I wanted.  Eh... oh well!

I'm not very happy with the quality of these pictures.  I took them hurriedly on my phone, without setting up my usual lamp and white pillowcase background.  Believe me when I say that I will not allow such sub-par photos on my blog any more. :)

What was your NYE style?  Did you go glitzy or chic?  Let me know (or show me) in the comments!

ALL the Christmas Nail Arts!!!

I spent a lot of time this month NOT painting my nails.  But there were TONS of Christmas-themed nail art designs that I wanted to try out, so I decided to do ALL of them on my nails at once! :D

I used ALL the colors for this, and rather than describe them in order of appearance, I'll just list them all at the bottom of this post (which is going to be pretty photo-heavy).

Here's my left hand:

And my left thumb, because I was too proud of it to only show it at the horrible angle above:

 

I took inspiration from a few different sources for this nail art.  The Christmas tree and Santa coat are from this awesome nail art compliation off of FabArtDIY.com.  The Santa corset was inspired by Instagram user arita888.

On my right hand:

Okay, this did not go as I had planned.  The Santa hat (also inspired by the FabArtDIY list) turned out awesome, but my cable knit sweaters... Not so much.  I got the idea from this image, and found this YouTube tutorial on how to do it with gel polish.  What I actually used was 3D fabric paint on top of one coat of normal polish, then one coat of polish on top of that.  I think the technique was good, but the execution was ah... less than good.  It ended up looking far less delicate and much more messy than I'd been hoping.

And then, since I used my glue basecoat, my pointer finger design ended up falling off very quickly.  So I redid it with a different pattern:

This one turned out messy too, because I'm not so great at stamping.  It was perfect in my head: red, green, and silver snowflakes stamped over white and then matte-d for wrapping paper, and then a very sparkly purple ribbon.  The overall design was inspired by Instagram user anas_manis.

By the way - do you recognize the pattern on my left ring finger?  Like, REALLY recognize it?  I did that same design on my nails last Christmas!  Here's the original, complete with my super-short, pre-Biotin nails:

I loved this design so much that I decided to redo it this year.  It's a simple enough design that there isn't too much obvious skill improvement between the years, but it's always nice to have a visual reminder of how much nicer my nails are now. :)

Aaaand I absolutely adore my tiny little Christmas tree, so I decided to show off my nails in front of it. :D

 

This nail art took me a whomping three and a half hours and 18 nail polishes.  WOW.  But it was tons of fun, and I watched such Christmas classics as The Muppets Christmas Carol and American Horror Story while doing this! ;) 

Sigh.  My right thumb, middle, AND ring finger nail designs all fell off too, so I had to redo them!  I liked the Santa hat so much that I kept that design, but I decided against redoing the sweater designs and instead chose two more Christmasy patterns: a Santa face and a penguin!

 

 The Santa face turned out pretty nicely, though his eyes smeared a little when I put on my top coat.  And sorry about my messy cuticles - I was too excited to take these last two pictures to bother waiting until my cuticles were clean!

This penguin...  Poor little guy.  His right eye was a little bit lopsided, so I tried to even it out by making it a little bigger.  But instead, my hand slipped and now he's a mutant penguin with two and a half eyes.  I can't stop laughing every time I look at him. :) :(

Which design is your favorite?  Is there another Christmas/winter design that you love doing?  Let me know in the comments!  And Merry Christmas Eve :D 

As promised, here's a list of everything that I used for this:
Zoya Trixie
China Glaze Innocence
China Glaze White on White
Sally Hansen CSM Red My Lips
Sally Hansen White striper
Twisted Colors All Spruced Up
Zoya Nyssa
Zoya Ziv
OPI How Great Is Your Dane
OPI An Affair In Red Square
Essie Bikini So Teeny
Nicole by OPI Heavenly Angel
Heather's Hues Santa Baby
Finger Paints Ch-Art-Coal Black
China Glaze Fairy Dust
Spoiled by Wet n Wild Green to be Heard
Julep Bunny
Zoya Haven

Zoya Posh

Nina Ultra Pro Black

Finger Paints Master Muse
Cheeky Beauty Jumbo Plate 10
Scribbles 3D Fabric Paint in White
ULTA Sweet&Shimmer studs