Mardi Gras Nails!

     I am always experimenting with new nail designs, especially around holidays. Holidays give me a good base idea to work with. By that I mean, when I'm doing nails for a holiday, I already have a basic idea of what I'll be doing. Obviously that would be something to do with that particular holiday. I had been so consumed with Valentine's Day designs I almost forgot about Mardi Gras. Silly me. Anyways, I wanted to squeeze in a design for Mardi Gras, because it's a fun holiday. Mardi Gras is not a big deal to most people, (me being one of those people). However, I thought Mardi Gras would be a great holiday to do nail art for. So I did. I came up with a different design for each nail (except the pinky). I basically googled Mardi Gras, and Mardi Gras related things, and drew inspiration from what I had seen.

     Enough hu-blah ! Here is the design. Keep in mind, these nails were very hard to photograph. Every picture had glare somewhere, on account of all the bling! 

Here is a photograph of all the materials I used to create this design.

TUTORIAL (:

Water Spotted Nails

     I've been seeing quite a bit of people do the water spotted nails. I personally think they look fantastic, and I was anxious to try it for myself. I first seen cutepolish's video where she used spray sanitizer. I did not have any of that, so I first tried body spray. It worked, but didn't look too great. I then seen simplelittlepleasures video, and she mixed sanitizer and alcohol to make a spray hand sanitizer. I tried that, and it worked great. That will be the method I stick to.

     When I was thinking of what colors I wanted to use, I decided to pick red and pink for Valentin'es Day. I painted all of my nails with the pink, and used a metallic red for the 'spotting'. I didn't want to do anything fancy considering this was a first try. However, I actually really liked the way this turned out. Water spotting is not a hard technique at all.

TUTORIAL (:

Conversation Heart Water Marble

     You know those candies that everyone knows about? The ones that are so famous around Valentine's Day? I am of course talking about conversation hearts ! The tiny heart candies that have sayings on them. I came up with my newest design using inspiration from those candies. In case you don't know, which I'm sure everyone does, this is what they look like.

Cute, aren't they ? I think so.

I suppose I'll start out by showing my design, which is here:

     For the water marble I used a pink, mint green, pastel yellow, and a white. I left out the purple and orange because they were bleeding into my other colors. When I was done with the marbling, I added fimo slices to all of the marbled nails. (I actually got three of them backwards, oops!)

     For my thumb nail, I painted a design. I made a few medium sized hearts, filled them in with the same colors I marbled with (except white, since the background is white), and tried my best to write words on them. I also added tiny orange and purple hearts in between those bigger hearts to fill the empty spaces. The design is a bit funky, but I like it.

TUTORIAL (: 

Valentine's Day Animal Print Nails

     I know it's still only January, but I've been in the Valentine's Day spirit throughout the last week. I have done three animal print Valentin'es day designs.

Design #1

     The first design I had done was a cheetah/leopard design. (not sure what the difference is) I chose a pink base for all nails, except the accent nail which is red. For this design I did larger spots than I usually do, I just felt like a change.

Design #2

     The next design is also a cheetah/leopard design. I think the last ones were leopard, and these would be cheetah. But heck if I know. Anyways, This design has been my favorite Valentin'es day mani yet. It is a pink and red gradient/ombre with cheetah/leopard spots. 

Design #3

     The third, and final design is a zebra design. I chose a white base for this design, and used a pink and red striper to made the zebra stripes. This a very simple, and cute Valentin'es day design. 

TUTORIALS (:

Alice in Wonderland Nails

     Disney's Alice in Wonderland(1951) is one of my all time favorite movies. I had seen a Youtuber (cutepolish) upload a Cheshire cat inspired nail design. I immediately decided that my next mani would be an Alice in Wonderland design. It took me quite a while to figure out what I was going to do on each nail. I eventually figured it out, obviously, and it is one of my favorite designs (that I have done). I love it so much, I wore it for 5 days, that's a long time for me. 

     Anyways, on to the picture !, 

Materials Used

Nail Art

1. Heart rhinestones

2. Ace of hearts fimo slices

3. Pink iridescent glitter

4. Gold micro beads

5. Purple flocking powder

Polishes

1. Sally Hansen- Lavender Cloud 

2. Sally Hansen- Going Green

3. Sinful Colors- Energetic Red

4. Sally Hansen- Lacey Lilac

5. Pure Ice- Bikini

6. Sinful Colors- Scandal

*I also used white and black acrylic paint. (they are so useful) 

Hexagon Glitter Nails!

     I recently made some purchases on Ebay.  One of my purchases was a set of 72 pots of glitters. It included a variety of glitter. There was some tinsel, fine glitter, micro beads, and hexagons. After waiting a few weeks, I finally got them in the mail !

     I love all of them. However, I was most excited about the hexagons. I have never owned any hexagons before, and I couldn't wait to try them. I chose to use pink iridescent hexagons. 

     This design is very simple to achieve. However, it is time consuming. It's as easy as painting on a base color of your choice. (I chose to pick a color that matched the hexagons. Which in my case was neon pink.) Then adding a some top coat over that, and individually placing the hexagons one by one onto your nails. I also recommend that when you finish you add two layers of a thick topcoat, or three of a thin top coat. This will completely seal the hexagons in and make the surface completely smooth. 

They kind of look like fish scales, don't they? I love them !  

Polish Used
1. Sally Hansen CSM - Lavender Cloud (White base for the neon I chose)
2. Sinful Colors - 24/7

Purple/Teal Gradiant Dream Catcher Design

     Here is yet another dream catcher design. (this makes my third one) Here's a look at my last two. Each time I do them they get a little better. However I like the gradient much better on my second design. 

     Anyways, enough talk about those. This post is about my third, and newest dream catcher design. I decided to do another dream catcher design because I wanted to use one of my fimo sticks in my design (since I have so many, but hardly use them) I decided upon using the  purple feather/leaf fimo. I used it as the feather on the dream catcher, instead of painting the feathers like before. I absolutely love the design. 

Just a quick explanation of how I accomplished this design. 

1. Paint nails with a light purple/lavender color

2. Sponge on some teal

3. Add a bit of topcoat, and apply some loose glitter (I chose an iridescent purple glitter)

4. Use Black acrylic paint and a brush to paint on the dream catchers

5. Use white acrylic paint to add white dots on any area of the dream catcher you wish. (not a necessary step, I just thing it adds a nice touch to the design)

6. Pick a purple chunky glitter polish, put some on a piece of scrap paper/palette/ etc and pick out pieces of the glitter and add those to your dream catcher in any places you want. 

7. Cut 10 slices of fimo. (my pinky fingers do not have fimo, I broke both of them, and the fimo is too big, and I also added two feathers to my thumb) 

8. Add a bit of topcoat where you are applying the fimo, and stick it on. 

9. Last, but not least, add your topcoat. 

Here is the fimo stick I decided to use. You can find these on various nail art sites, but I suggest Ebay. 

 Here are a few more pictures. 

Polishes Used
1. Sally Hansen - Lacey Lilac
2. N.Y.C.- Mint Breeze
3. No name Halloween glitter polish
4. Revlon - Stunning
5. I also used white and black acrylic paint