Tag Archives: nails

Day 4: Green Nails (31dc2014)

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I just recently got NYC – High Line Green, this really pretty “ugly green” color, so I really wanted to use it for Day 4.  Here it is before I started adding stuff to it:

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At first I thought I might go with a frog design, but I had already done cutesy ladybugs and bees, so I figured I should get off of the cute animal train before.  I opted for camo!

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Now, in real life, I don’t really like any activities that require the wearing of camouflage, but I really liked the idea of a camo print that was glammed up with a little pink and gold. This design was super easy, too!  It requires very little skill and no tools.  I just used the brush in the bottle to dab on little patches of color until I was happy with the design.  Then I used a nice thick quick-dry top coat to smooth it all out. 

Check out my instagram @polishmesnazzy.com for more pics of the 31 day challenge all month!  See you tomorrow with some blue nails!

 

Day 3: Yellow Nails (31dc2014)

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Yellow nails.  Meh.  I love yellow in general.  Is there a happier color?  I submit that there is not, but yellow anywhere next to my paleness, even at my tannest, is just never good.  After wading through lots of great suggestions on my facebook page, I opted for bumblebee nails.  Here’s what I ended up with:

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Sigh.  I just don’t love them, and I feel like they aren’t very original at all.  I mean, the bee look pretty much just like the ladybugs I did on Day 1, only not as cute.  I guess they’re not terrible, but I’m just not feeling them.  Tomorrow is another day and another challenge, though.

Day 2: Orange Nails (31dc2014)

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Today is orange nails day.  In regular life, I rarely paint my nails orange because I think it just looks bad with my light skin.  I was suckered into buying Orly – Tropical Pop a few weeks ago, though, because it’s just such a pretty, fun shade of orange. Kind of a light neon orange.  That’s the color I used for my base, with a traffic cone orange for the dots and the orange slices.

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I’ve been loving these nails more and more as the day goes on and I’m definitely sad that I have to take them off to get ready for tomorrow…  And I was sad yesterday when I had to take my ladybugs off… I guess I’m going to be sad every day for the next 29 days, unless one of these days is a real nail art fail.  Actually, I’m pretty sure the day I have to do water marble is going to be a major fail.  That’s not until Day 20, so I guess I have 18 more days until I really have to worry about being humiliated online in front of all the other nail bloggers.

One of the most fun things for the past 2 days has been checking out everybody’s nails on instagram.  Seriously, check out all of the awesome nails from people undertaking the 31 Day Challenge on instagram with #31dc2014.  See you tomorrow with some yellow nails!

Day 1: Red Nails (31dc2014)

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It’s been a crazy day (our refrigerator died and my whole family came over for a picnic) but it’s still technically Sept 1, so I’m not late yet!\.  Here are my nails for Day 1: Red Nails

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I was pretty happy with how these turned out!  Okay, it’s late and I’m off to bed!  Come check out all of the red nails on instagram at #31dc2014

August Favorites and the 31 Day Challenge

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So, I only have 3 new polishes that I’ve particularly loved in August.  I guess  there’s nothing wrong with that.  

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The first is China Glaze Peonies & Park Ave from the City Flourish Collection.  I’m not really sure when this collection came out, but I think I got this polish on clearance last summer.  I’m pretty sure you won’t be able to find this in stores, but you can still buy it online.  It’s just a really pretty almost-neon pink.  I used it as the base for my scrapbook nails, and it was while I was wearing those nails that I realized how much I love this color.

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The next one is Sinful Colors – Snow Me White.  I keep not putting this polish away, so it’s been sitting on my coffee table for pretty much the whole month.  Because of that, I keep using it.  I think it’s the only white I’ve used all month.  I’ve used it at least 4 times, and it’s just great and easy each time.

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My last favorite polish this month is Orly – Hot Tropics from the Summer 2014 Baked collection.  I was able to get mine on clearance, and I’ve seen this color still in stores recently.  It’s the most beautiful bright purple.  The thing that makes it special though, is the gold shimmer in it.  SO pretty in the sun. I haven’t put it on my toes yet, but I think this would be a great toe color.

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That’s it for my August favorites, but I want to fill you in on what I’m doing from September 1 to October 1.  I’m doing the 31 Day Challenge!  If you’re not familiar with this, it’s something that a lot of nail artists and bloggers undertake just to stretch themselves and improve their nail art skills.  Here’s the list of each day’s challenge.  Really, you can do it anytime, but most people do it starting September 1.

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I thought about doing this for a half of a second last year, but it just seemed too overwhelming.  I’ve been contemplating this for a few weeks now, so I think I’m ready to go for it!  My plan is to post a picture of my nails with a little description each day, but no real tutorials.  If one of the looks seems worthy of a tutorial, I’ll tackle that after the whole challenge is over. 

By the way, this is not any sort of exclusive thing.  Anyone who feels like it, can go for this challenge.  A huge part of the fun of this is checking out everybody’s nails each day on Instagram/facebook/nails blogs.  Feel free to join the fun!  Chalkboard Nails has been a great promoter of this challenge.  Check out her blog for inspiration, if you need it. 

Anyway, I look forward to sharing this big undertaking with you!  I’ll be back on Sept 1 with some red nails!

 

Tip Top Nails Competition

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I learned from Wonderful Wolf, a fellow nail blogger that Tip Top Nails, a South African nail polish company is hosting a nail art competition on their facebook page.  Here are the rules:

1.  You can only use 3 colors and they need to be chosen by a male in your life.

2. Your focus needs to be on an accent nail.

3.  No acrylic paint or stamping.  This is supposed to show off your freehand skills.

4.  It’s also a photo contest, so your picture needs to somehow reflect your inspiration for your nail art.

This just sounded fun to me.  When I told my hubby Mike about it, he did some sort of evil laugh and said something about how he had all the power.  He chose a hot pink, bright blue and white.

Then I hunted around the house for some inspiration and I found some cute cupcake scrapbook paper that seemed to have potential.  Here’s the look I ended up with:

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I haven’t officially submitted my entry yet.  I think I might submit the picture with the close-up of 3 fingers since that shows the detail on the accent nail the best, but I’m not sure yet.

Anyway, you have until the end of August to enter this contest if you’re interested!   Check out Tip Top Nails South Africa’s facebook page for all of the details.   Let me know what you think and if you are going to enter!

 

Scrapbook Nails

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You know how you can transfer newspaper print onto polished nails using rubbing alcohol?  (If you don’t know what I’m talking about, google “newspaper nails.”)  Well, I started to wonder if you could just transfer ink from any paper onto nails with alcohol.  Specifically, I started thinking about how cool it would be to transfer the print from scrapbook paper onto nails.  I mean, you can get a whole huge sheet of scrapbook paper for like, $0.59 at the craft store, which is way cheaper than any sort of nails stickers.

When I first started thinking about this, I did a little searching online to see if I could find any info anyone who had attempted something like this.  I did find some people who had printed out digital scrapbook paper and successfully transferred it to their nails.  I’m a little stingy with my printer ink, though, and so I didn’t really want to pay for downloadable scrapbook paper and then use a million dollars worth of ink to print it out.  Plus, I wanted an excuse to go to the craft store.  So that’s what I did.

I figured it would be best to use the thinner scrapbook paper instead of the really heavy-duty kind.  I also looked for a pattern that was had some cool small detail, and here’s what I picked out:

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Then I cut out some little nails-size pieces.

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I painted my nails like this:

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The pink is China Glaze – Peonies & Park Ave.  It’s an almost-neon pink, and the more I wear it, the more it grows on me!  I let my nails dry for about a half an hour before I moved onto the next step.

I poured a little rubbing alcohol into the lid.

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After a little trial and error, I found that it worked best to dip the paper into the alcohol and then press it print side down onto my nail and hold it for about 30 seconds.

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Really press it down well, especially around the edges of the nail.  If it looked like it wasn’t transferring very well, I used a brush dipped in alcohol to re-wet the paper while it was on m nail and then I pressed it down a little longer.

Here was my first nail!

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After removing the paper, there was often still some paper residue stuck on my nail.

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To remove that, I just made a finger on my opposite hand wet and gently rubbed the nail.  The paper residue would sort of pill up while I was rubbing it, and I could easily brush it off.  I was really careful while I was doing this so that I didn’t rub too hard and remove the ink.  Once all of the paper was rubbed off, I applied  Seche Vite top  coat.

Here are the finished nails on my right hand. Oh, I added some stars to my pink nails..

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And here’s my l left hand:

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While the ink didn’t transfer 100% perfectly, I am pretty happy with this first attempt!  If you give this a try and figure out any tips along the way, please let me know.  Make sure you post a picture on facebook or instagram and use the hashtag #polishmesnazzy so that I don’t miss it.  Happy polishing !

Jelly Sandwich Time!

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Jelly sandwiches are not really a new thing in the nail polish world, but I run into enough people who give me a blank stare when I use the term that I thought it warranted a post.  A jelly sandwich is a layer of glitter that is sandwiched between a few layer of a jelly polish. 

What is a jelly polish, you ask?  Thank you for asking.  A jelly polish is a sheer, colored polish that generally looks like a Jolly Rancher when it dries on your nail – colored, but still see-through and really shiny.  The appearance of wet jelly polish always reminds me of the paint you used to paint those plastic faux stained glass sun-catcher things as a kid.  Do you know what I’m talking about? 

Sometimes polish brands will release a collection of jellies, but I think most lines of polish have a few jellies in the mix already.  Sometimes you can tell a polish is a jelly just by looking at it in the bottle, but the best way to tell is to open up the bottle and look at the polish on the brush and around the neck of the bottle.  If you can see through it easily, you’ve got a jelly.  If you can just sort of see through it, you may have a “crelly” on your hands.

A crelly is somewhere between a cream polish and a jelly.  (I feel like it’s a dumb word, and I avoid using it if possible, but really, there’s no other word to describe polishes like this.)  Have you seen those glitter polishes that are in a light colored, milky sort of base?  That’s  a crelly base.  Crellies work well for jelly sandwiches too. 

Here is the first jelly sandwich I ever attempted:

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Eh, it turned out okay.  I didn’t love it.  This was with a sheer nude polish from Avon called Barely There that I’ve had forever.  I would call this one a crelly.  The glitter polish I used is Fantasm from Valley Girl Lacquer.   (Valley Girl Lacquer is an indie polish company.  Check out their etsy shop.  They have some awesome glitter polishes!)

Just for reference, here’s what Fantasm looks like over black:

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you can definitely see how when you sandwich the glitter between the layers of “jelly” how it mutes the glitter effect. 

Here’s another jelly sandwich that I did using Fantasm and a purple limited edition polish called Deception from Wet n Wild.  I love this purple, and I’m sorry you can’t get it anymore. 

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I LOVED this manicure! Deception is so sheer that I think I used 2-3 coats of polish under the layer of glitter and then another 2-3 coats over the glitter, but gosh it was beautiful!  The way the glitter reflected light through the polish made my heart so happy. 

Here’s one final jelly sandwich:

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This is using Wet n Wild Megalast Bubblegum Pop and China Glaze Glitter Up.  (This Wet n Wild color is exclusive to Dollar General / Family Dollar as far as I know.)  This one I medium liked.  This pink is really fun but really… pink.

What are your thoughts about jelly sandwiches?  What are your favorite jelly polishes? 

Cow Toes!

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I’ve been painting “cow toes” forever.  Not painting the toes on actual cows, (Do they even have toes?) painting cow print on my own toenails.  By “forever” I mean close to 20 years.  Back in olden times – the ’90s – I was a camp counselor during the summers. I definitely remember sporting cow-print toes a lot back then and also painting cow-print on my fellow female counselors’ toes. 

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This pattern is so easy that it doesn’t even really warrant a full tutorial.  You just paint your nails white, and then using either a dotting tool, tooth pick or just the brush that comes in the polish, make irregular black splotches on the nails.  Really, it’s that easy. 

If you want to paint a little cow face on your big toes like I did here, just start with a white nail then add a pink semicircle for the nose.  Add two black dots for nostrils and two black dots for eyes.  If you have a little brush and you want your cow to look a little more feminine, add eyelashes.  Then fill the space around the face with a few black splotches.  Here’s a fuzzy closeup of one of my big toes.  I know, toes are gross.

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And finally, here are my cow toes hanging out the window while going for a ride in the country.  It seemed appropriate.

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Seriously, this design is super easy and always get tons of positive comments from people.  Give ’em a try while we can still wear sandals!

 

Plaid Watermelon Nails

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I’m not gotta lie; these took a long time.  While I did these nails plus my toes (which you’ll see on Wednesday), I watched almost the entire Blackfish documentary plus two episodes of Seinfeld.  (I needed to watch something a little lighter after Blackfish.) But aren’t they seriously cute?

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The first think I need to do is give Jaunty Juli credit for the design.  Her original version of this design is on her YouTube channel.  You should check her out.  She’s really good!

For this look, the only polish I used besides my base and top coat was a white. The rest of the color is actually acrylic craft paint.  Craft paint is easier to work with than polish, it washes off with water, and it’s really cheap, like $.65 per bottle.  Since they are water soluble, I just us a plate from my kitchen as a little pallet.  Works like a charm.  Just make sure you apply a top coat so you don’t wash your design off when you wash your hands.  That would be tragic.

Here’s how I did them….

First I started with 2 coats of white polish:

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Then I added thick crosses on each nail using light blue paint.  (I actually took some blue I had on hand and mixed it with a little white paint to get the color that I wanted.)  As you can see, I changed the placement of the lines on each nail just to sort of mix it up.  You don’t nee to paint them the whole way to your cuticle since we are going to be adding the watermelons later.

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I added some thin blue lines going vertically and horizontally wherever I had room.

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I then took a darker blue paint and my littlest brush and darkened the spots where the lines intersect.  This is what really makes the plaid look like plaid.

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I added a few neon yellow stripes with paint where I could fit them in.  In retrospect, I should have left a little more room for the yellow lines, but it’s all good. The yellow paint was pretty sheer, so it interacted nicely where it overlapped the blue to make a greenish shade.

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Next I started to add the red paint over my half moon area on my thumb, but I quickly realized the my neon red paint was not going to cover the blue polish near my cuticles.  I decided I needed to take white paint and cover up the blue paint where I wanted to paint the watermelons.  (I’m not showing  you my thumb, because it looked pretty messed up at this point.)

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Then I took my red paint and filled in most of the half moon area, leaving a little room for the rind.

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then I added a thin neon green stripe next to the red.

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Then I added a little black and green together to make a darker green and added a final thin stripe to make the rind.

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Can you tell I was using my palm to wipe my brush some at this point?  Anyway, with my littlest brush, I added in some black seeds and then applied a top coat.

Here’s what they looked like the next day in natural light where you can see the neon-ness a little better:

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Please let me know if you try these!  I’d love to see your recreations on facebook or instagram!  Oh, and check out Jaunty Juli on YouTube or instagram, too!