Video – How to do nail art using acrylic inks.
And that’s how I created the nails I posted yesterday. I hope you enjoyed the video and that it inspired you to try out this method yourself.
You can buy the inks, brand Daler Rowney, and the pen shown in the video at an artist supply shop, craft store or even on eBay. The white polish I used underneath the design is O.P.I.’s Alpine Snow to get a nice clear image for the video. The inks are usually so opaque though that you can use any color you like.
If you decide to try this, I’d love to see your work! Link me in the comments if you want.
Nail of the day – Acrylic ink extravaganza.
Today I’d like to share with you the nails I’ve been rocking for almost week now.
I love them so much that I made a little step by step collage on how I created them, using a nailwheel, 3 colors of nail polish, a little piece of make up sponge (not pictured) a fountain pen and acrylic ink.
- These are the nail polishes I used. Apart from a base and topcoat of course. From left to right are: Essence - Via Airmail!, China Glaze – Beach Cruise-R and China Glaze – Sweet Hook.
- This is the pen and the inks I used for this little step by step.
- First, paint your nail a base color and let it dry.
- Create a gradient on a little make up sponge by putting a stripe of all three colors on it and dabbing it onto the nail like so.
- Once the nail polish has dried you can start drawing on it using acrylic ink and a fountain pen.
- Make the pattern as large or small as you want, I nearly stopped at this point liking this design very much already but deciding to push for more as I have a weakness for full nail designs.
- This is the nail once I was finished drawing with white.
- I’ve added some blue details to it to make it look extra special.
- After all has dried I’ve topcoated my nail and hey presto, you have your very own portable piece of art at your fingertip!
Tomorrow I’ll show you a little video on how it all works, so don’t forget to come check it out!
Posted in 2012, Acrylic, Acrylic paint, Basecoat, Beauty, Blue, China Glaze, Cream, Crème, Essence, Fashion, Lilac, Manicure, Nail Art, Nail of the Day, Nail Polish, Nailpolish, Nails, Nails of the week, Opaque, Purple, Topcoat, Trend, White | 
8 CommentsMani update – Neon-ized it!
Do you ever have this problem of enjoying the time consuming nailart you’ve done but just are not feeling the colors anymore?
That’s the problem I had with my Monochromatic Manicure. I just needed some color after rocking the black and white for a few days. So what I decided to do is give in to the current neon and gradient craze and sponge some of my neons over this to make it look more summery. Because neons are usually quite sheer it would show the pattern still so I wouldn’t feel like I had wasted my time drawing all kinds of stuff on my nails when I’d only wear the manicure for a few days.
This is what they ended up looking like:
And this is what I used to achieve the effect. Please ignore the condition of my neon yellow, I know it looks miserable but it was in a bag along with a few polishes that broke when I flew back from vacation last year and I haven’t taken the time to clean that one up just yet…
Pictured are:
- China Glaze – Purple Panic
- Essence nail art twins – Gabriella
- Kiko – 336
- China Glaze – In the limelight
- China Glaze – Celtic Sun
- A cut up make up sponge
Have you tried gradient nails yet? If so, what colors did you use?
Posted in 2012, Acrylic, Acrylic paint, Black, Blue, China Glaze, Duri, Essence, Fashion, Fuchsia, Gradient, Green, Hot, July, Kiko, Manicure, Nail Art, Nail of the Day, Nail Polish, Nailpolish, Nails, Nails of the week, Neon, O.P.I., Pink, Purple, Rainbow, Rejuvacote, Seche Vite, Sheer, Sponged, Style, Summer, Trend, White, Yellow | 4 CommentsMonochrome Monday
First a little explanation of the word:
mon·o·chrome [ˈmɒnəˌkrəʊm] noun.
1. a. A picture, especially a painting, done in different shades of a single color.
b. The art or technique of executing such a picture.
2. The state of being in a single color.
3. A black-and-white image, as in photography or on television.
Now on to my nails and the inspiration I used. I decided to free hand this challenge. Don’t get me wrong, I love stamping, but I do it all the time and I just wanted to do something unique this time.
A little while ago I decorated some smooth pebbles with a little pen and acrylic ink and a lot of people liked them. My mom keeps the ones I made for her in a little glass bell on her patio table.
From left to right, on the picture on the right, you see Rejuvacote which I always use as a base, next to that is my Seche Vite topcoat. The bigger white bottle is my white acrylic ink. Next to that a beautiful small bottle of BK’s black holo and in the back on the right is Suzi Skis in the Pyrenees. The pen I used is laying in the foreground. It’s just a simple fountain pen that comes without cartridges and that you have to dip in ink to work. The ink I bought at an artist supply store a while ago, along with the other three basic colors yellow magenta and blue, and of course black, that way I can mix almost any color I would like.
After I had painted my nails with Suzi Skis and my ring fingers with the BK holographic polish and they were completely dry I started to draw on my nails like I had on the pebbles, just kind of going with the flow. Not having planned any pattern beforehand I came to this end result and I hope you like it! It did prove to be a bit of a challenge to draw with my left hand onto my right fingernails but I think they came out really well. I’m slightly ambidextrous and did not know it I guess!
I hope you all enjoyed this post and will become inspired to give something like this a go yourself sometime!
Posted in 2012, Acrylic, Acrylic paint, Basecoat, BK, Black, Clear, Cream, Crème, Duri, Grey, Holographic, July, Links, Manicure, Nail Art, Nail of the Day, Nail Polish, Nailpolish, Nails, Nails of the week, O.P.I., Opaque, Rejuvacote, Style, Theme, Topcoat, White | 16 CommentsDiamonds are a girls best friend!
Now, imagine being filty rich, you have everything you could ever need, but you can’t decide on which nail polish to put on today. You’re done with the Dior, over the Chanel and can’t stand the sight of the Sheer “I do” polish by Essie that contains pure platinum dust and costs $250 a bottle. What is a loaded girl to do?
Well, a very smart lady called Cherish Angula of http://www.cherish-me.com came up with the solution for all those rich ladies and stars who want to show off their cash and have their nails look fabulous. And the best thing is, you will not even have to leave your lush villa to get it, she’ll come to you, no matter where you are in the world to give you your very own ten carat diamond french manicure and this is what she has to say about it:
“I combined my love for style and opulence once again in the creation of The Iced Diamond Manicure. The Iced Manicure was born out of my love everything fabulous and passion for nail art. Having a nail art studio I wanted to create a manicure with an artistic flair combined with the epitome of luxury and nothing encompassed that more than a manicure encapsulated with diamonds”.
Now as you can probably imagine the Iced manicure service is very exclusive. It can only be obtained after an initial consultation with Cherish and her team. And if you’re wondering what to do with those diamonds after you’ve grown tired of them on the tips of your fingers? Miss Angula conveniently also offers an aftercare service that involves removing the diamonds. In addition, a jewelery service is available to use those diamonds in a piece of custom jewelry.
All this talk about this extremely exclusive manicure must have made you quite curious about the look and of course the price of this lavish idea. Let me tell you the price first before you see the picture: $51,000! I know, I shook my head as well…
And now for the pièce de résistance, it looks like this:
What do you ladies think? If you had all the money in the world, would you try something like this? Or is glitter polish something you’re already quite content with?
When yellow isn’t so mellow…
Yellow nail polish is currently quite a hit and I’ve rocked the color numerous times already. But what if, underneath it all, your nails are stained just as yellow and you’re afraid to go ‘bare nail’ because of that?
If you have stains on your nails from nail polish or other staining things like paint and such, luckily there are a few things you can do about it. You can start by using a good basecoat religiously and wait for the yellow stains to grow out, but you can also speed up the process by doing a few other things…
- You can use one of those nail-buffers that you can use to make your nails shine to buff the top layer off of your nail. If you’re lucky and you’ve only had a polish stain the top layer, this is the perfect one time solution to getting rid of those ugly yellow tint stains on your nails. Because this is quite an aggressive way to treat the stains I suggest you do this no more than once every month or two. Buffing your nail does make your nail thinner every time you do it and you will end up with perhaps pretty looking, but extremely thin and fragile nails. You don’t want that do you?
- You can soak your nails in water with lemon juice or lemon slices. The acid in the juice will strip away stains and grease. Do not do this too often as your nails do, of course, contain calcium and calcium and acid aren’t exactly friends and it can leave your nails soft and weak. If you don’t have much time and don’t want to do the whole soaking things; simply rub a slice of lemon directly underneath and on top of your nails.
- Mix up a nice little paste with some lemon juice and baking soda. It doesn’t only look cool because it will start to fizz a little, but it will also whiten your nails quite a bit when you scrub your nails with this mixture using an old toothbrush. Beware that this is quite an abrasive little mix and it might end up making your nails feel quite rough, so do not do this too often!
- Not everyone has just a couple of lemons or baking soda lying around, so you can also use a common whitening toothpaste. So try scrubbing your nails with an old toothbrush and whitening toothpaste!
- This is something I do often myself: Dissolve a tablet of denture cleaner into a small bowl of lukewarm water. Then, soak your nails for about five to ten minutes. Sure your fingers will smell minty and that’s not always something you want, but it will also have cleaned your nails quite a bit. This is also a great tip for people who have long acrylic or gel nails to get them really cleaned up well underneath as it’s sometimes hard to get into each nook and cranny when washing your hands!
- If you happen to have some 3% hydrogen peroxide in your medicine cabinet you could soak a cotton ball with it and rub it into your nails. Let it dry and rinse your hands before putting on a basecoat or a nail treatment of your choice.
Be sure to always wash and moisturize your hands after doing these treatments as both mint and acid works as an astringent and will leave your nails and your hands feeling quite dry.
Will you be trying out or have you tried some of these out before and would like to share the experience, please comment below! If you have other tips share those too! I’m curious to know what you think.
Posted in Acrylic, Basecoat, Beauty, Calcium, Fruit, Gel, Herôme, Lemon, Nail buffer, Nail care, Nail Hardener, Nail Polish, Nailpolish, Nails, Skin Care, Tips and Tricks, White, Yellow | 8 CommentsAre you in shape?
Nails come in all shapes and sizes. I know that and I’m sure you all know that too. Some people prefer to file the tip square, while others prefer a round or even almond shaped nail.
Not just the natural nail is shaped in different sizes these days. Now that we have started to artificially lengthen our nails, did you know that there are gel and acrylic nails with more shapes out there too? These started with the rounded and square tips too, but soon the almond shape followed and of course the infamous stiletto nail.
There are lots of in between shapes and fantasy shapes out there too that can’t really be categorized, but recently there were two new and very distinct shapes added to the mix. One of them is a shape for acrylic nails and they are called Duck Bills or Flare Nails, this, of course, is due to their shape. I have to admit, I myself am not very impressed by the shape and feel like they would be hard to do things with but I’m sure a lot of people rock it greatly and with pride.
These ‘new nails’ have actually been around for a little longer than you expect. You see, one of the places where the trend started was in a salon in a little town in Sacramento owned by Alison Martinez. And according to her it started eight years ago.
According to her the trend is only getting hotter and now even nail companies are selling flared tips. Actually there is even another nailshape that has been born from this. The tips for that are called the V tip or a fishtail tip, which is like a flare but the top is a bit curved, like a V or a fishtail.
Other people in the business think it’s actually on its way out slowly, but still lingering a bit now because it’s cheaper than gel nails. A lot of them actually refuse to do them because they are difficult to refill or because they just really do not like them and think their client would look better with a different shaped nail. Some even go as far as saying that gel AND acrylics are on their way out as in Los Angeles they are already spotting more and more people with natural nails.
Now on to the latest trend; Facet- or Edge nails. There isn’t much I can tell about them yet as they are really new. The only thing I can tell you is that they are derived from the now very popular stiletto nail but as you can see in the picture below they have a quirky difference, the top has a ridge that usually starts at the smile line and that gets more narrow towards the tip, almost like a little roof. The effect is quite interesting and I have to say these nails are more to my taste than the previously mentioned style.
Very closely related to the Edge nail is the Bridge nail. Which also has the recognizable side facets but differs in having a flat top instead of the sharp edge that the Edge nail has. The top is worked into a point by the nail stylist usually by using a certain type of tweezers like pictures below.
So, now I have a question; what do you all think of these? Are you sticking to the regular shapes, or are you going to spice things up a little bit and go for something different next time you visit a nail salon?
Also, have you already spotted people wearing these styles?
Posted in 3D, Acrylic, Beauty, Bridge Nails, Duckbill nails, Flare Nails, Gel, Glitter, Hot, Links, Nail Art, Nails, Nfu Oh, Style, Trend | 12 Comments
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