Candy Corn Fan Gradient

Hello Lovelies!  Life is been so hectic lately that the only nail art I've been doing has consisted of Instagram birthday collaborations and various prompts (not that I don't love participating in them).  It has been so long since I've created any nail art just because I really wanted to.  I finally had a break, and I was sent these adorable water slide decals as an extra goody in an order I placed for my trick or treat swap girl from Ribbit Stickits, that I have been itching to use.  Surprisingly they also work for this week's Nail Art Nation prompt, Autumn nails.  So here they are...

Materials I used:

Base Coat - IAMCCC 'Cement' Sticky Base

White polish - Salon Perfect 'Sugar Cube'

Yellow Polish - Butter London 'East End'

Orange Polish - Butter London 'Brick Lane'

Black Polish - Sweet & Sour Lacquer 'Scotty Doesn't Know'

Cuticula liquid latex

Fan Brush

Uber Chic Mat

Topcoat - Together We Impact 'House of Horrors' scented

For this nail look I did the candy corn colored fan brush gradient on my thumb, pointer, and mid fingers.  For my fellow plebes that have not done a fan brush gradient, it is not difficult, however, it does not create a smooth seamless gradient like a sponge gradient.

Like most gradients, start with a base coat of white polish or the lightest shade in your color combination, mine just so happens to be white.  Apply liquid latex to the surrounding skin, for easy clean up.  Using a fan brush, line your three colors on a surface, and swipe the brush to pick up the polishes.  Then swipe the fan brush across your nail, repeat until you are satisfied.  Pretty simple.

For my ring and pinky I used these totally adorable decals sent to me with the order I placed.  To make a long story short, I ordered some custom decals for my swap girl, and Kristy added these in for me.  Kristy blew me away with her excellent customer service, she realized a mistake with the customs I ordered after she had shipped them and contacted me to point it out before hand. If she hadn't I may not have ever noticed a problem, and my swap girl would have ended up with decals that weren't usable.  I highly recommend you check out Ribbit Stickits awesome selection of vinyls and decals, and if you need something special just shoot her an email.

Now being the plebe that I am, I was thinking to myself, I love water decals but they are never as opaque as I would like.  Low and behold Kristy included instructions on how to do just that...and that is when I had my uh, duh momemt, forehead slap included.  It all seems so obvious now...

So here is how I interpreted the directions.  I started by trimming out the desired decals.  I placed the decals face down on a nail art stamper.  Using a q-tip saturated with water I moistened the backing by rolling the q-tip back and forth over the decal for about 20-30 seconds.  Using the q-tip I then applied slight pressure and slid the backing off the decal.  Using a small dotting tool and white polish, I filled in the picture, doing my best to stay within the shape.  Finally, I added a layer of quick drying topcoat and allowed to dry, before pealing it from the stamper and applying it to my nail.

I failed to take pictures of the decal application, but I've done this many times before in other posts.  You simply apply a layer of polish or topcoat to your nail.  I recommend allowing the polish to dry to a tacky state, then gently press the decal onto the nail and apply a final layer of topcoat and clean the excess decal with gentle acetone and a brush.  I will be posting quick video tutorials on my Instagram account later today, so check them out if you need a full motion visual.

As per usual I finished the entire nail art design by cleaning up with gentle acetone and a brush and topped it all off with a quick drying glossy topcoat.  My favorite topcoats at the moment are the scented topcoats from Together We Impact.  Not only do they smell awesome, but the profit goes straight to the Free the Children community in Kenya.  

It was so nice to sit down and do nails just for me for a change.  I hope you enjoyed them, and found the tutorial and tips useful.  Thanks for stopping by, see you next time.

Your Fellow Plebe,

Dry Marble Vertical Stripes

Hi Lovelies! This week's Nail Art Nation prompt is Dry Marble. To be honest, I am very intimidated by this technique. I have failed at it several times in the past, and am probably more comfortable with actual watermarble (which I'm no good at, at all). After many attempts I came up with something I thought was presentable:

Polishes and tools;

Base coat: IACCC "Cement"

Sally Hansen X-treme Wear "White On"

Sweet & Sour Lacquer "¡Ay Caramba!" & "Hey-Diddlly-Ho!"

Medium brush

Uber Mat

Topcoat: Glisten & Glow "HK Girl"

Originally, I tried doing a drag on my nails. After many failed attempts I finally decided to try and create decals instead. Using my Uber Mat, I painted three stripes next to each other. Using a medium sized brush, I pulled the polishes in a zigzag pattern across the stripes, as if I was watermarbling. I choose to use a brush, but a pin, tiny dotting tool, toothpick, or watermarbling tool could also be used. I then set this aside to dry. 

While my decals were drying I applied one coat of white polish. As you can se it's a bit sloppy because it will all ended up covered. 

Once, my drag decals were dry, I carefully peeled them off the mat. Some people recommend applying a quick drying topcoat over the decals while they're still on the mat to help them dry quicker and give them so rigidity. I opted not to apply the topcoat because I don't like the rigidity, I feel it makes the decals more challenging to apply. If you opt to not use a quick drying topcoat give the decals extra time to dry, and take a bit more extra caution whe removing them from the mat.  Next apply another thin coat of white polish, and gently press the decal to the wet nail polish. Use a orange stick, cuticle scissors, or like me a cuticle pusher to trim off the excess decal. Then use gentle acetone and a brush to give a good cleanup and help seal the decal to the nail. 

For this nail art design. I applied to drag marble decals on my ring and mid finger. I painted the remaining nails with coordinating colors. Lastly, I finished off with a high gloss quick drying topcoat. 

Even though this took me a few tries I'm excited about how these turned out. Just like any new technique it takes some practice to perfect it. 

The nice thing about dry marbling is that you can use absolutely any polish you want. You don't have to worry about how it spreads in the water. 

I hope you enjoyed this bright faux watermarble design. Thanks for stopping by, see you next time. 

Your Fellow Plebe,

        

Studded Bow

Hello Lovelies! I have another mani recreation this evening for this week's "All in the Family" Nail Art Nation prompt. This one features another very talented artist,  Jessica Guilbe, aka @lolitajess. Jessica's designs always have a very feminine flair to them. I particularly like the way she uses charms and studs in her designs.  Here is my recreation of one of her designs:

Products/tools:

Basecoat

Gothic Gala Lacquer "Gigglemug"

Pueen image plate 25

Mundo de Unas "Silver" stamping polish 

Fab Ur Nails Stamper

Studs

Glossy topcoat Glisten and Glow "HK Girl"

Here is Jessica's original design:

I started off with "Gigglemug" as my base color. 

Than using a similar but not as pretty image from Pueen image plate 25 along with silver (instead of gold) stamping polish stamped the image on three nails. 

Then just as Jessica did a created a bow on my accent nail using studs. I too added another single stud to my mid finger. 

As always I finished up with a bit of clean up and a glossy topcoat. 

Checkout Jessica and all her lovely designs either on her Google+ page or on her Instagram @lolitajess. You won't be disappointed. I hope you enjoyed this recreation. Thanks for stopping by, see you next time. 

Your Fellow Plebe,

Rosy Skittle Mani

Hello Lovelies! I have another mani recreation for this week's Nail Art Nation prompt. This time I have a recreation of Danielle Rabone another very talented artists. I love Danielle's interesting skittle manis that offer a little bit of everything. This is my recreation:

Products/tools:

Basecoat 

China Glaze "Fairy Dust"

Chaotic Glitz "Purple On"

Ellagee "The Bell Still Rings for Me"

Dotting tool

Striping tape

Uber Chic image plate 5-01

Black stamping polish 

Fab Ur Nails stamper

Star stud

Glossy topcoat - Glisten and Glow "HK Girl"

This is Danielle's original design:

I started with "Fairy Dust" on my mid finger and "Purple On" on all my other nails. 

I stamped a negative space rose image from Uber Chic plate 5-01 over "Fairy Dust"

Using striping tape and a dotting tool I added the silver stripes and dots. I finished it off a star stud and lastly a shiny topcoat. 

Danielle's designs are wonderful you should check her out on Google+ or Instagram @danninailnerd. I hope you enjoyed my recreation. Thanks for stopping by, see you next time. 

Your Fellow Plebe,

Leopard Print French Tips

Hello Lovelies!  This week the Nail Art Nation (Google+ Community) is celebrating its one year anniversary.  In honor of said anniversary this week's prompt is "All in the Family."  We are recreating or creating nail art designs inspired by someone within the Nail Art Nation.  This group is full of so many talented artist that I am hoping to do more than one.  However, I started with a recreation of one of Karen Sulkowski designs.  Karen is a very diverse artist, she has so many lovely designs, but what I'm most attracted to in Karen's designs are her bright bold animal prints.  I don't do animal prints very often, in fact I think I've only done a handful ever.  So, I decided to recreate one of her leopard print manis that she created way back in December 2013.  Here is my version:

Products/tools:
Base coat
China Glaze "Fairy Dust"
Sweet & Sour Lacquer "Shamrock Mint," "Dubble Bubble Trubble," "Tango Mango," & "Poison Berry Tart" all from the Frozen Yogurt Collection
Metallic Silver Nail Art Striper
Small Dotting tool
Glossy topcoat - Glisten & Glow "HK Girl"

This is Karen's original design:

To recreate Karen's design I started off with a single coat of China Glaze "Fairy Dust" to give the background a bit of sparkle.

I then freehand painted a french tip on each finger, each in a different shade using the applicator brush from the bottle.

Then using a small dotting tool and the coordinating polish color, I dotted random sized dots along one side of each nail.  I also overlapped these on the edge of the french tip.

Using the same dotting tool and silver metallic polish, I outline the leopard print.  When outlining a leopard print you don't outline the entire dot but create c-like shapes.

Of course, I performed any necessary clean up with gentle acetone and a brush, and finished the manicure off with an application of a glossy topcoat.

I recommend you go check out Karen's fantastic art work, you won't be disappointed.  You can also find her on Instagram, @strutter78ks. I hope you like my recreation too.  With any luck you'll see a couple more recreations from other Nail Art Nation artist soon.  Thanks for stopping by, see you next time.

Your Fellow Plebe,

Happy Fourth of July

Hello lovelies! Happy Fourth of July weekend! I hope everyone is having a fun and safe weekend so far. I had sometime to do my nails, so of course I had to do something for this celebratory weekend. Also, this week's Nail Art Nation prompt is sexy flags. I'm not sure if these qualify as sexy…

…but when I think of sexy nails, I think sparkly yet subtle and curvy lines. So, that's what I did. 

Materials I used:

Base coat - Dream Polish Smooth Gem

Red Polish - Blue-Eyed Girl Lacquer "Fierce and Free"

White polish - Envy Lacquer "Illuminacion"

Blue polish - Blue-Eyed Girl Lacquer "Irrlicht"

Stamping plate JQ-L17 from ladyqueen.com

White stamping polish

Fab Ur Nails stamper and scraper

Small detail brush 

Topcoat - Glisten & Glow "HK Girl"

I began with two coat of "Irrlicht" on my pinky and ring finger, and three thin coats of "Illuminacion" on my mid, pointer, and thumb. I know I used "Illuminacion" in my last posted manicure but it's so pretty. The holo-gorgeousness is absolutely irresistible. 

I then used the star image from ladyqueen.com stamping plate JQ-L17 and stamped it with generic white stamping polish and my Fab Ur Nails stamper over "Irrlicht." Because the white stamping polish wasn't as opaque or as sparkly as I'd like, I used a small brush and "Illuminacion" to fill in the larger stars. 

**Don't forget you can use code QJXS15 for 15% off your purchases at ladyqueen.com** 

Over the three fingers I painted with "Illuminacion" I free hand painted wavy lines using a small brush and "Fierce and Free," a very appropriately named polish for the Fourth of July. 

As usual I performed any necessary cleanup with gentle acetone and a brush, and then applied my favorite topcoat. 

And that's my basic US flag nails with a sexy twist. In other words, sparkly flag nails.

I think even if your not an American, you can appreciate the holo, sparkly, goodness of these three polishes. 

Whether or not your in the US or celebrating The Fourth of July I hope you all have a fun and safe weekend.

I hope you enjoyed this nail art design. Thanks for stopping by, see you next time. 

Your Fellow Plebe,