Sunday, May 27, 2012

Stone Cold!

A couple of days ago, after weeks of issues with the China Glaze delivery to my local store, I finally got my hands on Stone Cold from the Capitol Colors collection! I love love love it. Though, I'd read that it was easy to apply but still dried fast, which doesn't really go together in my world. And yes, I'm slow at applying nail polish because I don't want any clean up, so it dried as I was working. If done faster it's easily a one-coater though. I did two. 



I didn't know what kind of design I wanted to do, but then all of a sudden I had an idea. Minecraft! Minecraft blocks are grey, and when they have ores in them, they have dots of color in them. Here's a picture from the Minecraft Wiki. I used Emerald, Lapis Lazuli, Redstone, Diamond and Gold.


I used rhinestones for the splashes of color, I applied them directly into the second coat of Stone Cold, so I did one nail at the time. I had the rhinestones placed out in front of me since the polish dries so quickly. After that I put top coat around the rhinestones and let it dry. Another coat of top coat went on, and I swirled around the rhinestones to really make them stick. I hate it when the rhinestones fall off! 
This is what it looks like when the polish is shiny. It does look a bit bubbly and uneven on the picture, however that's not the case. That's just because I went around with the brush a lot and it dried a little as I did so, but since it wasn't my last coat it was okay.


After that was dry I applied a matte top coat to get back that lovely stone look. Here's the finished result! 


I think it looks great, and if you think about it it's secretly nerdy which I love!
Tialiq


Wednesday, May 23, 2012

Neon French with Flowers!

My nails are finally long enough to do more french designs! 
I wanted to do something neon so I made a yellow, pink and orange french with a green stripe. Then I went over it with a thin layer of crackle polish, and made a little flower on my thumb and ring finger, also with polish. No acrylics!


It looks really nice and summery, I really like them. I could've added glitter etc, but I decided not to. I'm not too big of a fan of adding glitter to everything, even if it's possible. Summer is coming!
Tialiq

Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Leopard Print!

Today I painted my toes, now when summer is here and they won't be locked up in winter shoes. I like to wear simple designs on my toes, so I did a standard leopard print. Since it's so easy, I've made a little tutorial. 

I tried two variations, I'm wearing one of these and the other was an experiment. 


I painted the nails beige, and on one of the nails I did a brown french, the other I left. I made messy spots with a dotting tool, using both the bigger and smaller side, but it can also easily be made with a lightly loaded nail polish brush. 


On the right side I painted the french with a thin bronze, and then I outlined the brown dots with black. I let my hand shake a lot to make it look random, and I didn't circle them completely. Then I dotted a little bronze in the spots.


For the other side, I went over the spots again with the brown, having the shade in the background makes them blend a bit more. I went around the spots with black paint, again shaking my brush. 

I like both designs, I'm wearing the right one. I skipped the brown french on my big toe to have the full pattern there, and only made one spot on the rest of the toes, in the corner, overlapping half the french. 
I think the left design would look better if I'd sponged on a little gold here and there, though. 
Leopard prints are really cool, because they can be half a design, the background or the main design. They can be made in all colors, I've made a metallic blue before, it's somewhere in my first post. I really should be making these more!
Tialiq

Friday, May 18, 2012

Metallic Swirls!

Yeah that was the best way to describe these nails.. 
I had so much fun making these! I wanted to try out these two new polishes I got, a bronze and a silver, both with micro glitter. They're adorable. I added golden acrylic paint and golden glitter in a sort of triangle on the tip of my nail on the bronze nails, and silver glitter polish on the silver ones. Then I swirled. Oh dear lord it took time, and doing my right hand..! 
Then I decided to mix it up a bit on the bronze nails and do circles. I always say I hate doing straight, thin lines the most, but circles have now surpassed that. 
I left some spaces where I put rhinestones, originally I was going to have golden and silver ones, but I wanted to add a bit of color, and purple is my favorite so that's what I chose. 
Here they are! 



I also did mums nails today, as usual she wanted simple, so I took the chance to make a simple striped pattern. 


It's been a productive day, and I'm very pleased with the results. 
Tialiq

Monday, May 14, 2012

Dragon Scales!

Ahhh I've been wanting to do scales for such a long time, but I never wanted to do fish scales so.. Dragon scales! I bought golden acrylic paint today, so this was the perfect time! 



Doing these was fun, but the scales were a paaain until I got the movements right. I normally don't like having only the ring finger and thumb, but I chose to do it now out of pure laziness. Doing the first full nail took me 20 minutes, but then I picked up speed. 
Here's also the design I wore before, again I wasn't very happy with it and didn't upload it. It was really just a test to see if I could do something that looked like vanilla ice cream, and I really liked the results. However, adding all the other stuff was a mistake and I didn't like it at all. But oh well! 


I love the dragon nails though, suiting as well for the Diablo launch tonight! 
Tialiq

Tuesday, May 8, 2012

Blood Splatter!

Ahhhh blood splatter. I've been wanting to do it for a long time, but never had the right technique for it. Now, with acrylic paint, it's possible!
I didn't want a black or white background, and I didn't want color or nothing at all, so I went with my only choice: grey. I've been wanting to wear lace for a long time as well so I decided to put it on, rather than try painting stripes cause I really hate that. In the beginning I wanted to sponge over the lace with a darker grey to get a shadowy pattern, but when I put the lace over my nail everything just clicked. 
Doing splatter was hilarious. I used crimson red and a dark brown and mixed it up with water. My first batch was a bit brown so when I was done playing I added more red and went over it again. When it was dry I used this lovely bloody red polish and dotted it over the big splatters to give it dimension. This is what it looks like! 




I took the pictures before cleaning my hands because this just looks awesome. 
Here's the design I made a few days ago, I wasn't very happy with it and didn't think it deserved its own post, but I might as well throw it in here anyway. 


Tialiq