Nail Art August Day 11: School

I knew right away I wanted to do little pencils for today's nail art challenge. I feel like I can't do some nail art because of the shape of my nails, but these pencils were perfect for my shape! 

Here are the polishes I used: 

Orly - First Kiss, Zoya - Kylie, Sally Hansen - ,
Sinful Colours - , NOPI - Positive Energy 

For this mani I started out by painting all my nails with three coats of Orly - First Kiss. I then painted the eraser part of the pencils, as well as the yellow part. I used a dotting tool to create a little ruffle on the bottom to imitate a real pencil's ruffles. Next I used a striping nail art brush to paint a bit of a darker shade of yellow lines down the length of the pencil. I then used the same striping nail art brush to paint silver lines horizontally to imitate the piece of metal that attaches the eraser to the pencil. I finished by adding some black to the tips of my nails. 

And here's a fun shot of this mani!

I'm really pleased with how this mani turned out! I would like to fix a couple things if I ever tried it again though. I would have liked the ruffles on the pencil to be a bit bigger, a larger area of the wood (between the yellow pencil and black lead) and more evenly shaped lead tips. I really think these colours are perfect together for this mani though!

XO Natasha 

Nail Art August Day 10: Match OOTD

Most of my clothes don't have very complicated designs so I knew right away I would match my nails to this romper for today's challenge! I don't even remember where I got this romper, but I was in love with the tribal-ish pattern and how it was strapless with the extra ruffle at the bust. It also has pockets which is something my sister and I go crazy for in rompers and dresses hahaha. 

Here are the polishes I used. I really love these colours together, they're nice and contrasting and the purple, pink and orange add just a little girliness.

China Glaze - Turned Up Turquoise, China Glaze - Aquadelic, Pure Ice - Jailbait,
N.Y.C. - Pink Promenade, OPI - A Good Mandarin is Hard to Find,
Sally Hansen - Barracuda, Joe Fresh - Mocha 

In the picture of my nails above it's a little hard to see the difference between the pink and orange so here are my nails with flash.

The stripe part of this mani was easy as pie, I only struggled a bit with the tribal parts. I didn't plan for my nails to come out kind of similar - with tribal at the tops and just stripes at the free edge of my nails but that's how the pattern got divided up.

On my pointer finger the design is supposed to be white X's with a bit of pink and brown accents. I tried really hard to feather the design on my pointer, middle, and ring fingers. The problem with working with polish is that it dries so quickly that you have to get fresh polish every time it starts becoming tacky.

These nails were really fun to wear but they wouldn't be my first choice of nail art. I enjoyed replicating a pattern onto my nails but I found parts of it to be a little difficult, which is good because it got me trying a couple new designs that I wouldn't have normally tried!

XO Natasha 

Nail Art August Day 6: Animal Print

Up until now the only real animal print I ever did was leopard. I tried giraffe on my sister once but it didn't turn out as well as I hoped, though it still looked neat. (It actually kind of looked like a dinosaur egg!) Since these nail art challenges are meant to push you out of your comfort zone and try things you maybe never would otherwise, I wanted to attempt all different kinds. 

I would do leopard on one nail of course, but I also wanted to do giraffe and zebra. I needed one more for the last nail and I saw someone did cow spots so that was my inspiration. On my practice fingers I did zebra about 5 times, giraffe once and cow once. I did my nails and I was really happy with them but I knew there had to be something I could do on my thumb... tiger print! I practiced on the finger again and liked it a lot. 

After one day of staring at the cow print I didn't like it because it didn't really match the rest of the prints. I searched cheetah but it's just plain dots. I decided to do a bunch of little c's. I've seen some people do this design for leopard but without the coloured spots inside it's not actually leopard, and I know it's not cheetah but that's what I'm calling it!

For these nails I really wanted to keep the colours as close as possible to the real animals so there was no doubt at all which print was which. 

OPI - A Good Mandarin is Hard to find, NOPI - The Next CEO, Orly - Buried Alive,
Zoya - Piaf, Joe - Mocha, Zoya - Jacqueline 

I really want to do a crocodile/alligator print someday. I tried it on a practice finger but it didn't turn out at all. A green print would look really cool since most of the colours are browns/blacks/whites. 

I'm very pleased with how this mani turned out and I have a feeling my friends are going to request it once they see it! I'd also like to maybe try doing these nails with funky colours, although the giraffe might look a little odd. I think the tiger, leopard, zebra and cheetah would still be pretty distinguishable though :) 

XO Natasha 

Nail Art August Day 5: Cutsey

Alright so when I think of "cutsey" I think of bows. I really wanted to add bows on this mani but I'm awful at drawing them with dotting tools. I have a stamping plate that has a bow on it but I'm no good at placement so it would have turned out messy (I practiced about 1o times and still decided against it!) I still think this mani is really cute the way it is and I'm happy with how it turned out :) 

I began by using binder reinforcements to create half moons. The green/mint polish is Essie - First Timer. This was an untried, and I love it! It dries a little different than the bottle colour, though. It's a little darker and a little more green when dry. 

I used dotting tools for the dots, obviously, and I used a thin brush for the stripes. I'm not happy with my middle finger stripes. I usually begin on my thumb (because you can barely see it so it doesn't matter if I mess up) but for whatever reason I forgot and started on my middle finger. By the time I got to my pinky the stripes were perfect though! 

Here's my mani with the bottle. I'm not sure if you can see the polish colour difference in the bottle vs on my nails. It's very slight.

I never really used to like dots but I'm starting to after this mani and one I did a while ago, my summer floral nails. I've always loved stripes and I'm glad I'm getting better at freehanding them with a brush, it's so much faster than tape!

XO Natasha 

Summer Floral

I've really been into floral lately, but I haven't actually gotten around to doing floral nail art. It all just looks so beautiful but a little more time consuming than I wanted. But, I figured I would do it because my last mani was meant to be a palette cleanser. 

I started with a base coat of Nail Envy, of course. Then I decided to use one of my new polishes, Essie - Tart Deco. It's a beautiful peachy coral creme. I got it at Shoppers Drug Mart for $6.99, yay for sales! (Essie is usually $11.99 at the drug store and $9.99 at Walmart.) Tart Deco dried a little darker than in the bottle but I still love it. I decided to do purple flowers because I think they look great with peachy colours. I used white for my lines and dots because, well, isn't that the classic floral mani? 

Essie - Tart Deco, unnamed Love & Beauty, Essie - Playdate, Beauty Treats - White, Zoya - Midori 

I used a dotting tool for the dots, and a thin brush I bought on eBay for the stripes. 

For the flowers I used a few different sized dotting tools. To see a video tutorial on this flower technique I learned from trendypolish on Instagram, click here. Her flowers are a little bigger than mine, and so are the leaves. These flowers are so easy and pretty, you have to give them a try if you love floral :) 

After seeing how easy floral really is, I'm definitely going to be trying a lot more of it! 

XO Natasha 

Mix 'n' Match: Ruffian & Striping Tape

A ruffian is something I've been wanting to try for a while, and like most things it took me forever to actually do it. I thought just a ruffian would be a little plain, so I decided to do some striping tape on my middle and ring fingers. 

I started with Nail Envy as my base coat, of course. Then I put one coat of NOPI - Positive Energy. It's my absolute favourite silver! I'm on the hunt for more silvers so if you have any suggestions let me know! Next I put two coats of Orly - Tiara on. I love how sparkly this looks! I do it quite often for my friends. 

I did the ruffian on my thumb, first and pinky fingers. The middle and ring fingers got some striping tape designs. The light periwinkle is Pure Ice - Bikini. Now that I see it on, I think it's more of a dusty blue. I wasn't a big fan of this at first, but after a couple hours I really do like it. I wanted a mani that was a palette cleanser of sorts so I chose my new Pure Ice polish. It's very light and I thought it would look great with silver. 

I really like how a ruffian is very simple yet still has a little flare to it. I'll probably do these more often, I need some practice with making the line smooth though! 

XO Natasha 

Orly Glowstick

Hey guys! Today I'm just showing you a polish that I've used before, many times. It's Orly - Glowstick. It's the brightest polish I own! It literally feels like a highlighter, on my nails. Looove it. My best friend also happens to be obsessed with it; I did it on her toes and a week later she wanted her nails to match. 

I recently bought some loose glitter on ebBay. It was around $5 or $6 for 24 small jars of glitter! As soon as I got them I rearranged it all into rainbow order, yes I do realize I have OCD... but I knew I had a super bright glitter that matched Glowstick! 

I started by painting her nails with a base coat of strengthener (of course) then one coat of white. My white is pretty opaque so I only needed one coat. If your white is thinner it's best to do two coats so you have a better background for any neon polishes. Then I did two coats of Glowstick. Usually I do three coats, but today I only needed two. While the second coat was still wet on the middle and ring fingers, I dumped glitter onto those nails and pressed down gently so the glitter stuck to the wet polish. I turned her hand upside down and tapped off most of the excess glitter, but around the cuticles I just brushed the glitter off using a makeup sponge. I topped it off with a thick coat of Seche Vite. The nails with glitter dried textured, which you can leave if you want, but I added another top coat to smooth them out. 

One thing I love about Glowstick is that it glows in the dark! 

We're both really pleased with how these nails turned out! And I'm even more excited to use my glitter! 

What are some of your favourite things to do with loose glitter? 

XO Natasha 

Weaved Lines & Gradient

You may have noticed it's been quite a while since I've done some real nail art, so I figured hey, it's Saturday, I should do something cool with my nails! (I was supposed to be studying today but instead I did my nails and cleaned my room... still fairly productive I think!) 

I'm gonna call this look weaved lines.Iit's kind of like doing a braid on your nails but instead of using different colours you just use lines overtop of a base colour. I've been seeing this a lot on Instagram lately, and I have a couple pictures in my phone with this look as well. It seemed simple enough so I figured I'd give it a try! 

I also wanted to practice my gradient technique since I've tried a couple times with very little luck. I figured it if turned out terrible the lines would cover it up. I used two pinks to do my gradient and it's very subtle, and even more subtle in the pictures so for that I apologize. It turned out really good though! I'm very pleased and for my next mani I'll probably do a gradient on all my nails. It's time consuming and uses more polish than most designs but it's a really pretty look! I'll be posing a tutorial soon, or maybe I'll make a video, just with my own tips because it took me a couple tries to get a decent look so I'd like to share how I did it! 

The grey I used is Orly - Decoded. The darker pink is Orly - Cotton Candy, and the lighter pink is Maybelline Color Show - Born With It. I used Seche Vite for the top coat. I just got my Seche Vite a week ago and I love it! It dries so fast and leaves your nails so shiny. 

I know my lines aren't straight and aren't the same size... for some reason I was really shaky today although I'm usually very still! I really like this look but next time I think I'll try doing more of a weave as opposed to the top part being "weaved" and the bottom just with vertical lines. 

XO Natasha 

Some Previous Designs

I apologize in advance for the possibly terrible quality of the pictures, the point is to show you some of my designs, not how awful I am at photographing. Enjoy!