Wednesday, 24 July 2013

Colour Blocking Nails with OPI Fly

I've seen a couple of pictures on Pinterest of colour blocking nail art using a black/almost-black colour, a nude and a bright. I think this kind of colour combo looks great together, especially in big chunky designs and I have really wanted to try it for some time. 
 Being a turquoise addict, I decided to go with OPI 'fly' as my bright. I used OPI 'Lincoln park after dark' as my dark colour- however it probably would have been easier to just use black as the purplyness didn't show up really. For my nude I used Essie Jazz which is very close to my skin colour in real life. 

I started of using scotch tape to create the different colour 'blocks' but the polish was bleeding underneath. I switched to striping tape which seemed to solve the problem. (Striping tape can be purchased from many ebay stores for about $1.50 for 10 rolls)

I'm in love with how they look, very classy. It's almost work appropriate!

Here they are :)











Saturday, 20 July 2013

Purple and Gold 'Skittles' Nail Art

A few days ago I wasn't really sure what I wanted to do to my plain old purple nails to jazz them up a bit... and ended up trying a bunch of different things....5 in fact :)

 I think most people are calling this kind of 5 nail mix and match 'skittles nails'.
 I went with a purple and gold theme using gold glitter, striping tape and polish, and two other purple polishes (in addition to the one I was already wearing)

 The background purple is OPI Casino Royal, a favourite of mine. 

 The pinkie was done by first putting a streak of top coat down the middle of the nail and hand-placing (or more accurately tweezer-placing) square glitter down the centre of the nail. I thought it needed something else so painted the tip with a golden glitter polish (home-made).

 The ring finger was kind of a lucky fail of watercolour nails. I tried doing it with polish I had thinned with a polish thinner rather than just using an acetone soaked brush as I have done previously. So instead of being washed out it was just really watery and prone to dribbling into my cuticles....which as it turned out was a good thing!
It's hard explain without pictures...I think I’ll make a tutorial once I get bored of these nails..... Anyway I was very happy with how they turned out. I think it looks a bit like a camouflage pattern.
 The gold is Sally Hansen Xtreme wear 'Golden-I', the dark metallic purple is Revlon 'No Shrinking Violet' and the pastel purple is China Glaze 'Sweet Hook'.

 The middle finger was done by using scotch tape to tape off a triangle at the tip of the nail (starting about half way down the nail) and painting this tip with the Golden-I. I then used tweezers to carefully place gold striping tape. After the gold polish had dried completely I used more striping tape to tape of the small purple tip, and painted it with OPI Casino Royal. (And then removed that striping tape) 

 For the pointer finger I just dabbed on the gold glitter polish (more at the base of the nail, and less at the top to create a gradient) 

 For the thumb I scotch taped off the bottom half of the nail and stamped an image from Xl-D with China Glaze 'Sweet Hook'. I then removed the tape and painted a thin line with Revlon 'No Shrinking Violet', and pressed gold circular glitter into the polish. 

 The only problem with skittles nails is having to write a description of every nail!

The reason I took so long to post these, is that I was determined to make a light box on the weekend.... which I achieved today! Yay!
I made it out of a cardboard box and baking paper. I think my pictures look way better than usual!.... I'm getting there slowly. Unfortunately the awesome light I'm using is only on loan from my FiancĂ©’s Dad who is an electrician, so I need to find a replacement. It’s an LED and is worth about 100$ apparently so I'll have to find an alternative!

He said he could get me a pretty good one for an affordable price though so I'm still very happy!

So here they are: I think its my best cuticle clean up ever!









Well I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed creating this nail art :)