winter nail art

 Here is a pretty wintery mani inspired by Pallino Girl's post last week. The base is a sheer light blue with a subtle pink flash from Icing.....I needed 3 thick coats of this! This was part of a 5 piece set that I have had sitting untried for 2 years. All the polish in this set are very sheer and have this same subtle pink flash.

un-named ( of course ) icing set

 I added the swirly's with Kiss Silvor nail art stripe polish and the dots with Fingr's silver dot/stripe polish. I don't have alot of experience with making dots with these squeeze tube polish's - however - this turned out okay.

I have spent the last 25 minutes looking for the new Nailene Nail Art set that has these squeeze tube polish's and  abunch of other nail art items..... I could have drove to Shoppers Drug Mart and took a photo in that amount of time! Dang! Has anyone else spotted it in stores lately?

stuff i used; No-name icing polish, Kiss silver stripe and Fingr's ( Nailene )  squeezy-tube polish

3 coats, could use 1 more......

o

Nail Stickers and Nailene Black Frenh Tip Pen

I have far too many nail art items that I do not use enough & WOW I did a sloppy acetone clean up and it made the skin surrounding my nails look awful, I much prefer to use moisturizer around my nails, paint, and then hopefully peel it off, especially when wearing pastels.... 

This is a quick look I did using Nailene black French Tip Pen, Beauties Factory sticker strips and a light greyed out baby blue franken. I like these types of large nail stickers, they are easy to use and pretty. They can be found at Sally's Beauty Supply, or online at Beauties Factory. There is a few eBay stores who sell these types of loooong nail stickers as well.

This was 3 coats of my franken, followed by the nail stickers, the Black french tip pen, and finally Top Coat.

ALSO: Thanks everyone for your comments of my 'Chloe Patchwork Mani', I didn't really appreciate it until the next day, I plan on trying that again.

stuff I used................ un-named greyed out baby blue Franken, beauties Factory Nail Stickers, Nailene French Tip Pen in lack, Nailene Top Coat

I find this easy to apply to my nail this way= instead of cutting them individually, I like to peel a small segment off and 'roll it' onto my nail.

 

if the stickers over-extend the width of the nail they will peel off pretty quick; my middle nail is good and I made sure to have the TC all the way to the edge of my nail, but my ring nail is already lifting after washing my hands twice

oops! I think I should have added this last week, but this was on sale at Micheal's crafts store for 5 bucks.... I always wanted to try some nail art with those bullion bead things, and that bar glitter is seriously pretty

Claire's - '14 Karats' with Nailene Black French Tip Pen & Fing'rs Nail Stickers

Claire's - '14 Karats'  2 coats with Nailene Black French Tip Pen & Fing'rs Nail Stickers

 

 

Claire's has ( or had ) a few of these foil-ish metallic's that I think are great. They apply well and are generally 2 coats. I love how after applying a top coat most of the brush strokes disappear ~ It's neat. Here I have used 2 coats of Claire's '14 Karats' and a coat of Nailene Acrylic Strong Top Coat. After sporting this fabulous colour for the afternoon, I applied a regular curved french tip guide up-side down and on the diagonal across the tip of my nail. Then I used Nailene Black French Tip Pen but as you can see in the close-ups = I totally fudged this up and probably should have not been blabbing on the phone and riffling through boxes at the same time.  I saved this with these cute butterfly stickers I found at walmart.

 

When I was certain everything was dry and my stickers were in the right spot, I slapped on another coat of Nailene acrylic Strong Top coat and called it a day.

 

 indoor fluorescent

Romantic Lamp Light

 indoor fluorescent

So; on my thumb at the very bottom, is without top coat and the brush strokes are very evident (which I think is cool with metallic and foil finish polish it looks industrial-) but with a coat of T.C. the shimmery-ness of this polish is more evident and the brush strokes are less evident.

 

Romantic Lamp Light

Stuff I used - Claire's 14 Karats, Nailene Acrylic Strong Top Coat, Black French Tip Pen & Fing'rs Stickers

@ 2 coats w/ T.C. = no clean-up

apply French Tip Guides

@ A swipe of Nailene Black French Tip Pen........ wait for it to dry and touch up if necessary. I tried to touch it up but resorted to awesome butterfly nail stickers.

Apply adorable nail stickers

When everything is dry, apply 2 coats of T.C. when using these Nailene french tip pens, a top coat is needed to seal it in. It is a water based product and must have a top coat or a sheer polish to protect it.

♥

♥ Sally Hansen 'Blue Me Away' w Nailene Black French tip pen & Claire's Magic ♥

Sally Hansen 'Blue Me Away' below with 'Claire's Magic' and Nailene Black French Tip Pen

At the end of March and the beginning of April - I had a string of bad mani's; I had a serious problem with bubblez, alot of smearing of polish, wacky nail art and alot of other things were going wrong. This polish, along with 3 others I wore I had to actually start over and re-apply after I completed my manicure.... I guess I had a bit of a bad polish streak, so when things did not look as good as I knew they could, I removed my entire manicure and started over.

I did a terrible job with the french Tip pen, I did not press down my nail tip guides as firmly as I should have, and I do not believe I snipped the protruding nail tip guides that were sticking off my nails which resulted in a alot of seepage. I planned to add the Claire's 'Magic' on top of this anyhow- but still..... I am glad that the vibrancy of the S.H. Polish 'Blue Me Away' showed up. Claire's "Magic' is much more sheer than I thought and I recommend layering Claire's 'Magic' over another color.

From now on, anytime I use Nail Tip Guides = either for polish or these Nailene French Tip Pens I will be applying a coat of Top Coat over the newly painted area. I have done this with my last 4 manicures which included using nail tip guides and they always turn out perfect. You can see that in my most recent diagonal mani HERE I am pretty sure I saw this tip on Kronicals of a Konader  =  so thank you very much♥

Stuff I used - Nailene Black French Tip Pen, Sally Hansen 'Blue me Away' and Claire's 'Magic' ( layer this! it's awesome!)

Sally Hansen 'Blue Me Away' 2 coats with 1 coat of Nailene Acrylic Strong Top Coat. When I removed this polish earlier in the week, it stained my finger-tips - like badly!

Apply Straight Nail Tip Guides on dry nails & apply Nailene Black French Tip Pen

DONT DO WHAT DEEZ DID!  When using nail tip guides, always add a layer of Top Coat to whatever you just painted as this should ensure a crisp line. and be sure to press down firmly on the nail tip guides when you apply them or your polish may seep under the edges like mine is here..

Middle - no Claire's Magic' RING & Index @ 1 coat

Thumb @ 2 coats of Claire's 'Magic'

Viola! The blue still looks vibrant after two coats of Claire's magic - which was a real surprise.  I always imagined Claire's Magic to be a lot more opaque than this......hmmmmm

♥

♥ Wet n' Wild - 'Sunny Side Up' ♥

Above - Wet n Wild Sunny Side Up, two coats applied over 2 coats of a stark white polish. I am actually wearing a Top Coat, but needed to buff out a tonne of dust that magically landed on my nails. I made  the mistake of painting my nails on a widow-sill with the window open, I never imagined that I would collect as much bits of.... of ..... whatever those are on my wet polish. After 2 days of blinding orangeness - I disguised the flaws with some diagonal nail art.

This polish Sunny Side Up; is not as bright without a base of a stark white polish like I have used here.  It was a huge pain in the bunz to wait for all these coats of polish to dry, but I ended up wearing Sunny Side Up for 2 whole days without any other embellishment even with the bits of dust sealed into my nails!

When I was ready to add something to this bright polish I did things a little different this time. when I applied the Nailene French Tip Pen in Black to my nails, I waited until it was dry, then with the nail tip guides still affixed to my nails, I applied the Nailene Top Coat. This helped keep a crisp strait line ( exception ~ my  INDEX! ugh ) and as always, prevented my top coat from picking up any of the black color and getting it onto the orange polish.

I couldn't find a pic of the new packaging and I tossed mine already...... this photo is form the walmart site.

 Below -from the nailene Bedazzle Superstar Nail art Stickers

I fudged up my INDEX finger royally, but it's Saturday and I am a lazy girl so I stuck on one of the

beautiful butterfly's that came in the Nailene Bedazzle Superstar nail art stickers. I was hording them since I bought that package, but at walmart today I found some MORE very pretty butterfly nail stickers from Fing'rs .... so I wont be stingy with them.

I just found these at walmart today - they are sooooo cute! Why haven't I seen these before?

Anyhoo - here are a few photos of Wet n' Wild 'Sunny Side Up' and some simple easy nail art I did. I think this orange color on it's own is fabulous, but I wanted to see how bright I could get it with the base of white polish. It's pretty bright IRL, and although I love it as it is, I think this needs 3 coats to even it out, I used 2, blah, blah, blah......

apply STRAIGHT french tip nail guides diagonally across nail. This is one of my favirote nail tip styles..... it's easy and fast, and forgiving, even if the angle is not right it looks good.

this is 1 coat of Nailene Black French tip Pen, I think I did a god job knocking it out in 1 coat. I applied  T.C. over this, while I still had the nail tip guides in place, I think This helped in keeping a crisp straight line. I did not wait for my INDEX nail to dry thoroughly, and so I fudged up the line -and- put a finger print on the wet polish, I hid that with a pretty butterfly nail sticker.

Ta-Da, I think it's leaning towards Halloween-ish but I really, really needed some black on my nails. I have been on a pastel and brights kick for the last few days and need to get back to some rich vampy shades.

♥

♥ Franken 'Arctic Bijou' with some simple nail art ♥

Franken 'Arctic Bijou' and Nailene White Skinny Tip pen

I made this pretty pale blue franken with Wet n' Wild 'Bijou Blue' and a white polish. I think it turned out to be a very pretty blue, and looks lovely with this soft white French Nail Tip Pen. I started with 2 coats of my franken ' Arctic Bijou' then applied Nailene french tip guides diagonally across my nails, then went over the area 2 times with the french tip pen ( index was 3 times )...... I find this 'skinny' french tip pen to be a softer white then the other french tip pen I have..... I will be putting them against each other...... soon♥

When all that was dry; I made sure to wait 15 min  for everything to dry = and 5 minutes between each 'coat' of the pen- I removed the french tip guides and applied Nailene Acrylic Strong Top Coat to the white tip area of my nail, extending the clear T.C. a few mm over the 'ridge' that is formed when using any type of sticker.... this ensures that the white french tip pen area is sealed within the top coat♥

When that was dry, I applied Nailene T.C. over my entire nail, being sure to add T.C. to the very edge of my nail.

Here is a full post of this franken made with Wet n' Wild 'Bijou Blue'   I am gonna try to do most of my newer frankens with Wet n' Wild products as they are available to most North Americans....

Because I did not snip the french tip guides where they were extending off my nails touching my cuticles, I had a bit of bleeding of the french tip pen, and so I tried to be stealthy and gently scrape it off but i totally dug into the blue polish below - dang! oh well, nothing some glitter or pretty nail stickers cant take care of. However I do try to snil any tip of nail sticker guide which extends off my nail, this helps to ensure there is no bleeding.

- simple easy to do mani.....

@ 2 coats of franken 'Arctic Bijou' & 1 coat of Nailene Acrylic Strong Top Coat

products I used

be sure to apply T.C. to the very edge or face of your nails - I find this helps to reduce chipping & tip wear

pre clean-up

over zealously scraping away the 'bleeding' of the french tip pen = dang!

2 coats of Franken 'Arctic Bijou' & 2 coats of Nailene Acrylic Strong Top Coat

Apply tip guides

2 coats of the 'Skinny' French Tip Pen

Apply T.C to white french tip area, extending a few mm beyond the white area & edge/face of the nail = when dry apply top cot to entire nail

















viola! oops =  a fuzzy pic♥

♥