Pacman!

I am so sorry this design is late! I finished it days ago, but I left for the weekend and took the wrong camera cord with me. To make it up to you, I'll post twice today with two new designs. This first one is a Pacman design. I had this on my nails way back when, when I was still biting them, and I decided to bring this design back as my second entry to a nail art contest I'm a part of. To view the tutorial entry video, scroll down to the bottom of this post.

So I've changed a few things about the design, as you can see. When I first had this design painted on one hand, I had Space Invaders on the other. For this post, I'll just be explaining the Pacman design. To start, paint your nails black. Makesure you are wearing a base coat if you paint your nails black! That's very important. Using dark colours without a base coat can dye your natural nails, and the design won't last as long. I used China Glaze's "Liquid Leather". Next start on your index finger and paint Pacman's shape. If you want, you can paint a yellow circle, then use a black to cut out the mouth. The yellow I used was MigiNailArt's "Lemon Yellow". Place tiny white dots before and after Pacman. My white was from MigiNailArt. Moving onto your middle finger, paint a line of white dots, making one of them larger than the rest. On your ring finger, draw a line of zigzags with a sky blue (mine is from MigiNailArt) at the tip, then draw an arch stretching towards your cuticle. Fill this shape in. With a white, draw two tiny ovals for eyes, then add black pupils. The black I used for the eyes is by ArtDeco. Add white dots on either side of the enemy. On your pinkie, create the same enemy, but paint him pink. I used a pink by MigiNailArt. Again, add white dots on either side. On your thumb, hold it sideways and draw a blue line at the 'top' of your nail, and another one running parallel. Make the two lines very close. I used MigiNailArt's "Royal Blue" from their neon collection. These are the walls of the maze. Under those lines, paint an orange or red enemy. I used MigiNailArt's "Neon Orange". All of my little enemies have their eyes facing different directions. Add white dots on either side. With the same blue you used for the lines, paint a single line at the very tip of all your other nails. Wait for your deign to dry, then cover with a top coat.

I hope you like this design! I've had a few comments of its humour. Check out the video I made for this design as part of the contest:

Summer Flowers

Looks like a complicated design? well it is. Not very difficult, but definitely complicated. This design came about because of a nail art contest posted by "ilovemylongnails", and I thought.. why not? It's a fun opportunity, and even if I don't win, I get a new nail design out of it. So this is the design:

Let's see if I can explain how to do this design for those who can't view the video at the end...
Okay, after a base coat, paint the tips of your nails blue with a french smile line. I used MigiNailArt's blue. Once that's dry, paint over it with a purple. I used Sally Hansen's "Ruby Sapphire". Let that dry, then paint your whole nail with a glitter polish. I used Sally Hansen's "Shooting Star". Now to get to the flowers! Place a glob of yellow onto a piece of scrap paper (mine is by MigiNailArt), then take a tiny art brush and paint petals in a top and bottom corner of your nail, or the side, or one corner, or wherever you want. With a cream colour (mine is by MigiNailArt... again), paint the base of the petals, then with an orange (I used Nubar's "Neon Pumpkin"), paint over the cream. Then get a green (mine is, shocker, MigiNailArt), and create leaves coming out of the petals. With a brown, fill the corners or sides at the base of the petals. The brown I used was OPI's "Queen of d'Nile". With a pointed tip (brush, toothpick, etc), paint black dots over the brown. I used China Glaze's "Liquid Leather", then add yellow dots there as well. For the final colour, place a glob of white on scrap paper, and with a striper brush, place stripes on the nail, then take a dotting tool and place varied sizes of white dots alongside the stripes. The white I used was Sally Hansen's "Lavender Cloud". Wait for your nails to dry before painting a top coat on, then clean around your cuticles, add nail oil, and you're done!

I hope you like this design! Here is the contest video:

Also, this is how my short nail is growing out. It's getting there... slowly.

White Wedding

So maybe a few of my nails art designs aren't exactly sophisticated, but that doesn't mean I don't have it in me. I'm just a fan of funky. I'm going to a friend's wedding tomorrow, and needed nice nails. Although I love the Midnight Gradient design, it wasn't wedding material. This design is more of a bridal wear, but I'm sure I can wear it too. I rarely use decals on myself, as I save them for my clients, but I went ahead and used them on this design. My original plan was to create free-hand flowers, but I think these decals look so pretty!

I filed my nails slightly shorter for strength and to give my shorter nail a quicker chance to catch up with the rest. For this design I did a white gradient on my tips using a foundation sponge to dab the colour on, making it thicker and more opaque at the free edge using Sally Hansen's "Lavender Cloud". Once that dried, I took some flower decals that I had with gems and stuck them on. I don't have the name of the brand I'm afraid, but many places that sell polishes also sell decals, so you should be able to find something pretty there. I stick a large flower in the outer corners of my thumbs, a smaller flower beside it, and two petals or leaves below. On my pinkie I added a small flower in the outer corner. I covered these with a thick top coat and voila! Done!

You will feel the decals/gems on your nails, but that can't be helped. You might be able to smooth it slightly with another layer of top coat. Just don't be tempted to pick at it! I also apply artificial gel nails, and although a gradient is a little trickier, the same effect can be managed. I can still add the decals and gems, but they will be embedded into the gel, and completely smooth.

I hope you like this design! For anyone who has a formal event coming up, or even a wedding (if it's your own, congratulations!) then do consider this design. For a bride, I understand that you might not want to do your own nails, but most professionals do take requests, and this is quite an easy design to copy for any occasion. Good luck and have fun!

Midnight Gradient

After the breakage of my poor nail, I was feeling a bit unmotivated to take the effort to Portalize my right hand. I did get comments that the background of that design should be white, not black (as in the game you can only create portals on a white wall), but I didn't think the white worked as well on my nails, so black is was. Once I cheered myself up a bit, I looked back at the blue portals, loving the neon blue/black contrast, so I did a really simple gradient on my right hand. The nails were already painted black, and this is actually my first gradient with a black background, and only using one colour, or one shade of that colour.

The camera really doesn't do these justice. Maybe it's the flash. But they are a lot darker off-camera, and have more of a gradient. This was so easy to do. With my nails already black, I dabbed some of MigiNailArt's "Royal Blue" onto a clean foundation sponge and dabbed it onto my nail, starting at the tip and moving down towards the bed of my nail. With each application of this, is didn't take the colour down as far, making the tips more blue than the base. Simple though it is, I love this design, and my parents say it's their favourite one they have seen on my nails so far.

Eh, that's a little better (check me out, I'm starting to sound like a Canadian! Took me long enough). I hope you like this design. I'm really happy with it, especially now I've cleaned up the mess around my cuticles.

So much better in person... Oh well.

Also, I took a picture of the nubbin... my poor nail! It looks so much shorter than all the others. I'll take a new picture every week to monitor its growth and see how long it takes to reach the same length as the others. It feels weird too. It's as though I'm miss ing the tip of my finger. Typing and playing the piano is also strange and I'm still getting used to it.

Then I painted it black to fit in with the others.

Wow, my webcam captures the gradient design better than my digital camera! That's interesting. ^.^

THInK WiTH PoRTaLS_

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|I finished Portal and Portal 2 a long time ago,
|But I recently downloaded the end credits songs for both of the games
|And was inspired to come up with a Portal design.
||_
|I really wanted to use the portals themselves for the design,
|But my nails are square shaped for strength
|And because portals are round,
|I couldn't use them as tips
|Which was my original idea.
||_
|I was tempted to make a design using the Companion Cube,
|And with square nails, that would be easy,
|But the want to use portals was too strong.
||_
|I do have the neon collection from MigiNailArt, 
|So I had the colours I needed already,
|But coming up with a background was tricky,
|Because in the game, the background is a white wall
|And whatever is through the adjacent portal.
||_
|I didn't want to use the white
|(And I'm not sure why)
|But I think using the black was a pretty good substitute.
|What do you think?_
||_
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||_
|This design sounds easy but I actually found it white difficult.
|It's also quite messy.
|After a base coat, paint your nails black.
|I used China Glaze's "Liquid Leather".
|You should always were a base coat,
|But because black is so strong, you MUST apply a base coat first!
|I can't stress that enough.
||_
|Once the black is dry, place dots at certain points of the circle
|So you can use them as a guide.
|The take a clean foundation sponge.
|Either paint the polish directly onto the sponge,
|Or put some polish on a dish and dab the sponge into that.
|(I used the first method).
||_
|Using the gradient technique,
|Dab the polish around in a circle. 
|It doesn't have to be neat.
|Try to get a gradient effect.
||_
|For blue, I used MigiNailArt's "Royal Blue"
|And for the orange, I used MigiNailArt's "Neon Orange".
|Once that is done, outline the centre of the circle with the designated colour.
|This helps it stand out.
|Then taking the black, paint in the centre.
||_
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||_
|With the same black
|And the same sponging technique,
|Dab the black around the edges of your nails.
|This makes the gradient stronger.
|Let dry, then finish with a top coat.
||_
|Right after I was done this design, 
|Tragedy struck.
|My hand got caught on a cupboard handle.
|I broke the nail of my index finger.
|It's very near my finger,
|So filing all of my nails down to match is not ideal.
||_
|What I'm going to do is buy nail glue and a nail patch,
|Try to temporarily fix the break with them,
|And keep the rest of my nails long.
|Soon I will probably file them a bit shorter for safety.
||_
|Once the break is further away from my finger,
|And my broken nail has grown,
|I'll file it away at the tear.
|It might look weird, but that's life.
||_
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||_
|I hope you like this design.
|I'm going to listen to those songs again.
|A proud moment for me was when I finally memorized the lyrics to them both.
|But despite the tear in my nail...
||_
|It's still alive._
||_
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Deep Lightening

I know I've just posted "Superstar!" and I painted that design on Monday, but I just couldn't help myself.... I managed to get my hands on Nicole by OPI's "Silver Texture" polish and couldn't wait to try it out! There was such a fierce storm here yesterday, it was right above our house and the lightning was blazing white, the instantaneous thunder roared angrily and was so loud it scared the daylights out of us! We lost power briefly as well, and I looked upon my new silver crackle polish and knew that lightening was the perfect description.

The base colour for this design is MigiNailArt's "Deep Purple", and the silver is Nicole by OPI's "Silver Texture". 

I placed a few swatches on a sample wheel of MigiNailArt's "Magenta", China Glaze's "Liquid Leather", and Nicole by OPI's "Positive Energy". Over them I placed my new "Silver Texture" polish and my OPI "Black Shatter" to compare them. I don't suggest you place the silver over a light colour or another glitter/metallic polish or it won't  stand out. You need a good contrast. I suggest a matte or dark polish as a base, and a light or glitter polish under the matte black.

Since I've only had the silver for a day, I'm not sure how it will be in a few weeks, but as of now I love the consistency of the silver. It's smooth and light, but the lack is thick and clumpy. That being said, I do like how the clack shatter appears on the nail, and it dries super fast. The silver dries pretty fast too. Depending on how thick you place the shatter/crackle/texture polish determines the final look (thicker coat means less cracks), but I found that you have to really apply the silver very thinly in order to get a decent crackle effect. 

The OPI Shatter bottle looks like a regular OPI bottle but the cap/brush handle is pretty cool with the shatter effect around it. The OPI Nicole Texture bottle looks like a regular Nicole bottle, including the cap. The only difference is the rubber tag around the neck on the bottle and a sticker saying "Texture Coat" on the cap.

I'd like to compare these to other colours and other brands (especially Kelier's Crack Polish) some day, but I just can't afford another crackle polish just yet (that, and they are hard to come by). I have a few more nail care products I'd like to buy before then. And I'm curious to try Claire's mood polish if I ever get my hands on it. I thank my Mum so much for buying this polish for me!! I know I didn't have my "Superstar!" nails on for long, but trying this out was just WAY too tempting!

Superstar!

This is a dedication to my friend's mum. I asked her to choose any theme and she picked "stars". My immediate thought was "easy!", because drawing a star with nail polish isn't that difficult, but when it came to actually coming up with an interesting design, I found the task a little challenging. What I came up with is rather Christmasy, so I might recycle this design in 6 months. This design really is super easy to do, but really only works on longer nails.

If you're wondering about the bubbles on my nails, they are caused by either my thickener or strengthener. I personally don't care about the bubbles, and you can easily cover them with a coat of coloured polish. I just leave my nails as is unless I really NEED perfect nails. The bubbles are my friends...

So to create this design, as always, start with a base coat. Once that's done, I painted the tips "Deep Purple" (looks kinda blue in the photos) by MigiNailArt and brought the colour down towards my cuticle on one side. Once that dried, I lined the base of my tips with Art Deco's "Silver". It's really glittery, which I love the look of, but a beast to remove. After letting that dry, I took MigiNailArt's "Silver". Their silver is less glittery, but still metallic. I placed a star in on the short end of the glittery line. By short, I mean the side you DIDN'T bring the colour down. I then followed the glitter line by placing silver dots along it. With the same silver, I painted a star in opposite corner on the tip, followed by three silver dots. I let this design dry, then added a top coat. I used my thickener as a top coat this time and it didn't bubble over the colours, so maybe it's my strengthener that's bubbling.

If you want to watch me paint this design free hand for the proof or my instructions are confusing, I actually recorded a video for this design. I apologize about the bad quality. With all the nail products I need to buy for my salon, I can't afford a decent camera. Isn't being a student just great! Also, I do recommend you put a piece of paper, newspaper, or paper towel down on the surface before you start as nail polish is messy... I didn't in the video, so yes, I'm a hypocrite. I'll be a good girl for next time!