Sunday 25 August 2013

Purplicious Triangles

Lately I feel like I've been doing a lot of designs that require a white base.  I've also be doing a lot of blue.  My goal this week was to do neither of those things.  I decided to go with a purple theme.  I used "Am I Making Myself Claire?" by Nicole By OPI, "Play Date" by Essie, "Red Purple" by Pupa, and "Silver Glitter" by Kiss.
I started with a base of "Play Date" by Essie. This is one of my favourite colours (I have a lot of favourites).
I cut small triangles of painters taped and taped off each nail.  I painted "Am I Making Myself Claire?" at the base of my nail and "Red Purple" at the tip of my nail.
I really like this look but the spots where the paint bled through the tape drives me nuts.  I wanted to use white dots to cover the lines but I really need a new white.  I decided to use silver to make dots, but the polish was a little too runny so it ended up making lines instead of dots.  It's not quite what I was going for but I don't mind the look. 
I still wasn't completely happy with the way it looked so I tried adding a matte top coat (by Essie).  I definitely think that the matte finish is better than the glossy finish but I kinda wish I had just touched up the spots that bled and left it alone.  It's all about trial and error! 

Which way do you guys like best?

Happy Painting!

Love, Kate xo

Sunday 11 August 2013

Blue Tribal Nails

This week I decided to go with a tribal design inspired by the tutorial by Nailed It!.  The nice thing about a tribal design is that it doesn't need to have perfectly straight lines.  It should have that hand drawn look so don't worry about making it perfect. 
I started with a base of "White On" by Sally Hansen.  Using white as a base always makes the colours you use that much brighter. 
I was going for an ombre look so I selected 3 shades of blue.  Starting at my cuticles, I used "Blue My Mind" by Sally Hansen, "Please Sea Me" by Sally Hansen, and "Alex by the Books" by Nicole by OPI.  The top stripe was my white base coat that I started with.  When you do your stripes, don't worry about making them perfect.  These imperfections will be covered with your tribal designs.
For my tribal design I used "Pure Black" acrylic paint by Folk Art and a fine paint brush. Here's the final product!
  I REALLY like how they turned out!  I'm glad I chose to go with an ombre look when choosing my colours.  You could easily follow the same strategy to create Easter egg nails using pastel colours.

Happy Painting!

Love, Kate xo