Spring Ikat Chevron

My ikat chevron nails (see here) have surpassed 400 repins on Pinterest!! So in celebration, I have recreated the design just in time for Spring. 

For this design I used "Blanc" by Essie, "Appletini" by Covergirl, and "Stand by Your Manny" by Nicole by OPI.  Remember, the key to this design is the slooowly applied top coat which results in the perfect smeared look.

 Ikat chevron is definitely one of my favourite looks.  I'll be experimenting with more ikat looks in the not to distant future!

Happy Painting!

Love, Kate xo

Crazy for Polka Dots

Ok Winter, I'm done with you!  Spring, you can make your appearance anytime! I really needed a pop of colour on my nails to brighten my mood.  For this design, I used "Licorice" by Essie, "Hit the Lights" by Nicole by OPI, "Orange Oasis" by Covergirl, "Cherry, Cherry, Bang, Bang" by Sally Hansen, "Shrimply Devine" by Sally Hansen, "One Time Lime" by Nicole by OPI, and "Blue Me Away!" by Sally Hansen.  I used dotting tools of various sizes for my dots.  Here is the final product!

 

 

Originally I had another idea in mind for the other 3 nails, but I didn't like the way it looked.  I'm happy I decided to paint those nails black because it really makes the colours pop.  

Happy Painting!

Love, Kate xo

Halloween Patchwork

I always love when there is a theme that I can work my design around.  With Halloween coming up, it seemed very appropriate to do a Halloween themed design.  I'm trying to get an early start so that I can do another Halloween design next week.  When searching Pinterest for ideas, I came across a Halloween Patchwork design by Sam at nailasaurus.com.  I loved the colours that she used but I didn't want to make mine exactly the same.  So I started thinking about what other colours Halloween brings to mind.  I immediately thought of Candy Corn (white, yellow, orange).  For this design I used "Blanc" by Essie, "Orange Oasis" by Covergirl, and "Hit the Lights" by Nicole by OPI.  I used black acrylic paint and a thin paint brush for the stitch detail.

 

I started with a base of "Blanc" by Essie.  I had a bit of a brain fart and forgot to take a picture of just the base. Oops!!

I used tape to make the "patches" (Sam's tutorial is great).  The key is to do thin coats of polish so you get nice straight edges and faster drying times.  If you have a steady hand, you can always hand paint the patches without tape.  I then used my acrylic paint to make the stitches.  I wanted to use a black Sharpie but none of the ones I own have a pointy enough tip.  Remember that if you do use Sharpie, spray a thin coat of hairspray on your nails to prevent the marker from smudging when you apply your top coat.

Here is the final product!

It would be fun to try different colours for different seasons!  

Happy Painting!

Love, Kate xo

Falling Leaves

For the last couple weeks I've been trying to decide how to incorporate leaves or falling leaves into a nail design.  I really wanted to keep it simple with no actual leaves or trees. 

For this design I used, "Pur White" by Maybelline, "The Spy Who Loved Me" (red) by OPI, "Orange Oasis" by Covergirl, and "Hit the Lights" (yellow) by Nicole by OPI.

I started with a base of "Pur White".  I wanted the base to be really soft and felt that a straight up white polish would be too harsh.

I then used my dotting tool (pencil with a straight pin) to add dots to my nails starting at the tips.  I tried to spread the dots out as I moved down my nails to give a falling/fading effect.  Here is the final result!

I am in LOVE with how these turned out.  

The possibilities are endless with this design.  

To name a few ideas:

- blue, silver, and white for Winter (falling snow?)

- red, green, and gold for Christmas

- multi-coloured for New Years (confetti)

Happy Painting!

Love, Kate xo

Galaxy Nails

I've been wanting to do galaxy nails for a while now.  Ever since I saw the beautiful ones that Cristina at Let Them Have Polish did, I felt inspired.  For these nails I used "Midnight in NY" by Sally Hansen, "Eccentric Violet" by Pupa, "Pina Colada" by Covergirl, "Cherry, Cherry, Bang, Bang" by Sally Hansen, "Please See Me" by Sally Hansen, "Funky Limelight" by Essie, "Blanc" by Essie, and "The Donmar" by Nails Inc.

I started with a base of "Midnight in NY".  It's a nice black with multi-coloured glitter mixed in.

I then ripped small pieces off a make-up sponge and used tweezers to dip the pieces in the various colours.  I placed my polishes on a piece of parchment paper.  It makes for easy clean-up.  This is what my set up looked like. 

I dabbed the different colours onto each nail and tried to make them all look a little different.  When I was done, I found that they were missing a little something.  I decided to use my Nails Inc Special effects nail polish to add little holographic flakes.  I think it was the perfect addition.  Here is the final product!

I love how they turned out.  It ended up being kind of a psychedelic galaxy look!

Happy Painting!

Love, Kate xo

Feeling Fishy

As promised, here are the 4 new polishes I bought a week ago.  They are from Covergirl's Glosstini collection.  I love them all and I really can't decide which one I like best.

Appletini

Orange Oasis

Pina Colada

Bahama Mama

When it came to a design, I was bound and determined to use all four colours.  For a while, I've been wanting to do a fishtail braid design.  I started with the fishtail design on my ring finger.  I followed the tutorial from The Beauty Department )http://thebeautydepartment.com/2012/07/nailed-it-7/).

Like I said, I was bound and determined to used all 4 colours, but I had yet to use "Bahama Mama".  I decided to continue with the fish theme and add fish scales to my middle finger.

Woohoo, I used all four!  But I felt like my pointer and pinky needed a little attention.  Again with the fish theme, I added a different type of fishtail to those fingers. Here is the final product!!

Happy Painting!

Love, Kate xo

Splatter Nails

I spend a lot of time on Pinterest looking for inspiration.  I bounced around a few different designs but eventually settled on my initial idea.  I tend to choose designs that don't have a lot of clean up after but, hey, sometimes you need to get a little messy.

For this splatter design, I started with a base of "White On" by Sally Hansen.

The colours I chose to do that splatter were "One Time Lime" by Nicole by OPI, "Vio-last" by Covergirl, and "Outrageous Orange" by Sally Hansen.

 I used three cocktail straws to do the splattering.  I flattened out the ends a bit and found that this gave a better splatter and I was less likely to get big drops on my nails.  To do this design you just dip the straw in the nail polish, hold the straw a few inches above your nail, and give a short, strong blow through the straw.  Repeat the process with all the colours until you get your desired look.

 

 ...and here's the final product! I don't know about you, but it reminds me of those big jawbreakers that we used to eat when we were kids.  I'm really happy with how they turned out.  I should note that if your nail polish is too thick, you won't get a good splatter.

Ok, so I said it was messy.  This is what my hands looked like before I got them all cleaned up! Ahhhh!  I used nail polish remover to get the worst of it off and my morning shower got the rest of it all cleaned up.

Love, Kate xo