Acid Wash

I decided that I wanted to try creating an acid wash design on my nails.  When I searched acid wash nails, I found that most people used the same strategy.  They applied different coloured layers of nail polish and used nail polish remover to remove the top layer.  This just wasn't something that I was interested in doing.  For a while I've been wanting to give sprayed water marble a try (see tutorial by Nail Pop here).  Basically you place a drop of nail polish into a cup of water, let it spread out, spray it with rubbing alcohol, and stick your finger through the dispersed polish.  It's obviously messy but acetone easily cleans up your skin and nail edges when you're done.  I thought that if I used the white and two shades of blue, I could get an acid wash effect.  Spoiler alert...it worked!

So for this design I used "Blanc" by Essie, "West Coast Cool" by Morgan Taylor, and "Midnight Blue" by Rimmel.  I started with a white base then applied each blue one at a time using the sprayed water marble strategy.  I found that the blues were just a little too bright so I added a layer of sprayed white over top.  It gave it the perfect washed out/faded effect.  Check it out!

EEEK! I just love how these turned out and can't wait to try other colours.  Black, white, and orange for Halloween?  Maybe!

Happy Painting!

Love, Kate xo

Shattered Triangles

I have to preface this post by saying that this design is one of my favourites to date.  I was inspired by these nails a friend showed me on Pinterest (thanks Leanne!).  For this design, I started with a base of "Blanc" by Essie.  For the triangles, I used "Goldeneye" by OPI and "Up the Ante", "Winning Streak", and "Full House" by Revlon Colorstay Gel Envy.

Instead of hand painting each triangle, I made my own nail stickers.  You can see a great tutorial here.  Basically you paint thick swatches of polish onto a plastic baggy.  Let the polish dry completely (I let mine dry overnight) and then peel the swatches off the bag.  Use scissors to cut triangles of all different sizes.  While your nails are still tacky, use tweezers to place the triangles on your nails.  Finally, seal with a top coat and voila!

 I like how it kind of looks like stained glass or like something was dropped on the floor and it shattered.  I'm also really happy with the colours that I chose.

 I hope you all like this design as much as I do!!

Happy Painting!

Love, Kate xo

Ikat Dress Inspiration

 Two posts in two days!

I wore a new dress to a bridal shower today and used it as an excuse to paint my nails to match my outfit.  I got this adorable hi-low dress last weekend and it's perfect for summer.  I fell in love with the combination of floral and ikat patterns.  I just knew that I had to use it as some nail inspiration.

For this design, I started with a base of "Blanc" by Essie.  I used "Cute as a Button" by Essie, "Fedora" by Sally Hansen, and a brown Bic permanent marker for the design.  To create the floral design, I thinned the coral and brown using acetone.  I then used a paint brush to apply the thinned polishes in a random "flower" design.  To create the ombre effect on the rest of my nails, I used a paint brush (not the brush from the polish) to paint the coral shade onto half of my nail.  I made sure to drag out the edges to create an ikat look.  Once my nails were dry, I used a Bic permanent marker to draw the brown shapes.  Finally, I slowly dragged my top coat over top to make the colours bleed. 

I'm so happy with how these turned out! You can bet that you will see a full floral design in the near future.

Happy Painting!

Love, Kate xo

Bras for the Cause

I'm back!! The last couple months of school are always busy.  Well this year was extra busy and my nails were definitely put on the back burner.  Now that summer has arrived, I can finally get back into nail design and it feels great!

Last night, my mom and I attended a Bras for the Cause event.  The idea is that you all decorate a bra and wear it on top of your clothes, all while raising money for breast cancer awareness.  Of course, I had to make sure that my nails matched my bra.

I started with a base of "Blanc" by Essie.  I then used Bic permanent markers to create my design.  I recently bought the pack of 36 Bic markers instead of the Sharpies because there was a greater variety of colours.  I created a "firework" design using pink, blue, green, orange, and yellow.  I created an accent nail by placing the breast cancer ribbon on my ring finger.  The result is a super easy, colourful, and fun design that I will definitely be recreating in the future.

Oh, I can't forget to include a shot of our bras!  You'll notice the "firework" design on the bands of the bras.

Happy Painting!

Love, Kate xo

Lacquer Legion: Glam

Each month, The Lacquer Legion puts out a theme and anyone is welcome to participate.  They are welcome to pick and choose which themes they want to participate in.  This month, I am participating for the first time.  

The theme: Glam.  First thing that came to mind was sparkles.  What's more glamorous than a little bling?  I really wanted to go for a classic glam look. 

For this design, I used "Sugar Daddy" by Essie and loose, silver, nail glitter.  To apply the glitter, I mixed it with a clear polish and used a makeup sponge to apply it to the tips of my nails.  My goal was to create falling glitter effect.  Here's the final product!

I'm so happy that I decided to participate in the Lacquer Legion challenge this month because I LOVE the way my nails turned out.

I encourage all to participate in the next challenge! You can find the Lacquer Legion on Facebook at facebook.com/thelacquerlegion.

Happy Painting!

Love, Kate xo

Happy Easter!

Since it's Easter, I knew I had to do a decorated egg design for my nails.  I used "Blanc" by Essie, "Play Date" (purple) by Essie, and "Simply Divine" (pink) by Sally Hansen.  I started with a base of "Blanc" before sponging the pink and purple on in an ombre design.  I used white acrylic paint to create the final design.  I like to use acrylic paint for detailed work because it doesn't dry as fast as nail polish so you have a little more breathing room when creating your design.  I kept most of my nails simple with straight up polka dots.  On my ring fingers, I added straight and zigzag lines to make them look more like a decorated egg.  Here is the final product!

Originally I was going to use 4 colours (pink, purple, green, and yellow) but the pink and purple stood out much more than the yellow and green so I stuck with just the two colours.  I'm really happy with how they turned out!

Happy Painting!

Love, Kate xo

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

Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine's Day Everyone! 

Just a quick post today with my Valentine's nails.  I wanted to do a design that was relatively quick so I chose to do a Sharpie mani for this day of love.  I started with a base of "Sugar Daddy" by Essie.  This is a fantastic everyday colour because it's a soft pink which gives your nails a healthy, pink glow.  I then used pink and red Sharpies to create a waterfall design on all my nails except my ring finger.  I then used "Polka Dots" by Maybelline (Colour Show) as a top coats.  On my ring finger I created a quick heart patchwork design.  Here is the final product!

 I'm really happy with how they turned out! I hope you LOVE them as much as I do.

Happy Painting!

Love, Kate xo

Nail Design Mash-Up

This week I decided to take two designs that I admire and mash them together to create my own.  I absolutely love the waterfall designs that Sammy does at TheNailasaurus.com (really, I love everything that Sammy does and you should totally check her out!).  This waterfall design is the basis for my design this week.  The second part of the mash-up is my colour inspiration for my design.  Robin Moses created a neon splatter design with a black base and bright colours over top.  You can find tons of great tutorials on her Youtube page.  

For this design, I started with a base of "Licorice" by Essie.  

I then used acrylic paint in a variety of colours to create my waterfall design.  I had to do some mixing in order to get the colours just right.  To get some of the colours to show up well over the black, I had to add a touch of white.  Here is my "palette".

I used a thin nail art brush to paint of my design.  Here is the final product!

The green and blue combo is definitely my favourite!

Happy Painting!

Love, Kate xo

Blurred Lines

So I decided to continue my obsession with my new striping tape and create another line-tastic design.  I'm a big fan of ombre/gradient and I hadn't done one in a while so why not combine stripes and ombre to create an awesome design?  When I decided on this design, I immediately wanted to call it Blurred Lines.  As a result, I've had the song "Blurred Lines" stuck in my head for days!

Ok now let's get down to business.  For this design I used "Turquoise & Caicos" and "Aruba Blue" by Essie.

I started with a base of "Turquoise and Caicos".  I absolutely love this colour!

I then placed pieces of striping tape vertically on my nails.  Using a make-up sponge, I sponged "Aruba Blue" just onto the tips.  From the picture above, you can see that I actually sponged both colours just to make sure my ombre blended well.  The Posh Knot has a great tutorial for how to create an ombre/gradient effect on your nails.  Here is the final product!

I'm really happy with how they turned out and even happier with the fact that they didn't take long to do (I painted the base colour the night before).  There are so many possibilities for this design with different colour combinations and striping tape arrangement.

Happy Painting!

Love, Kate xo

First Striping Tape Design

My striping tape arrived!! I'm absolutely in love.  It is so much easier than trying to cut up tiny strips of Scotch tape.  I got my striping tape from Amazon.ca (thank you mom for the awesome Christmas gift!).  Striping tape is rather in expensive.  I got 30 rolls of tape for around $3.00 and there is a nice variety of colours.

So I obviously had to put my new tape to use right away.  I searched for some inspiration on Pinterest but just decided to go with the flow and see what happened.  On my first attempt, I really liked the pattern I made, but I didn't wait long enough for the base colour to dry so the tape peeled off some of the paint and just made a mess.  On the second attempt, I painted my base colour and didn't do the design until the next day.  This meant there was no risk of my polish peeling off with the tape! 

For this design, I used Celeb City by Sally Hansen and Wicked by Essie (an awesome Christmas gift from one of my students!).

I started with Celeb City as my base.  This is probably one of my favourite polishes because it goes on so well.  Since the glitter in it is so fine, it comes off easily unlike other sparkly polishes.

I then used 4 strips of tape to create a crisscross design on the tip of each nail.  You need to make sure that your tape is long enough to hang over the nail to make it easier to remove.

I then painted my top colour (Wicked) over top of the tape.  The key to getting nice straight lines is to remove the tape while the paint is still wet.  After I removed the tape, I decided to fill the purple spaces with dots using one of my new dotting tools.  Here is the final product!

 When I put my top coat on, the purple smeared a little bit.  I ended up not minding the smears because it gave the silver a slightly purple tinge.  It's only noticeable upon close inspection.

I can't wait to try out some more designs with my striping tape!

Happy Painting!

Love, Kate xo