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

Dream Catcher Nails Made with Sharpies

This week I decided to create a design using Sharpies.  Not everyone has nail art brushes or thin paint brushes around to do detailed designs.  Sharpies are a great alternative and easier to use.  The major problem that people complain of when they use Sharpies on their nails, is that their design gets smudged when they add their top coat.  I did a little searching and someone suggested lightly spraying a coat of hairspray over top of the design before adding the top coat.  This creates a barrier between the Sharpie and the top coat.  I did this and didn't have any problems with smudging!

For this design, I used "Alex by the Books" by Nicole By OPI and 3 Sharpies (pink, purple, and turquoise).

I then began adding my dream catchers to each nail with just a feather on my ring finger as an accent nail.  I had originally planned on using black for the main part of the dream catchers but couldn't find a black Sharpie with a tip that wasn't worn down.  I'm glad I ended up using turquoise.  Here's the final product!

Happy Painting!

Love, Kate xo

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

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

Ikat Chevron

As you can tell from the background on my blog, I'm a HUGE fan of chevron patterns.  I've been wanting to do a chevron design on my nails for a while but I didn't want to take the time to tape off each line.  I knew I wouldn't be happy with the lines if I did it free hand (I'm a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to my nails).  I was watching The Marilyn Dennis Show the other day and they were creating their own Ikat pillows.  Ikat is a fabric dying technique which results in a pattern that looks like the dye has bled through the fabric.  I started looking at Ikat patterns in google and came across my inspiration.

 

I remembered coming across a tutorial on Pinterest.  Concrete and Nail Polish created a great, easy to follow tutorial.

I started with a base of "White On" by Sally Hansen.

 I then used a small polish brush that comes in the Kiss Nail Paint bottles to begin creating my design.  I love the grey and yellow look so I chose "Grey Matter" by Rimmel and "Hit the Lights" by Nicole by OPI.

Here is the final product! I'm so happy with it.

 This design could easily be changed for any season or holiday:

• pastels for Easter/Spring
• red, white, and green for Christmas
• blues and silvers for Winter

The possibilities are endless!  Not just with this design, but Ikat in general.  Here is an Ikat design I did before I started blogging.

Happy Painting!

Love, Kate xo

 

Flirty Florals

Summer is FINALLY here so I just had to do a bright, flowery design in celebration.  For this design I used "Mellow Yellow" by Sally Hansen, "White On" by Sally Hansen, "Bikini Pink" by Kiss, "Neon Orange" by Kiss, "One-Time Lime" by Nicole by OPI, "Blue Me Away" by Sally Hansen, and "Play Date" by Essie.

I started with yellow as my base.

I then used my dotting tool (straight pin stuck into a pencil eraser) and began making different coloured flowers on my nails.  I placed 5 dots in a circle and did an accent colour in the middle of each flower.  I then added white dots to fill in the spaces between the flowers.  Here is the final product!!

These nails make me so happy! They are bright, colourful, and fun.

Happy Painting!

Love, Kate xo

Double Post: A New Polish and Dotted Toes

I was missing a really vibrant blue in my nail polish collection and spotted the perfect colour when I was out running errands on the weekend.  I'm absolutely in love with it.  It is Blue Me Away by Sally Hansen (Hard as Nails).

 I wore this colour for a day before I started fiddling.  I started with doing a simple top coat of Matte About You by Essie. 

I love the smooth, velvety look of a matte top coat on this blue but I wanted to take it one step further.  I used Special Effects by Nails Inc. and then added Matte About You over top.  I think it has an underwater, mermaid feel to it.  My camera didn't quite capture all of the colours in the Special Effects polish (I'll add a "sunlight" shot soon).

As promised in my last post, I've done my toes (sandal season! woohoo!).  I knew I wanted to do something colourful but easy.  So why not cover my toes in dots?  I used Fuchsia by Pupa, Orange by Pupa, Hit the Lights (yellow) by Nicole by OPI, One Time Lime by Nicole by OPI, Blue Me Away by Sally Hansen, and Cherry, Cherry, Bang, Bang (purple) by Sally Hansen.  All the polishes photographed true to colour except for the blue.  As you can see in the first picture, the blue slightly darker.

 I took my dotting tool (pencil with a straight pin stuck in the eraser) and just went to town adding dots.  It's a fun and easy design that can be touched up just by adding more dots!  I think next time I might try lining up the dots for a "fish scale" effect.

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