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

Psychedelic Water Marble

It's been quite a while since I've done water marble nails.  The main reason I haven't done it in a while is because it's a little time consuming and messy.  I've been wanting to do one for a while now and finally got the time.  There is a great tutorial by Pack a Punch Polish.  For this design, I used White On by Sally Hansen, Fuchsia by Pupa, Orange by Pupa, Green With Envy by Sally Hansen, and Blue Me Away by Sally Hansen.  

This is one of my favourite colour combinations

 I started with a base of white.  When doing water marble, starting with a white base makes the colours much brighter.

 When choosing my polishes, I tried several different colours.  Some polishes just don't spread out when you drip them into the water.  To increase your success, use filtered water that is at room temperature.  Some people tape around their nails to keep their skin from getting polish all over it but I just find this time consuming.  Nail polish remover and a shower cleans up your fingers just fine.  When it came to dripping my polishes into the water I went "pink, orange, green, blue" 3 times. Here's the final product!

 My ring finger being more orange than blue was a happy accident (an unintentional accent nail).  I am so excited about how these turned out!

 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

New Essie Polish!

I bought 4 new Essie polishes on Friday and just had to use them all at once.  I'm a big fan of the colours that Essie has.  I bought "Turquoise and Caicos", "Play Date", "Cute As a Button", and "Lapiz of Luxury".  I ended up using Sally Hansen's "White On" as an accent.

 

I started by randomly applying all the colours (mint, purple, coral, blue).

 I then used the brushes that come with the polishes to add curves of colours to the tips of my nails.  I saw this design on the Essie website in "Essie Looks" section (http://www.essie.com/essie-looks.aspx).

I felt like the design needed a little something extra.  I really liked the pop of white that was on the Essie bottles.  I chose to do white dots along the curves of each colour and I am in LOVE with the final product.  I don't know about you guys, but the colours on my pinky nail immediately make me think of the Little Mermaid (Kelsey, you will know what I'm talking about).

Happy Painting!

Love, Kate xo

Neon Dots

I was feeling rather uninspired and overwhelmed tonight.  Sometimes there are so many designs that I want to try that I just can't settle on one and I get discouraged.  I decided to do my "go-to" design of dots.  For this design I used "White On" by Sally Hansen, "Funky Limelight" by Essie, "Bikini Pink" by Kiss, "Beach Green" by Kiss, and "Neon Orange" by Kiss.

 

Whenever using neon colours, they will be brightest if they are on a white base.

Next, I used my dotting tool (pencil with a straight pin in the eraser) and went to town making dots.  I alternated the centre colour so that each nail was slightly different but kept the same colour pattern.  The final product is a fun, vibrant design that is perfect for summer.

Happy Painting!

Love, Kate xo

Freehand Geometric with an Ombre Base

I'm a really big fan of ombre nails.  I particularly like adding some sort of pattern on top.  For these nails, I started with a base of "Green with Envy" by Sally Hansen.

To do the ombre base I used a make up sponge.  I placed a dot of each colour next to each other on a plastic bag.  I then dipped my sponge into the paint and applied it to my nails.  I more or less used the same strategy that can be found at The Posh Knot (http://theposhknot.com/blog/?p=322).  For the blue I used "Blue Me Away" by Sally Hansen.

I then decided to add a geometric pattern over top of the ombre in black by Kiss Nail Art Paint.  I'm REALLY happy with the final result!  What do you think?

I've been doing my nails for years now, but since I just started blogging, I've got photos of nail designs that I have done in the past.  Unfortunately, I don't recall the colours I used but here are a couple other ombre designs that I have done. 

Happy Painting!

Love, Kate xo

Colourful French Manicure

I'm a big fan of two-toned french manicures.  I love that it is the complete opposite of a traditional french manicure.  Earlier in the week I did a grey and red/orange design.  I used "Warm Red" by Barelements and "Grey Matter" by Rimmel.

I used the grey as my base.

To do the tips I used the strips that come with any french manicure kit.  Here is the final result!  I love the look and I think most colours would look good against the grey.

On Friday, I bought three new polishes.  I immediately decided that 2 of the colours would be perfect together for this type of design.  So of course I had to give it a try! (I'll show off the third polish soon!).  I used "Please See Me" and "Blue My Mind" by Sally Hansen.  I love how smooth these polishes go on.

 This time I decided to do my ring finger as an accent nail and flipped the colours.

Again, I used french manicure strips to do the tips.  Here's the final result!  These colours are seriously gorgeous (on their own and together)!

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

First Time Blogger and Nine West Nails

Lately, I've really been getting back into nail polish and nail art.  I'm pretty proud of my work and decided that I wanted to share my passion with others.  I tend to do my nails every Sunday (why not start the week with fabulous nails?).  Depending on how well the nail polish stays a.k.a when it starts to chip (I try to make it last as long as possible!), I do another design mid week.

I don't use any high tech tools for my designs.  I usually just use a fine paint brush, make up sponges, nail polish, acrylic paints (for really detailed designs), and whatever else I find around the house.

So let's start this blogging experience with the current nails I'm sporting.  

For these nails I was inspired by these Nine West shoes I bought last summer.

Here are some of the areas of the shoe that I chose to recreate.  You'll notice there are only 4 areas there.  For the thumb I kind of just chose a random "vine-y" design that can be seen in various parts of the shoe.

Here are the paints that I used to create my nails.  I obviously had to do some blending to get the right colours.  I usually do my base colour (blue) using nail polish but I didn't have this particular colour in my collection (GASP!).  Since I didn't have the right blue nail polish, I painted a base with Sally Hansen Xtreme Nails "White On".  I then painted over top of the white using my blue acrylic paint.  When using acrylic paint on your nails it is very important to use a nail polish base otherwise the acrylic paint with stain your nails (yikes).

...and here's the final product!!

I'm really happy with how these turned out.  They are colourful and make me that much more excited for summer.  I hope you like them as much as I do!

Love, Kate xo