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

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

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

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