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

 

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

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

Canada Day Nails

I always enjoy doing theme/holiday nails.  It always presents the added challenge of trying to stay within a theme by using specific colours and/or symbols.  For my Canada Day nails, I did a simple search of "Canada Day" in Google to look for some inspiration.  I saw a lot of flags and fireworks and when I saw pictures of a moose and a beaver I knew I had to put them onto my nails.  I used the following two images for inspiration.

For this design, I used "The Spy Who Loved Me" (red) by O.P.I., "Yellow Ochre" and "Coffee Bean" acrylic paint by Folk Art, "White On" by Sally Hansen, and "Black" and "White" by Kiss.

 

I started with a red base on all my nails.  I realized after the fact that none of the pictures I took of my base colour were clear so I had to take a picture of my right hand.

 

Here is the final product! I knew I would struggled to create a perfect maple leaf so I substituted a heart so symbolize my love for my country.  However, I wish I had done my flag nail horizontally instead of vertically so you could see more red.  Oh well! It's all about trial and error :)  I used a small paint brush to paint the characters and tape to tape off the white area of my flag.

  

I'd have to say my favourite part of this design is the moose.  He might just have to make another appearance at Christmas time.  Perhaps with a red nose to turn him into a reindeer a.k.a Rudolph.

As much as I like this design, I can't wait to take it off and try some of my new polishes.  I have 4 new summery colours that I'm super excited about. I can guarantee that you will see them in my next post.  Until then...

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