Nail Pop x Skelanimals Decals

Have you visited Nail Pop lately? They've got some awesome new decal designs, including some that may make you seriously nostalgic for the early days of the internet. One of their latest collaborations is with Skelanimals. Read on for more details and my thoughts about these babies!

Nail Pop decals are water slide decals, which means that you cut out the image you want to use, soak it in water, and slide the decal off of the backing paper. You can then situate it on your nail where you want it, and seal it in with topcoat. I found them pretty easy to use, though I do have a couple of tips!

• Cut around the decal as closely as possible. This eliminates any extra material from around the image and will make it much easier to work with when you go to place it on the nail.
• Choose a light color as your base to help the decals show up better.
• Use a paper towel or makeup wedge to soak up any extra water on your nail before you topcoat.
• Work over a dry or mostly dry manicure. I pressed down pretty firmly on my decals, so you don't want to dent the goods.
• As the water dries out of the decals, they will start to look slightly translucent. Don't worry! The topcoat will soak in and make them clear again. 

Though these aren't my usual style/aesthetic, I do have to admit that they're pretty cute!  I like all of the small pieces too, which could be used to add just a touch of flair to your manicure.

Skelanimals decals are available from Nail Pop or Dolls Kill.

Disclosure: This post contains a press sample.

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Wasabi and Caviar - An Exercise In Linework and Patience

Today is my birthday, and if you can believe it, my nails are actually naked right now! THE HORROR! I'm hoping to put something fun on them after I get home from work, but for now, I wanted to share a manicure I spent a lot of time on recently.

I am calling it wasabi and caviar for reasons that I hope are obvious! This entire design is handpainted with regular nail polish. It's some of my best linework to date, I think. Hooray for improvement there!

Nail polishes and products used:
LVX Midori
Formula X Dark Matter
Sally Hansen Stud Kit

If you want to attempt a design like this, I've got some tips!

1. Get a small brush. I can't tell you how long I used a thicker nail art brush, cursing my lack of talent rather than the tool I was using. Once I got a thinner brush, it helped me immensely. I still had to keep practicing, but my old brush was definitely part of the problem. Trim down an old brush with cuticle nippers if you don't have a super thin one.
2. Keep it clean. If you're using polish (instead of acrylic paint or gel), clean your brush frequently with 100% acetone and regularly put down more polish onto your palette. Polish dries quickly and can wreck your fine lines if it isn't the right consistency.
3. Small mistakes aren't the end of the world. You can use a clean nail art brush dipped in acetone to gently "erase" small mistakes from your work; just be careful not to go too crazy or it will eat through your base color. In this case, I put a layer of topcoat between the wasabi shade and my black linework for extra protection.
4. Be patient. This shit isn't fast. When you factor in my previous tips and the detail of the work, you just gotta know it's not going to be easy to bust it out in 45 minutes. I like to put on Netflix and take breaks every so often to stretch out.

I just love this kind of strange green color, and the thick blingy stud nail is just the right amount of "odd" to go with it.

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Hugs for Emily - Neon Blocked Ikat Nail Art

Today's nail art is inspired by the talented and kind Emily from Very Emily. Emily has been going through a tough time lately, so a few of her blogger friends got together to show our support by taking inspiration from one of her manicures. Though I wish I could do more from across the world, I wanted her to know that we all care about her and will be there for her.

For my look, I was inspired by Emily's Summer Ikat Nails. I added a twist to it, doing my neon blocking horizontally rather than vertically, and throwing in some black and white splatter studs.

Nail polishes and materials used:
OPI Angel With a Leadfoot
American Apparel Hassid
Floss Gloss Con Limon
Serum No. 5 Splatter Studs

The neon blocking was painted freehand over the white base, and then I added the ikat print, carefully lining it up with the white sections only. I used topcoat to adhere the studs, and sealed them in with an additional layer.

I enjoyed doing this look, and Sean was a huge fan of the finished effect. I think in the end, I prefer Emily's vertical blocking, though I certainly do like how mine turned out too.

If you'd like to check out the other bloggers sending hugs to Emily, they are Wondrously Polished, The Nail Polish Challenge, Love. Varnish, chocolate, and more..., One Nail To Rule Them All, Nail Polish Society, Paulina's Passions, The Lacquerologist, and The Nailasaurus.

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Moody Purple Gradient with Splatter Studs

How about something a little moody today? For this look, I grabbed two of the new purple shades from the OPI Nordic collection and used them in a gradient, along with a bit of black for the tips. Then I added some black and white splatter studs to give the look some extra pizzaz.

I started with a base of OPI Do You Have This Color In Stock-holm?, the brightest of the purples from the collection. The middle shade in the gradient is OPI Viking In a Vinter Vonderland, and the tips are a black creme.

The splatter studs are from Serum No. 5. I stuck them into wet topcoat, and then sealed them in with another coat of topcoat.

I'm a big fan of these studs, and they provide a nice contrast to the deep richness of the gradient.

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Studded & Splattered

While my new rounded nail shape still seems a bit foreign to me, I am totally loving the change. I think that lighter colors make the shape look nicest, so I thought I'd do a soft pink manicure to celebrate my "curves." Of course, I couldn't just leave it plain, so I jazzed it up with some studs and a faux splatter accent nail.

Polishes used:
OPI Chic From Ears to Tail
Azature Camel Diamond
Essie Blanc
American Apparel Hassid

The studs are the 3mm black and white camo studs from Daily Charme. They come pre-splattered like this, aren't they so fun? I love that they are all different from each other, and they are just the right size too. Big enough to show the patterns, but not so big that they overwhelm the nail.

The splatter elements on my accent nail were freehanded using black and white to tie in with the studs.

While it was scary to make the change to round nails, I am really enjoying them. I love my squares and always will, but sometimes you gotta, you gotta, you gotta be fresh. ;)

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31DC2013 Day 20: Flowery Water Marble

Watermarbling is a fickle mistress -- one day it works great and one day you spend five hours trying different color combinations to find something that will work. Guess which one I experienced for the watermarble day of the challenge?

I'll give you a hint, it wasn't the pleasant one!

For some reason I just could not get anything to work with me this time. I tried a ton of brands, different water temperatures, types of water, vessels for the water, marbling tools... the universe was just NOT having it. It's even more frustrating because I've been able to successfully marble a number of times before.

Finally, I was able to achieve success using Zoya Malia and Zoya Kristen. I was much too fed up to do more than two nails. Oops, I mean, it was totally intentional to use the watermarble as an accent! Yeah...

I also added some 2mm square pastel studs from Born Pretty to spice things up. I rushed the application a bit so unfortunately a few bubbles developed, but you can't see them in person, I swear! These studs come in the cutest colors and I love the square shape. Be sure to use the code "CKG10" for 10% off if you're purchasing!

This is also the first time I've embellished my marbled nails! I added some dots with Malia in some of the larger spaces, and I really like the way it turned out.

More 31 Day Challenge
View upcoming prompts!
My watermarbled nails from 2012!
My watermarbled nails from 2011!

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Spray Marble and Studs - DIOSA Nail Art

Press Sample 

Hey folks! Just a quick note before we get into today's nail art. Per the updated FTC guidelines, I will now be including buttons at the top of every post that detail any disclosures I need to make. You can learn more about what they mean by clicking the buttons. Thanks for your patience with any growing pains I may experience with this new system.

Okay! I am really excited about today's nail art. Not only did I try a new technique, but I also tried a new brand, and let me just say that I am enamored with the results of both!

DIOSA Nails is a polish brand whose mission is to honor women and to help tell their stories. DIOSA encourages women to be themselves and inspire their peers. I love that manifesto! For this particular look I used two DIOSA polishes -- Dime Piece and I Sea You. Read on to learn more about the techniques and polishes.

The marbled look was achieved when I tried to do the water spotted effect but sort of half-failed at it. If you're unfamiliar with the technique, it begins much like a water marble would! You place drops of polish on the surface of your water, and then spray it with some alcohol-based fluid like hand sanitizer or perfume. It makes little holes in the polish and when you dip your nails in it, it transfers the spotted effect.

That's all fine and pretty easy to understand, right? Well, when I went to try it, I grabbed an old perfume for the first nail. It worked fantastically! But then, when I went to do my second nail, I found there was some oily residue sitting on top of the water and my next drops of polish wouldn't fully spread out because of it. I guess the perfume I was using must have had some sort of oil in the base? I dumped it out and tried some hairspray next, but it didn't create an even spotted effect, either.

Despite the unexpected spotting patterns, I dunked my nails anyway. I then manipulated the resulting patterns with a little bit of acetone to tailor them to my liking.

The studs and rhinestones in this manicure came from my Nails Inc Bling It On: Rebel set. I'm sure you can find equivalent studs and rhinestones from almost any online nail art supplier, too.

The grey polish I used is DIOSA Dime Piece. I really love this particular shade of grey, it's light and clean and slightly blue-leaning, I think. Almost like a breaking storm. It requires two coats for opacity and the formula was easy to work with.

DIOSA I Sea You is a highly pigmented blue beauty, and provided perfect coverage in just one single coat. But that's not all -- this one coater had a creamy, buttery formula, too. This means it's fantastic for nail art enthusiasts and plain polish lovers alike!

DIOSA polish is available at www.diosanails.com. You can also keep up with the brand on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Press Sample 

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Stud Armor Accent Nail

The manicure in today's post happened mostly on a whim! I was having trouble deciding which polish I wanted to wear, so I chose three and then took them to Instagram for help deciding. The polish they ended up picking was Contrary Polish Desert Fruit, but then I wanted to embellish it a bit!

Well, "a bit" turned into "a lot"...

I used 1.5mm round golden studs from BornPrettyStore for the accent nail. They are a very cool-toned gold shade and almost look silvery in certain lightings.

When I'm using studs, I work column-by-column. I begin by applying a thin strip of topcoat where I want to apply the studs so they will stick to the nail. Then I use a dotting tool to pick up the studs -- it will pick them up well if it is wet (I've dipped it in water or licked it in the past). You will have to continually wet it as you work. Then, once you're done, you can finish the nail with topcoat to seal the studs in.

I really wanted the nail to be completely covered, so I tried cutting studs in half for the empty spaces that were at the end of my nail. Surprisingly, they cut easily with safety scissors. I think they are mostly made of plastic and then topped with thin bits of metal? Anyway, they cut well and I was able to finish off the edge of the nail evenly.

The base color, Contrary Polish Desert Fruit, was rather difficult to photograph. It came out of my camera looking pure brown, which is strange as it is a reddish purple and my camera is not usually THAT inaccurate. I spent some time working with the color in Photoshop and was able to get it much closer to what this shade looks like in person.

Here is the polish in direct light -- the shimmer in it is much more visible in these conditions.

Isn't it funny how the stud nail looks so much shorter and fatter than the others?

I really enjoyed wearing this look, and even a few of the men at my work were interested in the stud accent. Most people wanted to touch it, and I can't say I blame them -- it felt very cool and I couldn't resist feeling it the whole day I wore it.

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