leopard print nails

Sorry for the hiatus, been a busy month, but what better to come back with then leopard print!

leopard print is very simple, I've also done it with a red accent nail, which I really like. I also did alternating with red and leopard on every other nail which I also loved.

As far as doing the leopard print, start out with a nude or gold, which ever you prefer. Use this as the base color. 

Then use a brown or bronze, the color I used here is a bronze color by OPI. You don't need the nail art brush for this step, just blot on some dots with the corner of your brush, and they can be different shapes and sizes.

Lastly you use a black nail art brush and just sort of go around the bronze. What's great about leopard print is it's always different, it's ok if you aren't perfect with this and it will still turn out great! You can see in the picture how all the spots don't look the same. I also added a few plain little black dots if there was too much nude showing through in some places.

And there you go! Super simple and super cute!

Freddie Mercury nails

Today is Freddie Mercury's birthday, every year people celebrate Freddie for a Day and dress a Freddie and raise money for the Mercury Phoenix Trust. Today I dressed as Freddie, but I also had to do some nails of course.

Anyone who know me knows I'm a BIG Queen fan, but an even bigger fan of Freddie. I love that man, I find him so inspiring and am still in awe of his talent every time I hear a Queen song.

Freddie also had some great outfits, and that is where in inspiration for my nails came, so here's how they turned out:

Below the nails I added pictures of the various outfits I used as inspiration. The silver sequin unitard, the yellow jacket from the Wembley show, his outfit from "It's a hard life" music video, the harlequin unitard and of course the crown.

This took lots of different colors and thin brushes, ps- I did these in an hour, which I was pretty impressed with.

Hope you all enjoy, and if you can please donate to the Mercury Phoenix Trust so we can find a cure for the terrible disease that took this wonderful man and talent from us, the link to donate is below.

http://www.freddieforaday.com//en/Donate

Van Gogh Starry Night nails

So, I did these nails during the spring. Here is what they looked like:

and then the thumb:

I really don't even know how to explain how to do these nails. I just looked at the painting (via google images) and pictures of other takes on it with nail art and just had lots of colors, thin brushes, and lots of time.

So even though I can't give specific instructions, I thought these were cool so I wanted to share, hope ya'll enjoyed :)

News Paper nails

News paper nails are really simple and really cute. Here's what they look like:

So again, this is super simple. I used grey, and grey gives it that newspaper look but you could use any light color that the ink would show up on.

So step 1: paint your nails grey (or other color).

Step 2: let your nails dry completely

Step 3: dip your nail in rubbing alcohol, do one at a time. Then put a small piece of newspaper (I suggest cutting up pieces) on your nail. Make sure the newspaper gets completely wet from the rubbing alcohol. Hold it on there for 15 seconds and you're done!

Take off the newspaper and the ink will be left on your nail. Be sure to put a top coat on so the ink doesn't end up rubbing off.

I used a Beatles article, but it really doesn't matter what you use. This is quick and easy for people just starting out with nail art! Hope you enjoy!

Hunger Games nails

The Hunger Games came out on DVD yesterday, so I thought I'd show some Hunger Games nail art.

In the book it is mentioned that Katniss has flame nail art, even though it's not in the movie tons of people have been doing the fire nails with their individual take on what they think it would look like.

So here is the end result of today's nails:

I've done flame nails before and every time I've had the flames coming from the nail bed but I figured I'd try the flame coming from the tip of my nails today since I hadn't tried it like that yet. I also did the mockingjay for the first time.

So I started out with black. ***Quick note, when you are using a dark color like black, always put on a clear base coat first to prevent your nails from staining.

After the black I used China Glaze Riveting from the hunger games collection.  I tore off a little piece of make up sponge and used tweezers to hold the piece of sponge and just dabbed the orange on. Here is what my nails looked like after using just Riveting:

There is a nice shimmer to Riveting which is perfect when making a flame. After that I did the same thing (using the make up sponge) with China Glaze Electrify (also from the hunger games collection).

Electrify is a thicker glitter polish so I concentrated this color more on the tip then had little bits go up like sparks jumping at the top of the flame.

And that is all for the flame.

For the Mockingjay I used OPI Designer...De better. I started 3 times on this. The first too I took off with remover. I used the thin nail art brush to create the mockingjay and pulled up a picture of the mockingjay on google to go off of.

I only did the mockingjay on my left hand. Every other design I have done my left and right hands are the same, but I liked the idea of only one mockingjay, plus it would be hard to do on my right hand, possible, but hard. So I just did flames on all my nails, and here's a look: 

The flame design is very simple and the sponge really helps give the right look for the fire. You don't have to use tweezers to hold the sponge, I just found it easy that way since the piece of sponge I tore off was so small.

So there you have it, Happy Hunger Games everyone :)

Nautical nails

Although I am very ready for fall, it is still summer time, so here is a super cute nail design for summer time

I did this one a little bit different than usual. For my pointer, middle, and pinky fingers I did one coat of white and then used a nail art pen. This is different than the nail art brushes I usually use.

I got the red nail art pen as a gift from my best friend. I'm pretty sure you can find these at drug stores or sally beauty supply.

Nail art pens are great if you are new to nail art because it's just like a sharpie or a marker (don't actually use sharpies or markers). But they work like them, so it will be similar to things you are use to working with.

For me nail art brushes are a little easier just because I am so use to them now, so try out both if you like and see what works best for you.

For my ring finger and thumb I used a dark blue (OPI Russian Navy I believe) and the used a white nail art brush to draw the anchor and ships wheel. The ships wheel was hardest because I'm not great a making circles, but it still turned out nice.

Try this out while you still can, summer will be gone before you know it (yay fall!)

SHARK WEEK!

IT'S SHARK WEEK!!!! Yes, I had to use all caps, this is my 2nd favorite holiday of the year (after christmas).

So of course I had to do shark week nails! I saw a picture online a while ago and knew I had to do it for shark week, so here it is:

It's a Great White! You can't really see its dorsal fin from this angle but it's on the back half of my middle finger.

I started out with the blue, the did the white, followed by the grey and the the outline and detail work, it wasn't to difficult but it was a little time consuming.

The white and grey I used a regular nail polish brush, no nail art brush needed, just be careful and you can easily make the white and grey lines. The black was done with a nail art brush, and the teeth as well.

Hope ya'll enjoy, give it a shot and let me know how it works, these nails are awesome!

Now everyone go turn on Discovery and watch Shark Week!

Panthers/NFL nails

Yesterday my big brother and I went to the Carolina Panthers training camp at Wofford to see the panthers practice.

NFL season is fast approaching so I thought I'd share a cool design to rock your teams colors. A sorority sister and wonderful friend asked me about some designs for Ravens nails, this could work, but I'll also still be thinking of some other possible designs and post them when I've tried it out.

So for now, I think a chevron design is a great way to show off your teams colors, here's a picture of my first try at it:

I did a coat of white over all my nails to start. You need to wait until the white, or bottom color is completely dry before going on to the next step, this is VERY important.

For this design you can use scotch tape, which is what I used, so if your nails aren't dry it will make a mess. If you have painters tape or masking tape that you'd rather use I'm sure that would work as well.

I used the tape to make the "V" and painted black. Then I carefully peeled off the tape to reveal my V. I happened to have the perfect color blue in a nail art brush so I just outlined the black.

If you don't have nail art brushes make your first V farther down (where the blue is on mine, or farther if you like) and do the bottom color (like the blue, this will be a thinner line) then wait, wait, wait for it to dry. 

Then repeat the V with the tape leaving some of your underneath (in my case blue) color. The put the next color on top, which would be the black in this picture.

Hope that isn't too complicated, if ya'll would like I could make a video next week showing this (finally found my web cam!) so just let me know if these instructions are a little too complicated or hard to understand.

Rachel, for the Ravens I think it would look best having gold over your whole nail (like my white) the you would have one more stripe than me, I'd do black first, then white, and gold. I'm heading out of town, but when I'm back I will try this out for you and post a picture with a Ravens colors.

If anyone has any other requests just let me know :)

Have a great weekend everyone!

Lion King nails

When my sorority went on beach retreat this spring I was doing lots of nails. One of my sisters, Melissa wanted me to do her nails but said she didn't care what I did.

I know that Melissa LOVES the lion king.Eevery time she came to my place she would run off with my big stuffed simba (yes, I have a big stuffed simba)

here are the materials

Orange, yellow, and black nail art polish. The make up sponge (hard to see with all the white) is used for doing gradient, there are tons of tutorials out there, and hopefully I'll get around to doing one as well.


so here's a look at the final result

I did a yellow and orange gradient to give a sort of sunset look and then wrote lion king with the black nail art brush on her nails. But what about her thumbs? Just look!

Why yes, that would be little cave painting simba that the crazy baboon draws when simba is born. and there you have it! Some super cute and original lion king nail!

And just to add some cuteness, here is Sloan with Simba

Hope everyone enjoyed, feel free to comment with and requests or suggestions of some designs you'd like to see and I can give detailed instructions of even a video showing how to do it.

Thanks!

Nature inspired nails

Yesterday I was on pinterest (where I get most of my ideas) and saw a cute design, then put my own little twist on it.

I used a white and OPI Mermaid Tears (from pirates of the Caribbean collection)

I apologize again for the poor blackberry photo quality.

I used one of those thin brushes to make these little blades of grass coming out from my nail bed and it turned out really nice.

Little hint, you don't need to get those thin nail polishes in every color, I just have a few (white, black, silver, and green) then I clean off the brush with polish remover and dip it in whatever similar color I want to use. So the black one for dark colors, white for nudes or pale pinks and so on.

Nice little design for summer, which will be over before you know it (yay! fall and winter are my favorites!)

Have a wonderful night!

Olympic Nail art

One thing I have been very impressed with at the olympics this year is the nail art! (gotta say, also impressed with Nathan Adrian!)

People.com had a whole album with pictures of swimmers rocking some nail art to show off their pride for their countries.

Many of the athletes would have at least one nail painted with the British flag, the union jack, a little tribute to London for hosting. So I gave it a shot last night.

Pretty simple really, I used OPI Russian Navy and used the thin nail art brush to do the all the white lines then all the red lines on top.

If you're looking for a more patriotic look I also did an american flag nail for fourth of July 

For this I did one solid layer of a drug store brand white then added the red stripes. 

Having the red stripes down first helped me have a straight line for the blue. 

Then just add some white dots or stars if you can make them small enough. 

I did white dots the did tinnny little lines out to create a little bit of a star shape.

I did the fire work for the 4th, which is super easy with the stripe brushes and then put OPI Katy Perry collection glitter over it to give it that look like that fire works were exploding.

That's all for today!

Yay! My first blog post. My big brother Reid came up with the name. I've been wanting to start a nail polish/nail art blog for a while now so I'm super excited!

For my first post I'm showing "The Dark Knight Rises" nails.
I've done batman nails before and I'll post that picture at the bottom, but those were more comic book batman. I wanted to do something different for the dark knight.

I think the lines for the wings could have been a little sharper but not too bad for my first attempt.

If ya'll haven't seen The dark knight rises yet you need to, it was amazing, Joseph Gordon-Levitt was the best part in my opinion, but who doesn't love Christian Bales gargling batman voice.

Once I get in the swing of things with the blog I'll put up some tutorials, but this was pretty simple, just a silver background and used a nail art brush to outline the bat then fill it in.

As promised, here is the more cartoon batman look, which is much more difficult

 

Sorry for the not great quality of pictures, my blackberry isn't all that great. But as you can see I did a city skyline with the bat light shining in the sky and then a classic comic book "pow" and the classic bat symbol, which I don't think turned out too great.

Feel free to comment with any questions about these designs. Yay! First nail blog post is complete!