Street Style, Bricks and Graffiti Nail Art Design

So I shared my April entry for the Sally Hansen I Heart Nail Art contest which was the color blocking. Now to share my May entry!! The theme for May was "Street Art"... And I really wasn't sure what to do for it. I've lived in small towns all my life, what do I know about city and street art?? My boyfriend had the idea:: do  a brick wall with graffiti on it. Brilliant!!

So, after my Beauty Secrets base coat, I did a couple coats of Sinful Colors Slate, which is a nice gray that would be the mortar or cement or whatever between my bricks. I then used striping tape and did pretty much a checkered pattern with the striping tape. Then I painted over the tape with Sinful Colors Under 18, which was my brick color. After peeling off the tape, I used a small brush to fill in one vertical line in each row with Under 18 in order to make the brick pattern. After my bricks were dry, I used two Sally Hansen Nail Art Pens (Green and Bright Blue) to do my graffiti on every other nail. I did my initials (LR) and Nail Diaries, and a heart. It was certainly tough to do on my right hand while writing with my left, but I love how it turned out!! I then used my Matte finish top coat (since brick walls usually aren't sparkly and shiny) and done!! 

I LOVE how it turned out!! I'm hoping I get enough votes for the contest to move forward, but even if not, it was super fun!! :)

Mother's Day Bouquet of Tulips Nail Design

Since my mother was up visiting for my graduation this past weekend, I was lucky enough to see her on Mother's Day this year! So to pay tribute to my wonderful mother that has always been a huge source of support, I painted some Mother's Day Tulips on my nails!!

After my Beauty Secrets base coat, I did two coats of China Glaze For Audrey. I had no clue how to paint tulips, so I just kinda winged it. They didn't come out perfectly, but they still worked! The colors I used for the flowers were:: Nina Lilac-ing Discipline, China Glaze Exceptionally Gifted, and Orly Hook Up. To paint them, I used a dotting tool and put one big dot of color on my nail. Then, after dipping my dotting tool in the paint again, I kinda dragged it up one side of the dot, then on the other side of the dot, kinda making a half-moon shape. I then dragged up one more time in the center to that it made three petals. Again, not perfect, but I could at least still tell they were tulips!

I then finished it off with Sinful Colors Happy Ending for the stems and leaves and my Beauty Secrets top coat. I also threw on some Finger Paints Sparkle Top Coat for my ring fingers to add a celebratory touch! :)

Happy Mother's Day to all the mothers out there!!

Newspaper Transferred to Your Nails: Garfield Is On My Thumb!!

Ok, I've wanted to try transferring images/words/etc onto my nail for several months now. What I see most often in tutorials is using newspaper to transfer the print to your nail. I found this video tutorial from cutepolish to be the most direct and helpful.

However, I didn't want to just do boring ol' words, I wanted to transfer the funny pages!! So, after a base coat of white polish, I attempted to transfer the faces of some beloved characters, as well as some of the funny words they say.

Needless to say, my nails didn't come out nearly as clean and orderly as those in the tutorial, and I'm missing some of the details of the characters. I don't know if this is because I started out with white instead of a thinner coat of a light gray, or if it's just generally tougher to transfer over detailed designs/drawings. But some of them came out great!! I have one little guy from Dilbert (I don't know his name) looking all pissy on my pinky nail, and Blondie looks great on my thumb! I'm thinking I will try this again in the future, but maybe with the sudoku or crossword puzzle :)

Nail Dress by Kiss Trial

**NOTE** When I wrote this post, I named the Nail Dress as being by Sally Hansen. It is actually by Kiss. Oops!! Sorry!! **

So, as I was skimming through the new issue of Cosmo for some pages full of colorful patterns to use when I try out the transferring technique, I stumbled across a coupon to try out the Nail Dress stick-on design polish from Kiss. I figured... why not?? So I decided to get them a try!
Here's the coupon I found in the magazine:

So, you can see there were only four different singles to try. Not really enough for a full manicure. So I painted all my nails except for my ring finger nails and left those ones with just a base coat in preparation for these fun sparkly options. 

 What I did for the colors on my other nails was used a nice dark, sparkly purple from Finger Paints (the name of which escapes me at the moment... I'll hafta check back on it later) and then mixed in a drop or two of my Sally Hansen Black Out to make it even darker. In the following pics, my flash on my phone camera makes the color out to be a on the bluish side, but it's purple, I promise! I also used the Shimmer Top Coat that I have to add a little extra bit of rosy sparkle to it.

For the Nail Dresses, You just peel and place on your nail, and then you need to trim the edges. I used a small pair of hygiene scissors you usually find in a little travel kit or whatever. This was the toughest part, not just getting it trimmed right at the tip of your nail, but also along the sides. The jewels on these designs made the task harder than it probably usually is. (**NOTE** On the actual packages you can get in the store, they supply a small emory board and you file the edge to get rid of the excess and can file it close to the edge of your nail... this actually caused me some more problems with the edges peeling back than when I used the small hygiene scissors, even tho those weren't as precise.**)

But here are my results!!

I really liked these fun designs and they certainly added a bit of glam and sparkle to my nails! The down side that I found was, although they don't "chip" exactly, the edges along the tip of the nail did start peeling up a little and I had a couple small tears, especially where there was a jewel that happened to be sitting on the edge. You can kinda see this in the following pics (which were taken a couple days later) where you can start to see the white tips of my nail at the edges in some spots.

All-in-all I don't know if I would use them for a full manicure, but I really liked them as an accent nail! Nice and sparkly!