Yellow Parakeet Nails- MM14 Bird Plate- Bik Bok Nail Art Pen

Hello everyone!

I hope you can see that I tried to draw a parakeet on my ring finger. I used a nail art pen from Bik Bok for that. Bik Bok is one of the many clothing stores, that has started to sell nail polish. The birds and feathers on the other nails were stamped on. I used the "Bird plate" from Messy Mansion: MM14. Here is the parakeet that I tried to draw:

Used: 

Nail polish: Ruby Kisses Cosmetics: MNP06 Cheesum
Stamping plate: Messy Mansion: MM14 
Stamping polish: Konad SP Black
Bik Bok: Nail Art Pen: Black

And as usual, I used IsaDora Clear as basecoat and Seche Vite as top coat. Sadly, the top coat smeared the black this time. And of course I didn't take photos before adding the top coat...

Look how gorgeous that stamping plate is!

I love the deep yellow/ orange color of Cheesum. Ruby Kisses is a new brand for me, and I was surprised by how many beautiful creams and shimmers they had. Do you know anything about Ruby Kisses? I don't even know if it's cruelty-free. It seems to be something wrong with their web site. But it says on the mini bottle that it is designed in the USA, and made in Korea.


Lani

How I made the multichrome gradient

Hello everyone!

I took some photos when I made the multichrome gradient that you saw in my last post, (before I stamped the leafs over it). So if you're interested in a photo tutorial, just keep reading. I'm not taking credit for the method, I'm just showing you how I did it. I think I learned to use a fan brush from a Cutenails YouTube video, and how to mix the colors with a toothpick before making a gradient from The Nailasaurus. This is an easy and quick way of doing it when you use three polishes or when the polishes are transparent.

1. Apply basecoat, and a black cream nail polish, and top coat. (I chose to use black here, but you can do what you want of course.)

2. When the base is dry, find what you need for the gradient. This is what I used:

3. Put a drop of polish from each bottle on a line, leaving a little space between them (for mixing). (But maybe it was a bad idea to leave space between them...) Use the toothpick to mix two of the colors. I used the other side of the toothpick (or wipe it) to mix the other two colors. This photo is taken after that was done:

4. Dip the fanbrush in a way that picks up all the colors. Because the brush and the line of nail polish was wider than my nail length, I did it like this: I dipped one side first, and wiped up the middle, and then the other side. Then I brushed a few times back and forth on the plastic to make it blend a little, and to get all the nail polish onto the brush.

5. Brush it on one nail from side to side. Then start on 3 again, and do each nail the same way. (I know that the stripes of the fanbrush is visible, but that didn't bother me. If you want to, you can add one more layer.)

6. Then I cleaned up the nail polish around my nails with a flat brush dipped in acetone. (Because one nail was fake, I used acetone- free nail polish remover on that one). I usually take some photos before top coat is added. But I'm just showing one here.

7. Then I applied top coat. If I should stop here, I would have applied cuticle oil too. But I wanted to do some stamping, so I don't think I did. But sometimes, if I have used cuticle oil, I just use a Q-tip dipped in hand sanitizer to get the nails oil free before the stamping. (Not sure if that actually helps... Lol!)

That's it. It was quick and easy. But with cream nail polish I would probably use a sponge. What do you think? If you have good ideas on how to do this better, please tell me in a comment.

Complete list of what I used:

fast drying base coat: IsaDora: #600 Clear
fast drying top coat: Seche Vite
GOSH: Nero (black creme)
Enchanted Polish: Magical Mystery Tour (teal- purple- etc. multichrome)
Enchanted Polish: Hey Jude (green multichrome)
Enchanted Polish: I Am The Walrus (copper multichrome)
fanbrush

toothpick

plastic bag (as palette)

flat brush (for clean- up)

acetone

nail polish remover

egg glass (for the acetone)

cuticle oil: Mi- Ny: Therapy Oil+ Cuticle & Nails With Vitamines E & F

Mi-Ny, Enchanted Polish, Gosh, and IsaDora are not tested on animals. (I have no information about Seche Vite.)

I have a lot of photos of the gradient, but I guess you want to see something else now, so I'll wait a week or something, and show the rest of the photos then. Unlike the photos (with the leafs) in the last post, the ones above are taken before the sun went down.

Lani

Autumn: Leafs over a Multichrome Gradient

Hello everyone!

Sunday's challenge in Adventures In Stamping was "Autumn nails". I was inspired by Deborah from Love. Varnish, chocolate and more..., and wanted to try to make a multichrome gradient too. I used three polishes from Enchanted Polish's "The Imagine Collection" for the gradient, over a black base. Then I top coated and stamped black leafs over it, and top coated again. The leafs are from Messy Mansion's "Rose plate"; MM07. If you want to see a rose mani I made in May when I used MM07, click here. I've also used the leafs from MM07 to help me paint leafs in this cherry mani.

Used:

GOSH: Nero

Gradient:
Enchanted Polish: Magical Mystery Tour (also used here and here)
Enchanted Polish: Hey Jude
Enchanted Polish: I Am The Walrus

Stamping:
Plate: MM07 from Messy Mansion
Stamping polish: Konad: SP Black
XL Stamper set

I used my soft squishy stamper for the first time, and now I understand what everyone was talking about. It's easier to use than my regular stampers, especially for curved nails.

There are no underwater pictures this time, because I had a little accident when coloring my hair. Apparently there was a hole in my glove... My finger has finally got it's skin color back, but it looks like I've done a very bad attempt of brown louboutin nails... Here is one photo taken in daylight after a lot of stress trying to make my finger tip look normal.

All the other photos were taken after it got dark, some in Ott-Lite, some under a fluorescent tube lamp, but most of them under an IKEA LED lamp.

I don't know why my nails always brake when I want to use Enchanted Polish. This time the pinkie nail is fake. It's still so short that it's impossible to cut the other nails to the same length. So maybe I have to use the other hand next month. But at least I've learned that it's easier to show all the colors of a mulitichrome on nails that are curved, than on my natural nails.

These Enchanted Polish multichromes are HTF at the moment. These were bought at Norway Nails, but they are sold out at the moment, so it's not possible for me to link directly. Some of them can be bought on eBay right now, but it's more expensive there. My advice is to find out which online stores that are shipping to your area, and find out when they are restocking Enchanted. You can try Harlow & Co, Norway Nails, and Llarowe. You can also take a look at Enchanted Polish's web site and facebook page.

Other brands also produce multichromes, but I don't know if they are cruelty- free.


Lani

Love Stinks

Hello everyone!

This is a beautiful pink and blue nail polish. The main color is pink, and it has a very fine baby blue glitter (or is it glass fleck?) that shows very well. As you will see on the photos, the polish looks different in different light conditions, especially in the sun and in the shade. It is beautiful in the evening/ low light too.

I also love the name of the nail polish! :-) Love Stinks is made by the US indie brand Crows Toes. It's from Crows Toes' ValenCrows collection, spring 2013. You can read the creator's thoughts about the collection here.

Shade:

Sun:

OttLite?:

Two coats is enough for opacity, but I think it looks even better with 3. I don't know if it was me imagining it, but I think the top coat made it look more glittery. Before that it looked more shiny/ blue. But I think all these photos are taken after 2 coats.

This is a polish that you have to see IRL to understand what it looks like. I must admit that I looked at this bottle online, and wanted to buy it many times, but when I checked swatches, I mistakenly thought it looked very transparent and dull. So I'm very grateful for winning this bottle in the Norway Nails 1000 Facebook Likes Giveaway this summer.

According to Norway Nails, Crows Toes is 3-free and cruelty- free! :-)

Have you tried this brand? Which ones did you buy? I've already tried one more from Crows Toes. I hope to show you the gorgeous Birthday Suit soon. If you are looking for good swatches of Crows Toes polishes, I recommend Crows Toes blog: The Polished Crow or their facebook page.

Thank you Norway Nails for choosing this nail polish for the Mystery Grab Bag that I won! :-)


Lani

Tiger Nails- Tone on tone (green)- Stamping decals- and how I did it

Hello everyone!

"Tone on tone stamping" was the challenge in Adventures In Stamping (AIS) on Sunday two weeks ago, so you might have seen one of the photos on facebook and G+. I was thinking about which color to choose until the last minute. I wanted to try Lime Crime: Pastelchio, so I chose green. And because the challenge was "tone on tone", I could only use different shades of green. I also wanted to try my new stamping plate from MoYou London. It's plate 01 from the Suki Collection. But the tiger head on the thumb is from the Chinese plate that you saw in my Yellow Zebra blog post. I used the stamping decal technique to fill in the stamped images with acrylic paint. This is not perfect, but it's the first time I'm trying this technique. Sadly the base color looks yellow on my PC screen. It looks much better in real life. I used green base color, green stamping polish, and acrylic paint in dark green, green, and green mixed with white to make the gradient and shadows of the tiger pattern. If I should do this again, I would have mixed yellow, white and green for the lightest areas.

After you've seen more photos of this manicure, I'll tell about the stamping decal technique and the tutorials I learned from, and show photos of how I did this.

THE STAMPING DECAL TECHNIQUE:

I learned the stamping decal technique from Messy Mansion (to see it, click here) and from the YouTube tutorial below that is made by crazypolishes:



The video shows how to do it on a flat surface where you apply clear polish, transfer the image onto the clear polish, and then fill in with colors, after it's dry carefully pick up the image, and put it on the nail, and use top coat to make it stick. But in Messy Mansion's picture tutorial, you fill in the image directly on the stamper.


HOW I MADE THIS MANICURE AND WHAT I USED:

I've used both tutorials. I started doing it as shown in the video, but struggled to transfer a good tiger face image with my stamper, so I wanted to try doing it on the stamper. But because I wanted a mirror image, I just put clear polish on the image on the stamper, waited until it was dry, and carefully loosened it from the stamper, so that I could paint the other side of the image. This is the first time I'm trying the stamping decal technique to fill in stamping images with paint. So I learned as I did it. Next time I'll leave more space for the base color.

This plate is so beautiful that I've planned to hang it on the refridgerator, as a girl in AIS has done. The one above is the one from MoYou London, and the one below is the Chineese plate.

Here you see the test stamping to choose the right stamping color to go with the base color. In the frames you can see the stamping decals. Some are fails, some are done, and some are half done. I didn't include my palette, but the "palette knife", small round brush in the glass of water, and the acrylic craft paint.

Trying to make stamping decals

It was strange and fun to see how the top coat kind of made the stamping decal melt (although I had seen it in the video). I cut the decals more, after the part of the image that was outside one of the nails curled, and I had to work very fast to prevent it from ruining the nail art. And I felt a little stupid because I hadn't cut the pen marks off.

I got some bubbles and imperfections, but I hope that will be better next time. I don't know, but maybe the acrylic paint wasn't dry enough, or maybe I applied too much top coat. What do you think?

I had to add a second coat of Seche Vite.

LIME CRIME: PASTELCHIO

I have taken photos of Pastelchio on it's own, but strangely the photos looked very pale on the screen, so I have to do that another day, after checking if the color on my camera or on the screen is correct. I just want to say that it's a beautiful pastel neon green cream that dries matte. I liked it better with top coat. I hope it doesn't look too yellow on your screen. Lime Crime is not tested on animals. I liked this color very much, and regret that I only bought this one. Do you have any Lime Crime polishes to recommend?

The other challenge I had, was that my pinkie nail broke. I tried to stop a 1,5 liter bottle from falling, and the nail broke. I fixed it with super glue, and the tip of my nail was still there the next day. The blood disappeared over night, and it looked pretty good that morning, but it sure hurt during cleanup.

And last but not least, yesterday, when I was writing this, I spilled Pepsi Max over the PC!!! There was only a little left in the glass. So I thought it might be destiny telling me that I need a new screen that is color correct. But after lying upside down on a towel all night, my PC is back from the dead. I must admit that I was scared that it would explode or something when I turned it on, and had to check if that was a possibility before I even tried. So now I feel that I've got a gift, and I understand how much it means to me.

Now I realise that I have written much more than I planned to do. I will try to write less in the next blog post.

Lani