I decided to try entering an ongoing nail art contest at http://www.trendyprincess.com/, and see if I could win some nail art supplies. I came up with this simple little design using rhinestones I bought from that site, since they want pictures of artwork using their products. My manicure obviously isn’t perfect by any means, so I’m not sure if I’ll even be in the running, but we’ll see. It was fun to play around with, anyways, and the contest is a monthly one, so I can enter again later if I want. I think it looks elegant, though I’m not sure how the bows are going to hold up, since my nails are naturally quite rounded, and the edges of the bows are not adhered to the polish surface. Surprisingly, they haven't gotten snagged on things like I was sure they would - even doing the dishes, laundry and such. I did put a nice thick layer of top coat over them though, and while it etched the big bows somewhat, it left the teardrops sparkly.What I used:
1 coat OPI base coat
2 coats OPI Russian to a Party
1 coat OPI top coat for rhinestones
Bow tie and tear drop rhinestones
1 coat OPI top coat to set design
Qtica Half-Time drops (they’re magical, I tell ya!)
I think I’m getting better at taking pictures (not "good" just yet, but better). I think I just need to stop trying to take them at night, and take them in natural daylight instead. I’ll do that next time, and see how it turns out.I have some time this coming weekend for trying out the Nail Art Diva machine again - this time, I'll let my nails dry completely before messing with it, and see if I can't do some nice stamped art for next week. Cross your fingers!
So I went with ultra simple this week – as you can see. A stripe of silver and a light blue rhinestone in the center of each nail, to match this gorgeous blue polish I got last week from Zoya. My only complaint is that the Zoya Armor topcoat etched the top of the rhinestone, making it opaque instead of all sparkly like it started out! Memo to self – use OPI topcoat to set rhinestones on Zoya polish…
I got a few more new polishes last week, and an OPI pig from EightyEight Beauty Supply! How fun is that – pictures of her next week (fitting too - I do love my OPI)! OPI is half the price from there, so I’ll definitely be ordering more from them in the future. I also got my order from TrendyPrincess.com last week – rhinestones, a box to keep them in, and a little tool to pick them up with that came in very handy when doing my nails this week. She also sent some fun extras that I will have to play with later – some extra bow-shaped rhinestones, gold glitter, and pink hearts. Fun! I put links in the Nail Art section for the companies I’ve been buying from, if anyone is interested. I don’t get any kickbacks or anything, but I’m finding that it really is cheaper to buy polish and supplies online.
First, a coat of the Snow Me White to create a white opaque base. Sinful polish is thick, so it was streaky going on, but with the pearlized finish going over the top, I didn’t worry about it.
Next, a coat of Tokyo Pearl to make the shirt finish more satiny. Yes, I know, I make a huge mess of my fingers when I’m polishing them. My secret is, I do them at night, then in the morning, I let the shower soften up the skin and polish on my cuticles, and pull/push the polish off my skin with a plastic orange stick I keep in the shower just for that purpose. Voila, nice looking manicure.
Next, French chevron tips in Black on Black. I don’t use a guide or anything, I just start at the side of my nail where the tip extends out from my fingertip, and brush it on diagonally out to the tip. I repeat on the other side, and then fill in any missed areas. I did have a little trouble with the thick nature of the polish, which is why I didn’t do dress fronts on some fingers too – too difficult to control curved lines with this polish.
Then I did the bowties with my black StripeRite polish. I should have taken a picture of the brush – it’s very long, and skinny, perfect for drawing lines. And that’s just what I did to make the bowties. I drew a small elongated “x” at the base of each fingernail, then filled it in with lines inside those one at a time. You can see in the finished picture that they aren’t the neatest lines ever, but they aren’t too bad.
After that, time for the buttons. I waited to do the buttons last, so that I could use them to “straighten” the lines between the “jacket” and the bowtie. I just brushed a little Black on Black onto a piece of plastic, then used my dot tool (toothpick works too) to make three dots on each nail. That gives the illusion of a straight line in most places.
After all the main art dried, I brushed a coat of topcoat over each nail, placing a rhinestone in the center of the bowtie as I went along. I let that sit for a few minutes, then put one more thicker coat of topcoat over the whole thing to set it.
