DIY Glequins… sorta!

I’ve seen so many cute nail designs online lately using glequins.  (A glequin is a big piece of glitter that’s kinda like a sequin.)  For some reason I haven’t purchased any yet!  I don’t have a lot of beauty supply stores near me so I’d hafta order them online.  Since that hasn’t happened yet- I decided to make my own!  You can too if you have a polish with kinda big glitter pieces in it!

All you do is simply dab some of your glitter polish onto your work surface (glossy paper works great for this technique).  No- I didn’t dab it on my kitteh’s face- this is a cut up piece of a kitty wall calendar (repurposed work surface post). Then grab a toothpick or dotting tool and fish out some of the big pieces of glitter.  It’s as easy as that!  Sure, you waste a few drops of polish… but now you have a bunch of glequins set aside for your cool nail art ideas!

Check out my glequin creation below!  For this design I painted my nails with 2 coats of China Glaze Westside Warrior which is a nice funky army green.  Then I painted two coats of glitter polish on top called Get Carried Away! by China Glaze (but I kept my ring finger plain in preparation of my glequins!)  Then I painted some clear polish on top of my green nail (to make a sticky surface) and I strategically placed my glequins on top using my dotting tool.  Quick, easy and fun! 

What a creative way to make good use of your glitter polishes!  Check out your glitter polish stash- you may have a bottle that would be perfect for DIY glequins!  (When Monkeys Fly by OPI comes to mind!)

Glue as a peel-off base coat and for nail art cleanup!

Have you ever tried using white glue for cleanup when painting your nails?  A few months ago I poured some Elmer’s glue into an old nail polish bottle and now I use this stuff all the time!  Isn’t the sticker I put on there cute?  Are you blue? No, I’m GLUE!  That’s what I say to myself every time I reach for this little bottle of glue that I made!

WHAT I USE GLUE FOR: Elmer’s is also called white craft glue or PVC glue and it can be applied around your nail before you start a messy nail art technique. I paint it on all around my nail and then when I’m done with my nail art I simply peel the glue off that surrounds my nail. Any stray polish that would’ve stained my fingers or cuticles just lifts right off with the dried glue… all in one big peel-y piece. It’s kinda fun to peel off and then you don’t need to use nail polish remover to cleanup around your manicure!  It was super helpful for my SUGAR SPUN MANI since all the messy strands of polish peeled right off of my fingers and left my mani looking clean and crisp.

You can also use this glue as a peel-off base coat for hard-to-remove glitter polish! I’ve only tried it once as a peel-off base coat…but I will definitely use it next time I wear glitter. I love how the glue turns clear when it’s dry. Then you know when you’re ready to start painting over top of it. I wish regular base coat did that!

HOW TO MAKE YOUR OWN BOTTLE: It’s easy to make your own bottle of this stuff! I took an empty nail polish bottle… shown here is my old bottle of seche vite topcoat. To clean the empty out you can pour some nail polish remover/acetone into the bottle (maybe a quarter of the way full) and shake rigorously.  Then pour the remover out and check to see how clean the bottle is.  Repeat this step as necessary- you may need to pour remover in one or two more times to get it clean.  Then rinse the bottle with soapy water and leave it overnight to dry. The next day you can squeeze some white glue into the bottle- then you are ready to play!

For extra fun you can cover the bottle with cute stickers like I did. I used Winnie the Pooh stickers on mine!  Are you blue? No, I’m glue!  It makes me smile every time I reach for this cute bottle!

Have you ever tried glue or peel-off base coat?

Embellished Nail Polish Easter Egg

I love painting easter eggs with nail polish- it’s my new fave spring project!  If you’d like to see my first attempt here’s the link to my other egg.  My first egg was decorated with just nail polish.  But today’s egg has a few other embellishments- fimo clay flowers and beads on top!

I took a few days to complete this egg because I’d paint a section… then wait for it to dry.  Then paint another section and wait for that to dry.  I set the egg on a soda cap while it was drying.  I also added some orange fimo clay nail art flowers and stuck them on with some clear nail polish.

Since I drained my egg before I painted it… it had a nice little whole on top which was perfect to slide a eyepin into (an eyepin is the metal stick that jewelery-makers use to slide beads onto when making drop earrings).  I simply placed two silver beads onto the eyepin and then slid the pin into the whole on the top of my egg.  I secured it with glue so they wouldn’t slip out.  I really like the beaded accent on top- it adds a nice touch and almost makes it look victorian.

I hope you get a chance to do some spring crafts too!  I can’t believe Easter is tomorrow!

In recent news, I have set my blog up on the Bloglovin site!  So if you use Bloglovin to view your favorite blogs- then you can add Craftynail to your list of followed blogs by clicking this link-  Follow my blog on Bloglovin!

If you have not yet setup a Bloglovin account then you can read about it here – I think it’s a great way to view all your favorite sites in one spot!

Copycat: Evanora’s Nails from Oz

2 copycat posts in a row?  I’m really on a roll!  So, I finally went to see that movie Oz the Great and Powerful.  All the hype from the OPI Oz Collection really piqued my interest and I was hoping to see some awesome nails in the movie.  Well, I totally loved it- but suprisingly, there was not much nails to look at.  There were only a few main female characters and Rachel Weisz’ character Evanora was the only one with a real mani!  So today I’m copycatting her!  I found the image of Rachel Weisz here at this source.

The one thing I noticed about her look was the very drab base color.  It was a dull murky grey, but still very sheer.  I think it’s closest dupe would probably be a coat of OPI My Pointe Exactly.  Since I don’t have a sheer polish like that I had to mix one up myself!  I really wish I had a paint palette or something to mix paint on… in the past I have used soda bottle caps.  But since I have none left I used a plastic spoon… which worked fine.  I mixed a sheer topcoat, a grey polish, and an off-white polish and stirred it up with a toothpick.  Then I used an old artist’s paintbrush to paint one coat of this concoction on each of my nails.  The result was pretty good- my basecoat was dismal and eerie.

For the black accents I decided to not use tape since that would make the shape too triangular.  Evanora’s black strips aren’t too exact so I decided to free-hand them.  I used NYC Nail Enamel in Black Lace and a nail art brush.  Then for the dark green/gold sparkly outline I had to mix up another franken in a spoon.  Hmmm maybe I need to buy more polish lol?  I mixed up some China Glaze Smoke and Ashes and Julie G My Private Palace.  I striped that on with a nail art brush along the rim of my black triangle.  I didn’t want to make the sparkle too evident, because honestly, I could barely see the glitter in the movie.  Then I topped it off with a nice thick coat of Seche Vite to give it a smooth and even surface.  Lastly, I buffed all my finished nails with the medium side of a nail buffing square just to tone down the glossiness a bit.

Now I have long and pointy wicked witch claws! Come here my dear… would you like an apple?  Buahahahahahaaaaaa!

While googling for Evanora images I found this simple tutorial by cutepolish.  If you’re tempted to try this creepy look check out here video here.

Copycat: Adele’s Silver Louboutins

I love when celebrities show off their cool nails!  Like Katy Perry, Rhianna, Fergie and of course Adele!  I just love Adele’s Louboutin Nails from last year’s Grammys.  We’ve seen a lot of the black and red Louboutin nails… so I really like how she mixed it up by pairing the red with a glittery silver polish instead.  I will probably never own a pair of Louboutins- so why not try the nails out for a spin? Sure, I’m a year behind…but that won’t stop me.

I found this Adele pic from a seventeen magazine article. You can click on the photo to read the full article.  Seventeen reports that Adele’s nail stylist used Ciaté Paint Pots in “Jewel” and “Mistress” to create this mani.  My stash is not that expansive and I don’t even own one single solitary bottle of Ciaté polish.  So to copycat her look I had to get creative.  Not including top and base coats, I used 6 different polishes for this mani!  I did the red first, and used a few different mini bottles of polish to get the shade right (I loved using the teeny mini brushes for painting the underneath).   I also put some seche vite on top of the red since I wanted to make sure it dried properly.  Then I painted the top of my nails next.  To simulate Ciaté Jewel I did two thin coats of a light purple called Revlon Charming, then a coat of silver holographic polish to make it glow.  Then I topped it off with two different holographic glitters and some seche vite.  I think I have 7 layers of polish on the top of my nails and 5 layers on the underneath!  No one said being beautiful was easy.

I hope the underside of my nails don’t stain too bad.  I used some creamy white Orly Ridge Filler before I painted on the red to help prevent staining.  There was somewhat of a mess with the red, but that was expected.  I used some ‘manicure swabs’ for cleanup which worked pretty well.  Manicure swabs are handy for intricate cleanup because they’re essentially pointed cotton swabs.  So glad I found them at Harmon – they’re perfect for paint jobs like this one.

I’m really enjoying having this mani on!  I think it’s cool to glance down and see my nails painted from every which way!  What do you think of this look?  If you’d like to see my other Louboutin manicure- here’s the link!

How to decorate easter eggs with nail polish!

Lately I’ve seen tons of cool web photos of eggs painted with nail polish.  This little project has Craftynail written all over it!  It combines two of my favorite things- easter eggs and nail polish.  I am like a little kid at easter time!  I still color eggs every year even though I am 35 yrs old and I don’t even have children yet (I know, I need to get movin on that)! 

HOW TO DRAIN AN EGG- Use a sharp craft knife, a sewing needle or anything sharp.  I used a heavy duty safety pin.  Basically, you hold the pin over the top of the egg (cradling the egg in your hand as to evenly distribute pressure on it) and then tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap a bunch of times until one small hole breaks the shell.  You can stick the pin in and softly move it around to make the hole a little bigger.  Then do the same technique on the bottom of the egg.  Try to make the bottom hole a little bigger than the top hole.  Once it has two holes- then you can position your mouth over the top hole and carefully blow the liquid egg out of the large bottom hole.  I’ve heard that this part can be tricky. ( I cheated a little because I found a damaged egg in my dozen that already had a decent-sized hole/crack in the bottom.)

LET THE EGG DRY- Rinse your egg out with some water and then set it somewhere to dry.  This was the hardest part for me since I wanted to paint it ASAP!  I waited about two days and it seemed nice n dry since no water dripped out when I rotated the egg around.

HOW TO PAINT YOUR EGG- My egg was brown so I chose dense/opaque polish.  The easiest way for me was to hold the egg on the bottom, and paint the top section with nail polish.  Then I set the egg down and let it dry for a half hour or so.  Once the polish seemed dryish, then I grasped the egg on that painted part and began painting the rest of the bare egg. I’m sure there’s a way to do it all at once, but after smudging it and getting polish all over the pads of my fingers I decided to let half of it dry first.  Patience is a virtue!

EMBELLISHMENTS- I chose not to embellish my first attempt.  I’m sure you could jazz your egg up in a million different ways though- konad nail stamping, rhinestones, stripers, etc.  Next time I really want to glue on some tiny beads or loose glitter!  You could also put a topcoat on if you choose.  I considered applying a layer of laminating glue to make it nice n shiny.  But the glue bottle says it takes 24hrs to dry- and ain’t nobody got time for that!

DISPLAY- I placed my egg on a tealight candle holder which seems to cradle the egg nicely.  Or you could cutup and decorate a toilet paper roll as an egg holder.   My pretty egg is now on display by my nail polish stash.  I get to admire my eggy artwork everyday now!

 I can’t wait to try this project again!  Oh, and in case you’re wondering- I’m wearing Orly Coffee Break on my nails! Or as we say in New York- Cawfee Break.  Got the urge to see more nail polish eggs?  Check out the Small Things Made Significant blog… she has created several awesome posts with pretty eggs. 😀

CLICK HERE TO SEE MY OTHER EGG CREATION!

Repurposed Work Surface for Nail Art

If you’re anything like me- then you hate throwing out your cool wall calendars when the year comes to end!  I usually have several calendars hanging up throughout my house and they’re filled with beautiful pics of animals, landscapes or whatever, and I never have the guts to toss them out.  So I save them to use as a work surface for my nail art!

♥I cut the pretty pics into rectangles and keep a stack of them with my nail supplies.

♥When I need a work surface for nail art I pull one out and it works great to protect my counter.  They’re perfect to slap some polish down on if you plan to do some dots with a dotting tool.

♥Acrylic paint or nail polish does not soak through the surface since calendars are usually made from thick glossy paper.

♥The pretty pictures make you smile when you get ready to paint your nails!

This is a silly little tip- but it’s one of the crafty ways that I re-use and recycle! What kind of surface do you lay down when you do nail art?