Thermal Valentines nails for #NAILLINKUP

I’ve done a bunch of valentines nails so far this year, but I had to squeeze in another for our February Nail Art Ideas Linkup (more info on N.A.I.L. right here)! To make it sexy for the holiday I wanted to incorporate some red, a thermal heat-activated polish, and some hearts!  The two main polishes I used here are Nicole by OPI Challenge Red-y and Black Sheep Lacquer Enter Sandman.  I also did a white accent nail with a red heart outlined with black dots.  The black dots make it look like a digital 8-bit heart!  I really like it!

The thermal polish that I used over all the red nails, even over the white ones, is a translucent light grey color called Enter Sandman.  It’s a thermal topper by Black Sheep Lacquer which is supposed to transform your base color and give it a black thermal effect.  I didn’t get too much thermal effect in my pics though, sorry.  It’s been so cold here in NY (huge snow storm in effect as I write this)!  However, I did notice more thermal action during my kickboxing class yesterday when I was nice n warm (that’s a nice way of saying ‘dripping with sweat’)!  I love the vampiness of this color combo.  The red Nicole by OPI polish with the indie thermal on top looks really hot!  Even the thermal over the white looks kinda cool!  It has a grey faded newspaper look.

If you wanna see the other valentines manis for the N.A.I.L. Linkup then here are the links.  They’re open for the whole month of feb if you’d like to enter your nails too…

FEBRUARY 2014

Red :

Valentines Day :

Gradient :

Glitter :

Love Shields

Hey did you see that nailpolishcanada.com is doing another nail contest?  😀 The last one I entered was for the holiday season… this one is for v-day, of course!  Nail Polish Canada offers up some wicked prizes so if you are in the U.S. or Canada you should hurry up and check it out (ends on feb 10th 2014)!  A big reason I love entering these contests is cuz it’s so fun to link up with others in the nail art community.  Everyone comes up with such cool designs! Wanna see mine??

The idea for this mani was sparked by my fellow blogger Blimbo247.  She thought my China Glaze border mani from last week made my pointy nails look like little shields.  She was right!   I really liked that concept and it inspired me to come up with this valentines version of a border manicure.  Behold my little love shields!  It’s a very simple design… no crazy nail art this time.  But sometimes a simple mani can have just as much wow factor as a complicated one!  All I used was Nicole by OPI Be Ama-zing (rich pink) and a black striper by L.A. Colors.

You should go check out all the other ladies’ awesome valentines nails and vote for your favorite.  If you’d like to cast a vote for my little shields that would be mighty kind of you. 😉  Here’s the contest gallery link: VDAY NAIL CONTEST.  The voting ballot is at the bottom of the page… just enter your first name, your email (they won’t spam you), and then select your fave nails from the list.  Thanks y’all and happy valentines day!  xoxo Craftynail xoxo

It’s friday night !

Hey everybody !  Happy weekend!  I’m so glad it’s friday night…. woohooo!  I have been a little stressed lately and I thought I’d type up a spam post for fun.  To bring the blogging back to blogging.  How about a conscious stream of random nail stuff???????

I just got some Nicole by OPIs in the mail!  For free.  Well, sorta kinda.  I had to buy 8 boxes of Special K cereal to earn them.  They had a promo here where if you had 3 UPC codes from their cereal boxes you’d get the red polish.  But if you collect 8 UPC codes you get all three bottles (red, blue and pink).  I entered my 8 codes onto their website and then they mailed them right out to me!  I only had 2 Nicole by OPIs in my stash so I’m really glad to have 3 more.  I have well over 300 bottles of polish but I only owned 2 Nicoles?  I know, I don’t get it either.  Here’s the three colors I got:  ♥ Challenge Red-Y, ♥ Pros And Confidence, ♥ Be Ama-Zing!

Nice trio right??  Moving on to valentines day stuff….I was looking through my old pics and I found this cute photoshopped pic of an old valentines manicure.  I used regular stickers on my nails for this design.  The original post is here: Easy Valentines Day Nails.  Lookit my cute little squared off nails!  Awwws! They look so cute and funny compared to my current shape!

I have this MoYou London plate that I haven’t used yet and I wanted to show you! MoYou London sent it to me for review along with a pro plate and a scraper. It’s called Back to the 60’s – 01.  I love all the funky hippie designs on here (it’s so reminiscent of the artistic hippie town that I live in).  Since a lot of the designs on this plate are small and have blank spaces in them- they may be perfect for some diy decals!

The other two items I received for review are posted here.  I must say, the MoYou Large size stamper they sent me is literally the bomb, I use it exclusively now.  I never use my konad stamper anymore.  Someone recently commented on one of my posts that MoYou carries a new grey stamper.  It’s described as XL on their website so I guess it’s bigger than the one I’ve been using.  You can check out their three stampers here: MoYou London NAIL ART TOOLS.

Also, MoYou has been pumping out more new collections …it feels like every week now!  The most recent ones are SCI-FI and SCHOLAR.  They even carry jewelry findings so you can stamp onto jewelry and make your own wearable nail art!  Here’s the link for MoYou’s Stamping Jewellery.  I love this idea and I’ve been thinkin of making my own stamped jewelry now too!  My dad is a woodworker and when he has little scraps of wood sometimes he’ll make me pendants for earring n stuff.  He just surprised me with a pair in fact (see pic below), so I think I’ll give it a go with nail polish! I will def post the results.  OK, I feel extra Craftynail all of sudden!

Well,  that’s all folks.  Enjoy your weekend and talk soon!

Bieber Border Manicure

It’s day 20 of the nail art challenge for April and the theme is border manicure!  When I think about border manis I think, “what two colors work well together?”…  and most times I think out loud.  So my man suggested purple and yellow.  Well, I have a two-pack of Nicole by OPI polishes with those exact two colors!  How perfect is that?

I can think of a lot of young girls that would love this manicure.  WHY? Because these Nicole by OPI shades are inspired by Justin Bieber!  I’m a Belieber is a nice basic purple cream (Bieber’s favorite color is purple) and the yellow is called My Favorite Gold.  I’ve swatched My Favorite Gold before- here’s the post.  It’s a beautiful and bright gold color, but it needs a lot of coats (and preferably some undies too)!!  Next time I try a border mani I will use more opaque colors.  I’m a little embarrassed to say how many coats I’m wearing here!  Even still, I love the final result and how the purple really stands out against the gold.  I think Justin Bieber would be proud! 😀

What shape should your nails be??

I was doing a little research on nail shapes and came across this great article on the Nicole by OPI website!  Check out their chart that explains which nail shape looks best for your fingers and nail bed size.  I didn’t even realize there was a science to it until now!  (You can click either of the above images to read the article from the Nicole by OPI website.)

I would love to have square-shaped nails.  Square is my fave!  But I can’t seem to keep mine square…especially when they are long.  They naturally round a bit on their own (or break!).  The diagram says I should have square nails too- but I think mine might actually be squoval.  Oh well, close enough I suppose!

What shape nails should you have according to the chart?

My Favorite Gold

I haven’t tried this Nicole by OPI shade yet- and I figured it would be a great glitzy color for the 3 day weekend!  I just found out yesterday that I have bronchitis, and now I’m surprisingly really happy!  I have been sick for ten days, so I’m glad to finally have a diagnosis and some meds.  This shiny gold polish is perfect for me today since it matches my good mood.

This shade is called My Favorite Gold and it’s part of the Justin Bieber collection.  This gold is super shiny, glam and is really an eye-catcher.  It’s one of those polishes that really glows!  If I dare venture out of the house today I can imagine getting a lot of compliments on it.  The formula was iffy- it did dry fast, but man- did it need a lot of coats?!  Shown in my pics is 5 coats… and I could almost go for a 6th!  If I turn my hand just right I can still see some visible nail line.  Next time I’ll have to use a white or yellow base coat underneath it.  I also decided to spice up this mani a little bit with some fimo flowers.  Has anyone used these before?  The flowers seem small at first glance, but once I apply them to the nail I realize how big they really are.  They take up way more space than I planned.  I wish they were a bit daintier…. but they’re still fun to use as an embellishment once in a while.

My Favorite Gold came in a two pack along with I’m a Belieber and I noticed a funny typo on the box.  There’s a couple words printed on the packaging- fashion, art and DYI.  DYI?  What’s that?  I think they meant to say DIY!  Hehehe… I love finding random typos.