Cutesy Easter Nails

Posted in Easter, Matte, Nail Art, Nails by Craftynail

I’m wearing a silly little Easter mani today! I decorated my nails like easter eggs and then painted a little newborn chick on my accent nail. I used a matte topcoat too since I’ve been in love with that stuff lately! Now is it just me… or does my chickee look like he’s scared as he stares at the brown egg I’m holding? Poor little dude- maybe all the nail polish fumes got to him. 😦
Here’s the list of products I used…

white base ♥ wet n wild wild shine in French White Crème

pink accents ♥ Dance Baby by China Glaze

blue accents ♥ Natural Environ-mint by Sephora by OPI

yellow accents ♥ Yellow Kitty by Sally Hansen

chickadee ♥ Folk Art acrylic paint

3Mar2013

Morning Burst

Posted in China Glaze, Dotting, Inspiration, Nail Art, Nails, Sally Hansen by Craftynail

I’m calling this manicure Morning Burst because it was inspired by my Clean & Clear facial wash that I use every morning. How corny is that lol? Sometimes we find inspiration in the strangest places. My orange and yellow pump bottle of Morning Burst has a cute dotted sunburst design on it and I wanted to simulate that. I changed up the color combo a bit as you can see- I wanted an excuse to use a bunch of my favorite polishes all at once!

I enjoy dotting designs because they seem less intimidating than free-hand painting. I’m always afraid that my free-hand work will come out like crap. Keep in mind that I live with a man that could arguably be one of the most talented painters in the US today… so I might have a slight inferiority complex or something. I stuck to dotting tools for this design and I think it came out cute! I will probably take it off before I head back to work tomorrow though. It is a little crazy- and there’s just so many colors in here that I doubt I will find a coordinating outfit lol! Here’s a list of the polishes I used …

GREEN ♥ China Glaze Westside Warrior

YELLOW ♥ Sally Hansen Yellow Kitty

PINK ♥ China Glaze Dance Baby

NAVY ♥ China Glaze First Mate

20Feb2013

Ruffle Nail Art

Posted in China Glaze, Dotting, Matte, Nail Art, Nails, OPI, Orly, Revlon, Ruffle, Tutorial, wet n wild by Craftynail

I’m so excited about this nail art technique called Ruffle Nails! Every nail fanatic needs to try this- it’s easy and has lots of wow factor. All you need to do is grab your favorite polish shades and a dotting tool (or bobby pins) to make some over-lapping rows of dots (it helps to use the largest tool you can find so the dots aren’t too small). If you’d like to see a step-by step tutorial here’s a great one by Chalkboard Nails. Now that I’ve discovered ruffles- I’ve got all these ideas swimming around in my head- neon ruffles, rainbow ruffles, black n white ruffles… I want to try them all!

My first attempt came out much so better than I expected! I casually worked on this design while sitting on the couch and I honestly didn’t try too hard. I figured I’d end up taking it off with polish remover and then give it a real go later. Well, I couldn’t believe how cute my test mani came out so I took some pics! I used some of my favorite green and purple polishes here… and I think the matte topcoat really pulled it together nicely. The variety of colors and the satin finish made my fingertips look like fimo clay! ↓

I went with a cool color combo of blue, pink and grey for my second design. ↓

One thing I like about the ruffle technique is that it’s so easy, you can even do a great job on your ‘other’ hand! I’m right-handed so my left hand nail art usually looks good, and my right-hand comes out how should I say… non-photogenic? LOL. Well, not with ruffles! Try it out for yourself and let me know your results!

♥ Mood struck polish as my base (teal)