Bold Gradient Dotticure for #NAILLINKUP

It’s the last week of our April NAIL Linkup and the theme is DOTTICURE.   Yes, it is officially May now… but I’m not too late!  This week’s theme goes til May 4th so you have some time to sneak in a dotticure too.

For this nail art I wanted to go bold and bright and mix together some weird colors. Here’s what I used-

♥ Zoya Dove as my grey base color

♥ OPI I Just Can’t Cope-Acabana sponged onto my tips for a gradient

♥ AVON Coral Reef that I dotted on with a dotting tool

 

It’s an unexpected color combination but I like it.  It feels summery and reminds me of beaches and Ron Jon surf gear.  I have no idea why, I dont even know what Ron Jon is really, but it popped in my head!

This weekend we’ll reveal our May N.A.I.L. themes so keep your eyes peeled for that.  See ya!

28th April – 4th May : Dotticure

The Beauty Buffs- Pastels

New things are happening over here at Craftynail headquarters!  And when I say headquarters I mean-  me, my nails and my computer.  LOL

I’m thrilled to finally tell you this!  I’m now part of a group called The Beauty Buffs!  We’re a wonderfully diverse collection of beauty bloggers brought together by Norelis of Fierce Makeup & Nails.  We will collaborate every other Wednesday to post about our top picks in color trends, nail polishes, makeup, beauty and more.  Our series has a new theme every two weeks and today is our first one… we’re talking about PASTELS!  So who are The Beauty Buffs?   Drop by our blogs and you’ll see all kinds of wicked nail art, swatches, makeup, fashion for all sizes, health, and product reviews.  Make sure to click #TheBeautyBuffs – PASTELS (also at the end of my post) so you can meet the other Buffs.  I know you are going to love our new biweekly series!   Especially you nail art fans out there. So let’s get to it…

Today we’re talking about pastels!  The pastel trend of soft muted colors is ‘a given’ when springtime arrives.  But what about when all the pastels are too sugary sweet for your liking?  Sometimes you feel like Sasha instead of Beyoncé, amiright?  That’s when I like to pair my pastels with a dark color to give them a fiercer look.  Fierce, haha that’s me!  Yup, just ask my boyfriend- he can give you a whole list of words that describe me. 😉

This dotticure is cute and springy, but it also has a little extra kick, don’t ya think?  I love how the muted colors really jump to life against the black.  Here are the polishes I used…

BLACK ♥ Black Onyx by OPI

PURPLE ♥ Charming by Revlon

MINT ♥ Honeydew by Fresh Paint

YELLOW ♥ Mellow Yellow by Sally Hansen

PINK ♥ Bubblegum Pink by Sally Hansen

BLUE ♥ Breezy Blue by Sally Hansen

My dots came out very uniform!  I want to share with you how I did that.  Take a look at my Perfect Pastel Dots Tutorial below.  You can use an unbent bobby pin or like me, I used an inexpensive dotting tool from Amazon….

The key is to start at the base of your nail and make one straight line of dots.  If your middle line of dots is evenly-spaced and straight (like in picture 3) then there’s a good chance that your whole nail will look good!  Then move on to your second line of dots.  You see how my second line started a little lower on the nail in picture 4?  It’s important to make the lines staggered like that … that way your first line of dots is offset from your second.  That’s what makes the polka dots look evenly distributed, kinda like checkers laid out on a checker board.  It’s hard to explain in words so I hope the pictorial demonstrates my technique. 🙂

Thanks for checking in with me today!  I hope you like my dots and that you find my little tutorial useful.  Dotticures were intimidating for me until I got my technique down.  Try this one out!  Then we can all be dot-dot-dotting like mad-women. 😀

Don’t forget to see what the other Beauty Buffs have got goin’ on….

easy bobby pin nails

This post is for all you girls out there that think you could never do your own cute nail art.  It’s easier than you think!  For this fun dot manicure all you need is a few nail polishes, and a bobby pin or two!

♥ Start with a base coat.  I like to use a nail strengthener like Sally Hansen Maximum Growth or OPI Nail Envy.

♥ Then paint all your nails in a solid color.  I like to use the darkest color for this.  It creates a cool 3-d effect later when you add lighter dots over top.  I used a nice medium blue cream as my base color.

♥ Pick a color for your dots and dab a few drops of it onto your work surface (a piece of paper or magazine would work).  Then unbend a bobby pin so it’s sort of straightened out, and then dip the tip of it into your drops of polish.  You’ll use this as your handy dandy dotting tool!

♥ I find it easiest to start by making the middle row of dots first (yellow in my case).  Then I work on building up rows above and below it in complementary colors.  My patterns come out more uniform that way.   You can wipe off your bobby pin in between color changes, or just use a new one if you have a zillion of them.

♥ I like to wait a good ten minutes of dry-time before applying topcoat.  You wouldn’t want to smear your fresh dots!  My favorite topcoat is Seche Vite.  If you’ve never tried it, you need to because it makes your manicure dry in just a few minutes.  It will change your life.. and I really mean it!!

What other household items can you use to make nail art?  I’ve used toothpicks before, but I’m sure there’s a bunch of other cool ideas that I’ve never even thought of!  I’d like to hear what crafty stuff you’ve found around your house!

Day 12 of OMD Challenge- Warm Brown Dotticure

Hey nail fans!  Day 12 of the OMD  Rather Awesome Challenge is DOTS!  For me, dotting is one of the easiest designs to do.  And normally I don’t do a lot of dotticures because I feel like it’s cheating somehow.  I know that doesn’t make any sense at all…. but I guess I feel like they’re so simple I wonder if people will be like, “Come on Crafty, gimme something more original than that!”  That’s dumb, I know.

For today’s dotticure I wanted to go with a brown and pink combo.  I love those colors together- but after rifling through my stash I realized I have like NO browns!!  I have a few shimmery/metallic shades, some nudes and some that are kinda orangey…. but as far as regular old browns- I got nothing.   I feel an online shopping spree in my future!!!!!!!  So instead of brown and pink I dug into the dark recesses of my stash to find a few nice warm brownish colors.  Here’s what I’m wearing:

creamy yellow base color ♥ 2 coats of Zoya Jacqueline 🙂

putty colored dots ♥ OPI Don’t Pretzel My Buttons

brown shimmery dots ♥ Maybelline Ultimate Wear in Tarnished Taupe (this polish is as old as the hills!)

mauve dots ♥ Sally Hansen Teflon Tuff in Wood Violet Cream (another verrry old bottle)

All dots were applied with a large dotting tool from amazon.  What do you think?  And do you have a favorite brown?  I think I need some nice creamy brown shades so lemme know if you have any recommendations!  Thanks!

12. Dots :

OMD Rather Awesome Challenge: Day 2 Blue- Dotted Blue Frenchie

Welcome to day 2 of the Oh Mon Dieu! It’s the Rather Awesome 31 Day Challenge Giveaway!!  The theme of day 2 is BLUE. 😀

First off I’d like to sincerely thank everyone for all the birthday wishes yesterday!  I had such a great day and all your warm comments really helped make the day feel special for me.  So thank you!  Nail bloggers are some of the sweetest and most encouraging people I’ve ever met!  You all are great… thank you for being a part of my life!

 Now that all the mushiness is out of the way 😀 let’s get to my blue design!  I started with one thick coat of a baby blue cream called Take Me To Your Chateau by Color Club.  When that was dry I taped off my tips using painters tape and I applied some dark blue using AVON Forget-Me-Not Blue.  I slowly removed the tape and was pretty impressed with my light and dark blue french mani!  But why stop there?  I then embellished the design with a dotting tool to create more interest.  I really like the monochromatic effect of the two blues in this frenchie- it’s pretty simple but also fun and retro.  I hope you like it. 😀

 I’m geared up to see the other blue manis now!  I really get a kick out of checking the inlinkz for updates!  You can view them here:

 2. Blue :

My interwebz are down but my nails are painted!

It seems like I have been absent on my blog the last few days…. but the real issue is my internet service!  I’ve only had very intermittent internet connectivity in the last week… but don’t worry- I’ve still been painting my nails!  I have been extremely frustrated this week but there is some value to the saying: keep calm and paint your nails!!  If you don’t wanna hear all about my technology woes- then scroll straight down to my nail pics.  But if you want to be a shoulder for me to cry on… then keep reading!

Ya see recently I upgraded my Time Warner cable internet from standard to ULTIMATE!  Sounds great right?  Well, ever since hooking it up we have had a heck of a time connecting our month-old HP Pavilion desktop to the ethernet.  After much troubleshooting we have gotten it to the point where our wireless works fine on our tablet and WiiU console, but the hp desktop will NOT connect via the ethernet.  We have looked for malware and viruses, bought a brand new expensive modem/router, restored the desktop to factory settings, swapped cables, etc…  but to no avail.  I have had time warner internet come out to the house twice and have spent hours and hours on the phone with them and every other company I can think of.  Nothing works and it all seems to boil down to an hp (hardware?) issue.  I have already been on the phone for hours today, so I’m taking a break to update my blog and get the nail art challenge info rolled out.  But my next step is to call hp AGAIN and harass them- I won’t take NO for an answer this time.  I deserve some support since the desktop is new and under warranty.  Every other company I have called in the last week has attempted to help (especially Norton Security… this guy Norman went above and beyond to help me troubleshoot an issue that wasn’t even virus-related).  HP- now it’s your turn to be the hero.  Please don’t let me down this time!   The OMD nail art challenge starts today and I need my interwebz!  And if any of my readers have any recommendations or tips- I would love to hear them!!

Now that I got that off my shoulders- do you wanna see the nails I’ve been wearing the last few days?

Recently I have renewed my love for Zentangle®.  Have you heard of it?  It’s a cool trademarked drawing/doodling technique that is easy to do and is supposed to be relaxing and mentally stimulating.  I just love it!

The Zentangle® Method was created by Rick Roberts and Maria Thomas and is copyrighted. Zentangle® is a registered trademark of Zentangle, Inc. Learn more at zentangle.com or view their blog- http://zentangle.blogspot.com.

I have the Zentangle 5 book which I ordered on Amazon a while ago…and I’ve been reading through it a lot lately.  When I saw the accordian design in my book I thought I could simulate that on my nails with a Sally Hansen nail art pen.  So here’s what I came up with. ↓

And here’s another shot of my zentangle-inspired nail art. ↓

Pretty cool, huh?  It’s sorta shaky looking, but not bad for my first try.  I like how my Sally Hansen Nail Art Pen doesn’t smudge under my topcoat. 🙂  The base color on this mani is gorgeous too!  It’s called Primrose by Funky Fingers.  It’s a pink shade with an amazing lilac duochrome effect.  Other swatches online don’t look as duochrome-y as mine.  Maybe I lucked out with this bottle?  I’m not sure, but my primrose is magical (it dried fast too)!   Here’s a swatch of Funky Fingers Primrose on its own. ↓

Another design I’ve been excited to try is a 4th of July mani!  I had so many great ideas, none of which worked out for some reason.  I really wanted to try a watercolor design that looked like an American flag… but it turned out to be a fail.  So here’s a quick dotticure I threw together instead.  It wasn’t quite good enough to deserve its own Independence Day post… but if I mix it in with my zentangle pics maybe it will seem ok?  LOL!

I also want to mention how happy I am to host The OMD Challenge with Brijit and Eeeek!  It’s going to be a blast.  Who’s joining in this July?  It’s almost time for DAY 1 (which is PINK) !

OMD NAIL ART CHALLENGE IN JULY

Hunger Games Halloween Dots

China Glaze Smoke and Ashes from the Hunger Games collection…. with halloween themed dots!

Use contrasting shades so the dots stand out, even in the shade.

For this simple Halloween mani I painted my nails with China Glaze- Smoke and Ashes from the Hunger Games collection.   Unfortunately, I don’t like the formula of this polish … it is super-thick and goopy.  It didn’t apply well from the get-go…so a couple months ago I added some Seche polish thinner/restorer.  The consistency is much better now!  I applied two coats of Smoke and Ashes and then added a bunch of alternating colored dots!  For orange and white dots I used China Glaze Sun Worshiper and Sally Hansen French White Tip.  For green and purple dots I used Sally Hansen Lickety-Split Lime and Revlon Charming.

My recommendation for dotting success- use opaque polishes so you only need to apply each dot once. By the way, dotting tools are pretty cheap. I just got a set on amazon for $3.99 🙂