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….

Ten Minute Tie Dye Nails

Ten minute nail art?  How cool is that?  I whipped these babies together in no time!  I did a base coat or Orly Ridge Filler… then I painted four different strips of bright colors.  I just sort of glopped them on very thick and messy.  Then I dragged a dotting tool through them to create the tie dye effect.  It would probably look nice with a bright white base coat- but I was going for quick and easy today so I skipped that part.  For such a ‘quick n dirty’ technique it came out pretty cool I think.  This could be a great option for some quick summertime nail art!

Have you ever tried tie dye nails?  I imagine that there’s a lot of different tie dye techniques out there!

Yellow ♥ China Glaze Yellow Polka Dot Bikini

Orange ♥ China Glaze Sun Worshiper

Pink ♥ OPI Elephantastic Pink

Teal ♥ wet n wild I Need a Refresh-Mint

French Flowers

It’s the last day of the Nail Art Challenge.  Boohooie!  Before I joined the challenge I was thinking oh no.. will I be able to commit to 30 straight days of nail art!?  It sounded like so much work.  But now that the 30 days are up… I can’t believe how fast it went!  I was able to really immerse myself in nail art and I tried so many cool techniques that I’ve been wanting to try for so long! Julie picked some really cool themes and it was a blast.  One of my own favorite designs is probably my AriZona Iced Tea Nails.  AriZona recently posted it on their facebook page and my blog stats have blown up today!  Pretty cool I think. 🙂

Moving on to my very last mani from the challenge!  Day 30’s theme is RECREATE YOUR FAVORITE MANICURE.  I chose Brijit’s manicure to recreate:  Isn’t hers cute?  Brijit’s mani was in turn inspired by PSHIIIT.  Pshiiit made the cutest little GIF to show you how easy it is to paint these flowers: nail art fleuri.  I named my copycat of their manis FRENCH FLOWERS because both Brijit and Pshiiit are French bloggers!

My base color is Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Blue Me Away!  My petals are a light blue by NYC called Skyline Blue.  The silver accents were made with NYC Tribeca Silver.  I like the way it looks in real life- but so hard to photograph!

A final thank you for following me on this challenge!  I loved all the likes and comments- it really kept me going throughout the 30 days!  See you next time when poor Craftynail will have to come up with ideas on her own! lol

Summery Pink Panels

Today is PINK  DAY as part of the 30 Day Nail Challenge.  I created a nail art design I’ll call pink panels using only a dotting tool .  I started with two coats of Orly Kiss The Bride– which is pretty watery and streaky.  If I was wearing Kiss the Bride on it’s own then I would definitely have needed three coats.  Then I selected the following three pink polishes for my panels/squares:

OPI ♥ Elephantistic Pink

Zoya ♥ Ali

China Glaze ♥ Dance Baby

I used my smallest dotting tool to shape the squares.  I got pretty good control and clean corners from using that tool-  I’m sure I woulda muffed it up if I used a paintbrush!  This design was pretty easy to do, but a little time consuming.  I’d say the squares took me about an hour from start to finish.  I like the outcome and how the Zoya Ali looks like so bright against the other pinks!  I didn’t realize how neon Ali is- I will definitely be wearing it this summer!

Now I’m inspired to try this look with green polishes – I bet it would look like a tortoise shell 🙂

Morning Burst

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

purple dream giveaway entry

I’m entering a polish giveaway that Luchessa is offering!  Her blog post entitled New Purple Dream Giveaway explains it all.  Basically to enter the contest I must post a purple nail design … and on Jan 21st the random winner will be announced.  Thank you to Luchessa for the chance to win!  Here’s the purple design I came up with….

I enjoyed using all purple polishes!  Who doesn’t love purple?  In real life this mani sorta has a 70’s free-love hippie feel.  Here’s the colors I used along with a makeup sponge and a dotting tool:

♥ OPI- Dutch ‘Ya Just Love OPI? as the base

♥ Sephora by OPI- It’s Hippo To Be Square for the sponged area

♥ Wet n Wild Megalast- Through the Grapevine as the flower petals

♥ Sephora by OPI- I Don’t Bite as the center of the flower

Good luck to all the other entrants!