the first of my valentines nails!

This will be my first valentines manicure for 2014! After I got my manicure station setup in my house last weekend, i sat down to do my very first mani there. I wanted to do something bright and busy! I didn’t have a plan…I just picked some vday colors and went to it…

Here are the colors I used:
white- OPI Alpine Snow
black- China Glaze Liquid Leather
light pink- Zoya Sweet
bright pink- Zoya Ali
red- Zoya Carmen

In my last pic you can see I did the left and right hands a little differently.  I ended up really liking the solid nails with one little heart on top.  I will be doing that again soon I think.

I did all this with just a dotting tool. Oh, and the five different nail polishes too. Lotsa dots and hearts, huh?!! The ladies at my eye doctors office flipped over them. I was secretly très proud of myself! hehe. People are always shocked that you can do designs like this by yourself, without having to visit a salon. But honestly, you can do all this with just a bobby pin.  A little practice doesn’t hurt either. You can even practice on paper!  If you never have, go ahead and try some fun stuff with dots! You may surprise yourself. 😉

Are you looking forward to all the vday nail art too?

Easy Watercolor Nail Art Tutorial

Ok, this is one of my faves!! It’s easy peasy lemon squeezey and gives such an awesome effect!!  Like an artist’s palette!

Step 1 ♥ Paint all your nails white and wait for it to dry.  I know, waiting is hard….so you can use a quick dry topcoat to speed it up if you’d like.

Step 2 ♥ Dab some nail polish onto your 1st white nail using the regular nail polish brush from your bottle- no special tools required!   I used 5 colors and just splotched it on kinda thick and did not overlap the colors.  Just apply enough splotches of color to cover the nail.  I probably did about 7 splotches on my nail.  Some colors I dabbed on once, others I dabbed on twice.  It’s all random and quick and easy.

Step 3 ♥ Take a small piece of saran wrap, plastic wrapper or whatever (I used small snack baggies cut into thirds) and place it over your wet nail.  You can either pull down on the plastic wrap (almost as if you were wrapping your fingertips tightly with the plastic wrap), or simply press down on top of the plastic.  Either way, you will get the same effect- the dabs of polish will get smooshed by the pressure and when you pull the plastic off you will have a beautiful watercolor effect!!  Here’s what my plastic looked like when I pulled it off my nail.

Step 4 ♥  Repeat step 3 to color your other nails. Make sure to do one nail at a time since you want the polish wet when you apply the plastic.

Step 5 ♥  Clean up around your cuticles if the nail polish bled onto your skin at all.  And then topcoat your nails with clear polish to lock in your watercolor nails.

And that’s it!!!  How lovely (and simple!) is this nail design?  It’s perfect for spring!

yellow → AVON Inspire

pink → Zoya Sweet

blue → Sephora by OPI Natural Environ-mint

green → NYC Tudor City teal

purple → Sephora by OPI It’s Hippo To Be Square

Decorate your nails with tin foil!

It’s metallic day in the nail art challenge.  When I heard the term metallic– I thought about aluminum foil!  Why not?  I’m sure I can decorate my nails with that stuff!

I used one of those paper-punches (the ones designed for decorative paper crafts).  I think I got it at Michael’s Crafts Store in the $1 bins by the registers.  I used the paper punch on the tin foil and out popped a cute flower shape!  I painted my nails pink, applied a topcoat, then placed my flowers to my tacky nails. When they dried a little bit I pushed down any foil pieces that were sticking up and applied topcoat to seal them down.  Pretty cute and easy!  Oh and the pink polish I’m wearing in these photos is called Sweet by Zoya. 🙂 I also want to let you know that I’m out of town at a work conference right now. So plz forgive me if I don’t comment back right away. I am super busy all day with sitting… then eating… sitting …then eating lol! Luckily I had this post ready before I left town. Now, tomorrow’s gradient design for day 26, now that’s a different story! Not sure when I will have the chance to do that one! But, I hope you like my tin foil… and keep the comments coming! It makes me smile in between my financial aid sessions! Ciao 🙂