Showing posts with label gradient. Show all posts
Showing posts with label gradient. Show all posts

Friday, February 13, 2015

Heart to Heart - Valentine's Day Nail Art

Nothing to DisclosePress Sample

It's here again. The day that is highly anticipated by some but extremely dreaded by most... The day that roses double in price... the day of hearts 'n shit. You guessed it, it's V-day. This will be my first year without the chalky deliciousness of conversation hearts increasing my dentist bills, and I must admit, I'm a little sad about it! But, I have two of the best Valentine's Day dates a gal could hope for...one has 4 legs and wears a nice fur coat, and the other just has two furry legs. No big plans for the day, mostly working, and relaxing a bit afterward.

I decided to try the Cut It Out Lovely Magic nail vinyls from Serum No 5 for this design. First, I used a rainbow of colors to create the brushed gradient up the center of the nail. Once that dried, I used the  stacked hearts vinyl over the gradient, then brushed on a coat of white polish. Before the white polish dried, I removed the nail vinyl, which left a clean heart outline! I totally love how these turned out, I'm such a sucker for a rainbow gradient!





I used:

Red: American Apparel Downtown L.A.
Orange: Zoya Paz
Yellow: American Apparel Sunshine State
Green: CND Green Scene
Blue: American Apparel Mount Royal
Purple: China Glaze Everglaze Don't Grape About It
White: Zoya Purity

Serum No 5 Cut It Out Lovely Magic nail vinyls

Topcoat: KB Shimmer Clearly on Top quick dry topcoat

Disclosure: Some products in this post were provided for review by the manufacturer. (Serum No 5 & KB Shimmer) See the legal page disclosure for more information.

Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Martian Molecules


Ever had one of those days where you start with one idea, and end up with something else? This is definitely one of those days. I started off with an ombre ombre! (Meaning that I did an ombre on each nail, and an ombre across the hand!) Now don't get me wrong, I totally liked how it looked, but I felt like it was missing something...so out came the teal. I'm not sure where this design came from in the depths of my brain, but it looks like some sort of alien DNA or space molecule structures or something. (Hence the post name) :-P

I'll be honest, I did that snazzy technique for doing sponge gradients, but this one was a bugger. The green wasn't quite opaque enough over the cream, so I had to go over and over and over and over it. (and over it again one more time) I DO like this idea of an ombre ombre though. :-D (plus it's fun to say)


I used:

Cream: American Apparel Cotton
Dark Green: American Apparel Hunter
Medium Green: Zoya Shawn
Light Green: Zoya Shawn mixed with American Apparel Cotton
Teal: American Apparel Peacock
Topcoat: Seche Vite

Sunday, July 15, 2012

50 Shades of...


...grey?  more like 9. (At least in this manicure)

No, I haven't joined the 50 Shades of Grey craze, and am still undecided whether I want to bother. I hear good stuff and bad stuff, but more people that hate the series than people that love the series. I know that eventually, like all the other 'crazes', I'll end up reading them out of sheer curiosity. (Twilight, I'm looking at you) I'm so weak. WEAK. Why can't there be a craze over historic biographies? or maybe books full of bread recipes? I'd be on top of that shit. (I'd be a total book hipster and love that shiz before it went 'mainstream', ya know?)

Anyway, I digress. This manicure is dotting tool-riffic. As in, besides the base coat and cleaning up my cuticles, it's the only tool I used. I wanted to do a dot gradient manicure, and I originally planned to do it in color, but decided to scale it down... grayscale, that is. I figured after my Jagger-icure, I should do something a bit easier. Surprisingly, though technically 'easier', this took far more time than ole Mick. Funny how that works out, right?

What do you think- do you like seeing simpler manicures on here from time to time? Sometimes I feel 'weird' doing that, because I've set a precedent of doing wacky, weird, and detailed stuff for so long. Let me know, because I'm curious what you guys think!


I used (from lightest to darkest):

Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear White On!
butter LONDON Billy No Mates
Zoya Dove
Orly Mirror, Mirror
FingerPaints Stunning Stilettos
Barielle U Concrete Me
American Apparel Factory Grey
Nubar Stronghold
American Apparel Hassid

Seche Vite topcoat