Who Doesn't Love Glitter #2?

Another simple glitter gel nail idea. I didn't use powder glitter for this one, I just used Gelish Harmony Water Field over IBD Just Gel color Serendipity.

I love the IDB colors. I only have to do two coats and they go on so smoothly and evenly. The top picture is in artificial light and the one below in natural light.

Have I mentioned lately how much I love gel nail polish? :)

Ombre Tiger Gel Mani Tutorial

I got a little bored the other day and wanted to try the tiger mani with the gel polish. I've done it before with regular polish. You can see those pictures here. That one had white and orange. This time I decided to use neon orange and neon yellow.

What you will need:

• Black polish
• Orange polish
• Yellow polish 
• Glitter accent (I used gold glitter)
• Realllllllly thin nail brush

Step 1: Start by prepping your nails as normal (cut, file cuticles etc). Then put on your base coat (cure base coat if your are doing gel)

Step 2: Now, paint the orange polish 3/4 of the way up your nail starting at the cuticle and going up. **Do not cure yet**

Step 3: Now, using your yellow polish, paint the tip you left uncolored by the yellow, and paint down and just a little over the orange. The gel polish because it doesn't dry by air, will kind of run together. This is why you do not want to cure after you paint the orange on.

Step 4: Now once you have done this to all of your fingers, cure the polish. Repeat step 3. You want two coats to give you that ombre. And again, with the gel, it will blend together mixing, but be careful not to use too much polish.

Step 5: With your nail brush paint black stripes over the nail. Make them thicker on the sides and go outward thinner to look more like tiger stripes. If using the gel, cure the black stripes in the UV lamp.

Step 6: Add glitter over some of the black tiger stripes to accent. Cure if using gel.

Step 7: Top coat (if using gel... you guessed it, cure!) 

Step 8: Go out and show off your cute DIY mani! Go ahead brag that you did it yourself. I give you permission!

Heart and Design Mani

Fun and cute but I smeared the heart! 

I had fun playing with some designs. I got the idea for this manicure from a picture I saw on Pinterest. It didn't turn out perfect but it was a lot of fun.

I didn't take pictures to do a tutorial but it was actually quite simple.

Thumb: Paint nail with the two colors. Don't worry about making the line even because you will just put the gems over it. Once colors are mostly dry place the gems in a line down the nail. See easiest way to apply gems in this post.

Index Finger: Paint all over with the lighter color. With the darker color add a heart. See how to do the hearts in the heart mani tutorial.

Middle Finger: Paint the entire nail with the dark color. Once nail is mostly dry but still a little tacky, apple the gem towards the cuticle of the nail.

Ring Finger: Paint all over with light color. Once light color is dry, paint stripes in different directions. There is no rhyme or reason to this one, just so it looks good.

Pinky: Just like the middle finger, paint the entire nail with the lighter color. Once nail is mostly dry but still a little tacky, apple the gem towards the cuticle of the nail.

Top coat, let dry, and you are done!

**Make sure when you top coat, do two coats on the nails that have the gems.

Another angle, the last pic didn't have the ring finger! Whoops...

Cute Leopard Mani

I'm feeling frisky and ready for another animal print mani!

I used a picture I saw on-line and mocked the idea adding a little of my own touch.

Start by prepping and painting your nails. I used Gelish Harmony Gossip Girl for the pink and use a gold I had for my ring finger and thumb. You want the accent finger to be a little lighter so you will be able to see the leopard design.

Next, using a dotting tool, crate odd shaped circles on your accent nail with the all over color you used on your other nails. So in this cause, use the pink to create the odd shaped dots on the gold.

Now, using the dotting tool again, create little odd shaped "C" shapes around the pink dots. Also, put a random black dot to give it a little accent. It's easier if you put your polish onto a piece of foil and dip the dotting tool onto the foil instead of trying to dip the dotting tool into the bottle of polish.

Now add some accent rhinestones to some of the pink leopard spots by dipping a tooth pick or an orange stick into some clear coat. Open your case of gems, and pick one out with the tip of the stick. Then place the  gem on your nail and top it off with clear coat.

Have fun trying different colors and accents. This is one you can probably do after having a few glasses of wine. My mom and I had a little slumber party and I managed to get a good result after 3 glasses of wine. Mani and wine FTW!

We did this using the gel polish. Please keep in mind if you are trying designs with the gel polish that you need to cure each coat. After we put the all over color on, we cured it in the UV light. Then we did another coat of the all over, cured again. We did the dots with black gel polish, then cured the dots in the UV light. Then we added the gems, and did two coats of the top coat, curing it after every coat.

If you do this with regular polish make sure to let each coat dry in between so you don't have any lumps or bumps.

Striped Dot Nail Tutorial

Striped Dot Manicure

Alright folks, I am back for another fun quick nail tutorial!

This one looks like it may be a little hard but it is actually very easy.

All you need:
- Dotting tool
- Two different color polishes
- Gems for accent

Start by painting your nails your all over color. In this case, I used the Gelish Harmony 'Seafoam'. A nice spring time color. And for the accent we used a black polish.


Next, start by creating a few dots using a dotting tool with a different color from your all over color onto your nail. We chose to put the dots going vertical all the left side of the nail.

Continue creating the dots in a straight line. Try to make each dot the same size. Practice using the dotting tool by putting the color onto some foil and dipping the dotting tool into the polish on the foil and creating dots on the foil. This way you can know how much polish you need on the tool in order to get the size you want on your nail.

Now, finish the rest of your nails, and if you want to add something different, try accenting different nails by placing a rhinestone instead of a dot. Also we created a diagonal line on the thumb to create a different effect.

Have fun with it and try different colors and designs! Thanks to my awesome Mommy for being my hand model on this tutorial :)

We did this using the gel polish. Please keep in mind if you are trying designs with the gel polish that you need to cure each coat. After we put the all over color on, we cured it in the UV light. Then we did another coat of the all over, cured again. We did the dots with black gel polish, then cured the dots in the UV light. Then we added the gems, and did two coats of the top coat, curing it after every coat.

If you do this with regular polish make sure to let each coat dry in between so you don't have any lumps or bumps.

Fun Easter / Spring Nails

Today just a quick tutorial for a great spring or Easter nail. I like this take on an Easter Egg without being too literal about it.

I got this idea from a Pinterest pin, so I cannot claim the creativity on this one. However, I loved it so much I had to try and recreate it.

Start by taking an all over color. Choose something light so that the overlay will show up. I chose Harmony Gelish Seafoam.

After you paint your 1 or 2 coats of an allover color, paint a diagonal line with your thin nail brush with a black.

Fill in the tip of the nail from the diagonal line up with black polish.

Using a dotting tool, make medium sized dots over the black polish.

Use a thin nail brush to create a glitter accent diagonally where the light color meets the black.
Lastly, finish with a top coat!

I will post pictures when I do it next :-( sadly I didn't have my camera while I was doing this.
Enjoy!

This was done with gel nail polish. The base color is
Gelish Harmony Seafoam

Another Cute Wedding Nail Idea

Nude gel polish with glitter accent

So this is another nail idea that you could do for a wedding or wedding party without having to get full on acrylic nails done. This is done with nude gel nail polish with a glitter accent.

Gel nails last longer than regular polish and do not ruin your nails like acrylics do.

I did this one a few weeks ago with the gel polish and it lasted for about 2 weeks. If you are looking for instructions on how to do the gel nails at home on your own, check out my blog post here for that.

Ladybug Nails

I have seen these cute little bugs all over Pinterest and nail blogs for awhile. So today I finally decided to paint these gals on my fingers. I used the instructions found in the DIY Nail Art book by Catherine Rodgers as a baseline, but added my own things here and there.

I started by painting my nails red.

Next drew a line down the center of each nail with black polish.

Then drew a small half circle kind of shape at the base of each nail.

Then, I filled in each half circle with black polish.

I used a dotting tool and dotted the spots on the lady bugs.

Lastly, I used the same dotting tool to add the eyes.

I love the way they turned out! I will be doing these again.

Lady bug nail art

New Book = New Nails!

I got a book for Christmas and I love it! It's called DIY Nail Art. The next day I tried one of the ideas in the book, and I loved it.

I am going to try a lot of the ideas and post them on here. I first want to give credit to the book and the author. 'DIY Nail Art' by Catherine Rodgers. I am not creative enough to come up with some of these on my own so check out her book. You can find it on amazon here.

Here is the first one I tried. It looked like it was going to be super complicated but it was actually very easy. Like the author states in the book, the biggest thing is to ensure you make sure each coat completely dries.

Turned out great! I was having a little trouble with the stripes, but I think that will come with time. I will be trying another one very soon.

Pink Cheetah nails with silver Zebra stripes over black.

Ho Ho Holiday Nails #2

This one was easy. Most of my nail posts are... because I am not too good at this yet and anything super fancy doesn't seem to turn out!

I did red then topped it with gold. Then I did a green tip.

Easy and cute!

I did the red and gold with gel nail polish
then a few days later added the green tips with
regular polish so I could take it off
if I got bored of it.

Easy Holiday Nail

I've been absent for a few weeks. The holidays have been coming and I've been busy. That's not an excuse not to post at least a nail idea.

So here is my easy holiday nail tutorial.

Step 1. Paint all over green.

Step 2. Use scotch tape (nail must be completely dry) and create a diagonal design.

Step 4. Paint red over exposed nail.

Make sure underneath color is completely dry before you put
tape on or it will ruin the effect.

Step 5: Remove tape and paint over with top coat.

I told you it was easy! Happy Holidays!

Cute Wedding Gel Nail Idea

Simple, cute, and elegant. If you want something a little different than french tips, this is a cute idea. Try doing a gel polish for your wedding nail instead of acrylic. That way you won't have to get used to the longer nails, and this can give you a more natural look but give you the lasting chip free protection!

Gelish Harmony color - Princess Tiara with waterfiled on ring finger 

Stripe Tip Manicure

Blue gel with gold stripe

Again with the easy. I like quick and easy but something a little different.

Today I went with a shimmer blue and accented it with a gold stripe. I did do this with the gel polish. You can obviously do it with regular nail polish too, just carefully apply the stripe before your top coat. I would do this while your under coat is still a little wet to help the stripe stick.

Now with the gel polish, a friend and I tried doing it after the cured top coat. We did this thinking that the tacky color layer would cause the manicure to have imperfections etc. But the stripes did not stick well to the cured top coat, so this time I did this after my second coat of cured polish color. I did not spray with alcohol or do a top coat. As the color was still tacky from the color coat the stripes stuck perfectly.

If any of the edges started to come up, I just used my orange stick to put them back in place, then did the top coat over all nails and cured. Worked great!

Blue gel polish with gold stripe

Criss Cross Nails

Really easy and really cute!

OK did a manicure on a friend last night with the gel polish and decided to add a little bling to it. We did a silver ribbon and randomly criss crossed the ribbon on her different nails.

Do your normal color first. then before the top coat add the ribbons. Then top coat and you've got a little extra bling to you manicure!

Thanks Tiffany for being my hand model :)
We left the pinkies plain and crossed the rest. 

Bella's Vampire

For all you gel nail fanatics out there, I had to post my most recent gel manicure. This color was perfect because it's a deep blood red/purplish color and it's almost Halloween! The color is called Bella's Vampire. I have to admit I am a huge Twilight fan, but that's not why I bought the color. I bought it because it's a beautiful color.

It looks almost black in non-natural light. But when you go into the sun, or rooms with lots of natural light you can see the purple color start to come through.

I topped my ring fingers with a gold glitter for accent. If you are wanting instructions on how to do the gel manicure, go here.

Anyway, wanted to post my review on this color. Please excuse my messy cuticles. I was doing this manicure in room that was not well lit, thus I got color on the cuticles which I always try to avoid.

Enjoy!

Gel nail polish, Bella's Vampire topped with Vegas Nights -
Gelish Harmony brand

Easy Candy Corn Nails

In festive fashion, I have decided to post my candy corn nail tutorial. The one thing I don't like about most candy corn nail tutorials is the fact that the tip can get really thick. So I tried this one last October and it worked great. I also added a layer of gold glitter to give this some pizzazz!

This can be done with regular polish or the gel polish. I did mine with the gels. I had a bunch of neon colors, so I used my neon yellow and orange to make it stand out even more.

First things first; prep your nails as needed. (file, cuticle pusher, clip, etc)

Now, start with your base color. Some people like the white by the cuticle, I decided to have white tips to play off the French manicure.

Don't paint all the way up. Just 3/4 the way. I should have left more nail showing than I did. Because I didn't, it caused the white to show the yellow through just a tad. So don't go as far as as I show here.

The reason why I went 3/4 of the way up is so I don't have to do multiple layers of the orange.  This makes it faster and so it's not so thick.

Next stripe your orange. If you paint a stripe horizontal across your nails, it's much easier to get a straight line. It's OK if you get color on your fingertip. Use an orange stick to get anything that runs. Also make sure you don't have too much polish on your brush.



Now, repeat the above step with your last color.

If you want, top with a glitter.

Lastly, paint your top coat.

As you can see, they are not thick at all and super cute! You can do the same thing for the 4th of July with red, white, and blue!

Candy Corn nails with glitter. Easy and festive!

ZOMG! Super cute easy nail polish

I did this the other day and had to post. So cute and easy. Had to share!

Step 1: Paint your base coat.

Step 2: Paint the tip with your accent french tip color. Note: you do not have to have this in a perfect line, we will blend the tip.

Step 3: Take a make up sponge and lightly put polish on the tip of the sponge. Lightly blot and blend the color so you can't see the hard line of the french tip. Repeat step 3 until desired color is achieved.

You don't need a lot of polish on the sponge.
Instead, blot multiple coats.

Step 4: Light paint over the tip and just a little further down from the blending with an accent glitter.

Step 5: Paint with Top coat.

Note: You can do this with the gel polish as I did below, just make sure you cure each time you put any polish on.

You can see on the pinky I didn't blot as many coats and you can see the hard line.
Ensure you blot enough coats so you can blend the line.

Let me show you...

You want to know how to do your own gel nails? Yay! Welcome to my addiction that is nail beautification! First let me congratulate you and say that you are in for a treat. Now let me make sure that you have read my first post on the cheapest ways to go about getting all the supplies you will need to do your nails at home.  If you haven't read it, go read it here.

Let me put my disclaimer in that I am not a certified nail technician and I do not claim to be. I have just tried doing the gel nails at home and have come up with the best way I have found to do them myself. Please read and get yourself educated on the gel nails before you attempt to do this at home. 

Now you've got all your supplies and ready to get your nail on. Lets do this! Lay out everything you will need. UV Lamp, polishes, orange stick, buffer, rubbing alcohol etc.

Step 1: Remove Old Polish First things first, you need to take old polish off. Out with the old in with the new I say! If you have gel polish on you will need to use acetone nail polish remover.

Cuticle pusher

Step 2: Pre-treating Now, pre-treat your nails as needed. If you need to remove cuticles, clip, file, etc. Do all of this first. make sure you use a cuticle pusher to push the cuticles down. Then take a fine grit nail file, and finely buff the top layer of your nails. This is to get rid of all the imperfections and score the nail to allow the gel polish to slick it's way perfectly on top of your nail. You don't need to go crazy just a little file over the whole nail.

Step 3: Wash OK, now go wash your hands you dirty girl. Don't use soap just use water, and if you have a nail brush, you can use that to get all that gunk out from underneath yo finger nails! OK kidding but you really want to make sure you have a nice clean surface.

Step 4: Apply UV Base Coat Apply one coat of your UV base gel. Carefully apply the coat and try not to make the coat too thick. Also, make sure to get the entire nail but not paint onto your fingers at all. I can barely do better than my 2 year old niece coloring in the lines... but if you get a little on your fingers like I always do, use your orange stick and get it off. Cure your base gel in the UV lamp per the instructions of the UV lamp. More powerful wattage UV lamps only need 30 seconds, some that are less wattage require more time. Mine requires 2 minutes. I always try texting with one hand or play doodle jump while waiting to cure. Somewhat difficult for me but at least I don't get bored.

I purchased some Anti UV Gloves to protect my hands while
curing my nails to dry. If you don't do gel nails that often
you don't really need this. If you do them often, this
isn't a bad idea.

 

use orange stick to get off any excess polish 

Step 5: Apply UV Color Now apply your color. When you apply the color  make sure to do nice thin coats. The thicker the coat  the longer it will take to cure and you can get some "waving" on the nail. Also, try to ensure you don't get the polish on your cuticles. I try to make sure I paint the entire nail leaving a itty bitty amount of of color not touching any part of my finger or nail bed. If you get color on the finger or it collects in the cuticles, it will grow out uneven and cause your manicure peel and not to last as long. So if you are like me and get it everywhere, don't despair! Take your handy dandy orange stick and use that to get it off your finger. BTW  my orange stick is not orange it's a wooden little nail tool... I don't know why it's called an orange stick. But they're cheap and work great!

Cure again after putting the color on.

Repeat the color step as much as needed to get the desired color. Thin coats are your best friend with gel polish. Every coat you need to cure in the UV lamp.

"Sealing" the tip of the nail

Step 6: Apply UV Top Coat We are almost done. Apply the top coat using the same cautions I mentioned above. You can follow instructions I know you can! Make sure to "seal" the tips of your nails by applying the top coat to the tip. Then, yep, you guessed it, cure again!



Step 7: Final Wash Take your rubbing alcohol and spritz your nails. Use a cotton ball and wipe off the weird tacky stuff that is left on the nails. I have no idea why it's there or where it comes from, but it's there so mop that nastiness off with the alcohol and cotton ball. There is no need to wait for anything to dry, your nails are cured and hard. Hey now - don't be dirty.. haha hard... anywho, gel nail polish does not need drying time, that's one of my favorite qualities of the gel manicure! Oh and it's magic and it's awesome.

Ta-da! You are done! Oh wait, go wash your hands one last time to ensure cleanliness. No actually, to get all that alcohol off your hands so that way if you operate a motor vehicle and get pulled over you don't get asked if you've consumed a bottle of vodka. OK - now you are done!

                                                        You're welcome!

I used the Harmony Gelish Tiki Tiki Laranga.
I added Harmony Gelish Waterfield over the ring finger for
some extra bedazzlement!