Fingerprints

Fingerprint mani 

- with tutorial!

Black and white ruffian fingerprint manicure. Scroll down for a step by step!

I used Deborah Lippmann Fade to black, as it is pigmented enough to only need 1 coat. Don't worry about small imperfections in this step - most of the plate will be covered up.

Foundf like fomething they would drink in The Big Lebowfki, right? I used 2 coats of OPI Alpine Snow.

Let dry completely before the next step. Use a quick dry top coat if you wish.

Paint some black on tape (or anything that doesn't absorb the polish: ziplock bag, porcelain plate...)

   

The swirling is to ensure that you get the polish into all the nooks and crannies of your fingerprint.

You might want to practice this a few times on paper. The "just right" one is what you want on your nail.

This picture was hard to take. You basically want to press and roll your stamping finger over the nail, like you would a Konad stamp.

Don't forget to clean up the stamping finger as well!

Some additional things: you can of course stamp with any finger you'd like, or one for each corresponding nail. I choose (after experimenting) my index finger, as I have slightly better control comparing to other fingers. The thumb will, naturally, give some better coverage, but I find that you end up working in some difficult angles. The ruffian will take care of the coverage problem, anyway.

Having troubles with the ruffian? There's load of good tutorials on youtube covering that, so I won't go into detail. The gist of it is to paint your nails as usual, but leaving a small gap all around. Practise makes perfect, and this design is very forgiving. 

Products used:

Deborah Lippmann Fade to Black

OPI Alpine Snow

Abstract + Caviar

Abstract greyscale with caviar beads

The last couple of weeks, my computer has been breaking down every time I'm trying to update this blog. It's been a shitty computer from the beginning, Minecraft has never run properly, for example. That's ok. You need a monster computer for that anyways. But, a year ago, I was not able to play Minecraft at all anymore. I was ok with that, and moved back to playing Heroes of Might and Magic III, possibly the greatest game ever made. Then, all of a sudden, I could not even play that. It's from 1998, darn it. It should be ok, I would think. But no. Oh, well. And now, here I am, hoping that I will be able to get through a blog post before my poor computer cracks under the pressure.

Here's hoping, because I've got a neat caviar manicure to show you:

This is a really quick and simple thing to do. Black background, freehand random white stripes, smudge them with your finger, fill in some grey, black and white after a fashion. Add blobs of caviar beads. Done!

Products used:
Deborah Lippmann Fade to Black
OPI Alpine Snow
(Grey is a mix of the two above)
Ciaté Headturner Caviar Beads
Deborah Lippmann Addicted to Speed Topcoat

UPDATE:

As requested, here's a step by step tutorial.

Please excuse the badly focused pictures - you need to be a bit quick for this to work,

and taking pictures between the steps is neither recommended for the quality of the pictures nor for the quality of the manicure...   

Abstract (VI)

Black and White and Pink

For me, meditation could be defined as "to without aim or goal paint nails randomly while watching Game of Thrones for the fourth time". Of course, third, fourth or fifth time doesn't really matter, as long as I don't have to pay attention very closely. The scenes at the Wall are the best for this - it's all just snow and men in black garbs anyway, nothing much that changes between the cuts. Perhaps the white snow covers and black crows still managed to nestle their way into my head for this mani, because black and white was what I ended up with:

 

I couldn't resist embellishing he Robert Motherwellesque abstract background with some pink rhinestones. I really enjoy the contrast between the raw and random black and white pattern with the pink jewels - a thing that otherwise would be too cute for me to stomach.

  

Products used:

China Glaze White on White

Wet n Wild Ebony hates Chris

Rhinestones from Claudia Nail Decorations

Inspired by a textile

The Fox and the Grapes

This freehanded accent nail manicure is inspired by one of my favourite textiles: "Surt sa räven" designed by Kerstin Boulogner and produced by Swedish textile company Almedahls. The Swedish proverb "Surt ,sa räven" ("Sour, said the fox") refer to the fable about the fox and the grapes, though the grapes have been translated into rowan berries in the Swedish version. So, there you have it, tiny foxes and beige rowan berries:

 

Lower left picture courtesy of Almedahls

Products used:

Essie Case Study

China Glaze White on White

Wet n Wild Ebony Hates Chris

Chanel Holiday

Abstract (V)

Greyscale

Made with thinned out polish, a tooth pick and a metal thread:

Products used:

China Glaze White on White

China Glaze Pelican Grey

Isadora Wonder Nail #65: Smoky Grey

Fossil

Rawr.

Inspiration: Carr et al. (2005) (no, not really - more like Spielberg et al. (1993))

Again with the bedazzled pinkie? Yup, that one is staying on until it chips. But at least I have a fossil T-Rex and a ladybug to show you, along with some sparkly Nails Inc. goodness.

One of these days I'll make a ladybug tutorial and take some better pics.

Products used:  

China Glaze White on White

China Glaze Liquid Leather

China Glaze Pool Party

Nails Inc. Bloomsbury Square

Nails Inc. New Burlington Place

Abstract (III)

Two quick tutorials

Inspiration: tutorial requested by reddit user FreeBird69

Again, this is a spin-off of the mani shown below. Tutorial for the ring finger design can be found here. This post will show how to do the middle and pinkie designs.  

Original blogpost

  

Middle finger: Lollipop dots

Start with your base colour. I choose a neon (China Glaze Pool Party), so I painted my nails white first to make the colour pop. Sidenote: as you can see, I'm not ready to part from my ring finger blob design just yet.

Slap some french tips on. I used China Glaze Liquid Leather. There's tons of tricks for making french tips (including but not restricted to taping with hole reinforcements or tape cut to fit, or even stamping). However, I recommend freehand. It's easy enough and practice makes perfect!

Then, I randomly applied some white dots. I used the big end of a regular pin needle and China Glaze White on White which is nicely opaque.

Then use the other end of a pin needle to make tiny black dots in the centre of the white ones. I'm holding my home made dotting tool, but a regular needle of course works just as well.

Use a striper polish or brush to make small tails on the white dots as pictured. I used Depend Art Liner in white. If you like, you can wait until after this step to do the french tips, but as they are more prone and unforgiving to fuckups than the dotting and striping, I prefer it in this order.

Pinkie: geometric design

Start with a white base. I have two coats of ChG White on White.

When the white is completely dry, put a piece of tape vertically down the middle.

Paint black (I have ChG Liquid Leather) and remove the tape. Some like to wait until the polish is a bit dry, some do it at once. I've never had trouble either way so I don't have a preference.

You will end up with a nice geometric design like this (if not, you can easily use stripers to fix it, or hide it in the next step). Let's risk messing this design up in the next step!

I totally gif:ed this for you. If you're using the white striper, start in the white, close to the black, and drag over into the black - and vice versa for the black striper. That way you get nice pinch outs of the lines.

Here's the result.

And Bam!, that's it.

Just to conclude this weekend of 7 manis: in the end I went back to that blobalicious ring finger as the accent:

How McQueenish of me.

Products used:

China Glaze Pool Party

China Glaze Liquid Leather

China Glaze White on White

Depend Art Liner in black and White
China Glaze Pelican Grey
Isadora Wonder Nail 651: Silver Sparkles
Isadora Wonder Nail 65: Smoky Grey

Abstract (II)

Radiating gloopiness

Inspiration: I found this video helpful for the technique

I really liked the ring finger design of my last mani, so I scrapped the others and tried it out as an accent nail:  

I love this mani! The silver (Isadora 651) is gorgeous but hard to show off in pictures.

Quite a few of my fellow redditlaqueristas also had this design as their favorite, so by popular demand and withouth further ado, here's a quick tutorial:  
  

Here's my set up. The needle is a regular pin needle in home made fimo clay casing, but you can use a tooth pick or any other dotting tool. If you want, you can tape your finger beforehand for easy clean up.

Put blobs of polish as pictured. I messed up one of my blobs, but it couldn't matter less for this design.

Wait until your polish blob is a gloopy, stringy mess. I only have two hands, so I had to take this picture on the side.

Now go from blob number one via blob number two and out to the sides and back again. Pick up a gloopy string every time you cross one of your blobs, and continue until you like the design.

Add another blob of polish and a  rhinestone to your focal point. Here, I experimented a bit more with the pinkie and it came out quite arachnoid. My favourite is still the ring finger as the highly contrasting colours show off even the thinnest lines.

A few additional things:

1. Be careful with the clean up process, as the lines can hang freely in the air between the highest point of your nail and cuticle or skin on the side. Make sure they are attached to the nail if you don't want to risk shifting your whole design. You can easily do that by pressing them very gently down, or "cut" them of with acetone to make them fall down.
2. I used an art liner because it is very gloopy in itself, but any polish works if you wait the right amount of time. Experiment!
3. This video (same as linked under inspiration, but I don't want you to miss it!) is helpful.

Products used:

Isadora Wonder Nail 651: Silver Sparkles

China Glaze White on White

Depend Art Liner in black

Abstract (I)

  B/W + neon

Inspiration: oogling Disco Nails and the Illustrated Nail

Five different abstract designs using black, white, neon pink and rhinestones:

Tutorial for ringfinger here, and for middle and pinkie here.

Products used:

China Glaze Liquid Leather

China Glaze White on White

China Glaze Pool Party

Barry M Croc Nail Effect

Depend Art Liner in black and white