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, again

Fashion mold

Random blebs of colour seems to be my favourite design. This one reminds me a bit of mold (an old yoghurt way back in the fridge? I can't be the only one to keep forgetting those). "Eeeew", you might say. "Oh, no", I'll answer, "it's fashionable mold".

 

I really should throw that yoghurt out.

Products used:  
OPI Alpine Snow
Zoya Rica
A homebrew experiment
...and mixes of the two latter

Marimekko (III)

Inspired by Marimekko

I recently purchased OPI Alpine Snow, which is the first ever decent white polish I've owned. This one actually goes on smooth and is opaque in two layers (one, if you spread it on thick, which personally I try not to do). I used to feel a resistance against designs with a white base, but that's over now. Hooray for OPI!

Here's an accent nail design that is loosely inspired by a Marimekko bag. I say loosely as I didn't have a picture of the bag in front of me while painting this. It's freehand with a bag in the back of my mind.

Products used:
OPI Alpine Snow
Nubar Hot Yellow
Wet n Wild Ebony Hates Chris
Deborah Lippmann Addicted to Speed Top Coat

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

Hand-placed glitter (I)

Treasure chest

I recently bought some loose glitter to be able to try my hand at placing small glitter pieces one by one. It must be said that Polish All the Nails is the queen of this method, obviously having a steady hand and a cornucopia of patience to cover all her nails in mosaics and, as she often calls it, mermaid scales of glitter. Now, I wasn't about to let my first try be a 7 hour sitting, especially not as I have a cold and the risk of sneezing glitter all over the kitchen table is quite high. Glitter is, after all, the chlamydia of crafts. So I decided to just try the method out and see where it would take me.

 Apparently, my mind found itself wandering into the pirate treasure chest domain.The picture doesn't show it off very well, but there's two layers of the fabulous gold glitter that is Deborah Lippmanns Boom Boom Pow underneath the hand-placed glitter. It really gives of a vibe of a chest full of ducats, disseminated precious gems and a necklace of rubys. The grey background helps to make it not over-the-top pirate booty, which of course could be achieved with a gold[glitter] background if one would wish.  

Placing the glitter was a lot quicker than I thought. But then again I kind of work with these things - moving crystals of a couple of tens microns around under a microscope. The layers of polish underneath (two layers of Deborah Lippmann Waking up in Vegas, two of Boom Boom Pow) were so thick and thus slowly hardening that I could place all glitters before they had really hardened, instead of constantly having to add more topcoat. All in all, a very meditative process and a result I enjoyed wearing.  

  

Products used:

Deborah Lippmann Waking up in Vegas

Deborah Lippmann Boom Boom Pow

Loose glitter 

Depend Topcoat

Robson et al., 2012

Sophy Robson for Houses of Holland

Sophy Robson, the queen of nails and monarch of manicures, have a silly amount of impressive nail designs on her conscience. One of the many manis are my all time favourite multi-coloured design she did for Daphne Guinness, which you by all means should check out here.

Anyhow, earlier this fall miss Robson made an intriguing neon tie-dye design for Houses of Holland. And to continue with the good news, she released a video tutorial for it! You can see it here.

So, for this mani, I tried following her tutorial. After a few hours with that mani, I could resist to add some glitter in the form of dots and an accent nail.

Products used:
China Glaze Pool Party

Nails Inc Chelsea Embankment

Nails Inc Chelsea Square

Nubar Hot Yellow 
Depend #035

Dior Blue Denim
China Glaze For Audrey