Picture Dump (I)

Just a bunch of pictures

Here's a few more or less successful manis from the last few weeks. I haven't gotten around to post them before due to either laziness or crappy quality of picture and/or nails. So please excuse any stray polish on cuticles (eh, eponychium, to be correct), hang nails, annoying instagram filters, etc... Instagram filters are, by the way, a guilty pleasure of mine. But you should know that I try use them to show of the colours as close to how they look in real life as possible.

I really like the ring and little finger here. They remind me of poison frogs!

Water marble on my nephew Jack.

Hey, I meant them to be uneven!

Ooh, I liked this one. Colour themed and with some bare nail on the middle finger.

A variation of this mani. I loved the other version, but this came out a bit too cute and bridal for me.

This is probably the kind of mani I've worn most in my life. It's quick and simple to make, and it shows of some bare nail which I've always been partial to.

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

Indie Polish (I)

 Spottie Dottie from All That Glitters

Inspiration: gradients á la Layniefingers

Last week I purchased my first ever indie polish - Spottie Dottie Dark from All That Glitters, an all black glitter with small and large hexagons and bars. I love it on top of everything I've tried so far - but the gradient is by far my favourite. My only regret is not getting the white version as well!

On top of gradient and flakies (Essie Chinchilly -> Chanel Holiday + Sephora purple jewelry)

On top of taping (Essie Case Study and China Glaze For Audrey)

On top of french tipped manicure (Nubar Hot Yellow and China Glaze Liquid Leather)

Geometric (I)

Geometric nails 

Inspiration: other geometric designs, for example this 

Not much to say about this one - just a geometric design made with scotch tape. The colours are Essie Case Study, China Glaze Liquid Leather and China Glaze For Audrey.

 

Note: the colours are a bit more vivid in reality than in the picture.