Little Twin Stars-Paper Tape Nail Art

Wow, I can't believe half the year has gone since my last post... :P  In a way a lot has been going on, but in some ways not, and I was just not in the mood/creative state of mind...

A couple months back, I was at a Japanese-y stationery store, and I found some cute paper tape that looks like newspaper. So, I thought it would be nice to re-do my "rose bouquet wrapped in newspaper" nail art that I did a while ago here.

For those who don't know what "paper tape" is, it's actually called "Washi Tape" (which literally means "Japanese Paper Tape"), and it's mainly used for gift wrap or decoration. The stickiness isn't that strong, so it's easy to remove and re-position. That being said, it has its pros and cons for nail art.

Anyway, last week I visited my local Sanrio (Hello Kitty) store, and they had some character "paper tapes" for pretty cheap. I always wanted to do a Little Twin Stars design, so I bought a roll of that. Then I found a roll with Cinnamoroll with unicorns (two of my favorite things), so I bought one of that also.

So, I decided to try out the Little Twin Stars design this time, since it's almost "Tanabata", which I did a nail art for it, a while ago here. I know that Kiki and Lala are brother/sister, but the boy-girl-stars combination reminded me of "Tanabata."

The first pic is my left hand, with the big fat star on the ring finger. The second pic is my right hand, with the fat curly crescent moon on the ring finger. This time I actually used a light layer of Gelish gel as the base, and the base color is my go-to Vinylux in "Cream Puff." As you can see, I cut up the tape to use different parts of it on my thumb and middle finger. The right thumb is actually two pieces because Kiki and Lala were separate. I made a big fluffy cloud on my pointer, using Essie's "Stones N Roses" and layered on Sally Hansen's Xtreme Wear in "Perky Pink" to add a little sparkle. The colorful glitter around the horses is Deborah Lippmann's "Happy Birthday" which I've used a few times before. For the moon and the star, I used the Hello Kitty nail polish from Sephora in "Banana Cream", and added a little glitter outline to make it more defined. On the pinkies, I just stuck on a nail sticker that I got in a goody bag from a nail show.

As I mentioned earlier, the paper tape isn't that sticky, so it's really easy to re-position it. The bad(?) thing about it is, it could start curling outwards and peel off easily... :(  So for my top coat, I decided to use a non-wipe gel top coat that also came in the goody bag from the nail show. Even then, I put on several layers just to make sure that it was secured. I even had to flash-cure, push down on the edges that were sticking up, and then complete-cure it. Hopefully this will make my nail art last long, but we'll see how it goes.

As you can see, the pink clouds kind of got "wrinkled", I think because the nail polish was too thick and didn't completely dry when I cured the gel top coat. It's happened to me before, and it sucks, but overall I'm really happy with how it looks. The hardest part was drawing the moon and star, especially drawing the moon with my left hand... :P  I thought the moon would be easier to draw than a star, but I still had difficulty.

Well, I still have my Cinnamoroll/unicorn "paper tape", so maybe next time I'll think of a design using that... :)

Snowy Love Nail Art

It's been a LONG while since my last post... :P

Things have been hectic... A lot of things have been going on, good and bad... And since my nails have been bare for quite some time now, and I finally got a little breathing room, I thought I'd do a quickie nail art for winter/early-Valentine's?... My right thumb nail was peeling, so originally I wanted to do something with glitter, since they are so hard to come off. ;)

For my birthday, my friend gave me this pink glittery nail polish from The Face Shop, and I thought it would be nice to use it. But I also wanted to add a little more dimension and try to portray a little winter-ness, so I decided to layer on OPI's "Snow Globetrotter." This picture is a little blurry (probably because of all the glitter, and I did it at night... LOL), but I used the pink glitter polish as a gradation from the tips, and on the ring finger (it's hard to see) but I made it into a heart using the corner of my nail.

Then I added the big chunky glitter of "Snow Globetrotter" in the 'negative space' and did a second coat with the smaller glitter over the entire nail. Of course, as always, my base was CND Vinylux's "Lavishly Loved" to keep the nude color of my nails.

I'm not sure if it's because I used TOO much glitter, but certain areas have started chipping after less than a week... :P But overall, I really liked the design, and it reminded me of the time I used regular polish to mimic clear nails. (I did this before I even got my nail license, and I even fooled a store clerk into thinking they were actual clear nails.) ;) But it made me want to try doing the "mock clear nails" thing again... The only thing is that it looks much better if your nails are a little bit longer, and it's been a while since I've actually grown out my nails past my fingers... LOL Well, something to consider in the future, I guess... And I think I'll need to come up with a new design for February, but I think that will depend on what happens in the next couple of weeks... :P

Nail Polish Strips, Part 2: Halloween/Gothy (/Birthday)

It's been quite a while since my last post... A lot has happened/been happening... I lost inspiration; I was in a dark place; I wasn't motivated to do anything, let alone my nails... But being that this is my birth-month (once again), and I was still feeling "emo/gothy," I thought I'd muster up some energy to do something... :P

I decided to use some old nail polish strips that I bought ages ago... They are by Sally Hansen, called "Numbskull." I decided to make it into a "gothic lolita" theme, so I decided to draw some roses around the cuticle, and put a red heart on the ring finger. I used Sephora by OPI's "Sample Sale" for the bright red, "Leaf Him at the Altar" for the green, and Essie's "Masquerade Belle" for the dark red roses. I used a white striper and a light pink polish to draw the swirlies inside the roses.

For my toes, I thought I'd continue the theme, but keep it really simple. I used Butter London's "The Black Knight" as a base. I wanted a black color but not just plain black. This one has flecks of blue and red in it, so it's kind of a "party" color (for my birthday)... :P I'm not a fan of "Nightmare Before Christmas," but I like the look of Jack Skellington's suit, and it also kind of reminded me of the book "Night Circus" (which I still need to finish...), so I thought I'd draw some white stripes on the big toes, to bring the Halloween/Birthday theme together...

Well, this year, I'm honored to have a couple of new friends help me celebrate my birthday next week, so in a sense, it's better than the past couple of years... ;) Hopefully, it's a start for better things coming... :)

Nail Polish Strips

So, I've been seeing a few of these "newspaper nail art" on Pinterest, and I saw one with some roses, like a "Parisian theme", so I thought I'd create my own version. ;)

I thought I would make it like in the olden days where street vendors would wrap the flowers in newspaper (I think... LOL), so I thought of making the newspaper part like a french manicure. I decided to use those nail polish strips for the effect, but I couldn't find one that was exactly like newspaper print, so I got the next closest thing.

I used Sally Hansen's Salon Effects "Love Letter" nail polish strips. I cut them in a chevron shape to make it look like the edges of the newspaper. And since I only needed to cover half my nail, I was able to use one strip for two nails. As always, for the base I used Vinylux in "Lavishly Loved" and for the clear part, I thought I'd add a little shimmer with Revlon Moon Candy's "Orbit". After I laid down the "Love Letter" chevron strips, I drew on some roses with Essie's "Cute as a Button", and added a few light pink buds, and leaves with China Glaze's "Aquadelic". After I coated the whole nail with regular shiny top coat, I used a matte top coat over the "paper" part for added effect. I think it came out pretty nice, even though it doesn't exactly look like newspaper print, but I can imagine that maybe it was a newspaper from medieval times, or maybe it's actually wrapped with a love letter or some song lyrics... ;)

For my toe nails, I also used some nail polish strips I bought a long time ago from Sephora.

I thought I'd used this cherry design for summer. Since my toes nails are small, I used one strip for 2-3 nails. I kind of wanted to make it look kitschy or like fabric, so I thought I'd add an edging like a "scalloped trimming" or a "pom-pom trimming" with Essie's "Cute as a Button". The dotting didn't come out as clear as I wanted to, but I still think it came out cute. ;)

Spring Flowers, Floating Petals

I've been feeling a little better recently, so I thought I'd put a little more effort into my nails this month. It's kind of a "re-do" of my previous nail art, but with a little more detail.

Like always, I used Vinylux as my "base coat", and I used essie's "Go Ginza" as the base color. It's a really pretty petal-color, that reminds me of cherry blossoms. I had some dried flowers, so I plucked the petals and and placed them on like they were floating in the air. Then I added Nails Inc.'s "Westbourne Gardens" to add a little 'bling' and some movement.

The picture is not that great, but for my toes I decided to make it look like petals floating in the sky. The base color is Sephora by OPI's "Havana Dreams" and I touched it up with Nails Inc.'s "Covent Garden Mews" and "Columbia Road". It's hard to see since my toe nails are so small... :P But I thought that I'd match my toes and my hands this time, as I rarely do... ;)

Spring/ Cherry Blossom nail art

So, I'm not feeling so great now... (I'm guessing it's because of my treatment for my "illness"...) But I needed to do something for March, and I got some new nail polish by Nails Inc. so I thought I'd use that.

I wanted to portray the cherry blossom trees full in bloom, with the petals floating in the air... First I used Vinylux's "Lavishly Loved" as a base, like usual. Then I scattered Nails Inc.'s "Covent Garden Mews", to mimic the trees and cherry blossoms. Then over and around it, I scattered "Westbourne Gardens" to add a little 'bling' and to mimic the petals floating.

It's a little abstract, I guess, and it's not really my best work... (Probably the most 'random' nail art I've done so far...) :P  But, it's something a little Spring-y, even though it's still a little cold outside... ;)

Valentine's Sweets nail art

I was actually feeling really lazy recently (maybe it's because of my "illness"), but I thought I should at least make my nails pretty before I visit my family in a few days, so I just kind of did something quick and simple...

The base is, of course, Vinylux: "Cake Pop" for the pink nails, and "Lavishly Loved" for the others. The thumb is a heart jelly ("thumbprint") cookie, using Sally Hansen's "Perky Pink" (as seen in my hand) and OPI's Tints "Be Magentale with Me" to make it pinker. I used Zoya's Pixie Dust "Godiva" to make the outer cookie part. I made the chocolate bar with OPI's Liquid Sand "What Wizardry is This?". I tried different methods of making the grooves for the chocolate bar, but in the end, pressing down with a business card actually worked the best. I actually got the idea from IHaveACupcake's youtube video. :) The icing/syrup nail is made with The Face Shop's "Strawberry Yogurt" and the OPI Tint over it. The heart glitter is also from The Face Shop, and I added some gold glitter from Sephora by OPI's "Only Gold For Me" top coat.

I kind of retraced my old cupcake nail art, making the cookie and chocolate. ;) I actually had other ideas for the "heart glitter" nails, but as I was not feeling up to it, I decided to just do the ones that I really wanted to do: the chocolate bar, and the jelly cookie. ;) It could've come out a little better than I wanted, but at least I was able to realize my imaginations...

I had no prior ideas for my toe nails, so I just kind of "winged it" with a "Candy Shop" theme...

I had gotten a Ciate "Fun Fair" polish, in the Sephora Fukubukuro that I got this New Year's. It's a cute pop color, and I thought it would be perfect for a "Candy Shop" theme, so I used that with OPI's "Alpine Snow" and put a gold glitter from Sephora by OPI's "Only Gold For Me" on each of the little toes, and I used a white striper on the big toe. It's cute for an "impromptu" nail art, and I like it. :) (Sorry the pic quality is not so good... It was getting late, so the lighting was pretty bad, and my camera lens is a bit scratched... :P )

All of this "candy stuff" always makes me think of the songs: "Candy Girl" by New Edition, and "Candy" by Mandy Moore... (Google it, kids!) ;)