Abstract Nail Art Challenge Day 2: Tape

Today is the second day in the Abstract Nail Art Challenge and the theme for today is Tape! There are seriously 5 billion possibilities that tape can help with in creating a manicure. I thought about using striping tape to create some teeny lines, but I had this manicure written down in my nail notebook so I thought this was a chance to give it a whirl! 

I started with 2 coats of Revlon's Midnight Affair which is a shimmery dark navy blue, its vampy and I love it! Then I added a coat of Color Club top coat and waited for it to dry. Then I taped off triangles at the base of each nail using regular scotch tape, added another coat of Midnight Affair and sprinkled Silver Microbeads over the area. Then I removed the tape and pressed the beads into my nail with an orange stick. For an accent nail I did a whole nail of Silver beads over Midnight Affair. 

Excuse the dent in my thumb nail, I was a little ambitious in getting to add the beads and didn't wait long enough for it to dry! I did love this look though! I'm finding lots of ways to use microbeads and play with variations on the Caviar look! 

This was so easy and fun to do. I really enjoyed wearing it, even though I only wore it for a day before I picked off half the beads lol. This is just one of the many options that tape can help create. I have been having a lot of fun with tape since I started blogging! My one recommendation is that you cut your pieces of tape before you paint your nails so that the tape doesn't ruin your mani! 

Remember to stop by The Lacquerologist, BeautyGnome and Manicurator to see what these gorgeous ladies have done! 

Wicked Winks

Today I have some, uh interesting nail art to show you. The initial intent was to copy one of the tape manis that Jane over at Nailside has done, but I am not near as talented as she is at tape manis. BTW the title has nothing to do with the design, but the colour names. Keep reading!

Since the whole tape thing wasn't really working for me I ended up freehanding part of it and adding dots, then a matte coat and a luxeffects on one finger. It was well an experiment. Since I felt like such a failure with the tape I orginally didn't like this at alll. Then I saw people and I was getting compliments left right and center! Well here it is

Every nail is different, on BOTH hands! I'm getting mildly better with my non dominant hand yay!

There are a few smudges on this hand and the line work is far from perfect, but It was nice to have both hands looking the same, well as close as skittles can get :)

The polishes used for this mani were, China Glaze Secret Peri-WINK-le as the base and the detail work was done with Essie's Wicked.

Then after all this I added Essie's Matte About You and Pure Pearlfection to my ring fingers.

The more I looked at it the more I liked it. I think the dots helped in that department for me. I did love the colour combination though. I will be having a swatch-a-thon on Saturday and I think I will be swatching these guys :)

What do you guys think? 

Until next time,

Sincerely Stephanie

Shredded Matte Mesmerize

Hey there,

So one of the last manis that I did on myself was so simple but looked amazing. 

First off I want to apologize for the lack of clean up in all my pictures. I had done my Mom's and my friend's nails then did mine and it was 11:30 and I had to be up at 5:30 for work, so I decided to snap a few pics and head to bed. 

This was the simplest thing ever to do. Just start with one or two coats of whatever colour you choose to use. For this I used Essie's Mesmerize. 

This colour is a gorgeous blue that just captivated me when I saw it and I HAD to have it. It looks absolutely beautiful on nails too. 

After the polish dried I used Essie's matte about you to mattify the colour.

Now comes the hard part. Waiting for this to dry! Since I was going to be using tape this needs to be completely dry so that the tape does not pick up the polish and ruin what you've already done. 

I took regular scotch tape and cut zig zags in various sizes. I did this on 10 pieces of tape so that I wouldn't have to re use any pieces, also it gave each nail a slightly different shredded look. 

Once my nails were dry I put the tape down and then did another very light coat of Mesmerize and covered it in a top coat. 

Wait about a minute and peel off the tape. You don't want to wait too long or else the polish that gets on top of the tape will dry and you won't be able to take the tape off without picking up part of the shredded piece as well. 

Overall this mani was super easy and I think looked great! It's subtle enough that it can just look like a gorgeous blue and then wham! you have a shiny shredded side! I will be trying this again with a variety of colours and maybe with tips?!

Until next time,

Sincerely Stephanie