31DC2013: Day 5 Blue

Press Sample Purchased by Me

Morning friends!

I hope you are all enjoying the challenge so far! I know I am, and Emily has been knocking it out of the park! So if you haven't had a chance yet you should definitely make sure you check out her posts!

Today's theme is blue. I actually struggled a little with this one. I had this idea originally, but after doing one nail it didn't work out so I went in another direction which ended up turning out even worse! I decided to go back to my original idea, but changed it slightly and I am super pleased with the results!

This manicure started out with OPI My Vampire is Buff which I still have a mega crush on. It's just a wonderful nude polish. Then I used the watercolour technique with pure acetone and Essie Butler Please, China Glaze Sunday Funday, and Nailtini Blue Carnation. This created the interesting backdrop to do my little bit of art on.



I then went in with my small nail art brush and black creme to create the pattern. I used MVIB to fill in the top piece, and Butler Please and Sunday Funday to fill in the bottom triangle. The rest of the details were done in black creme!

Once I was done, I thought this might look really interesting matte so I pulled out OPI Matte Topcoat and added a layer!

So which way do you prefer my blue nail art?! Matte or glossy? I think I prefer it matte, but I can't quite decide! Make sure you head over to The Lacquerologist to see what Emily's blue nails look like!
Last years blue nails can be found here.

I Really Like Tribal Nails

Happy Friday Everyone! 


I hope you have all had an excellent week and and if not well it's almost the weekend! For today's mani I started out knowing I really wanted to do tribal nails because I love them and haven't done any in a while. I spent like 2 hours on the internet looking at various tribal like patterns, both nails and just random images searching for my inspiration. When I finally sat down to do my nails I had looked at so much that I don't really know where the inspiration came from. So if I used something of yours credit goes to you! This is what came out of 2 hours of looking at various tribal patterns! 

I started with 2 coats of OPI's Fly from the Nicki Minaj Collection. Then I took my black striper and created an outline of the different patterns I wanted. Then I used Essence's Wanna Be Your Sunshine to fill in where I wanted the yellow. I took a white striper and filled in the white areas and then used Sally Hansen's Celeb City and a striper brush to fill in all the silver areas. WBYS needed about 3 coats to be fully opaque over Fly. So I waited for this to dry. At this point it was a hot mess. Colours everywhere no definition. I was thinking I had an epic fail. But once it was dry I went back over the outlines I had made in back to really give some areas definition. Then I felt some of the areas needed a little filling in with more black stripes. And finally I grabbed a small dotting tool and added them in black and white in various places! 

I think this is the most intricate mani that I have ever done! I love it and am still wearing it now :) 

I love this so much so there are a lot of pictures! 

What do you think of my crazy detailed tribal nails? 


Also since everyone loved my peeling snakeskin mani so much yesterday would you guys like me to do a tutorial for it? Let me know! 


AND Have you entered my 50 Follower Giveaway yet? If not go enter now! Click that link or the tab across the top :) 


Hope you have a happy Friday lovelies! 


Sincerely Stephanie

The Rouge Triangle

Good Morning! How are you all doing today?
I have a "hot off the press" mani to show you today. I am actually still wearing it right now! The inspiration for this mani started Saturday afternoon while I was shopping at the mall. I saw a pair of red skinny jeans and I just had to have them. Then I decided that I would of course need to wear them out that night. So I had to have nails to match. When I got home I pulled out China Glaze White on White, Love Marilyn and Tinsel Town and a red striper and sat down at my desk. After a little playing and thinking this is what I came up with!

For some reason I was really feeling triangles and just went with that thought and created this. I freehanded all the triangles and the little angles. On my ring finger I sponged on Love Marilyn and then sponged on Tinsel Town on the tip.

I know this is mad picture heavy but I love it! One of my friends saw it and said wow I didn't realise you started stamping yet! I was like actually I freehanded this :D

Are you a fan of tribal like patterns?

Until next time,

Sincerely Stephanie

some linear tribal like nails

The last mani I did mainly used linear lines to create some kind of tribal, just looks really cool nail art. 
Here's the final product!

I love how every nail is different and different base colours too! I'm becoming a big fan of having every nail be different. Watch out there may be many more designs like this in the future... :)


For this I used China Glaze White on White, Sally Hansen's Rockstar Pink (the glitter), Wet n Wild's Through the Grapevine (creme purple) and Wet n Wild's Ebony Hates Chris. 

white on white, rockstar pink, through the grapevine, ebony hates chris

I used a dotting tool and a brush to create all the various lines all over my nails. 

Overall I love this look! It was super easy to do because it is all just essentially vertical and horizontal lines with a few dots thrown in there. Very simple and has a really great effect! I had a girl grab my hand on Saturday while we were chatting at a pub because she loved them! 

Until next time,

Sincerely Stephanie

Tribal, Aztec, Warrior or something like that nails

TRIBAL NAILS! 
I have been wanting to try tribal nails on myself for weeks, however have been slightly terrified at  what the results could be as I have never attempted something that intricate before. So last Friday I decided to take the plunge and give it a go. Surprisingly enough they actually turned out really well! 

Tribal!!

As detailed as this looks, it was actually a lot easier than I expected, just very time consuming to accomplish. 
For this manicure I used White on White by China Glaze, a Yellow from Ardene, Red, Blue, Black and White stripers! I must confess I copied this tutorial from one of my favourite youtube channels Cute Polish. Since I have been so scared about doing this myself I thought following a guide for my first time would be helpful!

polish used

To get this look start off by putting on your basecoat! Again I used Start to Finish by OPI. 


The first step to getting this look is to paint all of your nails White on White. This white polish is much thicker and more vibrant than the white I used in the last tutorial, so I only put on 2 coats to have a beautiful and vibrant gorgeous white nails. 


Now the next steps differ for every nail, as I did a different pattern, but the basic idea is the same. I will go through the steps for what I did on my thumb. 

thumb :)

To start off I took my blue striper and made a line about 1/5 of the way up my nail. Then at about the 2/5 I made another line with the blue striper, then filled in the gab between the two blue stripes. 

The next thing I did was take a brush and dip it into the yellow polish that I have. I used this brush to create a thick yellow line, leaving a white gap between the two colours. 

Then I went back to my blue striper and painted the tip of my nail blue, again leaving a white space between the yellow and blue. 

I then took the black striper and made a line across the top of the blue blue line I made on the bottom of the nail. Also did black lines surrounding the yellow stripe. 

The black striper was then used to create four black vertical lines on the bottom of my nail. 

Next I took my red striper and did a line along the bottom of the blue that I did on the tip. 

Back to the black striper, I made small lines changing direction on top of the yellow polish to create a triangle effect.

Then finally took a dotting tool and made small black dots between the red and the yellow stripes!

I have to say it was worth the amount of time it took to do as I absolutely love the look of it! 

On some of the nails I am really not happy with the line work, but for my first shot I have to say I'm pretty pleased! The great thing with nails is too that no one notices from far away! 


Here are the rest of my nails up close,

I apologize that the quality is so terrible, I didn't realize until today and by then I had already taken this off! 

Even though I copied a tutorial for this, it gave me enough confidence to try and do something completely different next time! I already have ideas and will no doubt be doing another tribal nail art sometime in the upcoming weeks! 


Until next time,
Sincerely Stephanie