Christmas nails: Frosty the Snowman

Hey guys. Merry Christmas... in 4 weeks hehe! I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving!! We're having turkey leftovers and they are delicious! Here are some Christmas nails I did last year (I think).

It was very simple because I was attempting nail art on my right hand (as you can tell from the pictures). Here you go:

All I used for this nail design was China Glaze - Frostbite, Love & Beauty - Confetti Sprinkles, China Glaze - Salsa, a white nail art pen and some black nail polish. I layered Confetti Sprinkles over Frostbite and for my thumb nail, I used the nail art pen to draw the snow and snowman. I dotted on the scarf, eyes and hat. And that's it!

Here's a very simple nail design I did for my sister:

  

 Haha, as you can see there's not much to it. I used China Glaze - Exotic Encounters as the base and used a white nail art pen to draw the snowflakes and VERY minimalistic tree. I liked how they turned out.

Let me know what you think. What Christmas nails have you done or are you about to do?

Thanks for reading!

Love,

Raine

China Glaze - Ruby Pumps

Today's red glitter polish is none other than China Glaze - Ruby Pumps which is the loveliest red glitter polish ever? I know I say that a lot but how can you blame me? This red is the bomb.

It is as fierce as it is stunning and from the name of the polish itself, you can kinda tell what is characteristics are. Judge for yourself:

 

It's a wonderful red that doesn't look gaudy at all. The glitter is embedded in the polish so no grittiness at all! I love that about Ruby Pumps. It's almost a jelly but not quite.

Also, it is THE perfect holiday nail color. It's the perfect red for Christmas nails. You can use it for nail art or you can just wear it as it is and it'll look fab either way. Christmas is in 3 months but I still make excuses to wear this color all year round. In fact, I'm wearing Ruby Pumps right now haha.

The first coat of Ruby Pumps goes on half-sheer so you definitely need two coats. Apply top coat and you're good to go. I've tried using a matte top coat over Ruby Pumps and the effect is quite fascinating. The flatness of the red glitter is unique so you might want to try that.

Bad cuticles, sorry!

Ruby Pumps isn't really flashy in sunlight though so don't expect it to be one of those sparkly glitters. Its beauty lies in its subtleties, really.

Go pick it up at your local Sally Beauty Store. Or order it online.

Let me know if this is the kind of red you dive for the moment you see it in stores.

Thanks for reading!

Love,
Raine

Another blog revival?! Unexpected saran wrap nail art favorite

Hey guys! Welcome back to my blog. Whoaaaaa, was February really the last time I posted something?! -_- Oops.

If you've still been coming by, thank you so much. If not, well, fresh starts are always good, right? I took a much needed break (but in no way did that mean that I stopped painting my nails; I just stopped doing nail art) and will be back... once this chip on my nail grows out.

In the meantime, here's a design I did quite a while back ago (ahem, last year):

I used the saran wrap method to achieve this look. I started out with the pink base then dabbed on the grey with a ball of saran wrap. The first two nails look alright but please direct your attention to my ring and little finger. Aren't the colors just magical together?!

I used China Glaze - Strawberry Fields as the base then dabbed on Maybelline - Impeccable Greys. The shimmer from Strawberry Fields gives it such an enchanting look... like a dusty pink galaxy. Or a nebula... I could start pulling up names from my astronomy class but that would bore you haha. You know I'm a sucker for pretty grey combos.

If you look at the closeup of Impeccable Greys, you'll notice the purple ring at the top of the bottle. Impeccable Greys is not just a grey polish; it's a gorgeous amethyst grey. Yup, it's like the color of a car. The hint of purple is really what makes Impeccable Greys my favorite grey everrr. The bottle is tiny though so I try not to use it a lot. What's the point, right? Haha, maybe I'll get another bottle so that I can use it freely. That's what I did with China Glaze - Turned Up Turquoise (ugh, such a lovely neon matte polish).

Let me know what you think of this color combo. Do you own Impeccable Greys? Best grey polish you own? Let me know, I want them aaaaalllllllll.

Thanks for reading!

Love,
Raine

Valentine's Day nail art - it's raining hearts

Hey everyone!

I'm back with Valentine's Day nail art! I think this calls for a round of celebrations. I managed to edit my pictures (tedious work on PicMonkey since I don't have Photoshop installed on this PC), I'm actually posting BEFORE Valentine's Day and this is a fresh design aka I'm still wearing it, haha.

I'm not big on Valentine's Day and wasn't actually going to do any specific design but I've been seeing some V-day nail art contests (?) and decided, what the heck I'll just try to come up with something and if I think it's worthy and if I don't miss the contest entry date, I'll submit my entry.

Okay, anyway, here's what I did:

This is the finished look! I love it! It's so me in the sense that it's so pretty yet imperfect. I don't think I could ever claim to be a perfect nail artist since my lines are usually always slightly off and sometimes I make a smudge or two. And that's fine because I've embraced my imperfections to be kind of like my style.

Here is what I started with:

Thumb: China Glaze - White on White

Index: China Glaze - Strawberry Fields

Middle: Essie - The Girls Are Out

Ring: Orly - Hot Shot (holla, new purchase!)

Little: Love & Beauty - pink

I used two coats of each polish as the base.

Next, I was inspired by a picture of a tree with hearts hanging off it and decided to draw one on my thumb nail. I have no idea why I left my brown nail polish back home and I was bummed when I realized that. I made do with my black nail art pen as the tree trunk and branches.

I used Sally Hansen - Mint Sprint (love this color!) and China Glaze - Salsa and a nail art brush to paint the leaves and hearts respectively. I didn't spend too long on drawing them on. It was more like dab and go. :D

My idea for the other nails was to do rows of hearts and one accent nail with XOXOs on it. I used the black nail art pen to draw the XOs. By now you can already tell that the white hearts on my middle finger are much more prominent. 

That's because I used my white nail art pen to draw them on. I only wanted the white polish as a base for the colors I was going to paint over it so the pen wasn't such a good idea. The polish flowed out and was rather thick and hard to control so I switched over to China Glaze - White on White and a nail art brush.

Then it became a bit of a mess around this part. I envisioned the different shades of red/pink to stand out but they... didn't. Haha. Well, I guess sometimes things don't turn out the way you picture them. I wanted to just leave them be and call it a day but stubborn me wanted to make this design work... So I...

... grabbed the black pen again and outlined all the hearts. Granted the outline wasn't as smooth as it should have been but I'm glad I outlined them. Don't they just pop against the base colors? Yup, then I sealed the designs in with top coat and called it a day.

Here's a close-up of my heart tree. :)

And here is my biggest accomplishment yet, haha. I labeled the polishes in the picture. It took me sooo long to squeeze everything in and align the arrows and stuff but I really wanted to point out the nail polish bottles behind.

I only labeled the red and pink polishes, all of which I used to color the rows of hearts. The rest are my base coat, top coat, Orly - Liquid Vinyl and China Glaze - White on White. Oh, and those are the two brushes I used for the entire design.

Here's a better picture of Essie - The Girls Are Out and Love & Beauty - pink. I had no idea I had so many red/pink polishes. I initially started out with ONE red polish, thinking I wouldn't buy any other reds... Who was I kidding?

And here's a shot of blurry heart-shaped goodness.

This design actually reminds me of a notebook I used to have when I was younger. It was by Happy House and just the cutest notebook with rows of multi-colored hearts.

So what do you think of my Valentine's Day nail art? Good? Meh? Messy? Boring? So spuddylicious? Do you want to try this out? Let me know in the comments! :)

If you have a V-day nail art post, definitely include the link in the comments, I'd love to check it out! If you want to send me a V-day gift, let me know as well, haha. ;)

How will you be celebrating Valentine's Day? Is it a big deal for you or do you just let it slide by? 

Thanks for reading! <3

P.S: All pictures taken with my phone and inside the house.

Christmas nails: Fairy Dust and Xmas tree

Hi everyone! I've got more Christmas nail art for you. I'm really big on the red-and-white theme this year. And minimalism is another main theme for my Christmas nails. No idea why but I think it's fun to switch things up. Last year I was all for fun prints and complex designs and multiple colors.

You could do this nail design if you don't have much time to spend on drawing details or if you just want a simple accent nail.

Taken with flash

Taken with flash

Here are the polishes I used:
China Glaze - Salsa
China Glaze - Fairy Dust
A white nail art pen

Easy enough, right? First I used two coats of China Glaze - Salsa for the base. I'm sure you'll agree with me that China Glaze - Salsa is such a pretty red. Every time I reach for a red polish, I end up picking China Glaze - Salsa. I might have to get myself a spare bottle at the rate I'm using it.

Next I used one coat of China Glaze - Fairy Dust. Fairy Dust adds such a magical glow. It sparkles and I swear you can almost picture Tinkerbell from Peter Pan showering all her pixie dust onto your nails. ;)

For the accent nail, I just used my white nail art pen to draw the tree. I didn't spend much time perfecting it which is why it turned out a bit wonky but hey, snow on trees aren't perfectly balanced, are they?

What do you think of this easy Christmas nail art design? What part of Christmas inspires your nail art? What color theme are you loving for Christmas this year? Tell me all about it in the comments section. Run out and get a glitter polish now. ;)

Thanks for reading! <3

Christmas nails: Santa's helpers

Hey, hey, what do you know? 5 more days till Christmas and I've got the perfect holiday nail art to show you. Today's nail art is a recreation of the Christmas nails that IHaveACupcake did. Here's the link to her video.

I did these nails last year and I really wanted to do them again this year just to see if there's any improvement. Please excuse the bad angling of my hand, the poor lighting and smearing of polish (yeah, I had a horrible top coat that really didn't do much).

Taken indoors

Taken in indirect sunlight

Taken with flash

As you can see, I used 7 colors but I can't remember exactly which polishes I used. I do know that I used China Glaze - Turned Up Turquoise, The Face Shop - BR602 (brown), a black nail art pen and a white nail art pen.

I did this design using the tips and ends of skewer sticks only. Not too shabby, if I may say so myself. How hard was it to complete a design using only skewers? Not too difficult.. just that it requires a lot of patience. I believe I once said that nail art has helped increase my patience level. It's true, haha. I used to devote a lot of time and hard work - still do but less since I have a couple of proper tools these days.

Don't give up on your nail art no matter what level you're at. You can do this and learn to embrace the imperfections of your nail art. I would say it's worth it. Don't forget to take breaks in between though. I think it's important to let your nails breathe and grow out once in a while.

I hope you like my recreation of this nail art. Tell me which design is your favorite and if you've ever done Christmas nail art recreations by other nail art bloggers.

Thanks for reading and have a lovely day!

Christmas nails: a string of lights

Hey everyone. I've got more Christmas nail art for you today.

Lately I've been feeling uninspired to do my nails. I've got quite a bit going on in my life at the moment so it's been busy and I haven't felt like sitting down to do my nails even though at one point it was the thing that helped me relax. I hope to get back into the swing of things soon but we'll see, right?

Anyway, in the meantime, don't worry, I still have nail art to show you. Today's design is one that has been on my nail art wishlist - a string of Christmas lights! I LOVE seeing Christmas lights - it gives everything a magical look and reminds me of Disneyland during the holiday season.

Taken with flash

Hmm... how I got white polish onto my skin is a good question... Haha, let's just say I really lacked control when I was painting them.

Taken in indirect sunlight

Taken in indirect sunlight

Taken in indirect sunlight

I used a black nail art pen to draw the wire first then I blobbed on the lights using a nail art brush.

The nail polish I used:
China Glaze - Salsa
China Glaze - Frostbite
Sally Hansen -  Emerald City
Orly - Charged Up
Orly - Glowstick
China Glaze - White on White (base color)

This design, as with the most of the other designs I've done, was really easy and I believe anyone can do it too. If you're looking for a cute Christmas design to wear this holiday season, I hope you'll give this a try. I love when I find easy designs that turn out well. That's the fun in nail art for me - simple but beautiful creations that anyone else can do.

What do you think of Christmas lights? Are they a must-have in your house for Christmas? What kind of Christmas lights do you hang? Ever tried Christmas lights nail art? I'd love to see them!

Thank you for reading!

Ariel from The Little Mermaid Nail Art

Hi guys!! Today I bring you another installment of Disney characters on my nails! After Jane, I was obsessed. I knew I needed to do Ariel because, duh, I heart mermaids and red hair and the ocean and you can check out my mermaid tail nails here and the red version of the mermaid tail here.

PLEASE tell me you love mermaids as much as I do!!

Taken in indirect sunlight

Sorry for the shaky hands!! I didn't manage to draw the lines as straight as I wanted and my eyes were getting tired from aligning the brush and trying to draw the outline.

I used a bajillion polishes to do this design (okay I only have that many bottles, not even close to 100) but I managed to compile the list:

Thumb:

• China Glaze - Kalahari Kiss
• China Glaze - Salsa
• China Glaze - First Mate
• China Glaze - White on White
• Orly - Liquid Vinyl 
• Love & Beauty - milky white
• The Face Shop - BR802

You can see the rest of the designs in the pictures below:

Index:

• 2 coats of China Glaze - Kalahari Kiss as a base
• The Face Shop - PP401 and a random purple polish for the shell top
• Sally Hansen - Lickety Split Lime and Sally Hansen - Mint Sprint for the tail

Middle:

• 2 coats of (my drying) Revlon Top Speed - Yellow as a base
• The Face Shop - BL602 for the stripes

Ring:

• 2 coats of The Face Shop - BL602 as a base
• Sponged on a gradient of China Glaze - First Mate, The Face Shop - BL602 and Love & Beauty - baby blue
• Used The Face Shop - YL702 and a striper brush to draw the moon

Little:

• 2 coats of Love & Beauty -  baby blue for the base
• Sponged on a gradient of The Face Shop - BL602
• Used a striper brush, Sally Hansen - Mint Sprint and The Face Shop -  to create the bed of corals.

Taken in indirect sunlight

From left to right: Ariel's bikini top and tail, Flounder's scales, the reflection of the moon minus Ariel sitting on the rock ala the picture at the top of the post, and finally the bed of corals that symbolize Ariel's home.

Taken with flash

Taken with retro filter

Taken in indirect sunlight

I did all five nails in an hour which is a vast improvement from spending an hour on solo Jane on my thumbnail.

I'm pleased at how her eyes, nose and skin tone turned out... And I love the other designs so much!

BUT I'm not sure I managed to capture the true expression of Ariel here which saddens me because I want to do my favorite mermaid justice. My Ariel is more like meh, not frickin' impressed while the real Ariel is like hmmm, I wonder what's above the sea...

None of my red polishes match her bright red hair so I had to stick with China Glaze - Salsa though now come to think of it I should've used the red-pink polish.

What do you think though? How are these nails for a second attempt at doing semi-realistic painting?? Does it look okay, passable, so-so? Would you have me redo these nails? (I would) Or do you like them? -hopeful- Do you prefer my Jane nails or this set of Ariel nails?

Check out my Jane Porter nails here! If you have any Disney princess nail art requests, I'd love to hear them and take them into consideration. <3

Thanks for reading!
x

Glitter gradient nails with Purr-fect Plum and Salsa

Hi, friends!

I've got gradient nails to show you today. They're really easy and the best part is having fun with different color combinations.

I did these gradient nails on a whim and look at how pretty they turned out. If you're going to an event and have no time or no idea what nail design to do, I'd definitely recommend glitter gradient nails. I didn't use the sponging method. Read on to find out how I did the gradient effect.

Taken with flash

On my left hand, I used China Glaze - Purr-fect Plum and The Face Shop - purple glitter (sorry, I can't find the code on their site). For the accent nail I used China Glaze - First Mate and some glitter polish but I can't remember the exact polish I used. I think it might be China Glaze - Fairy Dust but since it's not holographic, I might be wrong.

Taken with flash

Taken with flash

On my right hand, I used China Glaze - Salsa and did the gradient with China Glaze - Ruby Pumps. The red glitter really blended with Salsa which is a creme polish so it came out really pretty. For the accent nail, again I used China Glaze - First Mate and that unknown glitter.

How I did these gradient nails:

1. First I put on 2 coats of the creme polish and let that dry.
2. Then I scraped off the excess glitter polish from the brush on the inside of the bottle, allowing only the slightest polish on the brush.
3. Then I dabbed on the glitter from the middle of my nail to the tip, making sure there is more concentration of glitter near the tip to create the gradient effect.
4. I repeated step 2 and 3 until I was satisfied with my gradient.
5. I sealed my design with Sally Hansen - Insta Dri top coat.

I hope you try this design out! Gradient glitter really does step your nails up a class so it'd be perfect to wear to a wedding or a Christmas party.

Let me know what you think of these nails in the comment box. Are they too flashy? Do you like them? Have you tried gradient nails with glitter polish before? What color combinations would you use?

Thanks for reading!