Watermelon nail art

Hey guys! Today I want to show you one of the first few nail art designs that I started out doing - watermelon nails!! They're really easy to do and you don't even need any proper tools. When I just started out, I had no tools whatsoever, not even an orange stick. My only tools back then were skewer sticks and toothpicks so you can totally make do with those if you have them.

This is not my first attempt at watermelon nails, #357 would sound about right. Just kidding. This is possibly my 6/7th time doing these nails. They are so fun to do and if you mess up, well, keep on trying.

I only have 2 decent pictures (yes, I'm a great photographer):

Taken with flash

Taken indoors under yellow lighting

I used Love & Beauty - Red, Sally Hansen - Lickety Split Lime, China Glaze - White on White and a black nail art pen.

I may or may not have tried to cover some booboos that I made on my nails, hehe. 

So you want to know how I did these nails?

Okay, first I painted two coats of red polish and waited for them to dry. Then I taped about half an inch from the tip and painted one thick coat of Lickety Split Lime and peeled the tape off quickly. Using a striper brush and White on White, I created that white line between the red and green polish. Finally, I used a large dotting tool to create the watermelon seeds.

I might have been over-enthusiastic when dotting on the seeds which is why they turned out bigger than I intended them to be. >< My lines are uneven but I'm proud of all my nail art imperfections and you should be too. Perfect? Pfft, ain't nobody got time for that ;)

Have you done watermelon nails before? Did you like how they turned out? Would you try doing watermelon nails if you've never done them before? Who likes watermelons in general? I know I do.

Thanks for reading! You are awesome!

Pink bat french tip nail art

Hi guys! Today's post is going to be short and sweet.

I did these Halloween nails last year and I really loved them. I attempted to recreate them this week but I've been feeling pretty meh and didn't manage to do what I planned. In any case, these nails look good to me and hopefully to you too.

Halloween nail art is okay but I love Christmas more so... Haha, anyway, here you go:

Taken in indirect sunlight

Taken in indirect sunlight

I don't remember what the pink polish was but I remember using a nail art pen to draw the bats. Pretty neat, eh? It was easy enough to do and I was pleased with the results. I did get quite a few compliments from friends so if you're looking for Halloween nails that will garner some attention, this bat french tip will do the trick... or treat. See what I did there? :)

I also did candy corn nails last year. I will show you that in another post later on.

Anyway, that's it from me today. Sorry for the super short post. I've been working on quite a few things and I haven't exactly been inspired to do nails.

If you're thinking, aww I wish you posted more often, fear not. You can always hop over to my main site that I share with my sister and check it out.

What Halloween nail art are you attempting this year? Is Halloween nail art your thing or do you not care for seasonal nails? What do you think of my pink bat french tip nail art?

Thank you for reading!

Hotdog condiments nail art

Hey guys! Sorry for the lack of updates. I've been blogging on my main blog for the past few days and I'm not used to juggling blogs yet but I'll get the hang of it. :)

So today I bring you nails that you might not want to wear to a baseball game for fear that you might mistake your nails for the hotdog that you're sinking your teeth into. ;)

This design was completely random. I didn't even know they were going to turn out looking like mustard, ketchup and relish. When I was done, I kind of looked down and went, what did I just do with these three colors?!

Taken with flash (I clearly need a lightbox or a better camera but until then, these pictures will have to suffice)

I started out with 2 thick coats of The Face Shop - Papaya. Since I don't own any striping tape, I had to cut tiny strips of Scotch tape. It is no joke, I tell you, to cut strips of tape while making sure that it's as straight as it can be.

I stuck them randomly onto my nail after the base color dried and painted the un-taped parts with China Glaze - Salsa and Sally Hansen - Mint Sprint. The trick here is to not wait for the polish to dry before peeling the tape off. Peel it off about three seconds after you've painted over it. Once, I left the tape on thinking that it was the clever thing to do and the tape ended up breaking and I had to use tweezers to pinch them off the wet polish. -_-

You can tell from my index and middle finger that I messed up and some polish got smeared. I tried to fix that by covering up the smears and you can judge for yourself how well I did that:

Taken with flash

Taken with flash

Taken in natural sunlight

At first I didn't like the vertical lines so I decided to do horizontal lines for my ring and little finger instead. In the end I didn't quite mind the vertical lines...

What do you think? Vertical or horizontal? Do these nails remind you of hotdog condiments or something else or nothing at all??
If you would like to see a tutorial, feel free to ask.

Thank you for reading!

Don't forget to follow me on Twitter (for my random ramblings) or Tumblr (where you can find me liking all things pretty) or Pinterest (where I do the same) or Bloglovin (which is becoming one of my favorite ways to catch up on blogs that I love)!

P.S: Should I make an Instagram account?

Jane Porter from Tarzan nail art (with tutorial, sort of)

After my mermaid nails, I didn't think I could ever do nails that I love more. I was wrong, at least partially. Today I delved fearlessly into the messy world of painting to draw Jane Porter from Tarzan on my nail.

Jane is a total sweetheart. Who could hate her? She's a little bit careless, adventurous, compassionate and she likes to read. Oh, and she's got gorgeous hair! A Disney girl after my own heart.

Image from Google

I totally meant to do Lego nails and I already knew what I was going to paint but at the last minute I changed my mind and did this instead. I have always loved Tarzan and I feel that nobody ever gets too old for Disney. Here's a little tidbit about me: there are usually always scenes in Disney movies that make me bawl like a baby and Tarzan is no exception haha!

Anyway on to the nails (this is a picture heavy post but that depends on what you call picture heavy). To make it easier to understand, this is how it's going to be - I'm going to show you the first design then tell you how I did it then move on to the other nails and talk about how I did them.

Taken indoors (Brush 1)

Taken indoors (Brush 2)

These are the two brushes that I used for all the designs. I didn't use any other brushes. Let's name them Brush 1 and Brush 2 accordingly.

Taken indoors

Taken indoors

Taken indoors

Taken indoors

The finished product:

Taken indoors under yellow lighting

 How I drew Jane:

1. I painted one coat of Love & Beauty - pale blue (it is a one-coater and I didn't want the base to be too thick) and waited for it to dry.
2. I used Brush 1 and Love & Beauty - milky white to do a basic outline of Jane's face. You can see that it was a patchy shape and I didn't bother to cover up the holes. That's because...
3. I mixed China Glaze - Kalahari Kiss and Love & Beauty - milky white to get a close-enough skin tone for Jane. After mixing, I used Brush 1 again to go over the face shape, this time making sure to cover any blank patches.
4. Next, I used Brush 2 to create the outline of Jane's hair and filled it in with The Face Shop - BR802.
5. Using Brush 2, I used The Face Shop - BR802 to draw the eyebrows.
6. Then I used Orly - Liquid Vinyl, China Glaze - White on White, and a mixture of The Face Shop - BL602 and China Glaze - First Mate to draw the eyes. I used a random pale pink polish for her eyeshadow.
7. As you can see in the picture above, Jane's mouth turned out okay but I messed up her nose a little. It wasn't as near left as it should have been and it was too dark. What I did to correct this was cover it up with the skin tone color.
8. After I covered the mistake, I used China Glaze - Kalahari Kiss to draw the nose again. It still wasn't quite right but I couldn't afford to redo it because my eyes were getting tired.
9. I used The Face Shop - (I'll fill this in when I have time to check the polish's code) to outline the lips and China Glaze - White on White to draw the teeth (well, if you can see them).
10. I totally forgot about the neck (the blank blue space in the picture above) so I had to remix the colors to paint the neck and used Love & Beauty - milky white to draw the collar of her dress.
11. Sealed the design with Seche Vite and I was good to go... Yeaaah, the process took an hour... ~_~

I hope you got all that. I'm still trying to perfect the art of writing nail tutorials but I hope the pictures help. :S If you didn't get any part, you can always ask me to rephrase my explanation. And if you have any tips on how to improve my tutorial, please tell me. I don't want you to read this and be like, pshhh that was rubbish and never come back because you think I'm rubbish. :(

Taken indoors (index finger)

Taken indoors (middle finger)

Taken indoors (ring finger)

Taken with flash

From left to right: The top half of Jane's dress, bamboo shoots, the bouquet of flowers Tarzan handed to Jane, and the hem of her dress.

How I did the rest of my nails:

• Index finger:

1. I used The Face Shop - YL702 to draw the V-shape starting 1/4 inch from the top of my nail.
2. I used a white nail art pen to draw the collar.
3. Using Brush 1 and Orly - Charged Up, I drew the little tie.

• Middle finger:

1. I used Sally Hansen - Lickety Split Lime as my base.
2. Using Brush 2 and Sally Hansen - Mint Sprint, I drew the lines of the bamboo shoots.

• Ring finger:

1.  2 coats of China Glaze - White on White as the base.
2. Using Brush 2 and Sally Hansen - Mint Sprint, I drew the stems of the flowers.
3. I used Orly - Charged Up, The Face Shop - PP401 and The Face Shop - YL702 to draw the flowers.

• Little finger: 

1. I used 2 coats of The Face Shop - YL702 as the base.
2. Then I used a white nail art pen to draw on the hem.

Sealed everything off with Sally Hansen - Insta Dri Top Coat (surprisingly there wasn't any bubbling!)

Taken with flash

Taken indoors under yellow lighting

Taken in natural sunlight

Taken in natural sunlight

Collage

Image from disneyyandmore.tumblr.com

This is the picture that I used as reference. Hmm, my Jane looks a little sadder (the eyebrows I think) and the hair is a bit messier but other than that I think my one hour of work was worth it!

Sorry for the super lengthy post. Shortening sentences is not my forte. ~_~

What do you think? Do you like these nails? Do you think I'm nuts for spending so much time doing just one nail? Have you ever tried doing nails like this before? I'd love to see them. I also look forward to any constructive criticism that you might have for me.

If you made it to the end of the post without skipping any paragraphs, THANK YOU for reading! Love you guys!

Image from Tumblr

P.S: Should I make an Instagram account??

BioShock Infinite Nail Art

I did it again! I did another nail design especially for my sister.

For months, my sister has been talking about BioShock Infinite which is apparently the best game she has ever played in her life. Weeks before the release of the game, she made me watch the trailer of the game and I did. To be honest (okay, please, BioShock fans don't throw potatoes at me for this), it didn't strike any chords in me. I found it okay, nothing too exciting. But you could tell by the expression on my sister's face that she was thrilled and anxious for the release of the game.

Haha, I think - okay, I know she was disappointed that I didn't share her enthusiasm. Anyhow, the game was released eventually (I'm sure I was reminded of the release date multiple times) and she bought the game and played it and loved it even more.

Usually I watch her play games (Assassin's Creed, Batman: Arkham Asylum & Arkham City, Call of Duty, Battlefield, Metro 2033, etc.) and give comments on what I think about the game and my final verdict on whether I would play it or not. But with BioShock Infinite, I didn't watch it at all. It might or might not have to do with the fact that my sister was so engrossed in the game that she finished it in like a day. I only caught the ending aka the credits rolling, ahaha! I watched that clip of Troy Baker and Courtnee Draper (voice actors of Booker and Elizabeth) singing and that's about it.

Sooo... I missed out on the best-est game of all time. And I suppose I feel kind of bad that I didn't share my sister's enthusiasm.

This nail design was spontaneous. I didn't think much before diving into it. I was fresh out of ideas for my next mani - just kidding, I couldn't decide what to paint next. As I was sitting and thinking, the image of BioShock Infinite floated into my mind. My sister was at school so what better surprise than to do nails based on her favorite game?!

I did spend quite some time Googling for pictures I could use as reference/inspiration and finally, I got it. So here they are, this is what I did:

Taken in indirect sunlight

This is before I used top coat so it's a bit gritty and uneven. The thumb is the BioShock Infinite title, the index, middle and ring depict Booker and Elizabeth, and the little finger is the front view of the blouse Elizabeth wears in most of the game.

Let me break it down for you. Here are the colors I used:

• Base color for thumb: China Glaze - Kalahari Kiss
• Base color for my index, middle and ring finger: Love & Beauty - baby blue
• Base color for little finger: China Glaze - White on White

Colors for the design:

• BioShock Infinite title: China Glaze - First Mate, China Glaze - White on White, China Glaze - Salsa
• Booker and Elizabeth's skin: China Glaze - Kalahari Kiss
• Booker's gun, shirt and pants: Orly - Liquid Vinyl
• Booker and Elizabeth's hair, his jacket and belt: The Face Shop - a dark brown (I also mixed white with the brown to get different shades)
• Booker's scarf: China Glaze - Salsa
• Elizabeth's dress and the scarf against her white blouse: China Glaze - First Mate
• Booker and Elizabeth's shirts: China Glaze - White on White

Taken in shade

Taken under white lighting

I wore this design for a full five days with barely any tip wear. Oh, here's the picture I used for reference:

Image from Google

Hmm, okay, my Booker is thinner than the picture above and Elizabeth's shoulder should have been higher but apart from that, I think I did pretty good with what I had.

Was my sister delighted and surprised? Indeed. Who would ever guess that I would do BioShock Infinite nails? Certainly not myself so in a way, I surprised myself.

What do you think?

Thank you for reading this lengthy post!

If you're a BioShock fan or just a fellow gamer and would like to tell my sister how much you also enjoyed the game, feel free to comment or @ me on Twitter. I'll be happy to pass the message along.

P.S: As of a couple of hours ago, I can now officially say that I've watched 10% of the gameplay. Yes, my sister made me watch her play it and I agreed. :) Okay, dammit, I like Troy Baker as Booker DeWitt. My sister is going to be ROTFLHAO at this but what the heck, right?

P.S.S: I finally get the 'Do you take your coffee black?' reference.