Christmas Nail Art Challenge - Day 4 - Snowmen

Hi again!

Am late in the day posting this, has been an action packed one for me full of Christmas gift shopping.  It's been quite fruitful too, as I've got most of it done.  Just got a few more people to get for (the tricky ones), which I'm planning to do on Friday when I have a day off, then that's it done! 

Am glad I went on Sunday rather than Saturday, I bet Carlisle was a bustling nightmare yesterday, and most places (even the market) were open today, which surprised me.  Mind you, Lush have put all their gift items at the door which is stupid, because you can pick one up, but then the tills are right at the back of the shop, so you have to struggle through to buy your items, and back again afterwards to get out. 

Tills used to be at the door of shops for a reason!!  Anyway, rant over, lets get on with the challenge. 

Todays theme is snowmen, and this is what I finally came up with, and I like it, hooray!

The blue is L'Oreal Color Riche 611 Sky Fits Heaven, and the glitter topper is Nubar White Polka Dot.  I was quite disappointed when I put that on, because funny enough I was expecting white round glitter, and it's actually silver hexes, but what they hey, it still looks kind of ok, and sufficiently snowy.

 

I painted the snowman in with acrylic paints and I'm really pleased with him, he came out exactly as I'd planned, although the Seche did crinkle him at first, he calmed down later haha. 

 

Here's a closer pic:

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand...... me being me.... he wasn't my first try.  My initial idea was to test out my Nails Inc Bling it On set, by painting a snowman in Floral Street that came in the kit, then pressing it in the silver holo glitter from the kit to make a super blingy snowman.  This is how he came out:

He actually came out quite well, but his paint job was... well... a bit suspect.  He looks like he's packing a baseball bat rather than a broom.  Maybe he was made in the Hood?  He was SUPER blingy though, here's a blurred shot to show you:

See that super holo blingy-ness?  Nice! I'm glad the kit came with a top coat of it's own though, because glitter did get in it after only this one use, so I think you'd need a dedicated top coat to use with it.

So there we have it, there's todays challenge done.  Next is a holiday movie, I have NO IDEA what to do, I keep thinking and thinking.... something will come to me I suppose.  Check out every one elses snowmen below, I'm looking forward to seeing them!

Until next time...

MASPOOASE x x x
~Wendy~

Nail Art Tutorial - Skyscrapers

I am sooo excited to be bringing this to you - my first ever nail art tutorial!  I will start off by saying that this idea came completely from my own head, I haven't copied anyone elses idea or seen this done anywhere else.  That doesn't mean that it hasn't ever been done, there aren't so many original ideas left anymore, and I'm sure someone else could do it better than me. 

Please feel free to use my idea however you wish, copy it, modify it, link to this blog, whatever.  I'm not precious like that, and I'm not egotistical enough to insist 'oh, make sure you credit me if you use it'... NO! You sure as heck don't have to!  I'm big for sharing ideas, I think that's the greatest thing about the internet, people getting together with common interests and sharing.

So there's my two penneth, lets get on to the money shot - this is what I did, and I'll be showing you how I did it:

So obviously, we'll need some tools, and here are the ones I used, it looks like alot, but it's actually not, will tell you about them as we go along...



Step 1 (optional) : Base coat.  I always use a base coat but I know some people who don't.  I used Matte Nail Envy as my nails are in awful condition right now and I'm trying to improve them.

Step 2 : Base colour.  I used light blue, as I wanted it to look like the sky.  I have farrrr to many light blues, but the one I chose was Nails Inc Albert Place.  A true sky blue, and awesomely this was only one coat:

Step 3: Sketch out your skyscrapers.  I used a silver nail art polish, as its not too intrusive, and it doesn't matter so much if a little bit is left showing at the end.  Basically its just sets of straight(ish) lines so not too tricky.  It was hard to get it to show up on photos but hopefully you can see it.

Step 4: Colour your skyscrapers in with a grey polish.  I used another Nails Inc polish, this one's called Parliament Hill.  I think it tones well with the blue I used, but obviously you can use any grey you've got.  There are two places in this manicure where you have to be patient and wait for it to dry properly, and this is the first.  You really should wait for this step to dry before going on to the next.  It doesn't matter about going over the silver, I just painted straight over it as you don't need the vertical lines any more.

Step 5: Outline your skyscrapers.  I used a Color Club striping polish which I got from TK Maxx in a set.  I don't mind too much about getting it on my fingers, can clean that off later.

Step 6: Dotting. We need to dot the windows in.  I hope you like dotting because there's alot!  The polish I used for the dots was L'Oreal Colour Riche in 'Black Swan', just because that's the only black I've got. 

I'm using an old broken ceramic tile to lean on, and have a cotton pad dampened with polish remover on there to rub my dotter on so I don't get any dry polish building up on it. 

I started off with the purple dotter, but found it too big so changed to the yellow one.  These are the 'cheeky' dotters from Amazon, here's the link: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Dotting-Double-Marbling-Different-Cheeky/dp/B005FJQQMC/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1340999194&sr=8-2 This is what it looked like part way through:

Step 7: Lots of dots later, you should pretty much have your finished nail art!  I took a picture to try and show you the finish, its a bit lumpy and bumpy, but it was impossible to capture.... This is one nailart where I would say it's definitely worth topcoating.  I used Seche Vite as my topcoat.  This is the second place where you have to be patient and wait for everything to dry before you topcoat, or your dots will smudge.

After your topcoat - voila!

Nailart to be proud of!  If you've got something for striping, and something for dotting, you can have a go at this!

Would love to hear your comments, or if you have a go, let me see!

Until next time,

MASPOOASE X X X