Take Me to the Beach! - Ocean and Palm Trees at Sunset Nail Art

I have a double dose of awesome nail art for you guys today! I've been seeing a lot of these ocean/beachy/sunset nails lately and I finally got around to trying them. Took me the better part of a day but I'm super happy with the result. I totally hand painted those palm trees!! (which is very exciting for me because I was getting a bit frustrated with my lack of skill in that area, tbh) Practice makes perfect though and after trying it a few times on some practice nails, I got it down. On with the tutorial!

First up are my ocean waves on the beach. Basically, you are going to start with a white polish base - completely dry. Then sponge a blue/white gradient onto the nail, I used acrylic paint for this because I don't have an awesomely pretty blue polish in this color (I am in desperate need, let me tell you!!). Next comes the tricky part...you're going to start out as if you are doing a watermarble, a small cup or bowl and room temperature water, add a few drops of white polish to the water so you have a nice spread, then spray with hairspray, or rubbing alcohol, or perfume (or any number of things, honestly...just look around your house and try anything you have). It should make the polish separate into a spotty web looking thing. The thing about this is that you have to wash out your up after every dip...at least I did because there is really no way to clean the water (so that you can get a good spread with your polish for the other nails) so you have to dump it and start again. Also mind where you are spraying...I cleared off my big counter in the kitchen for this and then wiped it all down afterwards...it does get a little messy. Anywho...when that was all said and done, I took some gold glitter polish and sponged a bit onto the tips of my nails for the sand. I used white paint for the seashell (which came out way bigger than I intended) and some watered down gold polish for the stripes on the shell. It certainly was time consuming but I got a lot of compliments on it, so it was worth it in the end. 

On to the real winner here though...the sunset nails! I just loooove the colors, even though I'm not much of an orange person usually. These are fairly straight forward, I just started with my white base, as usual, and sponged on a purple/pink/orange gradient. I did use a matte top coat after that to help the paint stick better and to protect the gradient in case I messed up the trees. I used very watered down black acrylic paint and a very thing striping brush (which is from a set of nail art brushes but I actually cut it down more because it wasn't thin enough). The brush needs to be very thin and the so does the paint or you won't be able to get the really thin lines you need for the detail work...it took me forever to figure that out because nobody really seems to mention it very often. Learn from my failures people! lol 

As always, I love hearing from you guys...any questions or comments, just drop me a line =)

Colorful Smoke Nail Art - aka Rainbow Hookah

Hi guys! I have some smoky colors for you today, aren't they gorgeous?! I really didn't want to ever take them off! This was a bit of trial and error for me and I practiced on some nail swatching disks for a while until I got it right. Well, let's get to it then!

What I used:

• Black Polish
• White Polish
• Small paint brushes
• Pink, Purple & Blue Permanent Markers
• Rubbing Alcohol

Start with a black base, top coated and completely dry. You'll need the top coat or when you put the acetone on to smudge the white, the black will come up as well. I painted thin white 'lightning like' lines with white polish and used acetone to smudge it up a bit. You could also probably put some white polish on a plate and water it down with the acetone before painting it on but I didn't try that so I'm not sure how it would work out. I drew my design out on paper beforehand because I wanted the lines and colors to flow together and that takes a bit of planning. After the white was dry I used my 'homemade' alcohol inks to color it in, overlapping just a little where they meet up. I made my own alcohol inks by taking the tips out of permanent markers and putting them in little containers with screw on lids (you can find these at drug stores by the hair/beauty supply stuff) and soaking them in a bit of rubbing alcohol. Don't overdue it with the alcohol though, otherwise the colors will be very watered down. It's really pretty cool and there's so many things you can do with them too, I highly suggest playing around with them. I have found that a few of my 'fast dry' top coats like to bleach the colors of the ink, so watch out for that and maybe even test on something else before doing it on your actual nails.

Well, I hope you guys like them and again, if you have any questions or anything, just drop me a line =) 

Grunge Nail Art

Blue/Purple and Blue/Green Grunge Effect


I am really loving this dry brush technique! Though, normally I am pretty horrible at most designs that are meant to 'random' because I'm such a detailed perfectionist...it's so hard for me to just be messy with it lol.

What I used:

• White Base Coat
• Blue, Purple and Green Kleencolor Polish
• Black Polish for the grunge effect

So, after your white base dries, you'll take your color polishes, one color at a time, and wipe them off on the lip of the bottle until there's barely any polish left. You want it to be very streaky, not much color going on at all. You will have to re-dip when it starts to dry up. Swipe down the nail like you normally would leaving streaks of color, you will want to randomize it, leave room for the other colors and definitely leave a good deal of white showing. My first time, I left almost no white and it didn't really look good at all. Basically just play around with it until you get it right, it's all about trial and error. I tend to actually dab the tip of the brush onto the nail where I need more color because sometimes the streaking doesn't quite cut it and I like being precise in my randomness (I know, I know lol). Here is a link to Chalkboard Nails YouTube video of the dry brush technique, go check it out and give her a follow cause she's awesome =) 

So, there you have it! I love to help and hear from you, so if you have any questions or comments, please feel free to leave them below =)

So,

Blue/Purple Ombre Zebra Nail Art

Blue/Purple Ombre Zebra Nail Art

Aren't they pretty?! Ok guys, these are fairly easy to do, though the stripes took a bit of practice for me at first. Basically I just practiced the stripes on my bare nail with my striping polish til I had it down well enough.

What I used:

• Purple and Blue Polish over a White Base
• Makeup Sponge
• Black Striping Polish

Of course there are many ways to do this. You can substitute acrylic paint for the polish, which I actually do quite a lot, sometimes it's just easier and that way you can wash out your sponge instead of just cutting it. Here's a pretty good, yet simple, video tutorial on doing gradients. You can also use black acrylic paint for the stripes (make sure you water the paint down a bit, makes it easier) if you have a striping brush, though I do find that if you're going for nice long sweeping stripes like this that the polish is better, it just has more grab and isn't sliding all over the nail. I will also say to be careful of your top coat, a few of mine (the quick dry ones, mostly) like to streak the design. In that case, it's best to get a big glob of top coat and just kind of float your brush strokes down the nail, trying not to touch the design itself too much.

So, there you have it! I love to help and hear from you, so if any of you have any questions or comments, please feel free to leave them below =)