Hello!
Okay, this is going to be the last time I do this design I promise! But when I had the striped version on my nails a week or so ago I wasn't very pleased with the neatness of my stripes, and I got thinking whether the design would look good without them. I decided to use black, white and red as I thought they'd look really striking together. I couldn't decide whether to do a black base with a white outline around the heart, or a white base and a black outline. So in the end I decided to do both!
I used the Kate Spade Nails Inc black, and my new Barry M white, Cotton. Let me just say that Cotton is beautiful and perfect, I'm so glad after it took me a while to find/buy it. The red is my beautiful Dior polish that I got for Christmas. I've described in more detail the steps I went through to create these nails in my other post (link above) if anyone wants further info on how to do them! Here's a picture I remembered to take mid-way through the design... (on the black nails I did the heart first in white before going over it with the red to make the red stand out more!)
I loooove the overall effect of these when finished, I think they're much better and 'cleaner' looking than my striped ones. I can't stop looking at them! For an extra dimension to these I also added gold underneath the tips!
Last year I came up with a striped design with hearts on the tips of my nails. This look was perfect for pointed tips as the point fitted with the point of the heart, and they were so much more effective than I thought they would be! Here are the original ones from back in September.
I decided that as it's Valentine's Day at the weekend I would re-create the design, with different, slightly lighter colours.
I started off with a base of Banana Split by Models Own. I can't gush about the fruit pastel collection enough - the formula is so smooth and creamy and lovely, the colours are so delicate and then there's the bonus of the subtle fruit-sweetie scent once the polish is dry! Anyway - I started off with two coats of this, then topped with Insta-Dri to help speed up the drying process. Here it is on it's own because I love it and want to show it off!
Once it was fully dry I used a pink Barry M nail art pen to freehand the stripes. I'm a bit annoyed because they aren't as neat and even as I'd like, I should have used nail vinyls! Anyway, I then roughly drew on the heart shape at the end of my nails and coloured it in using Peach Melba by Models Own. I topped with Insta-Dri again (I always do this before adding anything with the nail art pens as it needs to be fully dry!!) and then went round the outline of the heart again with a white nail art pen. I did this a couple of times as the white pen doesn't show up as well as the black. I also added a little 'shine' line to each heart, which I didn't do last time but I like!
One more coat of Insta-Dri (which reminds me, I need to buy more!!) and I was done.
Hello!
I kind of just threw these nails together last night and they were a combination of ideas. I already had heart-tips in mind as I was considering doing this for my BFF Friday manicure - I went with another idea in the end, but still love how heart tips look - and I wanted to try them out on my new pointy nails - they'd make good hearts, I thought!
I picked these colours inspired by my work - our uniform shirts are a kind of pink/purple stripe pattern, and our logo is a darker pink. I work for a train company and today we lent a train to match.com as they wanted to do a big dating/promo event on board - they called it The Love Train! So because of this being in my mind, I came up with these nails!
I actually loooooooove them! I think outlining the heart made the hearts really stand out and look almost 3D. They took me a while, and I'm happy with the hearts - I wasn't sure if I'd be able to get them looking even/symmetrical and I knew I would just start again with something easier if they went wrong- luckily that didn't happen.
I started with a base of Prickly Pear (Barry M gelly) - three coats. This isn't my favourite BM gelly polish at all - there are much more gorgeous, stand-out ones (such as Greenberry!!!) ....but I end up using it in so many designs and my bottle has nearly run out! It's very versatile! Once this was fully dry, I added pink stripes with my Barry M nail-art pen. I then drew out the heart using the black nail-art pen. I filled it in with Rhosilli, from the Barry M matte collection. This is almost a perfect match for my train company's logo so I've adopted it as my 'work polish'. I started off using a small nail-art brush to fill in the hearts but then found it was easier to just use the brush out of the bottle! Once THIS was dry I outlined the hearts again in black to neaten them up. I finished with a layer of Sally Hansen insta-dri to seal everything in and add a shine.
I'd be lying if I said these didn't take me ages, but it was partly waiting for each layer to fully dry before adding the next one, and the fact I did the same design on every nail (not just accent nails!)
Here's a picture of Prickly Pear before I added anything else - I need to appreciate this colour more!
Then some more of the design (two nice ones from my camera, then the rest are ones I took at work with my shirt/the walls/my coffee - woo! Sorry about the scratch on my finger spoiling the pics, it's from a horrible thorn in my garden :-(
Hello!
Here are some more Valentine's nails! I've seen some fab nails from other bloggers, and the ones I've liked the most have been these by Pause for Polish. So artistic! Also, Nailasaurus posted some valentine's nail art ideas, and I really liked the ones with the 'LOVE' lettering. So I knew I wanted to spell out the word on my nails, but didn't want to directly copy either of these, or various others I've seen. I don't think I'd have been able to do anything as nice or intricate as Pause for Polish, so I got thinking about other styles of writing and nail art in general, and decided to go for lace-print-style writing.
For a base I used three of my Ciate minis, which all happen to have valentines-themed names - L-R, Boudoir, Play Date and Kiss Chase. I painted my nails in Kiss Chase, then randomly swiped the other colours on. Not sure that it looked very good, more messy, but it didn't matter very much as I was going to add the lettering over the top, which I did with my Barry M nail art pen. I finished off with a shiny topcoat to seal in the pen and finish off the look!
No flash:
flash:
From my phone:
