How To: Color Blocking

Good evening everyone!

Tonight I am going to share with you all a how-to post on how I made the color blocked accent nail from my last post: NOTW Perfect Peach.

Oh and FYI, if you are reading this post late Saturday night, look outside.  The moon is the brightest that it has been this year, and probably for a couple of years.  The sky literally looks blueish purple where I live.


So back to nails.

Step 1: Paint your nails a solid white color.  (I had to use white because these colors were very sheer when applied just to the bare nail.)  Then use a black striper to create a bunch of little sections.  

The thing I don't like about this design is that it kind of looks 

like I was trying to make a star and then messed up, 

which I wasn't.  So just be careful that the design looks varied,

like in the first picture.

Step 2:  Fill in one or two spaces with one color.  I just used the tip of a small bobby pin.  Take the nail polish brush out of the bottle and just dip the bobby pin into the brush.  I tried to put dots on paper, but I think dipping the pin directly into the polish is easier.

Step 3: Repeat step 2 until all the spaces are filled.  Be careful not to get any color right next to each other.  Here's a link to the post of the swatches from this color collection along with the names.

In this picture, I have actually two different oranges on.
The space on the top right and the space on the
bottom left is the color I painted the rest of my nails
in the last post.

Here is the pink color.

The red-orange color.

And finally the yellow.

Just take a cotton swab dipped in nail polish remover to clean up around the edges.

Overall, I like the way this nail turned out.  If it didn't look so much like a star, I think I would have liked it better.  The funny thing is that I like my accent nail on my left hand.  I'm left handed, so I thought my right hand wouldn't make the design look as pretty since it was my non-dominant hand. But I really like the effect, so I had to include a picture:

This nail design is really simple.  I even think it would look great as a design for all the nails, but I'm just too lazy and impatient to sit through and paint all of them like that.

Comment below if you like the design or if you have any questions.

See you all later <3

P.S.  I did my friend's nails yesterday for tonight's prom.  I wish I had taken a picture because it was this really pretty gold and white water marble with glitter sparkles.  Maybe later on this year I'll do it on my nails and show it to you all.  It was just that pretty.  So look forward about a month or two for that one.  But I will be doing another water marble design either for this upcoming week or the next.  I don't know...with finals and AP exams,  I'll try to find time.  Okay, this really is the end of this post.

NOTW: Sponged Gold and Berry

Happy Friday.  I think this post managed to make it within three weeks of the last, so I'm getting better.  Lately it's been so busy with school that I really only painted my nails twice in the last two months.  So even if I wanted to post more often, I wouldn't have anything to talk about.

But on a higher note, I am going to be posting more regularly.  I have realized that when I don't have a pretty perfect nail polish on my nails, I begin to pick at it during class and then become distracted.  Yeah, sometimes I get distracted from staring at the pretty nail color a day after I paint them, but it's not as bad as literally picking the color from my nails.  So really look for some more frequent posts, I'm serious this time.

For today's Nails of the Week (that were worn three weeks ago), I have a sponged on nail design.  I started off with two coats of Ulta's Fushiamania.   I then took a makeup sponge and sponged on Orly's Luxe over top.  At first I was going to do sort of a fade going up the nail, but I decided to just sponge the gold on the entire nail.  I actually like my right better, but I took this pictures about 4 days after I painted them, and the right hand had a few chips.

However, the chips obviously weren't that bad since I continued to wear this polish for the rest of that week and the next.  I had two test coming up, a debate for English, two papers to write and a presentation for Physics.  My life is complicated...like everyone else's.

Sorry the picture is so dark.  It almost makes my hands look dead.  But I needed to hurry up and take a picture of my nails before any more chips happened and it wasn't very sunny outside at the time.  The homemade berry color is more vibrant and "poppy" in real life, and the gold glitter on top sparkles more in the sunlight.

SIDENOTE: I actually darkened Fushiamania with a good few pours of black nail polish because it looked too similar to China Glaze's Make an Entrance.  (Click here to see a NOTW of Make an Entrance)

I just cut a triangular piece from a round makeup sponge.

Apply the nail polish directly onto the corner of the
torn makeup sponge for best results.

Overall, this is a pretty fool-proof nail design.  If you are tired of the same plain nails, certainly give this a try.  All you need is a base color, a glitter nail polish, and a old makeup sponge.  I seriously got this one from my mother who bought it about 15 years ago, not even joking.

I promise promise promise that I will post more frequently.  I didn't have school today, so I might even post another nail of the week from last week, or maybe start on some of the "Other Tales" that my blog name suggests I will have.  Guess you'll just have to come back to see what the next post will be.  And yes, that just rhymed =]

NOTW: Stamped Flowers

Well, this is just a typical Kendra post: three weeks late.
Yes, I did this nail design right before my spring break, which was two weeks ago.  I think it was a Friday night and I had not yet decided what to put on my nails for the upcoming week. I then remembered the nail art stamping kit I purchased from Ross and decided to use it.

Here's what I came up with:

I specifically used the Salon Express Nail Kit (yes, the one advertised on T,V, all the time).  Honestly, I would prefer to have Konad or BundleMonster, but this was cheaper and easier to find.  It works pretty well too.  There were just two things that I was a little frustrated about. 1) The tool that you use to remove the excess nail polish scratches the nail plate (as you can see below) and 2) the full prints the nail plate comes with don't cover the entire nail.  I might try and show you something with the full nail designs, but I'm still working on one.

Used old gift card instead of scraper

 I used OPI Cajun Shrimp for the base color.  I am convinced that this is a close dupe for Finger Paints Drawn to this Shade (I have a nail design with that on my nails now, expect that in three weeks too, I guess, lol).  I'll probably do some swatches to show how similar the two are.
The white and black flowers are just polish from my nail stripers.

Flower is the top left one

So what did I learn from this:

1. Cheap nail kit at Ross ($6.95, I think)
2. Don't use the nail scraper provided
3. Don't expect grand results from the cheap
4. DO the white flowers first so that they don't have black residue left from the black flower (unless you want to clean after every use...but I'm just too lazy for that)

NOTW---Tribal Art

Update: I'm not sure why I forgot to upload these nails, I did them about a month ago.  But I still wanted to share them with you.  I have two more that I need to upload, so be on the lookout for those.


For this weeks "Nails of the Week" I have decided to go bigger than I ever have before.  I was a little puzzled as to what I should do with my nails this week.  Last week I did a bright pink with silver and black criss-cross lines over top with silver and black flowers on the middle fingers (sorry I don't have a picture).

So this week I was planning on doing just a plain design with maybe a shimmer polish. BUT, I just recently discovered pinterest.com and as I was searching through their nails section, I found this design:   

http://weheartit.com/entry/7873474/via/ashleypola

As you can see, I modified the pointer and pinkie a lot, while I just changed a little on the thumb because that detail was just a little to detailed for me to handle.

Left Hand (I'm left handed so I think I did a pretty
good job with my right hand)

For this design I used Orly- Luxe, OPI- You Don't Know Jacques, and OPI-Arctic Snow, along with a black and white striper.  As difficult as this design may look, it was very easy if you just focus one detail at a time.  I hope some of you will try this design in the future.  If you do, please comment below and let me know how it went.

Until next time <3

NOTW-Valentine's Day

Yes, it is early Thursday morning, but I did paint my nails last week for that special holiday that was on Tuesday. I used OPI Arctic Snow and OPI Big Apple Red, alternating in each finger and then painted the opposite colored dots. In was really easy and I think made for a cute, simple design.

This holiday was a little different because my brother was away at college, so it was just my mother and I. But he still sent us a card and my mother and I had some gifts for each other. And at school, even though I'm in 11th grade, one of my classes had those candy boxes. You know, the ones where people walk around and slip a valentine in them.

Overalls it was a good day. Tell me how yours went!