17 Challenge: Stripes

 

Hey Everyone,

I don't know what I have been doing....no, wait!  Yes I do: Chemistry, Calculus, Biology, Spanish, English, and P.E.  (I include P.E. because that class almost got the best of me this semester).  But I'm not here to complain.  The semester is over which means time for more blog posts!!

I have a lot of posts that have been drafts since the June or July, and this is one of them.

I chose to do yellow background with silver stripes for this 17 Challenge

Colors Used:

Lexington Yellow by NYC

Silver Striper by KISS

And one more picture...

I really am going to post more often. It's almost the new year and I am striving to follow through with my resolution of painting my nails once a week.  Actually I successfully did this in 2011, and was going strong through the first half of 2012 until my senior year started.  But anyway, I have been hunting for nail designs and marking them in my planner, and I always do follow through with things when they are in my planner.

I have about 5 more draft posts so look out for those.  I hope everyone had a very Happy Holidays.  I won't wish you a Happy New Year, though, because I am going to post before then...I promise.

17 Challenge: Pastel

Hello Again,

Yet another installment in the 17 Challenge Nail Design series!  Today I present to you, pastel nails.

I originally did a plain mani with my pastel peach color.   A day later, I decided to add some flower detail on my accent finger for a little more summery and floral look.

Overall, a pretty easy and simple 17 Challenge.

Shade

Colors Used:

Peach Parfait by Ulta

Luxe by Orly (gold dots)

White Out by Orly

And because the perfection and easiness of the nail polish made for pretty photos, I present you with more pictures below.

Shade

Sun (sorry for that glare)

Indoors

I will be posting a tutorial on how to do the flowers on my ring finger, so look forward to that.

Until next time <3

17 Challenge: Polka Dots

Good evening everyone!  Like I promised, I have another nail design to share. 

This is another post in the "17 Challenge Series:" PoLka DoTs (for some reason I thought that alternating upper and lower case letters would look like polka dots...)

The base color is Strawberry Margarita by OPI and the dots are made by using NYC Lexington Yellow (shown in the picture above) and a distorted bobby pin.  Of course Seche base and top coats were used.  

I also use OPI Chip Skip, but I'm not quite sure if that actually makes a difference.  That'd be a great future post, an experiment to see if it actually makes your nails skip chips.  I'll keep that on the back burner for ideas.  I'll even start a draft so that I don't forget. 

The pamphlet that had the suggested 17 designs showed the polka dots as just scattered around each nail, but since I didn't really want that many polka dots, I decided to just do two lines of polka dots that "take a journey" across the width of each nail.  I tried to connect the lines from nail to nail, but it was kinda hard to line them up.  This was the best I could do.

The Strawberry Margarita was just a mini OPI nail polish.
\My hand isn't gigantic, if that's what you thought.

Overall, I think this is an interesting and fun take on the regular polka dots.  And it's so easy too, it's like using a stamp, it's hard to go wrong.  

Stay tuned for more 17 Challenge nail designs, as well as other nail polish posts and my first Influenster post.  If you don't what Influenster is, then I guess you'll just have to come back and read about it.  In the meantime, you can go ahead and vote for your favorite nail polish in the poll on the left and look at previous posts.

Until next time : )

17 Challenge: Mix It Up

As I promised, I have the first installment of  the Seventeen Magazine nail challenge I have started for this summer and on.  (Click here to read more about it)

I actually did this nail design last Thursday, but I was busy enjoying my first few days of summer break to post about it, but now that it is the first full week of summer break, I have found some time.

This design was #13: Mix It Up.

The description of these nails was to paint all your nails one color and then do an accent nail on your ring finger.  I normally don't really like to do one nail a completely different color with nothing that ties it into the other nails, so I'm glad this was a challenge because otherwise I would not have tried this.

The colors I used were Finger Paints "Drawn to this Shade" (no surprise here, this is only about the 10th time I've done a post on this color).  But I did use this new color my mother got me a couple of months ago.  It is called "Stranger Tides" from OPI's Pirates of the Carribean collection.  It was only a dollar at this nail store that was going out of business.  

Actual color of the dusty green

I really didn't know when or how I was going to wear this dusty pale green color, but it contrasts nicely with the coral and I have started to really like it.   I used one coat of the coral and two coats of the dusty green because it goes on pretty streaky at first.

I also think that this accent nail is really cool.  My mom and brother, who's home from college, don't really understand why one color is painted differently.  I just tell them "17 Challenge" and they don't bother me anymore.  Lol =]

If OPI is your favorite nail polish brand, just go ahead and vote for it in the poll on the left.  If it is Finger Paints or something else, vote for that one.

I hope everyone is having a good Memorial Day...and I'll see you next time for another edition of the 17 challenge (or a random post or something).

Summer's Almost Here

UPDATE: You can now click on the nail designs in the list below to take you to the blog post about it.

I know it has been a while since I posted a nail design, nail tips, or basically anything, but school is finally out, which means that finals are OVER.

This means I will have more time to actually do my nails.  I haven't done them since my last post and they look terrible.  A manicure is definitely needed.  So look forward to more nail tips and designs.

Also, I received the latest issue of Seventeen magazine in the mail and it came with a little packet of 17 different nail ideas.  So what I am planning on doing is trying all 17 ideas by the end of this year.  NOTE: this does not mean that it will be all 17 in a row.  I like to alternate sometimes between plain or simple designs and the more complex and busy designs.  But I will definitely have them all "worn" and posted about by the end of the year.

Here are the 17 nail designs:

1. Stripes
2. Neon
3. Polka Dots
4. Glitter
5. Lace
6. Stars
7. Newspaper Print
8. French Tips
9. Graphic
10. Tie-dye
11. Cute Tattoos
12. Swirls
13. Mix It Up
14. Stickers
15. Pastel
16. Tribal Print
17. Half Moons

As I was typing this list, I realized that I didn't have a lot of the colors or supplies to make these designs, so yesterday I went shopping and found some of the ones that I needed for a couple.  I still have some more nail polishes on my list, but I do have enough for the next two or three designs.  

I started off with one of the rather easy designs: #13 Mix It Up.  Look for that post in the very, very near future =]

Comment below if you have any nail designs that you want me to try!
And don't forget to take the poll to the right of this post on your favorite nail polish brand!

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: Perfect Peach

Happy Monday Night!

If you all looked at my post yesterday about my Ulta purchase, you already have a sneak preview for the nails I am about to show you all.  If not, here's a link to yesterday's post, or you can just keep on reading.

Sunlight

I think this type of nail design is called color blocking, but it my version may be different because they sections are not really blocks.  But anyway, I was really excited about this.  Like I said yesterday, I am finally glad I found my perfect orange.  This is Tu-Lip Service by Ulta.  It's a glittery orange-peach that has a little bit of a gold hue to it in some lights and in the bottle.

Shade

For this notw, I have two coats of Tu-Lip Service "wedged"     between Seche Clear (basecoat) and Seche Vite (topcoat).  The color really is pretty opaque, but when the sunlight hits it plus the use of my camera, it does look like the smile line is showing a little on my index and pinky fingers.  But it's hardly noticeable in real life.




I think another really cool thing about this nail polish (well all of the Ulta minis) is that it is the perfect size.  I have always complained about OPI's minis and that they are extremely tiny.  But these cuties are 7ml.  They have the perfect brush as well.  I feel like it's one of the nail polish bottles that allows you to get all the nail color out, and minis are especially hard to do that with.  Not this one.  I mean, if Ulta sold all their polishes this size for like $1.50 or $2.00 my nail polish collection would probably have three times as many nail colors as it does now.

As much as I like the little bottle, this color really is pretty enough for a full bottle.  But until Ulta makes one, I guess it's just me and the little guy for now.

Oh, and lest I forget my accent nail.
I took step by step pictures on how I did it; however, this is already a really long post, and I am kinda tired and still have history work to do, so I will post a tutorial later on this week.

But if you still want more nail polish designs, just check out some of my other posts in the archive section on the right side of my blog.

Here are some more pictures of this week's mani:

Sunlight

Shade

NOTW: Water Marble

Three days in a row, tic-tac-toe!  Yes, I have posted three days in a row.  What an accomplishment.

  

Anyway, I have a water marble design to share with you all today. 

Water marble in natural sunlight

I wore this on my nails for about two and a half weeks (I didn't have to take it off and certainly didn't have time to repaint them).  I have absolutely found water marbling to be really cool, but never got around to trying it...until now!  Hope you all like the final result!

Here are all the materials I used.  

1. Finger Paints-Drawn to this Shade (you'd think I didn't have any other nail polish since this about my 5th post involving FP, but i just think it's sooo pretty)
2. KISS White Nail Striper
3. (Distorted) bobby pin
4. A cup of SmartWater at room temperature

I'm not all that sure if the "room temperature" part is a huge must.  This was the first time I tried and it worked, but the room I was in was a little cold.  I probably could have drank the water and it wouldn't have tasted too bad, temp rise.  I started off by painting my nails with OPI Chip Skip and Seche Clear base coat followed by one coat of Finger Paints.

Next, I taped off my nail.  I'm sure if you're reading this post, you have already heard about how to tape off your nail for a water marble design.  I just used clear Scotch tape.

This is just a picture of my left index finger after I nudged from attempting to put the tape on my right hand fingers.  So, make sure your base color is completely dry.  It didn't really show up that much in the final result, but I still knew.  And that's what matters, right? 

Here is a picture of alternating coral and white rings in the water.  It spread pretty nicely and the polish was easy to design with. So happy I didn't have to experiment with a whole bunch like I've read about people doing.  Yay for luck!

This was just right after I had applied Seche Vite top coat, so there is still nail polish around my nail bed and on the cuticle left from after I took the tape off.  But, as you can see in the first photo, everything turned out all fine and dandy =]

Until next time (which will hopefully be tomorrow, because then that would make it four in a row *connect four*)

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)

Nails From Three Weeks Ago!

Okay, so yet again I have discovered another picture in my queue of some nails I did three weeks ago.

These were both fun and annoying to do. I always like the nail designs that require attention to detail, and these do. The only thing is that my white striper was a little thick and I couldn't get the lines as precise as I wanted them. But I think they turned out pretty well.

Oh and another downside, it was pretty late when I decided to paint my nails, so late that I only had time to paint the right hand with the design and leave the left hand with just the background color. But it made for a cool balance and I was too tied to take it off.

I used Finger Paints-Drawn to this Shade and a white striper.

If you do want to try this design, make sure you have a thin liner and enough time to completely finish it.