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: 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)