Right Angled

MOAR MAGNETS! This mani and Friday’s mani were actually painted a few weeks apart, but I ended up editing them next to each other? Who knows. This was a super duper simple mani that I painted on my way out the door, on the assumption that anything magnetic looks cool even if I have no tools!

I don’t remember why, but a lot of my polish stuff was inaccessible for a few weeks (pre-moving moving things?), so I had grabbed some simple and easy-to-make-manicure supplies including this polish, the magnet, and some gold polish. So please pardon the not perfectly straight lines, everything was free-handed!

Colors:
~ Copper magnetic: Masura – Evening Before the Fireplace
~ Gold: Essie: Good as Gold

I do love Masura magnetic polishes, the bottle is very pretty and the polish works like a dream. Anyway, the magnet can again be found at the Born Pretty Store if you’d like one for yourself for cheap! Hope you enjoyed 🙂

Teal Magnetic Swirls

Magnets! I love magnetics. They make my nails look cool with little-to-no effort on my part other than holding still for a few seconds. Stamping over them just looks so cool!

Anyway, this was basically just having fun with straight magnets and some silver stamps. The magnetic polish is a teal-to-black called Whitehall by Nails Inc. The silver is Excalibur by A England and the stamp is from Moyra plate 50 – Ornaments 3.

To make this, I applied the straight line magnet on a diagonal on all the nails except my thumb. The magnet is super strong the raised teal line was incredibly sharp…until it wasn’t. As always happens, the magnetic turning point blurred as the polish dried, so I went from a super sharp line to a smudge, but it still looks cool. Honestly, maybe I need thinner coats of polish! On my thumb I tried to create a curved pattern using the small circular end of the magnetic stick. I love it. I think making this nail was more fun than using the straight line!

The double-headed magnet that I used is from the Born Pretty Store, and it is both cheap and works well. You can find it for $2.99.

Enjoy!

Rose Gold Rows

This is a super complicated mani, but I kinda love it. I was sent some very tiny rose gold caviar beads to review from the Born Pretty Store, and I went to town with them!

Most of my caviar beads are what I would consider standard size…which is easily twice the size of these ones. Look at how many pretty rows are on my middle finger! I ended up mix-and-matching with a fishtail, some other studs, and basic diagonals. I had seen a similar mani online, but I didn’t want to use a black base so I settled on a very dark blue with subtle gold shimmer 🙂

Colors:
~ Dark blue: Zoya – Blake
~ Rose gold metallic: Essie – Penny Talk
~ Rose gold glitter: ILNP – Juliette

I have never really tried to place a bunch of studs and then surround them with caviar beads, mostly because my other caviar beads are larger, and the whole thing takes forever. That said, I did my middle finger first (well, I did the polish-only nails first, but it was the first nails with 3D elements) and since that only took 10 minutes, I went ahead and did the others with lots of tiny beads too. Success!

If you want to pick up these tiny beads for yourself, head over to the Born Pretty Store, where you can find them for $1.79. I kinda love them, and can’t wait to figure out ways to use them now!

Lavender and Pink Petals

Today is something pretty but very very simple: water decals! And really nothing else.

I wasn’t sure if these were opaque or not (I have been burned too many times not to assume I need a coordinating pastel-colored base polish), so I started with a base of Royalty Reinvented by L’Oreal. Truthfully, I didn’t need it. These water decals are 100% opaque and amazing. I soaked for 40-60 seconds and they came off easily, repositioned well, and stretched to fit my curves nails without ripping.

I feel like it is rather rare to find full-nail water decals that just work, so this was quite refreshing. Both thin enough to follow nail curves but thick enough to maintain their color and consistency. Win all around!

If you like these, or think you might just want to play around with some quick easy nail art a-la-water decals, head over to the Born Pretty Store. These particular decals are currently 99 cents.

Prismatic Braid

Omg you guys. YOU GUYS. So, first off, I am super freaking proud because LOOK I DID A FOIL TRANSFER. Now, I cannot totally lay claim to this, because everything in this mani is new…new base polish, new foil transfer glue, new foils. Somehow, it worked!

To start with, the base color is two thin coats of Landon by Zoya, a mid-tone slightly dusty purple creme. The polish is pretty enough, but honestly I prefer my mid-toned purple with a pink (or even true purple) tint and not grey-out like this! Anyway, Landon is pretty enough but a bit more wintry than I am currently feeling!

However, then I added holographic foil. Because. And it is amazing. I requested some holographic nail foils from the Born Pretty Store when they asked me what I wanted to review most recently, and I asked for foil glue as well since previously I had used regular nail polish. The foil glue was a bit…tricky. I tried to just paint it on but it shrunk to just the center of my nails. So I tried to paint it on thickly and it kinda worked…so I just gave up and dapped it on a few times in places that it wasn’t covering. Despite the headache of doing things that way, it dried quickly and clearly covered all right!

I then cut the foil I wanted to use (this set comes with 12 designs….three of which were a little poorly printed and looked blob-y and the rest of which were awesome) and went and applied the foil once the glue was completely dry. Ta-da! These worked basically perfectly. I smushed them down with a makeup sponge instead of just using my finger, and I think that helped.

So, you can find 12 foil designs, of which this is one, at the Born Pretty Store for $1.79, and the foil glue for $5.29. Hope you enjoyed! I know I did 😀

Curled Explosions

The final purple mani this week! Although there may be more next week. I really like working with purple in the Spring.

So, I absolutely love this mani. I love it so much I split it into two parts. Last week I showed the base of this mani, Blurple Smush Stars. I actually almost left it like that, but I decided to see if partially stamping over the background would highlight just how cool it looked. I consider this a success!

I also, of course, wanted to show of a new plate from the Born Pretty Store. This is probably the plate I was most excited to get my hands on, I love swirly designs! Seriously…the two things I love most on my nails are swirls, and then geometric patterns. Its like I was made to stamp.

This plate is a smaller square plate, called BP – X43. Despite its smaller size, it has 9 full designs, all of which are well-etched and absolutely stunning. I used a different design on each nail, just to test them out. They go so well together!

Colors:
~ Dark periwinkle: Zoya – Danielle
~ Periwinkle: Nails Inc – Regents Place
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Silver: A England – Excalibur
~ Stamp: Floral BP – X43

Great stamp, great base. If you want to pick up this stamping plate for yourself, Born Pretty Store has if for $2.19. Enjoy!

Tangled Heart

Yet another two new things post! I am very excited that I have so much new nail polish, but it is also getting tiring swatching things as a focus rather than primarily doing nail art. I don’t know how those nail polish swatch bloggers do it!

Anyway, this is a shiny new polish from the OPI holiday collection, and was hands down my favorite OPI that I received (luckily, I even got a fully sized bottle rather than a mini!). The polish is called Feel the Chemis-tree, despite being a purple and in no way tree-like. OPI tends to have pun-y names, but this one misses the mark :-p. Anyway Chemis-tree covered well in two thin coats (I almost could have done one), and has a purple base with pink shimmer that shifts to gold. It is really quite beautiful!

On top of my purple base I did some layered stamping, and some simple stamps. The stamping images come from a plate sent to me to review from the Born Pretty Store, which I think was intended to be Valentine’s-themed but is mostly lots of flowers, cool lines, and hearts. But the best part? It is made to be layered! I have been waiting to get my hands on an intentionally layered stamping plate and this one does not disappoint.

I tested a few of the fine detailed lines from the flowers on this plate, and they all worked perfectly. Then I decided that I didn’t want to use flowers…and instead went with the heart with the small line made to go over it, and some larger lines. My sister thought I had used stamping tape (which with this design would have taken HOURS), I was so pleased!

Colors:
~ Purple shimmer: OPI – Feel the Chemis-tree
~ Gold: Essie – Good as Gold
~ Purple creme: Zoya – Monica
~ Stamp: Valentines Day BP – L002

If you want to pick up the plate for yourself, it is $2.99 over at the Born Pretty Store. Hope you enjoyed!