My friend V's hands are gracing my blog again today. I did these nails for her last week when she was over watching So You Think You Can Dance with me. It's our summer ritual - she's here every week and we watch "the dance show" together. It is THE dance show for us. :) But you're here to see pretty pictures of manicures...
She started with a base of NYC Carrie'd Away. It's the perfect nude color for my nails, however, it's clearly not the right shade of pink to be completely nude on hers, but it did the job for this manicure. I used the needle marbling technique for these, which means I put down little blobs of each color and then used a pointed tool (in this case, my smallest dotting tool which comes to a point without an actual "dot" at the end) to swirl the colors together before they dry. Mixed in here are China Glaze Cranberry Splash, Harvest Moon, Riveting, and Barielle's Aura Angora, the last which was also used to make the line between the french tips and the base color.
Some days I'm a babble-ball, and some days I'm not. This is one of those 'not' days. It's a good thing you're here for the pretty pictures rather than my writing, eh? This week's theme for A Year's Challenge is Dry Marble (also known as needle marble)! I felt like fall, and tried to pick some red/orange/yellow-ish colors. It ended up looking more like I dipped my fingers in blood than fall leaves, but as long as it's pretty, it works. :) I started with two coats of Pure Ice Gold Mist, and then dotted on globs of China Glaze Adventure Red-y, Ruby Pumps, Kalahari Kiss, and Coral Star. I then used a fine dotting tool (feel free to grab a toothpick or needle if you don't have a dotting tool that comes to a point sitting handily at your workspace) and went to swirl-town. Short french-style tips, though I didn't tape and let the swirls make the "french" line wobbly as it pleased, and full-finger on the thumb and ring accents.
Yet another week has gone by, and that means another theme for the Year's Challenge. Head over to Jenna Froggy's page to check out the full schedule and see a list of other blogs participating, but for now, this week's theme is Needle Marble. If you're not already aware, needle marble is a technique where you put drops of different colors of polish on your nail, and use a sharp instrument - toothpick, tiny dotting tool, or needle (hence the name, duh ;) - to draw swirls directly on your nail. I don't remember who it was, but the blogger I first saw using this technique linked to a Robin Moses tutorial for how to do it, so I'll give credit for where I learned how to do this where it's due. You can find the video at the bottom of this post. :)
Without further ado, here's what I came up with!
I had an inspiration for this manicure. I don't know how well I captured it, but I was basing it on a particular painting, Rebirth by Oni Hazarian, which is available in multiple types of prints from Fine Art America. I love browsing their website for inspiration, which you can tell from browsing my "Inspirations for Nail Art" pinterest board. ^_^
To do my best with how this beauty inspired me, I used a base of China Glaze Smoke and Ashes. The various swirls were done with Primark Beauty neons yellow, blue, and orange, Sinful Colors San Francisco, and NYC Broadway Burgundy Frost. This is one of those manicures where I think it really looks much better in person than in pictures. I did manage to get a certain depth to it that I don't think really shows up here. Ah, well. Even if I didn't capture the effervescence of the painting, I still have pretty nails!
And, as I promised, the link to the great teacher of technique - Robin Moses teaching "Marbling Without Water":
I actually did two Memorial Day manicures this holiday weekend. My best friend V was over and brought chicken for Mr. IJAH to grill. So in keeping with the patriotic holiday, the same polishes I used on my manicure got put on V's nails as well:
We started with a base of Milani Whitest White, taped off the center triangle, and then added dots of China Glaze Salsa, China Glaze Frostbite, and just a weee little bit of the Milani, and then used my tiniest dotting tool (which is really a pointed end like a toothpick, which would work just as easily, but wasn't as handy, since my dotting tools are right at my polishing "station" :) to swirl the colors together. Remove the tape, let it dry for a bit, and then we added stripes of Pure Ice Strapless and a franken that I put together after realizing that I don't actually own any red glitter polish! So I pulled out my little container of red glitter, a clear top coat, and an empty mini bottle (I bought a batch of 20 bottles from TKD for frankening fun!) and went to town. I also got into my daughter's makeup (yes, my eight year old has more makeup than I do, because I don't wear the stuff) and took a few scrapings of a red eyeshadow to put into the bottle to add a bit of red tint to the clear topcoat - you can't tell it's there if I didn't tell you about it, but you'd be amazed at the difference that the tiny bit of tint made in making the line of glitter look more like a solid line.
V and I were both really excited at how well the diamonds on the thumbs turned out, and she wants to try diamonds on all of her fingers the next time. She really loves the dry marbling effect, so I get to play with color combinations on her nails a lot. ^_^ She's got a job interview coming up this week, so stay tuned for what her nails will be sporting on that day!
Once again, my friend V's nails are visiting our blog. I honestly haven't been feeling that creative this past week, but between her ideas of what she wanted and my ideas of what I can do, we came up with something that she really loved and I think suits her personality and looks good on her nails! And what more can you ask of a manicure, really?
To create this look, we started with a base coat (we normally use a ridge-filling base coat for V, but since we were going with a sheer base color, we used my clear base coat instead) and then painted one coat of China Glaze Fast Track. It's not clear, but its color looks the closest to nude I can come to V's skin tone in my palette, and the glitter just adds that touch of oomph.
I taped her fingers off at an angle with standard French manicure tape and then painted a thick coat of China Glaze Foie Gras. I then added drops at random of China Glaze Solar Power, Riveting, and Harvest Moon, and then swirled them gently with my thinnest dotting tool. We decided to marble the whole thumb, though I did leave a few bare spots to show off the Fast Track. After letting that dry for a bit, I took a striper brush and lined the French tips with China Glaze Electrify. Since we didn't have tips on the thumbs, I just striped along a few of the most prominent swirls. Here's a picture with flash to show off the sparkle:
When I pulled out the colors I intended to use for this marble, V looked askance at the bright yellow. She claims yellow doesn't look good on her, and in large amounts, she's right. But we were doing a "fall colors" manicure, and I knew that yellow would be the perfect color to make it POP and keep all the browns from just melding together. She had to stop and just look at her nail after I finished the first marble tip, because she was amazed at how it ended up.
