Spring Nail Art Tutorial

1. Paint three colours on your nails. I used Lime Up! from Essence, Migi nail art yellow and Watermelon from Essie.

2. Apply two white stripes.

3. Add yellow stripes.

4. Add blue stripes (Ogre-the-Top Blue from OPI), layering one over the yellow stripes.

5. Finally, add black dots (Black Satin from Rimmel London). I used a dotting tool I made from a pin and an old pencil, but you can use an actual dotting tool, toothpicks, whatever works for you!

Goodbye Picnik

For those of you who were Picnik users, I'm sure you'll feel the same as I do. How could they close Picnik!? It was my favourite site! Sure, they've moved to Google Plus and PicMonkey is pretty much the same, but no more Picnik!? It's just not the same without it. Picnik needs to be brought back!

Minnie and Mickey Mouse

Here's a tutorial for you on Mickey and Minnie Mouse nails.

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1. You need assorted nail polish, a dotter (dotting tool, toothpicks, pins, pencils, etc.), tape or hole punch reinforcements and scissors.

2. Prep your nails. Apply a base of black (Black Satin from Rimmel London) for Mickey and white (Whirlwind White from Sally Hansen Insta-Dri) for Minnie.

3. When fully dry, apply tape or reinforcements to create a half moon mani. Apply red (Wocka Wocka from OPI).

4. Using a dotting tool, apply two yellow (Migi nail pens) dots for Mickey's buttons. Apply white dots for Minnie's polka dot dress. Add bows for Minnie.

Nail Stickers: Go Wild!

I love making my own nail stickers, but I don't do it much. They're easy to make, and look really good. My latest were some zebra print ones. And I made a tutorial to go with them.

1. You need a plastic baggy, assorted nail polish, an exacto knife or scissors.

2. Apply nail polish to a plastic bag. I used Black Satin (Rimmel London), Ogre-the-Top Blue (OPI), I layered Gold Coin (Revlon) and Amazon's Flash (Loreal Paris) and a black striper (It's So Easy Stripe Right) for the stripes.

3. Next, after allowing your stickers to dry, either peel them off and cut them with scissors or use an exacto knife to cut out the shapes.

4. Go wild! Apply them to your nail however you want! The silver is silver acrylic craft paint. 

Migi Nails and Happy [Belated] Easter!

So, I know Easter is long gone, but that doesn't mean I can't post my Easter nails/cakes/eggs etc. now.

To begin, Migi Nail Art on Facebook had a nail contest. You had to decorate an egg and your nails with Migi Nail art pens (if you haven't seen them, go to http://www.miginailart.com/). Here are my designs.

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I also made an Easter cake.

This is from this year, and the flowers are hand made. I wasn't as happy with it as I would have hoped, but no big deal. It's vanilla cake with a lemon buttercream.

This is last year's cake. I hand made the flowers then too. It's a pumpkin chocolate chip cake (it might sound weird, but it's delicious and one of the few cakes I'll eat!) with cream cheese buttercream.

And finally, happy belated Easter!

Cherry Blossoms

1. Prep your nails. Then paint on at least two coats of a base colour (I used Revlon Pink Lingerie).

2. Next, paint on the tree branches. ** I sponged on and faded out some white on top of the pink. This is optional. You don't have to do this.

3. Paint in the blossoms in a darker pink colour.

4. Finally, shade and highlight the blossoms and add in the centers with black. Clear coat.

Girl On Fire

I'm so excited that The Hunger Games is out! I plan on going this coming week. And so, in honour of my [hopeful] viewing of The Hunger Games, I had to paint my nails again. So, this theme is Girl On Fire. And lucky you, it comes with a tutorial. :p

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1. Prep your nails as usual (make sure you use a base coat). Then, polish your nails with gold polish. (i used Loreal Paris Amazon's Flash and Sinful Colours All About You.)

2. Next, apply a clear nail polish where you want gold glitter. Then apply the gold glitter. *This step is optional. It does give a really cool affect though, and makes the flames a little more realistic.

3. Here's the fun part. Take (are you ready for this?) magic markers (like the Crayola ones for example) and start drawing flames in different colours over the glitter. Choose whatever flame colours you like. I went for the traditional red and orange over the gold sparkles. Then, whether with acrylic paints or black nail polish, outline the shape of your flames and fill in it.

4. Finally, clear coat your flaming nails. For your ring finger, you can add a symbol of The Hunger Games. I chose the Mockingjay and "Girl On Fire". But you could try using the Capitol seal, an arrow, the District 12 seal, etc., etc.

And here's a close up of the Mockingjay.

Have you seen the movie yet? What'd you think? Have you painted Hunger Games nails? If so, post a link to the photo in the comment section. I'd love to see them!

May the Odds Be Ever in Your Favour...

I figured that with a Hunger Games collection colour on my nails, I had to "dress it up" Hunger Games style. So I decided to start by painting the capitol seal on my pinkie. On my ring finger of course, is the famous Mockingjay pin. The middle finger shows the designs from the Hunger Games book covers and the pointer finger is the district 12 seal with a flower. The designs were done using acrylic paints.

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