Mini Nail Party

Awesomesauce tutorial requests aside, I've gotten a few requests to do nails! The owner of the gym I go to is determined to come over and have me to her nails and one of my coworkers is coming over on Saturday to get her nails did. In addition, my BFF is in town! We've been spending the past couple of weekends going out, visiting, and having a good time. I offered to give her a Gelish manicure before she leaves, so we decided she'd come over and we'd have a little nail party. However there was one small problem... I don't really HAVE anywhere to DO nails. Honestly, I just sit cross-legged on the floor at my coffee table and do my nails while watching TV.
I decided to remedy this.

I repurposed an L-shaped desk we weren't using into a handy little nail station. It's PERFECT! Neither my BFF or my roomie had to sit on the floor! ;)

First up, my BFF's nails!
So, I was really inspired by a set of japanese nails I saw on Pinterest:

Originally found on ameblo.jp
I loved the colors, the fade, the jewels, and decided to recreate it using My Favorite Accessory, Plum & Done, and Make A Difference. I like how it turned out! However, I really need to figure out the best way to do a fade with Gelish. It's kinda hard and time-consuming. I think I need to practice more on my swatch wheel and figure out the best method.
For my roomie I tried dreamcatcher nails, using Sheek White, Lust At First Sight, and Black Shadow for the nail art. I love the way these nails look! Although it's apparent I need better nail art detail brushes - the more I look at the dreamcatcher the more critical I am of it. I actually JUST ordered what I hope are better nail art brushes, so I hope if I try something like this again I can get better detail with the Gelish polish. Also, I didn't flash cure the polish on a piece of foil before using it for nail art, so that could've resulted in some messy detail as well.

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Gelish Mani Sunday | Star Trek Nails

We've been watching a lot of Star Trek: Voyager lately.

A LOT.

I was a HUGE fan in High School when it originally aired, but I've just now gotten my GF into it. She LOVES 7 of 9 (and not for the obvious reasons).
Watching it now makes me appreciate it on so many more levels. You don't realize how poorly women are written in television/movies until you watch a show that writes strong, independent, respected women -- and does it RIGHT. I'm a little sad we've already started season 7.

So, since my GF is all Trek, all the time right now, she requested Star Trek nails! These were a LOT of fun and marked a lot of firsts for me:

• First time trying Gelish Galaxy Nails
• First time trying a non-Gelish gel polish
• First time painting nail art before applying Top It Off
• First time layering "regular" polish with Gelish polish

Whew! This is gonna be a long post.

So, IMO, Gelish's yellow selection... sucks. Unless you want neon yellow (Coco Cabana Banana) or greyish yellow (Don't Be Such A Sourpuss) you're out of luck. Unfortunately for my GF yellow is her favorite color. So, while we were out at a nail salon supply store she decided to pick up a bright, beautiful canary yellow from a gel brand I've never used or heard of. We grabbed Gella by ENP in "Lily".
The gal at the shop actually told us the brand wasn't that great, but didn't say why. I told her we really just wanted a bright, canary yellow, and our options are limited with gel polish. The polish itself was a bit watery and it took me 3 coats to get full opacity. I put it over a layer of Sheek White in the hopes that it might minimize whatever problems the polish might have (hopefully it isn't fading) but so far I have no complaints. It seemed to work well with the Gelish polish, Top It Off, and the 18G lamp.

As for the galaxy nails... I've been DYING to do these for, like, a year, but I've been SO intimidated by it. I don't know why, but I've just felt like I was doomed to fail.
However, I have to say... it was easy! On the second nail I really got the hang of how it should look to make it look more like a nebula and less like a multi-colored marble ;)

I also decided to try something new: rather than apply Top It Off before begining painting details, I wiped off the tacky layer off the cured polished and then began painting with Gelish polish. I'm happy to report that I did NOT expirence the color "bleed" once I began painting! I'm going to keep expiramenting with this method - saves me Top It Off and time under the lamp :)
For the above manicure I did the following:

Index, Middle, and Pinky Nails:

1. Index: 2 coats Backstage Beauty
   Middle: 1 coat Sheek White, 3 coats Gella "Lily"
   Pinky: 2 coats My Favorite Accessory
   cured all coats
2. 1 coat TIO, cure
3. Applied striping tape to create triangle shapes
4. 2 coats of Black Shadow, cured all coats
5. 1 coat TIO, cure (in retrospect, I probably could've skipped this step and wiped the cured, tacky polish layer instead)
6. Dabbed Foundation onto the TIO and pressed the studs in, cured
7. Painted on the comm badge using Sally Hansen Hard As Nails Xtreme Wear "Golden-I" and Konad Silver polish, let air dry
8. Finished with 2 coats of TIO, cured all coats

Thumb Nail:

1. 2 coats of Is It An Illusion, cured all coats
2. 1 coat Little Miss Sparkle, cure
3. Wipe off tacky layer with Cleanser
4. Paint a small blue circle with Up In The Blue, cure
5. Paint over the blue circle with Twinkle, cure
6. Wipe off tacky layer with Cleanser
7. Paint the gold accents with Sally Hansen Hard As Nails Xtreme Wear "Golden-I", let air dry
8. Finished with 1 coat of TIO, cured

Ring Nail:

1. 2 coats of Is It An Illusion, cured all coats
2. 1 coat Little Miss Sparkle, cure
3. Wipe off tacky layer with Cleanser
4. Applied a dab of Up In The Blue to the corner of a make-up sponge and sponged the color on where I wanted it, cured
5. Continued to sponge color on with Starburst, Sweet Morning Dew, and Gella "Lily", curing after each color application
6. Dotted small "stars" on the nail with Sheek White
7. Finished with 1 coat of TIO, cured

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Gelish Expirament | The Gelish Watermarble

This week I decided to try something I've been DYING to try: a watermarble with Gelish polish. Now, I've seen people extolling the joy of Gelish due to it's ability to easily dry marble, and while the dry gel marbles are really cute in their own right, they just aren't the same as a watermarbles. I just love those loops and swirls of color that swoop nonsensically across the nail.


By MuckingFusser, the watermarble Queen
I'd seen a couple YouTube videos showing one could watermarble with Gelish and, this week, I wanted to give it a try myself. I decided to combine my love of watermarbles with my love of Japanese style nail art and I'm officially proclaiming it a success! I had at least 4 fails that I had to take off and redo, but after some trial and error I finally figured it out!

For the above manicure I did the following:

Ring & Middle Watermable Nails:

1. • Started off with 2 coats of Sheek White and 1 coat of TIO
2. • Poured bottled water into a shot glass and wrapped medical tape around my nails to help with the clean-up
3. • Mixed up Coco Cabana Banana with a bit of Don't Be Such A Sourpuss to get a toned down, less neon yellow
4. • Alternately dripped the yellow mix, My Favorite Accessory, A Petal For Your Thoughts, and Seafoam into the water. The mixed yellow didn't "spread" in the water as well as the other ones, so less yellow ended up being visible in the final marble. I pulled the polish across the water to get the design I wanted
5. • I stuck my nail on the part of the design I wanted and kept my finger in the water
6. • I picked up the UV light and held it over the water for 10-15 seconds, just enough to slightly cure the left over gelish that wasn't on my nail
7. • I then took a toothpick and gathered up the remaining polish - just like they do in all the tutorial videos. I found this step was actually really, really important: if you just pull your finger back out of the water with the Gelish polish still floating on the surface, that polish will layer back over the nail as you pull your finger out. This'll essentially create two layers of polish on the nail and it'll bubble and wrinkle horribly once you cure it
8. • I removed the tape from my finger and cleaned up around the nail with an art brush and non-acetone remover
9. • Cure the nails, TIO, cure again, and you're done!

For the other three nails I was going for that gorgeous watercolor effect I see on so much Japanese nail art. While I like how the watermable and watercolor art turned out, I don't think I'll combine them again. The watercolor is so deleicte and the watermarble so bold that they don't mesh well enough for my tastes.


By hana4, I love her nail art SOMUCH.
Thumb, Index, & Pinky Watercolor Effect Nails:

1. • Started off with 1 coat of Simple Sheer, TIO
2. • Then followed with 2 coats of Sheek White, allowed for the half moon peek-a-boo, and TIO
3. • Dripped spots of my yellow mix, My Favorite Accessory, A Petal For Your Thoughts, and Seafoam onto the nail and, using a small nail art brush, swirled and blotted the colors around until they were blended and mottled-looking. Cured.
4. • Used craft glitter and small nail art brush to create a glitter line along the peek-a-boo half moons
Used the same small art bush to apply TIO JUST on the glitter. I found that applying TIO like you normally would across the whole nail when the glitter is still loose on the nail will spread some glitter across the nail, and I didn't want that
5. • Cure, then apply TIO across the whole nail. Cure, apply studs, more TIO over the studs, and done!

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