Feliz Pascua ^_^

It's that time of year for easter nails! Hopefully the weather shall improve soon too ^_^

For this design I threw in lots of easter and spring related themes of an easter egg basket, decorated easter eggs, bunny rabbits, chicks and sheep.

For the background of the thumb, index and little finger I used Barry M Gelly Hi Shine in Prickly Pear, Blueberry and Satsuma. The middle fingers I used a shade of yellow and the ring finger I used the Del Sol colour changing polish in Ruby Slippers which changes red in sunshine.

For the detail I used a dotter and toothpick. For the chick on the middle finger I used Barry M crackle in white. 

I stuck on some rhinestones for the ring finger easter egg to make it a bit more glamourous.

Hope you guys have a great easter!

- Nail Art Love -

Easter Nails

Easter is approaching, and how can I possibly resist doing a holiday themed design? Add to it that I've been stuck with coursework for a long time and hence hasn't done anything exciting in design way.

Originally, I was planning on doing a few Easter Eggs and a chicken, however I went through some other designs and I couldn't resist falling for all these spring colours. Sweden is currently offering a lovely spring sun (unlike London, from what I've heard) so it fits well. For details about the different designs read the picture captions; my right hand is a mirror of the left with some shuffling around of the colours.

Background: 'Blue Ice' from Gina Tricot, white is from Natural Collection, black eyes are drawn with a Sharpie whilst the pink details are done with a toothpick and a mix of the white and Barry M's Pink.

Turquoise from Technic (in a set that was given to me), pale purple is Shade no 11 from 2true, yellow from Barry M and coral is 'Tropic Island' from Lasting Fix. Details on the egg (ie the edges) were done with a toothpick, dots were made with a pin and tiny details on the chicken with a Sharpie.

Happy Easter everyone!

Let's get Nautical

With the weather still being rather chilly and snowy in March! I felt like doing a slightly summery design to help warm my fingers up. 

Hope you aren't all suffering too much with this cold weather!?

The idea of a nautical theme appealed because I associate it with sunshine, beaches and visiting home ( Spain ^_^ ).

For the base coat I used Kiko Mirror Nail Lacquer in Taupe to give the nautical theme a bit more edge rather than using a more traditional cream or white shade.

On my ring finger I used blue nail striping tape to do the simple nautical stripes. I drew little anchors on both my little finger and index finger using blue and red sharpie pens. The middle finger I used a dotter to add small red polka dots using Barry M limited edition Retro 3. Thumbs I used red nail striping tape to do nautical stripes again.

I mirrored the design on my left hand.

Looking forward to the heat and sunshine that hopefully spring and summer shall be bringing soon!

- Nail Art Love -

Party Nails

One thing that I remember finding tricky to find online is party nails, or at least last time I checked I was put off by the top results as too tacky, too difficult or not party enough (or at times, too much party). However, when I got Kiko's grey holographic polish and there 2012 Holiday Glitter I had a great colour combination to base a suitable design on, so off it went.

I had a party coming up and we'd been asked to put cocktail dresses on, so it gave me an opportunity to try it out. I had originally planned to just use the holographic as a base and add a glitter top coat on the ring finger, but changed my plan. To have a little more "happening" in the design I decided to try a triangle pattern.

I started off with the grey base and then cut triangular pieces of tape to place with spaces in-between (for alternating triangles). This way I would have alternating glitter and grey triangles. I have mentioned it before, but I'm going to stress it again: if you decide to use tape, it's important that you let the polish try completely first, as it will otherwise leave marks, and allow longer time for drying before removing it as well. The tape technique also has a tendency to create very sharp edges and the glitter polish's structure enhances this. TTo even get a reasonably even surface, I applied two fairly thick layers of top coat, using Sally Hansen's Diamond Strength Base & Top Coat.

I'm really happy with how it turned out (especially after the time spent doing it)! The contrast between the warm colours of the glitter and the cold grey works well and are going to complement the champagne coloured dress I was wearing (with red details).

Party nails - glitter triangles

The Avengers Assembled

It's little less than a year ago that The Avengers Assemble movie came out, but as you might have heard most of our super heroes are returning with solo movies (Iron Man 3; April 2013, Thor 2; October 2013, Captain America 2; April 2014) . We are both huge fans and have for a long time been planning on doing The Avenger nails, now is finally the time.

As you can see we opted for slightly different designs, Gema's longer nails allowed her to paint whole faces whereas Charlotte went for her good old favourite of splitting the design between the two hands.

Charlotte's nails:

I have used the digits for the characters, well aware of having to drop one (Black Widow in this case, since I couldn't find a good enough design and it annoys me a bit that her sole purpose in the movie appears to be sexy). The thumb was left to carry the Avengers' A on a pale blue background.

For all the black details you can see I used Sharpies, also for the red stripes on Captain America's body. Any white details were done with a toothpick and so we were also the red on Iron man's head. The silver detail's on Thor's armour were done using a home made dotter (ie a pin stuck in a rubber) and the As on the thumbs with a silver striper from Primark.

Assembling the Avengers

Gema's Nails:

I tried to fit in as many characters from The Avengers movie as possible! For the thumbs I did black A's on a glitter background as a slightly different Avengers logo.

On my right hand index finger I did Captain America. I used the Peacock Green holographic polish by Kiko for the colour of his blue suit. I then added his A logo on his forehead and face detail with a combination of toothpick and sharpie fun.

On my right middle finger is Iron Man. The gold foil by Barry M polish is the background. Then completed his armour by adding red polish and some red craft glitter to give it a more metallic look. Face details I used a Sharpie.

On my ring finger is Thor. Voodoo by L.A. Colours is the green background (which I also use for Loki on the other hand). I also used silver foil by Barry M polish for his helmet and neon yellow for this golden hair.

I decided to go with the Avengers movie version of Nick Fury on my little finger (pinkie) using silver foil Barry M polish for the background and drew in the detail using a Sharpie.

Nick Fury | Thor | Iron Man | Captain America

On my left hand index finger I used the comics representation of Hawkeye which is a mainly purple suit with a H logo on his forehead above a face mask. I used a Sharpie to outline the details and then filled in the H and mask with purple craft glitter.

On the middle finger is the hulk. I used a neon green for his face and added the rest of the detail with a toothpick.

On my ring finger is the mischievous god Loki. I used the same Voodoo green background as Thor and then Barry M gold foil to colour in his striking head gear. I added a big of gold glitter on top of that to aid the strikingness...

Little finger is Black Widow. She was a tough character to do since her logo is the common marking of the black widow spider in the comics however this is usually a small feature around her waist. I wanted to continue with the faces theme instead of just doing her logo or a black widow spider and based it mainly on the movie representation of her.  

Hawkeye | Hulk | Loki | Black Widow

Am looking forward to The Avengers 2 in May 2015 with the hinted villain at the end of The Avengers Assembled, Thanos as he would be an interesting character to attempt in nail art.

Assembling all our Avengers together ^_^

Mass Avengers Assembling

AAAA

We hope you liked these ^_^

- Nail Art Love -