Cut Out Hearts

Hi everyone!

Welcome to my first tutorial!

Today I'm going to show you how I achieved the cut out heart effect I created here.

First paint your nails with your base coat and colour. This colour will be the one that shows through the cut out.

I have used Revlon 'cotton candy' for a shimmery almost nude effect.

Using the second, darker, colour place two dots vertically in the centre of the nail. I've used OPI's 'a grape fit' for my positive space.

These will act as markers for the 'points' on the heart.

Using a thin striper brush, or a striper polish if you prefer, paint out one side of the heart, connecting the two dots.

Repeat step 3 for the other half of the heart

Using the same small brush, begin to fill in the space around the cuticle end of the heart carefully.
Continue the colouring up the sides.

Fill in the rest of the positive space with the darker colour, and voila! a beautiful cut out heart.
Don't forget clean up and top coat, and you're done!

I would love to see your version of this design, so feel free to leave me a link to your attempt in the comments!

As Always,

xNai

Another little hole in my heart

Hello lovelies!

Today we have a mani that had been bouncing around in my head for a while, and then I found the reason to do it - an Instagram comp!

Cut-out Hearts

I tried to do this a couple of ways, the first being placing a heart shaped sticker on my nails, but I couldn't quite work out the logistics of it, so I did it the old-fashioned way - just painted the shape!

Cut-out hearts with stupid hashtag

Please ignore the stupid hashtag on my hand, this was just one of the better pics - I have sine gotten better at pics, I swear! :)
The competition revolved around glitter placement (hence the hashtag), and I just knew that these would be gorgeous with a glitter border to really finish them off.

What I used:

Revlon 'cotton candy'

OPI 'a grape fit'

Nicole by OPI 'Make u smile'

Cotton candy is a beautiful sheer nude with gold and pink shimmer throughout, so I knew it would be perfect as a base for the cut-out portion. A complete pain to apply - streaky, and not very self-levelling, but worth it for the effect, I reckon. Also, scented! Woo!

I have  tute for these nails coming up as well, so if you'd like to see how I did these, stick around!

Thanks for stopping by,

xNai

Like a Fishwife

Hello!

Today we have some 'fishbone' manis.

You can see, I think, why I called it that - the white detailing looks a little like a fish's skeleton!

Then, as I am wont to do, I got bored, and decided to bling the mani up - glitter placement! Yah! I added the glitter in every other section of the 'skeleton', and I think it makes for a rather nice effect.

That's it from me!
xNai

Guesting!

Chello chello!
So, I just wanted to let you know, that I am guest blogging on Bec's Nail Gun XS blog today, if you wanna scoot on over and have a squiz!

Her blog has been up and running for quite a while now, and she's asked a few of her Aussie friends to help make an 'Aussie Guest Week'! Luckily I get to be a part of it!

I'll have a nails related post up a bit later today as well, so you can have a double whammy of me today if you'd like!

Thanks for stopping by!
xNai

Reverse, reverse!

Apologies for my absence this past week, life got in the way a little!

Also, I felt like you would need time to bask in the glory that was the Deathly Hallows nails...yeah...that's what I'm sticking to!

Today we have what I lovingly referred to as 'Inverse Nails'. These are done on Danya's nails (I swear, y'all are gonna know every one of my friends' names by the end of all this...). We decided on 5 simple different designs, and painted them in one colour scheme on her left hand, and then switched the colours around on her right.

Inverse Left

Inverse Right

Wish I could tell you which colours were used...:/

Thanks for stopping by!
xNai

The Deathly Hallows

Greetings!

Today I have for you a mani that I had been waiting a while to do, as I didn't have all the required polishes to make it look as good on the nail as it did in my imagination (as it is, the gold didn't turn out as well as I'd hoped, and I'll be revisiting this one day now that I have a real gold).

HARRY POTTER NAILS. 

One thing you need to know about me before we continue in this relationship is that I am an avid PotterHead. Ask me anything, and odds are I'll know the answer.

I make random oblique and obscure references not just to the books and movies (though a lesser extent), but also to AVPM and AVPS which are fan made parody musicals, extra books published (like The Tales of Beedle the Bard), and the like. If I could, I would get a Deathly Hallows tatt, and walk around with my wand shouting enchantments and curses at people.

As it is, it's always very frustrating when I can't Crucio the odd, well deserving, person...or at the very least Silencio the sucker.

As such, these nails had been a LONG time coming, and I am so flingin' flangin' happy with the result.

In fact, I loved them so much, that I kept them on for at least a week, chipping be damned!

On both hands I did stylised house colours, replicating the way each house crest is formatted.

House colours

 On my left thumb I dud a stylised Hogwarts crest

Hogwarts Crest

And the right thumb featured the Deathly Hallows

The Deathly Hallows

Hope you enjoyed these as much as I did, and still do for that matter..:)
xNai

Purple Lightning

I have for you some prettiful colours, and awesome (in theory) patterns.

We've got some purple sponged ombré action happening, with a lightning bolt accent finger.

Sadly the dark purple (Revlon Rock) didn't take too well to being part of an ombré, so it looks a little patchy.

For the lightning bolt I used Nailside's tutorial, although not too well, I must admit.

This second pic is just an attempt to show you the beautiful holo effect spectraflair I used for the lightning bolt.

What I used:

Revlon 'Rock', 'Gum Drop' and 'Metallic'

Spectraflair top coat from Angela over at Gloss 'n' Sparkle

See you soon!

xNai

Spots and Dots

Allo poppets! (I am rapidly running out of ways to greet you, the unknown, and at this point, vacuous internets...)

We've got here some pretty pastel inverse dots. I went hunting at the beginning of winter for pastels, which are hard to come by, let me tell you, and this is what I found!

This look was achieved by painting the base colour, and then, using a medium sized dotting tool, placing a few randomly onto the nail. After that, I used a smaller tool, and filled in the gaps. Once the larger dots were mostly dry, I used the small tool, dipped in the original colour to create those 'holey' spots.

Colours used:

Revlon 'Jaded' and 'Gum Drop'

Sadly, both of these polishes are jellies, which I didn't know at the time, and required 3-4 coats for opacity. Such gorgeous colours though, and the purple's scented!

Have a good one!

xNai

Stripes, pipes and kites.

Hello lovelies!

Maybe ignore the 'kites' part of the title...I like that it sorta rhymes and that's about where its relevance stops...:)

What I have for you today is a makeshift tape mani.

I love the look of these nails, possibly because the design itself is so simple, letting these über vibrant colours just do all the work.

To achieve this look, I cut some masking tape into little, almost equal strips, and just placed them randomly and overlapping on top of the base colour, i.e. the green, and then painted the black on top, quickly peeling off the tape to create the crisp lines where the colours shine through.

After the jump is a (dodgy) pic of my right hand, with the varying patterns.

What I used:

ulta3 'frog prince' and 'spring break'

Rimmel 'Sky High'

Revlon 'Bubble'

Australis 'Rich Red'

xNai

String theory

Well hello.

Fancy meeting you here!

I have some pretty dots and threading stripes for you this time.

To create the dots I used three different sized dotting tools, one of which was a toothpick.
That's just how I roll.
The stripy accent finger was created using this technique which I like to refer to as 'stringing' or 'threading'. You can see why...

Sadly I can't tell you the colours used, as they are my friend's, thus I do not have them here!

Anywho, hope you liked this!
xNai

It's not always black and white

Hello ladies (and possibly gents...)!

Today I have a classic black and white mani for you.

There was a competition on ig for a black and white mani a while back, so I decided to do as many variations on the theme as possible, and here's what I came up with!

If you'd like a tutorial for any of the following, let me know, and I'd be glad to oblige. I've already created 2 for the index and thumb of the left hand.

Left Hand

Left Thumb

Right Hand

Right Thumb

If you want, there's a couple bonus pics after the jump - defs my faves of these pics...:)

Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers

Hello lovelies!

Happy Saturday.

Here is a mani I did for my friend, Orit. I had just received my striping tape from eBay, and wanted to try something out.

I painted the silver first, waited for it to dry completely, laid down the striping tape in an 'X', and carefully painted in the different sections.

Power Rangers

Orit decided that the design kind of looks like the power rangers old school costumes...after refreshing my memory, I had to agree.
What do you think?

Power Rangers

What I used:

Revlon 'Metallic'

Sinful Colours 'Why Not'

Ulta3 'spring break'

As always,

xNai

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

Hello there lovelies.

So what we have here is me playing catch up with you a little bit. This will be quite a picture heavy post, as I'm going to chuck in several of my earlier designs (for want of a better word) to get them out of the way, before we move onto the slightly better ones - you know, where you can see improvement.

Please excuse the dodgy pics and hand poses - I had a LOT to learn...:/

I'm not going to bombard you with these up front, so if you care to read on, all the pics (which I advise you not to maximise) will be after the jump.

Popping the Cherry...

Well hello there Internets!

It really is a bit of a pleasure to be here, and to try this whole 'real blogging' thing out. I've been on tumblr and instagram up until now - still on ig (@nadeekay - come by for a squiz), but have recently begun to reconsider the tumblr.
I thought I might just try my hand at legit, from a computer, real fingers moving across a keyboard tapping away blogging.
And here I am!

I'm a 20-something Melbourne girl, who's been painting her nails since she was old enough to do so...despite school frowning on it.

As the time has gone by, especially recent time, I've gotten better, mostly because of awesome blogs with tutorials and excellent ideas - so now I plan to pass on any knowledge I glean to you! My readers!

Please feel free to comment, question and suggest, I am more than happy to answer and help out if I can!

xNai