The lady is a vamp

Hello there!

As of today, I am in Cape Town for my friend's wedding, and probably (hopefully) basking in the sun on one of the stunning beaches - if I'm not helping the bride with wedding stuff.

Today I have a quick and dirty post for you.

Incidentally, these were for Danya, for a wedding she was going to herself. They matched her stunning maroon suede heels.

Vampy V

This effect is really very simple to achieve.
I painted the base colour (Revlon 'Cotton Candy'), allowed it to dry completely (this is really important. Alternatively, you could use a fast drying top coat to ensure dry time), placed a square of masking tape down on an angle, then painted the top colour (ulta3 'black plum') and peeled off the tape.
Voila, you're left with a gorgeous deep V effect on the nails.

The shimmer in the ulta3 is really just gorgeous. Such a great deep red, with glass flecks in it.

As always, thanks for stopping by!
xNai


ps: kudos if you can get the title reference.

Strippy Strappy Stripes

Hello there again lovelies.

Firstly, I just want to apologise for my absence recently. I had a lot of work I needed to do, and have finally finished! 

Thank you for sticking around, it really means so much.

Now I'm preparing for my summer holidays, gotta pack and sort my stuff out, etc. Super excited! But this also means that I'll be posting less in general. I'm gonna schedule a bunch of posts for while I'm away, but probably not as many as usual, cos who can be bothered sitting at the comp for HOURS editing and composing?! I'll do my best though.

Anywho, today I have for you a really arduous technique, but it looks so lovely when complete.

This is step one - horizontal gradients across all the nails. It goes pink-red-purple-blue-green-pink. 

I wanted to use yellow on the end there, but this was another entry into the 5 colour comp. I rather like the ring and pinky in the end anyway - the combo of lime and pink almost looks like a sunset.

After the difficulty of ombreing that much, we then had to clean up, and proceed onto the next step.
That's right - this isn't even the whole shebang!


 Ta daaa!!

I am SUCH a fan of these. I love how subdued they are (which suits Nicole to a T), while still being poppingly bright.

I wish I could tell you the colours I used, but alas, my memory fails me..:(
I know I used some essence, and the black is OPI Black Onyx, but beyond that, sorry!
Also, the striping tape is the same I've used previously - little rolls off ebay, super cheap.

Hope you enjoy these as much as I did making them.
Thanks for stopping by,
xNai

A sad turn of events

Hello lovely readers!

Sadly, I am here to inform you that due to a large amount of work at the moment, I don't think I will be able to post much over the next couple of weeks.

Of course, if I find the time to schedule a few, I will do so, but don't fret, I will be back asap!!

I'll miss you guys!
xNai

Stained Glass Effect

Hello dear readers (at the time of writing, there are 19 of you that I know about, and probably a few more via email, and each and every one of you is cherished!)!

As promised, here is a tute for the stained glass/Britto nails I created here.

What you'll need:

Base and top coats

A few colours, depending on how many sections you'll make 

(for a list of colours I used, refer back to the original post)

White polish for a base

Either a black striper polish, or your black polish and a brush like the one shown here

First, paint your base coat, then a coat of white (or two depending on your white), and allow to dry.
I use white here, as it will ensure that all the colours on top (especially that green) will really pop.

Using the black striper, or the black polish and paint brush, draw the outline of your blocks on the nail. I chose to make mine all random, with no right angles. Not sure why, but I've seen it done many ways. All look brilliant when done.

Then begin to colour in each section.

Still colouring...:)
This step doesn't have to be perfectly coloured, it doesn't matter if you overlap the black a little, just make sure not to get any into other blocks.

What your nail will look like after steps 3 and 4
Notice that the edges of each colour block is not perfect - that's ok!

Here we go over the black lines again to sharpen them up, and cover the messy edges from steps 3-5.

Top coat your gorgeous creation, and be prepared for many 'omg, how did you do that?!'s from friends and random people in the street.

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

Thanks for stopping by,
xNai

Not the Sistine Chapel

Hello darling hearts.

Firstly, apologies for the single picture posts! Like I said, crappy photography leads to pics I do not need the world seeing! :/

Anyway, here we have some stained glass effect nails. I love the eye-watering brightness of these, and Danya's students absolutely loved them as well.

The tricky thing with these was making sure we didn't repeat patterns - you'll notice that each nail has a different colour placement. No colour is repeated in the same block.

Silly me didn't plan that out first, and thought logic would prevail. Then halfway through, we freaked, thinking I had messed up! Never fear, we clearly worked it out...eventually.

When I posted these on my Instagram (I'm @nadeekay, if you're wondering), one girl mentioned that they look a little Britto-esque, and after doing a quick google search, I had to agree. Though not quite full Britto, they have a whiff of the Britts about them..

What I used:

Revlon 'Cherries in the Snow', 'Siren'

OPI 'A Grape Fit'

Rimmel 'Sky High'

Sally Hansen 'Mellow Yellow'

No name black striper I bought off eBay.

Stick around for a tute for this design.

Thanks for stopping by,
xNai

Taste the Rainbow

Hello Lovelies!

Today I have for you a rainbowesque skittle mani that I entered into 2 different competitions. One was Angela's 5 colours, and the other was Felicia's (@feliifel on IG) pattern contest.

I did these all based around that ring finger, which was inspired by Chalkboard Nails' Ruffle mani.

I really site liked this one, each nail individual and still part of a whole cohesive theme.
Thoughts?

Thanks for stopping by,
xNai

5 Shades of Glitter

Hello again!

Today I have for you one of my fave manis, and obviously it includes gradients. Duh.

I did these for an instagram comp held by the lovely Angela @madaboutnails, and the theme was 5 colours. For the month that the comp was running I tried to do every mani with only 5 colours, I did pretty well, but eventually got bored and moved on. ;)

I made it to the final few for people to vote on, which was amazing, but I didn't win, sadly.

To get this effect, I used The Nailasaurus' Gradient method, and blended the base colour (nearest the cuticle) with white instead of another colour, to get the lovely intense to pastel fading.
Then I placed each individual glitter onto the nail to mimic that fading effect.

Excuse the paper in this pic, but I included it as it provided for better white balance, and made for more true to life colours.

As always, thanks for stopping by,
xNai

T-t-triangles

Hello again lovelies!

How was everyone's Halloween? Mine was pretty good, albeit not at all Halloweeny - I had a uni ball. Was lovely, and I wore orange and black to commemorate it, as the ball itself was (sadly) not themed!

So, back to our regularly scheduled programming, although I need to warn you - all my This Is Halloween Challenge manis were (obviously) done in the past month, meaning my techniques, photography, and posing are all much better than they used to be. But as we're going back to older manis, you're going to have to struggle through some bad photography and poses.

My sincerest apologies. ;)

Anyway!

Today I have for you what someone recently referred to as 'funnel' nails, due to the shape of the white, but I originally called them cut out triangles. So creative, I know!

Funnel Nails

I didn't use any tape or special brushes for these - just the ones in the bottles, and painted very carefully.
As you can see there are a few imperfections, but meh, they're so bright and eye-catching that you don't notice that stuff straight away.

Funnel Nails

I wish I could tell you which colours I used, but it was a while ago, and there are a LOT there!
I can tell you that the thumb nails are actually purple and coral, not blue and red as the pic insists. My camera sometimes (read: most of the time) hates purple.

As always, thanks for stopping by!
xNai