The bread of our affliction

Hey guys!

So from Monday night until next Tuesday night it's Passover, the Jewish festival celebrating our exodus from Egypt among many other significant things.

One of the main signifiers of the festival is Matzah - unleavened bread - that the Jews made in their rush to leave Egypt. Now, many millennia later, we must still suffer through this wonderful experience.

I decided, thanks to Jenny over at 10 Blank Canvases and her excellent tutorial, to do matzah nails this year, instead of the 10 plagues I did last year, and these are them!

Mine are not quite as delicate as Jenny's, as I didn't have the right colours, or enough time really - had to get cooking for the feasts!

And here is me actually holding some matzah for a comparison. I couldn't find a piece of Yehudah matzah at the time, which is more colour accurate to these nails, but hey, you get the idea!

Anywho, wishing you all a chag kasher ve sameach!
xNai

The Forest of Tribes

Well hello there!

Today I have some fantastic green gradient, and fun tribal on top.

Let's start with the gradient itself

Green Gradient

For this, I used Essie 'Mojito Madness' and 'Navigate Her'. These look beautiful together.

Then, using Revlon 'Emerald' I drew some fine tribal detailing on the top, and after a day or two, I mattified them using Rimmel mattifying top coat.

Gloss Green Tribal Left

Gloss Green Tribal Right

Mattified Green Tribal

There's a tute for this design as well if you'd like to see it. It's a fairly straightforward design, but let me know in the comments if you'd like the step by step instructions.

Thanks for stopping by,

xNai

Argyle Dotticure

Hey guys!

As promised, here's the argyle dotticure tute. It's actually really very simple, and you can take this basic design and turn it into many different styles.

 What you'll need:

Two contrasting colours. Here I have Revlon 'Rock' and China Glaze 'For Audrey'.

Two different sized dotting tools

Paint your base coat and colour.

Using your large dotting tool, and place a column of dots down the centre of the nail.

On either side of the first column, place more dots, staggered from the first, as shown.

Using the smallest dotting tool, connect the large dots diagonally on one side, making sure to continue the little dots all the way to the edges of the nail.

Continue joining the large dots, and when done, top coat to seal in your design, and enjoy your super simple dotticure!

You can try matte top coats, glitter, and a myriad of other options!

Let me know how this goes for you, if you try it out.

xNai

Gradient half moons

Hello chickens.

As promised, here is a tutorial for the pink gradient half moons.

What you'll need:

Your two colours, I have pink (Essie's 'off the shoulder') and a white (Sally Hansen 'White Out')

A latex sponge with which to create the gradient

Glitter to place around the moon

Masking tape, foil and a toothpick.

First, paint your base coat and a coat (or two depending on your polish) of white.

Next, cut a semi circle out of the masking tape, and place it on the cuticle end of the nail.
Alternatively, you can use the rounded end of a bandaid, or a binder hole reinforcer, or any sort of rounded sticker.

Paint the two colours for the gradient onto your sponge in stripes, and dab it onto your nail.

You can repeat step 3 as many times as you like to achieve the desired intensity, but make sure you let each layer dry completely before applying the next layer, otherwise you'll pull up the layers below.

Once you've reached the colour intensity you want, pull the tape off quickly - you don't want the paint to dry too much on the tape.

Now you can do some glitter placement, if you like!

Paint some of the glitter polish onto the foil, and using your toothpick, pull out individual glitters, and place them where you'd like them on the nail.

I've used them around the moon, and as an added bonus, it helps cover up potentially dodgy lines...:)

Top coat and you're done!

Hope this is helpful.

Good luck, and I'd love to see your attempts!

xNai

Laser Splotches

Hello!!

As promised, I have a tutorial for you here.

What you'll need:

At least 3 colours - they can be in the same family, as these are, or they can be highly contrasting,

it's just about your own taste

Black, White, base and top coats

Striping tape

Cosmetic sponge (stupidly not pictured...*facepalm*)

Clean up brushes, q-tips and acetone/remover

Paint your base coat, and then a coat (or two) of white.
I use white here, like I do everywhere, to really make the colours pop. You could use the lightest of your colours as a base colour (like in any gradient nails), but I like being able to blend the edges out nicely (keep reading to see what I mean).

Paint a corner of your sponge with the first colour you'd like to use...

...and dab it onto your nails in any random pattern, making sure to leave enough blank spots for your other colours.

Cut the corner off, and repeat steps 2&3 with the next colour.

Repeat step 4 with the next colour.

I didn't like that the pink covered so much of the purple at the bottom of the nail, so I went over it very lightly with the purple again to blend the edges together a little better.

Clean up the edges using the q-tips for larger areas on your skin, and a small brush for the area right next to the cuticle.

Leave your nails to dry completely (you can use a fast dry top coat here to speed the process, or like me, you can read a book for 10 mins), and then apply the striping tape in any way you like.
I prefer the randomness of the laser effect for a mani like this.

Next, one nail at a time, paint over the nail with your black (or any other one coater colour you'd like to use), and remembering the order in which you placed the tape initially, peel it off quickly but carefully.

You'll be left with this wonderful result, with patches of colour showing through.

Don't forget to top coat your design, to protect your work, and you're done!

This is what the finished effect of mine looked like.

I decided to do it just as an accent nail, mostly because I ran out of time, but also because I really love the ombré effects on the nails.

Please feel free to leave me a link to your attempt of this design, I would love to see them!

Hope this has been helpful,

xNai

Patchwork Hearts

It's tutorial time!

Today's tute is brought you you by awesomeness and love.

What you'll need: 

Two shades of one colour (I have two blues)

A highly contrasting colour (my white)

Multiple sized dotting tools

A paintbrush/striper in the same colour as your contrasting colour (white)

Start by painting your base coat and the lighter shade of colour.
I have used essence 'you belong to me'

Next use the larger dotting tool (I used the back of a paintbrush) and place 2 dots right next to each other, as shown. Work out which direction you want the heart to go before placing the dots.
You want to not place the dots too close to each other, as these form the 'bum' of the heart, so there needs to be some decent curviness to it. (hehehe...bum...curviness...that's right, I have a gutter brain. Leave me alone! ;))

Repeat this with the medium dotting tool as well, so you have varied heart sizes.

Using the paintbrush/striper, create the point of the hearts, and join them all up.
I did this by placing a dot where I wanted the point to be, and then drew the lines to meet the edges of the dots, and filled in the space.

After the hearts are complete, using the smallest dotting tool (I used a toothpick), place some very small dots around the hearts, filling in the empty space.

Take the darker shade (essence 'walk on air') and very carefully outline the largest heart. It doesn't ned to be perfect, but try to keep it fairly thin.

Using the dark shade again, make little stripes across the outline, to create the stitches effect, as shown.


Top coat to protect your design, and voila!
Adorable patchwork hearts.

Please feel free to leave me a link to your attempt at this design, I would love to see it!

Hope this has been helpful!

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