Yesterday I cut up a card the local Hallmark store sent last month. It had pictures of ornaments that I cut out and put up on the wall. Later I will probably use a hole punch so I can add ribbon and hang them like real ornaments.
The card Mark’s Hallmark sent
Ornaments held up with painter’s tape.
I’ll punch holes and tie thin ribbon on them to make real ornaments later on.
These are the nails I did for my Halloween costume this year. It’s basically a version of the palm-tree-on-a-beach design that surfaces every summer, but if you want to know what I did, here it is:
What I used:
What I did:
Step 1: I wanted this to be super temporary so I used the plastic paint brush to apply a very thick base coat of white glue (read how here). Unfortunately, this made it a little too temporary and I spent the rest of the day making sure that it didn’t fall off. On the plus side, it peeled off easily after I was done with my costume, so it did what I wanted it to.
(Perhaps that was because I also was not very careful and didn’t treat my nails very gently, but also because I didn’t put the top coat far enough to the edge to cover the glue so it kept getting soft whenever it became wet. Still, if the paint begins to lift off or starts to peel off, I just gently wet the nail and press the peeled off section back down. Then wait until it dries again, and it’s just like new.)
Step 2: Add two coats of white.
Step 3: Paint a corner at a diagonal with the sandy gold color. (I like how this color was named Wet Sand, like it was made for a design like this!) It doesn’t have to have perfectly straight edges. I made the edges uneven so it looked more like a bumpy beach.
Step 4: Paint the other corner with the light blue, for the water.
Step 5: Use the dotting tool (or a toothpick) and the brown polish to draw a trunk from the sand to midway to the base of the nail.
Step 6: Paint the leaves using smooth brush strokes with the green polish and a striper (like the one included in the Art Deco polish I used) or other thin paintbrush.
Step 7: When dry, use the top coat to seal the design and cover the white glue base if it wasn’t all covered by the white polish. If you miss this, you’ll spend a lot of time trying to make sure that it doesn’t peel off before you’re ready for it to be removed.
I’ll be sharing the tutorial for my Tacky Tourist Beach Nails soon (it’s part of my Halloween costume), but for now, here’s a preview:
Tacky Tourist Nails in their natural environment
Tacky Tourist Nails – sorry it’s dark. I promise better pictures in the tutorial
What do you think? What was your costume this year?
Here’s my latest polish design. It was my first time using white glue as a base coat for easier removal later, so we’ll see how long that lasts. I am hoping it stays at least 5 days.
What I used:
What I did:
Step 1: As mentioned in the list above, I started with a base coat of white glue, the kind that was on our school supplies list in elementary school. There’s really good instructions available, and it’s cheap. The reason I wanted to try it this time was that I plan on changing the design relatively soon, and my least favorite part of any nail art project is using the remover, so I wanted to test this out and see if it really lasted 5 days and if it really comes off as cleanly as reported. If it does, I can see this changing how I do my nails in the future. I applied the glue with a cheap plastic paintbrush.
Step 2: Once the glue was completely dried (clear and shiny, not tacky at all), I added one coat of Blush by e.l.f. because the orange color I have is not opaque, so if I want it to appear solid orange, I need to put something under it. If you have an opaque (non see through) orange color, you can skip this step.
Step 3: When that was dry, I added two to three coats of the 844 Modern Art by Rimmel London and let that dry.
Step 4: Then I used a small art paintbrush to add the jack-o-lantern face to the big toenails. I’ve done this designs with toothpicks before too, so if you don’t have a paintbrush you can just use a toothpick. It makes clean up much easier too. Clean off the paintbrush with polish remover before the paint dries in the bristles.
Step 5: When the face is completely dry, add the top coat. I didn’t wait long enough on one side so the pumpkin face of the nails not shown got a little blurred (that’s why I switched which side I photographed).
Ten Tiny Paintings 