The Digit-al Dozen DOES Childhood, Day 5: Candy Land Nail Art!

Good afternoon, readers! It's the final day of Childhood Week with The Digit-al Dozen. I've shown you a favorite tv show, favorite book, favorite toy, and favorite outdoor activity. Today, I'll show a favorite board game: Candy Land! I think this is a fairly common game that most everyone has seen or played in their lifetime. There have been many variations of the characters over the years, the one my kids have is different than mine. I decided to focus on one of my favorite characters, Princess Lolly! The rest of the nails represent the colorful spaces you follow in the game.

The Digit-al Dozen DOES Childhood, Day 3: LEGOS!

Good afternoon, readers! Today is the third day of Childhood Week with The Digit-al Dozen. I have already covered a favorite tv show and a favorite book, so today I'm sharing a favorite toy: LEGOS! Who hasn't played with these before? My kids love them and I enjoy playing with them now almost as much as I did as a kid. For this mani, I've just done classic LEGO things: loose LEGOS (don't step on those!), a LEGO character, the LEGO logo, and stacked LEGOS.

Tutorial Tuesday: Butterfly Wing Saran Wrap Nail Art!

Hello, readers! Are you following me on Instagram yet? (@adventuresinacetone) If you aren't, you missed out on casting your vote for today's Tutorial Tuesday design! There was an overwhelming amount of votes for this design over Striping Tape Spider Webs so here we are! I loved wearing this mani so much and it was easy enough for me to do on both hands.

As I said in my original post, I got this saran wrap technique from The Polishaholic's Picture Polish Blogfest 2013 post HERE.

Nailz Craze has this butterfly image on a stamping plate that I do want to get my hands on, so if you happen to have it, you can do the first three steps and then stamp over the saran wrap base!

Here is a sneak peek at the tutorial. You will find full sized pictures and step by step instructions further down in this post.

Here's a refresher of how this looks as a full mani:

http://www.adventuresinacetone.com/2013/10/mommys-notd-butterfly-wing-saran-wrap.html

Things needed for this tutorial:

Zoya Yummy, OPI You're Such A Budapest, China Glaze Too Yacht To Handle, China Glaze Neon & On & On, Wet n Wild Black Creme, and Milani Silver Stilettos. 

Striper brush, small dotting tool, one piece of crumpled up saran wrap.

Let's begin!

Step 1) Paint your nails with 2 coats of Zoya Yummy. Top with quick dry top coat and let dry completely before moving on.

Step 2) Take Zoya Yummy, OPI You're Such A Budapest, and China Glazes Too Yacht To Handle and Neon & On & On and make a few dots using the polish brush. You don't have to be careful here, they can overlap. Quickly move onto step 3 while they are very wet.

Step 3) Take your piece of saran wrap and scrunch it together into a messy ball. Take it and dab it all over the nail while they are still wet. Keep dabbing until you are happy with the color design. I've added more dots and redabbed if I didn't like how it turned out. If you let the dots sit too long before dabbing, they start to "eat up" your base color and you may see your bare nail. Once you are happy with the design, add a coat of quick dry top coat to even out the nail and seal in the pretty design.

Step 4) Use your striper brush and Black Creme to outline one side of your nail, wrapping toward the tips and making the bottom right corner a thicker black line than the top right corner.

Step 5) Use the striper and Black Creme to draw a curved line from around the center of your cuticle to 2/3 the nail on the left side.

Step 6) Use the striper and Black Creme to do a curved line in the opposite direction from the middle of the cuticle to half way down the right side of your nail. I added a diagonal curved line on each side where the line meets the right hand black side to make the saran wrapped sections appear more rounded and "wing like."

Step 7) Draw another curved line with the striper and Black Creme and round out the edges of the saran wrap base.

Step 8) Do one final slightly curved line almost to the left edge of the nail with Black Creme and the striper brush.

Step 9) Take your small dotting tool and dip it into a dollop of Milani Silver Stilettos. Add dots along the right side and tip over the black section.

Don't forget to add a thick, quick drying top coat to protect and seal in your design! I prefer Seche Vite, H K Girl Top Coat, or Poshe.  Put a thick bead of top coat on the brush and gently spread it toward the tips and side, taking great care to not let the bristles touch the polish underneath. Thinner top coats can cause streaking or bleeding of the colors and the bristles drag lines through the design. YOU'RE DONE!

What do you think of this saran wrap technique and freehand butterfly wings? Please share pics of your nails using my tutorials by tagging me on Instagram (@adventuresinacetone) or posting to my Facebook Page! Thanks for reading!

Born Pretty: Pooh Bear, Angry Birds, and Hello Kitty Stamping Plate Review!

Good morning, readers! I was able to try out some of the new character stamping plates from Born Pretty Store and they are super cute! Today's post will show Winnie the Pooh, Angry Birds, and Hello Kitty stamping plates! I had a lot of fun with these plates and so did my 4 year old daughter, Hailey!

Let's start out with the Winnie the Pooh plate (Plate QA3)! I wore Milani Yellow Whiz and stamped with Wet n Wild Black Creme. The plate stamped really nicely, I was having issues with my scraper so I'm blaming that for any extra black on my nails.

I apologize for not taking a picture of the plate before I used it. 

Moving on, we have the Angry Birds Plate (QA17)! Hello from my right hand! I know you hardly ever get to see it! I stamped an angry bird on each nail with a coordinating color. The colors I used were: OPI No Room for the Blues, Wet n Wild Black Creme, Milani Rapid Cherry, Milani Yellow Whiz, and Sinful Colors Happy Ending. I stamped with Wet n Wild Black Creme and Pure Ice Silver Mercedes. Again, my scraper needs to be replaced so the excess color is not fault of the stamp plate.

Lastly, we have the cute Hello Kitty plate(QA12)! This was my daughter, Hailey's(4 1/2), favorite plate. She begged me to do some hello kitty stamps on her toes so you can see those at the bottom. I used Sinful Colors Creme Pink and stamped with Konad special polish in white. I did a reverse gradient on my accent nail with Ninja Polish Love, Lace, and Lawsuits.

Teeny 4 year old Hailey toes!

What do you think of these character plates from Born Pretty Store? I love them and they stamped really nicely! 

You can get these stamping plates HERE(Pooh), HERE(Angry Birds), and HERE(Hello Kitty) at the Born Pretty Store for only $2.99 each among other nail art supplies and other stamping plates.

Will you be ordering any or other things from The Born Pretty Store? If so, please use my 10% off code with your order: JACJ61. Don't forget that Born Pretty ships free worldwide!

Thanks for reading!

*These products were sent for me to review with my honest opinion.

Digit-al Dozen DOES Love & Heartbreak: Abstract Heartbreak

Hello, readers! It's Day 3 in this month's Digit-al Dozen art week. The theme is Love & Heartbreak and I've shown you two "love" themed manis so far and changed it up today with one that is more representative of "heartbreak."

I loved the idea of using crackle nail polish to do a broken heart and thought that some sugar spun nails paired with it would make a cool look. I think it's kind of abstract, and like that my heart didn't turn out perfect.

I sugar spun light gray, charcoal gray, and black over a dusty teal color and really like how it turned out! Are you seeing a texture theme of this week as well? I didn't top coat this because I wanted the texture to be a big part of the mani.

I used:

Duri Rejuvacote

2 coats of Misa Dirty, Sexy, Money

1 coat of Poshe top coat

Sugar spun with a toothpick:

 Sinful Colors Cool Gray, Sinful Colors Smokin, and Wet n Wild Black Creme

OPI Black Shatter for the heart

What do you think? I love how this looks in person and am wearing it as a full mani today! Thanks for reading, come back tomorrow for another Love & Heartbreak design!

Challenge Day 8: Child's Drawing Nail Art

Hello readers! I'm trying to get back to the kid nail art challenge so here is day 8! We had to do "Child's Drawing Nail Art," and instead of doing paper, I thought it would be fun to make it look like a chalkboard drawing. My daughter loves to draw with chalk outside and inside on her chalkboard, and I love how bright the chalk colors look on a black chalkboard!

My art isn't that great, but it's okay because it's supposed to look like a child drew it, right?? lol

I like how using a matte top coat made it look much more chalkboard-ish!

I used: 

Orly Nail Defense

2 coats of Wet n Wild Ink Well

Some Sassy nail art pens(yellow, blue, and purple)

Essie French Affair

Color Club Twiggie

1 coat of Cult Nails Wicked Fast

1 coat of Essie Matte About You

What do you think? A bit silly and not my best work, but at least this is a day down in the challenge! 6 more days to go! Thanks for reading!

Day 3: She's Very Sweet, Strawberry Shortcake...

Hello readers! It's time for Day 3 of the childrens nail art challenge! I've decided that there are days that I need to take off from nail art and do family time things so I will still be doing this 14 day challenge, but at my own pace.

Day 3: Favorite Children's Show Nail Art

One of Hailey's favorite tv shows is the new Strawberry Shortcake! Definitely cute colors and patterns for a nail design, so here's my go at it!

image from google images.

I used:

Index Finger:

Cult Nails Get it On

2 coats of OPI Bubble Bath

Essie Watermelon for her hair

OPI Suzi Loves Cowboys for details

Color Club Twiggie for the eyes and hat

OPI Alpine Snow and Wet n Wild Ink Well for eye details

Essie French Affair for the lips

Middle Finger:

Cult Nails Get it on

2 coats of Essie French Affair

Essie Watermelon for the dots

Ring Finger:

Cult Nails Get It On

2 coats of OPI Alpine Snow

Essie Watermelon for the strawberry

Color Club Twiggie for the diamonds

Pinky:

Cult Nails Get it On

2 coats of OPI Alpine Snow

Color Club Twiggie for the stripes

All with 1 coat of Cult Nails Wicked Fast

What do you think? Thanks for reading!

Day 2: Rainbow Fish Nails!

Good morning! I am excited for Day 2 of this Challenge. It is Favorite Children's Book Nail Art. Since I recently did The Very Hungry Caterpillar nails, I had to go through Hailey's books to find another that would make cute nails. The Rainbow Fish won, especially after some googling came up with this post from Spektor's Nails.

Get ready for a zillion pictures lol:

It's incredibly hard to get a picture of everynail!

Please click on these to see them bigger:

I used: my biggest dotting tool and these colors to make overlapping dots into "scales" :

 Zoya Phoebe

 Zoya Savita

 China Glaze Traffic Jam

 Essence Chuck

 Sally Hansen Going Green

 Nubar Star Sparkle

For my thumb, I used OPI Alpine Snow and Wet n Wild Ink Well for the eye. The lips are Orly Lemonade

What do you think? The most time consuming part of this mani was the cleanup since the dots overlapped onto my finger skin. Zoya Phoebe even stained some of my fingers. But overall, I am in love with this mani! 

Don't forget this the challenge I'm participating in. Please join in! Thanks for reading!

Also, a side note, I added some polishes to my Blogsale tab! Please check them out!!

St. Patrick's Day Nails!

Hello readers! I am really loving these nails and just had to get on and share them as soon as I took pictures! There is a St. Patrick's Day nail design contest on Facebook so this is what I came up with for my entry! I saw something very similar done by Laurie at Dressed Up Digits here and I knew I wanted to try it out!

First of all, I need to tell you how amazingly beautiful Zoya Ivanka is. I am so sad that the gorgeous gold glass flecks don't show in my sun pictures. Indoors, it is such an amazing color. This has made me realize that Zoya Charla, Mimi, and Ivanka are in the top favorite polishes in my entire stash. Glass flecks are apparently my weakness. Way to go, Zoya!

Ivanka is even more green than these pictures are showing. Imagine a much golder tint to it. I could only adjust my photo temperature so much before I had orange fingers, so just take my word for it.

I used:

Base coat of Cult Nails Get It On

3 coats of Zoya Ivanka

Rainbow stripes with a striper and these polishes:

 Zoya Posh

 OPI In My Back Pocket

 Orly Lemonade

 Ulta Limelight

 Zoya Phoebe

 Zoya Savita

China Glaze Passion and a dotter for the clover

Wet n Wild Ink Well and a striper for the pot of gold
Gold buillon beads for the "gold coins"

2 coats of Cult Nails Wicked Fast

What do you think? I'm hoping to leave this mani on as long as I can. It's just too cute! Thanks for reading!

Deborah Lippmann Razzle Dazzle Vday Mani!

Good morning, readers!! I got so many amazing polishes in my nail mail post but couldn't help but try out the Deborah Lippmann first. How could I pass that beauty up?? I decided I wanted to do some fun "skittle" nails with different designs on each one with black and Razzle Dazzle. Razzle Dazzle is an amazing glitter polish, it's one of my favorite glitters now! There is such depth to the polish with different sized glitters in the raspberry colored jelly base. Love. It really looks like it glows in person!

 I apologize that the picture isn't showing a huge contrast between the 2 colors but we didn't have our normal bright sun today for me to take photos in. I love this mani! Ashley (from Ashley Is PolishAddicted) told me she thought it was like "rocker valentine" and I think I'd have to agree!

Index: Black with a Razzle Dazzle glitter tip gradient

Middle: Razzle Dazzle with LOVE stamped from my Essence stamp plate

Ring: Razzle Dazzle topped with Black Shatter

Pinky: Razzle Dazzle with black dotting tool hearts.

I used: Cult Nails Get It On Perfecting Base Coat

3 coats of Deborah Lippmann Razzle Dazzle

Wet n Wild Ink Well for the black designs

OPI Black Shatter

Cult Nails Wicked Fast Speed Dry Top Coat

What do you think? It would have worked better with a more contrasted color but I do love how they go together. Thanks for reading!

Penguin Tutorial!

Happy Sunday, readers! Welcome to all of my new followers thanks to Kayla, I am so happy to have you all here checking out what I am posting today! Since I like my spider web nails too much to take them off today, I'm going to show you how I did my penguin nails for Black and White day on the 31 Day Challenge. Here is a refresher if you don't know what I am referring to:

I've had a few requests for this one. Ready to see how I did it?

These are the polishes I used:

 Wet n Wild Ink Well, OPI Alpine Snow, and OPI In My Back Pocket.

The tools I used:

Large and Medium Dotting tools, Born Pretty Hello Kitty Sticker sheet(for the bows!)

 Step 1) Paint your nail black.

 Step 2) Using your white polish, make the belly shape. I had to do 2 layers of this to make the white opaque.

 Step 3) Using your large dotting tool and white polish, make 2 eyes. (as you can see, my right dot wasn't perfect, but it's not very noticeable unless its this close up of a picture)

Step 4) Using your medium dotting tool and black polish, place two smaller dots inside of the white ones.

 Step 5) Using your large dotting dool and your orange polish, make 2 feet. (I like to have them partially off of the nail so it's not a full circle and more like only part of a circle shape.)

 Step 6) Using your medium dotting tool and orange polish, make a beak shape. Kind of an upside down triangle. I like to make the bottom point and then drag up some more polish to make it look more like a triangle.

 Step 7) Once you are sure your white is dry, use tweezers to apply a bow sticker and press down gently. You can see if my full hand picture that I didn't let mine dry enough and some of the bows "sunk" into the white.

Don't forget topcoat to seal and protect the design. Remember, a thicker bead of topcoat spread gently over the whole nail makes it easier to not have the design "bleed" (because bristles touch the design using thinner top coat.)

What do you think? If you try it, please share your picture on my facebook page! Also, please send me requests for more design tutorials that you'd like to see! Thanks for reading!