new sculpted nails

So I've been trying my hand at sculpted nails.  For those that are not familiar with this process it's where a removable nail form is used instead of a glue on tip to form your nails.  I did ours in acrylic but I've seen it done with gels as well.  This past weekend I did my daughter's and myself using a combo of Organic Nails Products and the Rock Star nails glitter mixes with some decorations thrown in from Designer Nail Supply.  I've been watching tutorials on You Tube of Organic Nails educators and they just do the most fantastically gorgeous designs!  If you haven't seen them I highly recommend you go look for them on YT.  I've learned some great techniques from them as well as tutorials from Greg at Young Nails (also on YT).  So like I said I tried my hand this weekend on me and my daughter's and I'm pleased.  What do you think?

my nails

my daughter's

Acrylic powder mini haul

Recently I purchased some summery glitter acrylics from TheRockStarnails.com website.
They are called "Rainbow Brights" I believe.  I love these colors.  I watched her video on You Tube (I recommend her You Tube channel !) and had to get these colors and try them.  Along with the powders I ordered her impression tools:  the heart and star (which are basically a heart and star earring.  Below are a few pics of the nails I have done with them.  Also I recently got some glow in the dark powders from a website called "Ready set glo".  They are so cool.  Glow in the dark acrylic powders are becoming more common on many sites  but I decided to make my own because It's less expensive and the amounts I received will last forever because very little is needed when incorporating them into your acrylics.  You can see in the pics of them that I used a quarter in the pic as a sizse reference.  I will be showcasing the glow nails in the future, but the glow powders themselves are in pics below along with pics of the Rainbow bright colors as I received them and then as they are on nails.

glow in the dark powders: yellow, pink and aqua (Aqua is virtually clear on the nail)

glow powders

rainbow colors from the Rock Star nails website.  She also sent me twilight stickers as a little gift

Rainbow colors: orange, pink, violet, yellow, green, blue

nails with the rainbow colors and some imprinting

rainbow bright nails

Until next time

New electric drill

I received my new drill a couple of months ago and have used it several times and love it.  It's nice and powerful and easy to work with.  I ordered it on Ebay and it came to me from Hong Kong.  It cost me approx. $65.  Included with it were a package of many different sized drill bits and three packages of different grade sanding bands. I am disappointed that the reverse setting has stopped working already though.  For that reason I am contacting the seller and going to try to get a refund or a new one.  I will follow up here with the results of that.  Below are pictures of the drill.  

Until next time.

Ooooooh...Kaleidescope nails

Hey all.  I know, I know....it's been forever....again!  I fully own the fact that I'm an unorthodox blogger.  I only do it when the mood strikes and it hasn't struck for many months.  While those months were passing by I was trying to aid my natural nails to recovery as they had become very broken down due to my enhancements.  I have done no enhancements whatsoever since Christmas.  It was really difficult not to do my fake nails but I had to let my natural nails recuperate.  I took Biotin and vitamins and moisturized and oiled and although the nail beds are much better the nails still aren't growing like I want them to so I did a set of acrylics the other day.  I think with Spring coming, the warm weather etc. it put me in the mood.  Also I was able to open windows to ventilate (due to the monomer).  I used a mix of different colored small hex glitters on the tips.  Here's a few pics of my Nails Of The Moment (NOTM).  Whatcha' think?

All that glitters....

Is not gold.  Today I have for you a hand painted nail design done with glitter polish and strip rites.  I will happily admit I copied this design from a terrific you tube gal.  Her you tube channel is:  LOVE4NAILS.  Her link is here:  http://www.youtube.com/user/LOVE4NAILS  .  She does simple yet beautiful designs all by her own hand.  I love watching her videos and I always am excited for Fridays which is when she puts out new ones.  I really liked this design on her gorgeous nails and it sorta sang "Christmasy" to me so I did it on me with a little bit of my own touches and I like it.  Hope you guys do to.  I used a glittery teal strip rite, a silver stripe rite, a clear glitter polish on nail bed and white acrylic paint for dots.  I also think this is a good summertime "ocean waves" sort of design.  Of course, I think I'll try it in future with other colors too to put a different spin on it.  What do you guys think of it?  As always, pictures are clickable for enlargement.

 Until next time.

Christmas kitteh

This is charlie, a rescue my husband found along a road side back in August.  He was about 5 weeks old when found.  He's quite a naughty boy now so try not to be deceived by his "who me" expression.  He wreaks havoc throughout the household...even our great dane is fearful of him.  :o)  However, he does have his cute side and this is it.

Here is Charlie...the official Christmas present inspector

Still inspecting the present...apparently he takes this job very seriously....or....he fell asleep.  :o)

Teeny baby fingers...

Today's post is to showcase the acrylics I did on my daughter's little, teeny baby fingers a few weeks ago.  (She's almost 17 but still my baby).  She has perfect nail beds...a little longer not stubby like her momma's so her acrylics turned out so pretty.  She just wanted a french manicure style.  Pink translucent glitter acrylic (my own custom mix) for the nail bed and soft white acrylic tips.  "Glaze and Go" UV gel sealer as top coat.  Aren't they pretty?  I love her beautiful little hands.

NSI Illusion Soak Off Gel nails system

Hello all.  Today I thought I'd do a post about the new gel system I've recently obtained.  It is NSI Illusion soak off gel nail system.  Now this was my first endeavor with doing my own gels.  Truth be known I had put it off for a couple of reasons: 
1.  I had a set of gels done some years ago and it was a 4 hour fiasco with the nail tech and then they all popped off within a few days. 
2.  It just seemed to be a tedious multi-step process that I wasn't keen on going through 
3.  The expense.  
Well I watched many a video/tutorial on You Tube and kept finding myself drawn back to the idea of doing my own gels if for no other reason then to just be able to say that I had tried them and had some knowledge to draw on.  I found a tutorial on You Tube from NSI that showed the process with their Illusion Soak Off Gels and it seemed simple...simple enough for even I to think I might be able to attempt it.   So I did some online research and happened upon NSI's kit for the illusion soak off gels at Beauty West's online store.  It was inexpensive and included everything I would need save the brush which Beauty West also sold separately and inexpensively so I purchaswed everything and awaited their arrival.  I tried it as soon as I got it and... I love them!  It really is simple and I find them to be pretty durable and a bit thinner in terms of finished product thickness than acrylics thus more natural looking.  Following are the steps I took to create my gel nails.  This time I used glue on tips and cut and filed them but in the very near future I'm going to attempt sculpting them fully with nail forms. 
1.  You simply prep your nails as usual for fake enhancements, including primer. 
2.  Glue on tips
3.  Apply one thinner layer of base gel and cure in UV light for 2-3 minutes
4.  Apply thinner layer of "Dove" white to tips (for french manicure) and cure 2-3 minutes
5.  Apply another layer of base gel just a bit thicker than the first and concentrate a bit on the stress area and cure for 2-3 minutes
6.  Wipe off dispersion layer.
You can buff or file lightly if needed to even out the surface just like you would with acrylics but only light filing or buffing is needed...not heavy filing or e-filing to remove bulk as with acrylics because this gel is self-leveling.  Apply "glaze and go" uv gel sealer (another NSI product) as your topcoat and cure or just apply a ail polish top coat after buffing and filing and voila!  Your done. 
I found I have a visible line of shadow where the nail tip is glued to my own nail that shows on some of my nails but that's not due to the product as I get that with acrylics as well.  I haven't figured out what I'm doing wrong in my applications yet that's causing this.  So you will see this on the enclosed pics but just know that it's not due to the product but the tech.  :o)  Let me say that I've had them on a week now and I have had no that's NO lifting!  Also there is absolutely NO offenive, painful odor during application.  I love that as I have compromised lungs and I also have a small bird in my home so I cannot use acrylics in the winter.  Yes I've tried odorless acrylics and they truly are odorless (at least NSI is) but the odorless liquid makes the acrylic less workable when doing 3d nail art (at least that's been my experience). I wore my gels as created (french mani) and then I painted them...with my new BB Couture polish (check yesterday's post for that).  I simply use a non-acetone remover to remove the polish and they're perfect underneath.  I just couldn't be more pleased.  I even did a gel french overlay on my daughter's toes over the weekend and she's very pleased (I'll post pics of that soon).  So overall, a good buy on the NSI Illusion Soak Off Gel system, simple to do with a great finished look.  I recommend this product.  Please keep in mind that this was my very first attempt at doing gels...and on myself,  so I am very aware they are not even close to perfect but I'm ok with that. I'll get more precise with practice.   I also purposely didn't make them uniform in length because in reality...my nails are never all the same length when I grow my own.  So those disclaimers being stated....here ya go.

you can see the little white line on my pinky nail in this pic that is the shadow of where the tip is glued to my natural nail

Until next time.

My first BB Coutures

Hi all.  I am very excited.  I received my very first BB Couture polishes yesterday.  :o)  I now have "Dragon's Breath" and "Erotic Night".  Can I just say these are such beautiful colors, especially Dragon's Breath!  I put Erotic Night as my pedi (no pedi pic tho) and Dragon's Breath as my mani.  I like the formula, coverage is good, brush is good.  I used three coats each, one coat of SV as top coat.  I am including pics of my mani but my camera didn't capture the true color I'm sorry to say.  The nails I have are gel nails (I've got an upcoming post of the gel system I'm using now).  Customer service at Overall Beauty was great.  Great communication and pretty fast shipping.  I got them in about a week.  On the whole, I'm very satisfied with my BB Coutures and will be obtaining more in the future.  I have my eye on "Love Bug".  :o)

Dragon's Breath on left, Erotic Night on right

Dragon's Breath.  I love the shimmer in this

Erotic Night

Enjoy and Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all!  Until next time.

Couple of new acrylic designs

Included in this post is a couple of new designs and a couple of just simple white tipped nails I did today.  I've been practicing Young Nails techniques after watching and re-watching their you tube videos.  I'll tell ya, I love Young Nails' vids.  Sooo educational!   I just want to share that I ordered some products from Sheba Nails and I am pleased with them.  They shipped really fast, no hassle and they even sent me a couple of little baggies of new nail art to try.  The "Mardi Gras" nail I have pictures of below has been made with some of this.  It's like little chunks of rock glitter type of stuff.  I'm sorry I don't know the actual name of what it is but they refer to it on their site as Rainbow Disco Ball.  They also sent me some little flowers I will soon incorporate into some design.  I love Sheba nails!  They are inexpensive and offer loads of different nail art things.  I also ordered from Beautywests site and they shipped within a week.  I bought my nsi liquid and transparent pink powder from them.  I'm pleased with their customer service as well.  So I recommend both of these online stores.  Just click on their names in this post and you will be linked to them. Hope you enjoy.  Till next time.

This angle to show thickness of nails

Red and gold glitter

Red and gold glitter with ring finger in only gold

This is my "Mardi gras" nail

Simple white tip with glitter dots embellishmements

Mardi Gras design

Simple pink and white

Mardi gras design