Stars and Stripes - Happy 4th of July!

Happy July 4th everyone!  Leading up to July 4th this year, I took part in an Independence Day themed swap on Facebook and my awesome swap partner, Cari, sent me a box full of Salon Perfect goodies and some candy.  So after I came down from my sugar high, lol, I got to work on putting together a look for July 4th.  Using a bunch of the items she sent me, here's what I came up with this year.

For my thumb and index nail, I started with Salon Perfect Blue Ribbon.  This was my first experience trying any Salon Perfect polishes and I was pretty happy to see I only needed 2 coats of Blue Ribbon for decent coverage.  The star designs are from a Salon Perfect decal kit that Cari also included in the swap package.  I topped these blue nails with 2 coats of Seche Vite, just to try and even out the edges of the decals.

For the red and white stripes on the rest of my nails, I decided to do a reciprocal gradient instead of regular stripes.  I started with one coat of Salon Perfect Sugar Cube, then sponged on a red and white gradient using Sugar Cube and Salon Perfect Paint The Town Red.  Once that dried, I placed 3 strips of striping tape onto each nail, then redid the gradient with the colors on the opposite ends as the original gradient and quickly removed the striping tape.  I finished off these 3 nails with just one coat of Seche Vite.  The gradient isn't quite as smooth as I would have liked.  But I didn't want to blend the red and white much more because I was hoping to minimize the amount of pink through the center of the gradient.

I've been wearing this all week and it's starting to show a little wear in real life compared to the pictures.  Since July 4th is a Friday this year, there is sure to be some celebrating all weekend long, so I may take this off and do another July 4th manicure sometime today.  Have a fun and safe holiday everyone.  'Murica!

Reciprocal Gradient

Sometimes I see an idea and I think, "I have to try this" but then I just never seem to get around to it.  This time though, I needed to try it immediately!  I first saw an example of this manicure just a few days ago on Facebook.  It was a post from My Simple Little Pleasures for her latest video tutorial.  She had seen Wacky Laki's Valentine's Day Gradient post (who had originally been inspired by a post from October by Globe & Nail).  I've been slacking lately on reading other blogs so I totally missed it when Wacky Laki posted her Valentine's Day gradient, so I'm so happy that I caught Colette's Facebook post in order to discover this look.  All three of these ladies did a fantastic job and it just made me want to try this manicure ASAP.

Colette's video does a great job of explaining how to do this, and Globe & Nail also posted a tutorial on her blog to correspond with her original post, so I don't really need to go into great detail myself on how this was done.  The basics are that I started with one coat of Zoya Kristen as a base for my gradient.  Kristen applied great, but on its own, I definitely would have needed a second coat.  Using a makeup wedge/sponge, I sponged on my gradient using Zoya Kristen, Zoya Skylar and Zoya Cynthia, with Cynthia at my cuticles, Skylar in the middle and Kristen at the tips of my nails.  I've tried a few different techniques for gradients and they all seem to work just as well for me.  For this particular manicure though, I used the same technique as Colette did her in YouTube video and applied all three polishes directly to the sponge.

I applied a second coat of sponging to the gradient to make it more opaque then top coated with Seche Vite.  Once it was completely dry, I applied three pieces of striping tape to each nail and repeated the gradient (two coats) but with Kristen at the cuticle and Cynthia at the tip.  Then came the moment of truth, when it was time to peel off the striping tape.  I was a bit worried that some how I had managed to screw it up.  But I peeled off the striping tape and it had worked and it looked awesome!  I was so thrilled.  I cleaned up any polish that had gotten on my skin from sponging and applied top coat to finish it off.

This did take some time, probably about an hour and a half or so, plus clean up, but totally worth it.  I didn't tape off my nails or apply Vaseline or chap stick so clean up took a little while.  But then again, I'm weird and I sort of actually enjoy clean up on my manicures.  It's kind of calming or relaxing for me in a weird way.  I just use pure acetone and a small chisel tip blender art brush I picked up at Michael's.  And luckily, I didn't have any major problems with any of the Zoya polishes staining my skin.

I loved this look so much, I can't wait to try it again.  I might just try it with shades of green since we're into March now.  It's definitely a bit time consuming but still super easy and so worth the time and effort.  Be sure to check out the other ladies I linked earlier!  I've followed My Simple Little Pleasures and Wacky Laki for a while now.  Globe & Nail is fairly new to me, but she is quickly becoming one of my favorite bloggers.  (Example...see Hunt...whoa!  The only thing I love more than plaid is camo and this absolutely kicks ass!)

Valentine's 2013

Last week I wore two different designs during the week for Valentine's Day.  The first design was my first attempt at using striping tape and the second design was straight out of my good ol' comfort zone...plaid stamping.

For the first design, I started with a coat of Milani's one coat glitter in Red Sparkle.  Once that dried, I taped off 4 lines at random on most of my nails with striping tape.  Then, one nail at a time, I painted on one coat of Finger Paints Black Expressionism and immediately peeled off the striping tape to reveal the red glitter beneath.  On my ring finger, I stamped a hearts design from Bundle Monster plate BM-317 using Konad Special Polish in black.  Then I finished all the nails off with a coat of Seche Vite top coat.

The only thing I don't really like about the Milani one coat glitters is that when they dry, there always seems to be a few dull looking spots that top coat doesn't even seem to help.  I still loved the look but I kept thinking it might have turned out better if I had used Nubar Fire Sparkle like I did for Valentine's Day last year.

For the second design, I started with two coats of OPI Mod About You.  The plaid design is from Konad m60, stamped first with Konad Special Polish in black, then again with Konad white.  I was planing to stamp a single heart on each tip, but I could see the black lines showing through the first heart I stamped.  So I quickly scrapped that idea and grabbed the first red polish at hand, China Glaze Red Satin, and my dotting tools.  I used the largest dotting tool to dot one heart on each nail.  Then I re-dotted over the hearts using China Glaze Ring in the Red to add some glitter and also because Red Satin was a bit jelly and not quite opaque enough by itself.

I loved both of these designs but of course, big shocker, I loved the plaid more!