Victorian Moulin Rouge Nail Art

This is another Robin Moses inspired nail art. To see her work on youtube search for "robin moses nail art: victorian steampunk goth design tutorial industrial".

Thumbs in the center, and ring fingers decorated.

When I saw her black and white stripe painted french tip nails, I was smitten.

Instead of starting with blank/unpainted glue on nails, I used these.

Now if you have white french tip nails, you could paint the black for the lines.

The kit comes with some nails with a silver floral design and some are just black french tips. I sorted them out so that I'll have a complete set of plain black french tips, and one set of floral design. The rest I'll save for something else. 2 sets of nails for $5.99 or about $3.00 a set. Not bad at all!

I placed them on my nail painting platform, and turned them so the black french tip is facing me.

The kit comes with this:

I'll use the orange cuticle stick and tweezers later to maneuver the stickers.

Applying stickers to one nail at a time:

After freehanding painting the white stripes with Kiss Nail Art Paint, and letting it dry, I added some Cover Girl gold dust glitter nail polish right above the smile line. Before that dried I applied some lace, to simulate a curtain dropping.

I used one lace strip plus 3 more humps on the other strip on the 4 nails.

After cutting off a bit of lace sticker, I used tweezers to remove the sticker and placed it over the wet gold glitter, positioning it into place with the tweezers and the orange stick.

If it curls up, use clear polish and the tweezers or orange stick to push it back down. If it still curls, lightly press with your fingers.

I used the double darker flowers for each ring finger, and one double dark flowers and one lighter pink flowers for the thumbs. In the center of the thumbs, between the flowers, I placed a flower with rhinestone.

When the lace is in position, dab some clear polish a little above and with tweezers place the flowers on and above the lace. Follow the same process of adding more clear polish and pushing them gently back down if they curl up. Be very careful though because the stickers will tend to tear as they are so wet with polish. Work them gingerly.

Keep checking, pressing, and applying clear polish if the stickers curl. Let all the polish dry completely, and add a coat of fast drying top coat, letting that dry, before applying nails.

How do they look? Do you like them? Have you tried something similar?

Strawberry P O P

I was in a mood to paint some nails!

Polishes:

Front L-R: Rimmel Lasting Finish PRO Steel Gray, Wet n Wild Fast Dry How I Met Your Magenta, LA Colors (No name on bottle) Ruby, Cover Girl Boundless Color Ruby Dust, Confetti Pink Confetti, Sally Hansen Hard As Nails Sheer Strawberry, LA Colors (no name on bottle) Hot Pink

Stickers:

Steps:

1. I selected nails from the Kiss Full Cover Oval Active Length package and laid them out on the sticky polishing platform. Over all the nails:
2. Paint two layers of Sheer Strawberry over entire nail, allowing each coat to dry.
3. Paint one layer of How I Met Your Magenta, about 1/3 down from the nail tip. Let dry.
4. Paint one layer of Pink Confetti glitter on Sheer Strawberry. Let dry.
5. Paint one layer of LA Colors hot pink color above Magenta color. 
6. Paint one layer of  LA Colors ruby color on tips.
7. Cut a bit of cosmetic sponge, dab with Steel Gray on polish brush and sponge on nails just a little lower than tip.
8. Paint one layer of Ruby Dust on everything but Sheer Strawberry.
9. While everything is drying, add stickers, using tweezers to place them in tacky-drying nail polish.
10. Allow to dry then polish all nails with quick drying top coat.

Drugstore nail glue Pt1: Things I've learned along the way

Many boxes of glue on nails come with little tubes of pink nail glue. When I first started wearing glue on nails, the only ones I could find were the french tips. They look lovely in the box, but on my fingers, I've got air bubbles.  It wasn't until near the end of 2010 that I figured out I have flat nail beds. Most of the glue on nails are more arched, unless it states on the box for "flat nails." (On a whim, and a really good sale I purchased Nailene's flat nails. They changed my life! They fit like a glove on my fingertips and I had virtually no air bubbles.)

I went on a quest to find better glue that would eliminate the air bubbles under the nails.

I thought I found the solution when I discovered brush on glue. Not only was it easier to use, (I didn't glue my fingers together) but it really helped to reduce the appearance of air bubbles. 

But there is always a gray lining, isn't there? And literally, gray clouds wrecked my  nail glue ideal.

More on that later.

My favorite tube glue is the pink gel glue that comes in Kiss Everlasting French Salon UV Gel Effect nail kit. It seemed to eliminate the air bubbles the most. After that, I like the nail glue that comes in the packages of nail blanks, those glue on nails that can be polished. That glue is longest lasting stuff.

When I want to wear nails for one day, I'll use the sticky tabs. They don't hold up in water but are great if I want to reuse the nails another time, because they peel off my fingernails and off the nails without damaging them.  Then when I want to wear a set of nails for 2-3 days, I'll use the brush-on glue. But I suggest gentle use of the hands with brush-on glue.  Nails can get knocked off very easily.

If I want to wear nails for a full week, that I've polished, I'll go with Kiss or Nailene's maximum strength nail glue that comes in a bottle with a red cap.