Basket weave WAH Inspired Nail Art

One day I looked through the price list of the WAH Nail Art Salons. Looking through, I saw plenty of designs that I wanted to try. I settled on the basket weave look. It's very simple and only requires a base color and striper brush. 

I started with two coats of Illamasqua DWS. It's a medium grey polish with an excellent formula. It was the first Illamasqua purchase which sparked my love for their polishes. Currently I only own two but I am looking to add more of their lacquers to my collection. Next, I used a black nail art striper brush from Sinful Colors to create the basket weave design.

All photos are under artificial lighting.

On To The Next Polish,

Katie

Neon Checkerboard Print Nail Art

This is an old design but since neons scream summer to me I thought this would be great to post now.

It's a checkerboard print design featuring neon pink and neon yellow. In real life, this manicure was pretty retina-searing and extremely bright. With shorter nails, bright looks don't look as bold though. (Not like I care about the world thinking I have bold nails. :) ) 

To create this design I started off with Illamasqua Rare. It's my favorite extremely bright neon. Then using a striper brush I created a criss-cross design using Color Club Poptastic. To get the checkerboard look I filled in some of the squares with the neon pink and left others alone. 

All photos taken under artificial lighting.

Funny story: when I wore this I distinctively remember a rather serious man I know telling me that I wouldn't get hit on the road wearing that manicure. I think he was a little taken back on the brightness.

I really like checkerboard print nails. It's a design that I return to now and then and each new attempt is better than the last. I really like improving my skills and looking back at the past. Honestly, this manicure isn't that old. It's from a few months back.

The other day I was thinking if I should share my sometimes-horrific pictures of very old attempts of nail art. I was thinking I could do a series where I showed one of my awful designs and showed an inspired nail design that I create now. Would anyone be interested in that? Warning: I was terrible at nail art.

On To The Next Polish,

Katie

Polka Dot Glitter Nail Art

Hope everyone is having a great Tuesday! I think I've come down with some disease but luckily it's not too bad yet.

Anyways, I've always like the look of 3d nail art and wanted to try studs and sequins. However, I don't own any loose glitter to create a look. I do own a significant amount of glitter polishes with some containing particularly large glitter pieces. So, by placing individual glitter pieces I can create looks reminiscent of loose glitter designs.Below, I've shown a polka dot sequin look. It involves taking individual hex glitters and placing them on the nail with a toothpick. I used the same method in my last design for the jubilee. It's tedious but well worth it.

The base is Nails Inc Baker Street. I really can't stop wearing this polish. Then I created a V-design using Illamasqua Rare. The hexagonal glitter pieces are from Milani Jewel FX Gold. They were individually placed with a toothpick into a polka dot arrangement. I love how they shine and look like tiny sequins on my nails.

All photos are taken under artificial lighting.

I really like how the glitter pieces look from different angles such as this close up photo demonstrates.

To be honest by the time I finished one hand I was reluctant to continue to individually place the hexs. Though the effect is in my opinion worth the time. Would you spend the time individually placing glitters? I always use manicures as a means of procrastination so it works quite well for me.

On To The Next Polish,

Katie

Jil Sander Inspired Striped Nail Design

Hi! One day I was searching online and found this post. It featured nails done by Hey, Nice Nails! based off a Jil Sander sweater that Kanye West sported. I loved their design and just had to try it with my own style using neons of course. :)(Original design here and simplified version)


The base color is Illamasqua Rare,layered on top of China Glaze Snow to improve opacity. The design colors are all neons from Color Club: Edie, Poptastic, and Pucci-licious(neon green, pink, and purple respectively). The stripes were made using a nail art striper. I used the simplified version found on Hey,Nice Nails! as a guide for my design.


I really enjoyed recreating and wearing this look. I'm in love with the design for sure. Using neons led to a super bright standout manicure. It was a look not to be ignored.


All photos are taken inside with artificial lighting.

Illamasqua Rare is extremely difficult to photograph. The bottle photo below is a very accurate representation. 

Have a great(long)weekend!

On To The Next Polish,

Katie

Nail Art From The Vault: Poker Nails

Nail Art From The Vault: New Series

For a series, I thought it might be neat to show you some of my older nail art. I won't bear you of the darn right ugly though (some of my designs were just bad). However, I thought you guys might enjoy some of my previous work. You will notice the very short nails and less quality pictures for sure. But it would be a way to be able to post more (especially when I'm away which is now) and still show something interesting. (EDIT: I haven't continued this series yet but let me know if you enjoy this post and want more like this in the future).

Anyways, on to the polish. This nail art was inspired by playing cards. On each nail was a heart, diamond, spade, or club in red and black like those on cards. I called them my poker nails. :)  I clearly remember using Illamasqua DWS as a base. The symbols were done using those nail art pens from Sally Hansen (red and black).

At the time, this manicure was a big deal to me. I was so proud of myself. I used to used those Sally Hansen nail pens for every manicure. If you want pics of what they look like, just ask. I'd be glad to show you exactly what they look like if you don't know what I'm talking about.

Tips for the nail art pens from Sally Hansen:

Use a base coat and/or nail polish underneath. Otherwise it could very well stain your nails badly.

Make sure to apply a topcoat. A nice thing about the pens are that they are water based. This means that if you were to make a mistake you could simply run your hands underneath a faucet and start over. But it also means without a topcoat your hard work can wash away.

Finally, make sure your base for the design is dry. You sort of have to press down to get the design to show up. With a wet manicure you will get dents.

Close up of three fingers but it's kind of blurry.

Looking back I love this idea still. I'll have to try it again sometime. Illamasqua can be purchased from Sephora or the company's website. Their polishes are $14. Sally Hansen offers the nail art pens in numerous colors with different finishes. The black shown here is more of a creme while the red is a metallic. They are pricey at $8 a pop. This manicure was before I knew the wonders of Ebay nail art pens for cheap.

Hope you enjoyed my blast from the past. Do you like this idea for a series or should I stop now? You're probably thinking I should have kept my short and even nails. Don't worry if you're thinking this I've probably broken a few nails out in the wild right now. By now, I really miss the internet and have a lot of blog posts to read. I'll have issues with technology withdrawal for sure.

On To The Next Polish,

Katie