Get the [Nail] Look: Floral Friday

Sorry I haven't been posting for a while and apparently all my photos got removed because I think I accidentally deleted the album of photos connected to my blog. So if you notice any posts with broken photos, please bare with me as I am trying to fix them all! It is taking me quite a while to find all the photos again -sigh-.

Without further ado, here is my rendition of my most recent Pinterest find.

 I started off by painting all my nails with Revlon Minted. I let that dry completely before putting 2 coats of the slightly transparent white-pink polish from Julep. I have 3 Julep polishes I got from a free trial for their Maven Box and have to say, they're really quite good! The brushes are a bit fat but the polishes themselves have a really nice gel-like quality. After getting a good semi-opaque coat of the light pink, I let it dry and started drawing on the roses and leaves. I made the roses by mixing two shades of pink and swirling them in a circular motion to make them look like roses. I then used a somewhat smaller dotting tool to make the leaves. I actually used 2 green nail polishes to create extra depth but only listed one below. I let everything dry enough so that I could apply the gold striping tape without lifting up all my hard work if I needed to reposition it.

The nail polishes I used are as follows (from left to right):

-Revlon in Minted
-Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Punk Pink
-Sinful Colors in Easy Going
-Essie in Mojito Madness
-Julep in Ava Bombshell
Overall, this nail look is one of my favorites. It definitely looks detailed and complex but it's really not that bad! All the techniques are quite simple and it just takes some time to let each layer dry. I would suggest watching your favorite TV show or movie while doing this to help the drying phase pass by. I took me less than 2 hours to do this and I finished it off with my favorite Seche Vite top coat. I hope you guys all try this out and let me know how it goes in the comment!

Disney Princess Series Nail Art: The Little Mermaid (Ariel)

I've been wanting to do the Little Mermaid for a while now but could never decide on the right design (or find one that I could feasibly do). There are a ton of wonderful mermaid inspirational nail pictures on Pinterest (which you should follow my Pinterest nail board for photo inspirations!) but some of them are too difficult to use (like how am I supposed to draw fish scales without a nail stamper?! I know you can use like.. fish net fabric and stipple nail polish over it but I didn't have that/couldn't be bothered haha). I did go onto Ebay and found some seashell jewels for super cheap and once they came, I was able to create my Little Mermaid design! It's definitely not a requirement but I think to have some sort of sea jewel like a starfish, seashell, nautical anything really... well it just helps add to the look.

Summer always seemed like the right time to do mermaid nails but I never got around to it so now in the fall it does seem my nails do look a bit little misplaced or out of season. Nevertheless, they are definitely super bright and will catch anyone's eye ;) I highly recommend you have a good strong top coat or nail adhesive so that your jewels don't fall of though. I used my standard Seche Vite topcoat without any problems.

The nail polishes I used are as follows (from left to right):
-Forever 21 Nail Polish in Red
-Barry M Nail Paint Gelly in Greenberry
-Covergirl Boundless Color in Gold Rush (discontinued)
-butter LONDON 3 Free Nail Lacquer - Marbs

I blotted on the gold nail polishes by wiping off any excess nail polish and also painting some of the gold polish on a makeup sponge and dabbing it onto my nail. If I were to redo this look I would get a thicker larger and chunkier gold glitter nail polish though as the gold glitter I have was way too fine for the look I was going for.

Well that's my nail art rant/post of the day (week? month?). I hope you guys enjoy and try to recreate it! If you do, please tag me on instagram or twitter (@creamydinner) or leave a comment below!

Get the [Nail] Look: A Pastel Galaxy

Everyone loves the good old classic galaxy nail, but adding pastel? Well that's a match made in heaven! (Okay maybe not really but you get my enthusiasm). I saw some pastel galaxy nails on Pinterest and just had to recreate them and share them with you! Honestly they're the same technique as a normal galaxy nail, you just need to pick out all your favorite pastel or light colored polishes - they can be shimmer, glitter, or cream. You can also choose only a few colors to create a different effect (maybe a more cool-toned sky or a warmer one or if you want to be fun, choose them all like me! Although I think I ended up with a more cool toned galaxy nail).

Please excuse the messiness/dryness of my cuticles. My hands were super dry the week I did this and a little on the shorter side but as you can tell, the nails still turned out beautifully!

 I used the following nail polishes (listed below) but honestly any light or pastel colors you have will work. I also used one of those cheap makeup sponges that you can get from Ulta or Sephora to stipple on the colors. I first cut the sponge into roughly 0.5 cm by 0.5 cm squares and used a cheap tweezer I got from Hong Kong to hold the sponge pieces to hold the pieces while I stippled color onto my nails. You want to make sure you have a good white base nail polish by the way to avoid any sort of dimpling or weirdness which you can tell sort of happened with mine.. -shrug- Oh well haha.

From left to right:
-L.A. Colors Art Deco Nail Art Lacquer, White
-Pop-Arazzi Nail Polish, Icing On The Cake (cheap nail polish from CVS but any white will do; I'm not sure I would recommend this.. it's not terrible but you need at least two coats and it can be thick..)
-Covergirl Coral Silk
-Orly Spark
-Revlon Minted
-Sally Hansen Breeze Blue
-H&M Beauty Bandit (not sure if this is sold anymore since they appear to have changed their packaging)

I should also mention that when I was finished, I used one of those shimmery top coat add on nail polishes (not really sure how to describe it but its super iridescent)  from Skin Food (a Korean brand). I can't seem to find a photo or name of it online so I'm not sure if it's still available but it's not necessary to get the galaxy effect. You can coat your nails with a fine white glitter nail polish if you have one to save yourself the trouble of having to spot on white 'stars'. I finished my nails with my usual Seche Vite top coat which gave them the perfect gel finish. I used dotting tools from Ebay to draw my stars but a toothpick of bobby pin will work fine.

Disney Princess Series Nail Art: Aladdin (Princess Jasmine)

I'm not sure why but I've never particularly favored Princess Jasmine or the Disney movie Aladdin. Not that I didn't like the movie or anything, but maybe it was just I didn't like the genie so much. I'm really not sure. But the reason I bring this up is that the nail look I did inspired by Princess Jasmine is actually my favorite out of my entire Disney Princess series so far. I didn't come up with this look myself, I got it from Pinterest so don't give me credit but I seriously just LOVE the look! The tips with the gold accent and single rhinestone are just.. ooh too much amazingness. I got so many compliments when I wore this so I hope some of you try to recreate this nail look too :)

 

You can see that I didn't do the lines perfectly on my thumb but it still looks nice nonetheless. The steps I took are outlined and roughly sketched below (I'm trying be more helpful for recreating any of my nail looks haha).

I used the striper brush from LA colors gold nail polish but because that gold is too sheer, I would dip the brush into my more opaque gold polish (I used Butter London's The Full Monty but you can use any brand really) before using it. I used a dotting tool to create the circles and also used it to drag the dots inward to connect them with the other lines (see nail image 5 below). I lastly added a green/turquoise gem in the middle and applied my Seche Vite top coat to make it look like shiny gel nails <3

The nail polishes I used were:
-Barry M Hi Shine Nail Paint in Green Berry
-Butter London's The Full Monty Nail Lacquer
-LA Colors in Gold Glitter

Well I hope this inspired some of you to recreate this look! It looks complicated but it's really not! It does take a bit of time and steadiness but practice makes perfect right? :) Also I think it looks nice that my finger nails were somewhat rectangle rounded shaped instead of the usual oval/circular edge that your nails naturally grow at. Which Disney Princess should I do next? Frozen, Little Mermaid, or Tangled? Or any other princess! Comment down below please! ^__^

Disney Princess Series Nail Art: Cinderella

So it's been a while since my last post but I wanted to share with you all my latest nail art creations. I'm currently doing a Disney Princess theme of nail designs and today's nail art design is inspired by Cinderella! It's a really simple look but I got so many compliments on it and I absolutely love it! If you don't already, I highly recommend you use Seche Vite as your top coat. It's what gives all my nails this beautiful glossy finish that looks like gel nails. You have no idea how many people have asked me if I got my nails done at a salon since I started using Seche Vite.

I cheated and used some stickers I got from China/Hong Kong which added the extra bling to my nails but honestly it's not necessary! Even simply having the baby blue and accent silver glitter nail is enough to make this look Cinderella-themed. You can buy nail stickers for real cheap off of Ebay like these but if you don't want to wait the 3-6 weeks it takes to ship from China, then I'd suggest just using silver glitter and decorating more nails if you wish. You can take larger glitter chunks and create a curve line like on my pinky (in the above photo) or do a glitter gradient starting from the top or bottom of one or two nails. It's really up to you!

I used the following nail polishes to create these Cinderella nails:
-Revlon in Blue Lagoon
-Essie in Set in Stone
-Sally Hansen Hard as Nails Xtreme Wear in Showtime
-Seche Vite Dry Fast Top Coat

I only used the Sally Hansen silver nail poilsh as a base to apply Set in Stone over so I wouldn't have to use as many coasts of the Essie glitter polish to get a more "opaque" finish. You can use any silver really though. The Revlon nail polish only took two coats and its a relatively thin formula so they dry super quickly. After that I let my nails dry for at least an hour (I actually waited a whole day if I recall correctly, just because I didn't have time to finish the day before) before applying on the extra stickers. I then sealed it all in with my Seche Vite top coat. 

I hope you all enjoyed this and please send me your recreations! This look is so simple and perfect for anything like a ball (or more modernly known as prom/dances/etc) :)

Get the [Nail] Look: Vintage Roses

Once again, based on a Pinterest inspiration photo, I have tried out this vintage looking floral nail look. Wow that was a mouthful. 

I loved how class it looked from the polka dots to the black and white stripes to the addition of that one plain red nail. Everything about this look is PERFECT to the t (is that even the right saying?) Anyways, moving on, here's my rendition of the look :)

Obviously not as good but hey I liked it. I'm working on filing my nails to get that square shape but in the photo,this person's nails were actually somewhat rounded (FINALLY!) so i think that made my nails match the photo even more. I used my dotting tools I got from Ebay to make the polka dots and the flowers but definitely using the back of a toothpick or a bobby pin will work fine (trust me I've done that!).

I used the following nail polishes
-Orly White French Tips Nail Polish
-LA Colors Art Deco in Black
-Forever 21 Nail Polish in Tomato
-Revlon Colorstay Nail Enamel in Cafe Pink
-Essie in Mojito Madness

Hope you enjoy and let me know if you want to see like actual step by step instructions. I've been thinking about it but usually when I'm painting my nails, I get so into it and having to take pictures each step seems kind of a hassle =3= Plus I don't have a tripod or anything with me so having to take the photos by myself would definitely be a struggle haha. But I'm sure it'd be more helpful so next time I might do picture step by step tutorials!

Simple 3 Color Winter Nails

Because my exams are finally over, I've been able to paint my nails and oh my, how I've missed this simple luxury. Please don't mind the dryness of my nails (yes I know extremely unflattering but the winter cold air has left in moisture) and focus on the design instead ;D I took my inspiration from a design I saw on Pinterest but switched the colors around . I like the mix of the emerald green and silver. It's a bit festive and actually would have been more perfect before Christmas but nevertheless, I think this is still perfect for the winter weather. My nail painting skills are a bit rusty, having not painted them for so long now, but this look was so simple and easy to do that it was pretty foolproof.

 

The three nail polishes I used were:
-Revlon Matte Suede in Emerald City
-Sally Hansen Hard as Nails Xtreme Wear in Showtime (I think this is discontinued which is a shame because it's so pretty and I've used it for so long)
-Orly French Tip (I really need another white nail polish because this one is getting goopy!)

The overall nail look was really quick and easy to do. I hope to be doing more nail designs in my free time so please look forward to those and send me any styles or designs you want me to attempt (easy ones please haha!)

Manicure Monday: Alice in Wonderland Inspired Nail Art

Happy almost Christmas~! As much as I love the holiday season and painting my nails in the Christmas spirit, I decided to do something different with my sister's nails the other day and wanted to share it with you all for Manicure Monday. Because my sister loves Alice in Wonderland so much, we decided to go with that theme for her nails which constituted pretty bows, gold accented designs, and just basically an overall girly theme. We went blue as the main color because it's my sister's favorite color and also because Alice wears a blue and white dress throughout the movie so we thought it best appropriate. Part of our inspiration also came from another Alice in Wonderland nail design which you can easily find if you just Google "Alice in Wonderland nail art" so you can see where we got the color and some pattern designs from there.

I did all the nail art with either a toothpick or my white nail art deco nail polish which has a special thin tip made for drawing lines/for nail art (as the name so appropriately states) but overall the designs are all pretty simple and easy enough to do. I actually used the toothpick to trace out lines before filling them in with a normal nail polish (like in the case of the white diamond or the white clock on my sister's ring finger and thumb respectively) and for the lace design. Toothpicks are probably one of the best "at-home" nail tools you can use because they're so useful! I used them to pick up the nail gems in addition to using them to create the designs.

I purchased the gold chain from my local Daiso which is sort of like a Japanese dollar store except everything is usually $1.50 unless otherwise stated. It comes in a long chain which you can cut to your liking with scissors. I'm pretty sure you can find it on Ebay for less than a dollar which is also about the same price as the nail gems I used which came in a wheel with multiple colors similar to this. I also added on some cute stickers I got from China which you can also purchase on Ebay for super cheap :)

For the nail polishes, I used..
-Sky Blue: Revlon Core Nail Blue Lagoon
-Pastel Baby Blue: Barry M Gelly Nail Paint Huckleberry 19
-White: Orly Nail Polish White Tips #42001
-Black: Sally Hansen Hard as Nails Xtreme Wear Nail Color 370 Black Out
-White Nail Art: L.A. Colors Art Deco Nail Art 901 White

And as usual, I topped with Seche Vite top coat to seal everything in. I think it was especially important this time because I needed to make sure none of the 3-D things would fall off like the rose or the gold chain. 

Let me know what you think and if you have any nail design requests, just leave them in the comments below~! Hope you all have a wonderful holiday break and spend lots of time with your family! ^__^

Autumnal Inspired Nails

Ah finally the leaves are beginning to turn that beautiful red-orange-brown and the weather is cooling down into the perfect leggings+boots+scarves weather. YES it is the signs of Autumn and I couldn't be more excited :)

Some random picture of Fall scenery that I found online. Doesn't it make you just so happy? :)

Today I wanted to share a simple nail look created with a mix of those more earthy-toned cream shades. I chose all cream colors and it actually looked fine without the gold accented sticker designs (actually better in my opinion but I can't really take off the stickers now sigh..). I was inspired by a nail look I saw online featuring simple colors so I chose out whatever autumn shades I had in my collection and came up with this!

 I kind of hate how you can see the fine details with such an enlarged photo haha especially since you can see all the beauty of my dry cuticles and the lines of the stickers and the bumps in the nail polish (sigh) BUT BESIDES THAT, I love the look! I was a bit impatient on putting the stickers on so I definitely messed up my nails but the overall effect is just so fall-esque and I totally loving it. 

I used the following nail polishes to get this look:
-White: Orly Nail Polish White Tips #42001
-Orange: Korean brand that I can't seem to find the name for so I'll show a picture of a similar shade
-Maroon: Zoya Natural Nail Polish Coco
-Dark Grey (that looks blue tinted but really isn't): Maybelline Color Show Nail Polish Lacquer Impeccable Greys 410
-Nude: 3 Concept Eyes (3CE) Nail Lacquer #BE02

I realized I really need more warm-toned/fall nail shades like an olive green or a dark brown so let me know in the comments if you know any nice nail polishes that you think I'd like and I might pick them up and use them in another nail look!