[Nail Look of the Day] Lace, florals, and polka dots; who wants a tea party?

I was inspired by a photo I found on Pinterest (if you want to see the original, you can sift through my nail inspo board here) and decided to recreate the look. I think the flowers turned out really well (I used a different blend than usual to make my petals) and I was really pleased with my pinky-peach base color.

Unfortunately, I can't really share what nail polish I used to get the base pink-peach color because I actually used two sheer nail polishes to create it. I started with a coat of a peach nail polish that had too much orange undertones for my liking (it's an Asian brand - The Face Shop - if you're interested but I doubt it's still in production). It's relatively sheer so I let it dry and then did one super thin coat of Revlon Pink Cafe nail polish (I've used this a couple of times in previous nail looks). This nail polish starts off being pretty sheer and "jelly" like (if that makes sense) which allowed me to layer the two colors without having one totally block out the other. I'm definitely pleased with the end color.

Once I let my base color dry, I created half moon shapes with my a pale pinky white nail polish. In retrospect, I would have done this layer first THEN painted on the pink-peach color because it was pretty hard to make the rounded curves this way around especially because my pale pink-white nail polish brush (a Julep polish) was super fat and not made for tight corners. I think a white would have made this layer stand out more (I actually did use a white polish for my pink nail which you can see in the photo above and it made that layer look like BAM so much more obvious. It depends on the look you're going for I suppose. While this layer was drying, I used a dotting tool dipped in that same pink-white lace color to draw half circles to create that "lace" look adn then used aother dotting tool dipped in white nail polish to create polka dots around the half circles or on the pink-peach base area. This part was tricky because I tried making some dots INSIDE the half sphere space but it wasnt very large so not sure if it made the look better or worse.

After that, I just drew on the flowers by having a small puddle of a hot pink (Sally Hansen Hot Magenta) and light pink (Sinful Colors Easy Going) and using a dotting tool to mix the too a little before placing the tip on my nail and creating a circle of swirled color that looks like a rose. Using a toothpick or a thin dotting tool, I used a green color that I created by blending Essie Mojito and Sally Hansen Emerald Express. I wouldn't suggest this and would advise just getting an actual dark green color because Emerald Express is a glitter polish but it was the only dark sort of green color I had and I wanted to tone down Essie Mojitio.

Anyways, I'm not sure if this post was terribly helpful but hopefully the pictures were inspiring or fun to look at if anything. Please excuse the dryness and wrinkliness of my cuticles and palms by the way! :) Feel free to leave a comment below with any questions, suggestions, or requests!

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.

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!

Manicure Monday x Get the [Nail] Look: It's Gold, Baby!

Hey everyone! I decided to do another "Get the [Nail] Look" because Pinterest just has so many amazing inspiration nail looks so I might as well show all of you wondering how to get similar nail looks! This week's is pretty simple because I was feeling a little lazy but I love how elegant it still looks. I didn't have the right shade of coral with me (ugh there are just too many shades of pink and coral and red that I don't have!) but what I used seemed to work fine enough.

The taupe I ended up using was a lot more cool toned and next time I think I'll use another one of my taupe polishes that comes off more brown and warmer like in the photo. However, since I didn't have a coral and used a pink color, I think the cool toned taupe looked just as nice.

Nail Polishes used:
-Revlon Colorstay Nail Enamel in Cafe Pink
-Milani Jewel FX Nail Lacquer in Gold 531
-L'Oreal Paris Colour Riche Nail Color Nude Privee Collection in It's Now or Never
-OPI Spotlight on Glitter Nail Lacquer in I Reached My Gold

I actually used another gold glitter polish which is much finer than the Milani nail polish (which you can tell in the photos) and layered the OPI glitter top coat over it to create a more dimensional effect. However, the finer gold glitter polish I used is by Covergirl and it's super old because it was before they game out with the square shaped nail polishes that they have now and I can't seem to find it online so yea :( But most brands carry a gold glitter polish so it shouldn't be too hard to find a replacement if you don't want to use the Milani one (which is a much larger glitter particle size but definitely still awesome).

I am seriously in need of a coral nail polish so if you guys have any suggestions on an amazing coral color (like the one in that picture), please let me know! :) Or send me pictures of looks you want me to recreate!

Get the [Nail] Look: Flower Tips

So lately I've taken to Pintrest for nail look ideas and I came across this one that I was absolutely in love with this one nail look (shown below) that I kept seeing on literally everyone's board!

I loved this look so much that I decided to try and recreate it. I couldn't find the right pink, and I still can't! So if you know what polish looks similar to the pink in that picture, PLEASE let me know down in the comments below because I literally spent an hour searching up very pastel pink nail polish and swatch trying to find the perfect color. I ended up giving up because I couldn't find any color close enough and just stuck to a very light pastel pink that I had. It's a bit too light for my liking but I'm pretty happy with the end result!

I used the following nail polishes (shown in order from left to right):
-Sinful Colors Nail Polish in Easy Going
-Essie Nail Color in Mojito Madness
-Revlon Colorstay Nail Enamel in Cafe Pink
-Orly White French Tips Nail Polish
-Essie Nail Color in Camera (discontinued)

Although the bright red nail polish by Essie is discontinued, you can use any sort of red-pink nail polish that would blend well with the pink. Or you can totally make this look your own and choose a different flower color like yellow roses or even blue roses if you're feeling creative ;D

Steps:
1. Paint base coat with Easy Going by Sinful Colors. This polish can be pretty streaky so you need at least two if not three coats. Wait for it to completely dry. Be patient!
2. On a scratch piece of paper, put a drop of the white (Orly French Tips), pink (Revlon Cafe Pink), and red-pink nail polish (Essie Camera) so that they're all touching. Using a rounded tip (ie. a dotting tool or the knob of a bobby pin), swirl right in the middle where all the colors meet so that your rounded tip has a bit of all colors.
3. In a C or circular shaped motion, start drawing the first petal of your rose. Continue on going towards the center. Paint about three roses per nail. (Try not to crowd them as much as I did so leave some extra space in between). Let dry.
4. Add the leaves! Using a green polish (Essie Mojito Madness) and a tooth pick, create leaf like structures.
5. Let it all sit a bit before adding a top coat. I used Seche Vite as usual which works for not completely dried polish but it depends on what top coat you are using. Be careful that your design isn't so wet that it smears when you add the top coat.
6. Finished~! Make sure to take a picture for instagram and tag me (@creamydinner) ^__^

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!