Leopard print over gold tips

Hello everyone and happy Friday! I had my first full week of work at my new job, so I am super excited about the weekend. AND last night I took off the shellac (which was much easier than I anticipated, and my nails weren't damaged at all) so I have new nail art to show off! I wanted something in a more neutral tone because my nails have been bright pink for so long, and I looked through my arsenal of nail art pictures that are on my list to try and decided on a leopard design. I saw one with natural-toned leopard print over tan french tips, so I tried to recreate my take on that. These nails came out AWESOME! Unfortunately, pictures don't do it justice, flash or no flash. It's really hard to pick up on the colors and the effect of the leopard print, but oh well - you will have to take my word for it! I took pictures of each step in case anyone wanted to see the process. And, here they are!

First I painted some gold tips on. I liked gold better than the tan I saw done on Google, so I went with Revlon's Copper Penny. I actually freehanded these! I thought they turned out pretty well for freehanding. So that was step one.

Then, I used NYC Canal Street to randomly dab on some dots for the leopard spots. Again, the camera doesn't really do this color justice, it's a dark, rusty red/brown that looks perfect with the gold. 

Last, I outlined the spots with Sinful Colors Nail Art in Time Off with messy, broken lines, and added in some random black dots to complete the look! Honestly, this looks WAY cooler in person. I might try to get some better pictures when my boyfriend gets home from work with the good camera :] So what do you think?? Suggestions/constructive criticism welcome! I don't have the steadiest hand, so it was really difficult to outline the spots on my right hand since my left is so clumsy. That's all for now - hope everyone has a great weekend!!

Kelly

Here's what I've been doing lately..

So, like I mentioned before I haven't updated in forever because the tutorial I made and my last few hauls are on my boyfriend's camera. But I have some updates on the rest of what I've been doing lately! I finished school the first week of May and finished my practicum the week after. So I didn't have a whole lot of time to do anything super creative with my nails. I've been doing a lot of gradients 1)to practice new techniques and 2)because they're quick and easy and I like them! So here are a few I've done in the past couple weeks!

Here's a pink and gold gradient I did before my last day of work because the weather was beautiful and I felt like doing something sunny! The colors are Wet n Wild Fast Dry - How I Met Your Magenta and Revlon - Copper Penny. For my accent nail I just added a couple coats of Sally Hansen's Diamond Strength in Multi-Faceted - which I LOVE! It's a chunky black, blue and silver glitter. Anyway, for this gradient, I did a few (I think 3) coats of the Wet n Wild, then I started at the tip and painted layers of the Revlon, painting gradually more and more of the nail each time and staggering it a bit so it wasn't straight across. This would have been easier if the Revlon wasn't so opaque - it was definitely a 1-coater which I didn't know at the time.

Another angle. I really loved this mani!

This is a mani I did last week when I was getting ready to come back home to Pennsylvania to work for a couple of weeks. Again I felt summer and wanted something super bright. For this gradient, I tried a tutorial that I found at thenailasaurus.com. The picture really doesn't do it justice because of the flash - the graduation was much more subtle and cool looking than it appears to be here. I got a lot of compliments on this mani, and I liked this sponging technique better than the one I tried in my FA at gradients. I switched up my accent nail because I got a few more bumps than normal on my pointer fingers for some reason! I added a couple coats of this pretty confetti-ish glitter I got from Icing, the name is escaping me right now. The colors here are Sinful Colors - Tangerine (something or other) and Sally Hansen X-treme Colors in Pacific Blue.

And lastly, like I said I came home and since I don't have a lot of money for presents, I told my mom she could pick any mani she wanted and I would do her nails for her. She picked "tie-dye" which I begrudgingly agreed to even though as I've said before water marbling and I are not best friends. She wanted bright colors, which turned out kind of pastel over a white basecoat but she was happy. Here it is!

Mother's day mani :] It came out better than I hoped it would but I still think my swirling technique still needs work! Anyway, that's basically what I've been up to lately, more updates soon when I get my pictures off the camera. Hope everyone's summers are starting out wonderful! Mine has been full of work but I am thinking of the paycheck...  ;]



Kelly