Leopard! Leopard! Leopard!

I love Leopard nails and I love the colors I used! China Glaze "For Audrey" and "First Mate".

For fine lines I use Kiss Nail Artist. The brush is very thin and very easy to use! It comes in a pack of three. Black, white and silver sparkle. Whenever I need to make fine lines in other colors all I do is put a little nail polish remover on a cotton round and wipe the sparkle brush clean, dip it into whatever color I'm using and it works perfectly! Then when I'm done with that color I wipe it off again and put it back in the sparkle container. You can go out and buy a special brush for all other colors but this method works fine with me and until it stops working I don't see the need to spend more money on a brush I don't need!





In the pictures "First Mate" looks like it's black but it's just the lighting, it's a very nice navy color. It took two coats of each color to make them "perfect". I used my Kiss Nail Art black to make the leopard design on each nail EXCEPT the nails with "First Mate". On the "First Mate" nails I used the silver sparkle because I knew black wouldn't show up well enough to really see the design.

The easiest way I can describe how to make the leopard design is to make a whole bunch of C's facing every direction. make sure to leave some space between them. Also I like to make a few very small dots by the C's. Once you get the hang of it, it's actually very easy just remember to take it slow!

After the leopard design dried I went and took the Kiss Nail Art brush and dipped it into "First Mate" and filled in a few of the leopard spots on each of the "For Audrey" nails. After I cleaned off the nail brush, I dipped it into "For Audrey" and filled in a few spots on the nails with "First Mate".

So to clarify, nails with "For Audrey" get spots filled with "First Mate". Nails with "First Mate" get spots filled with "For Audrey". If I use more than one color I like to tie them together and by filling in the spots with the other color I used.

Hello Leopard Nails! (:

Rainbow Nails!

So this week I finally convinced my sister to let me clean and paint her nails because they drive my crazy! (no offence Steph) To give her some credit she is only 11 and doesn't care about "girly" stuff yet so to her it's no big deal to have dirty nails that are chipped and uneven.


Anyways, I've seen rainbow nails all over the internet and was excited I could finally do them!

I used Sally Hansen Xtreme wear "Blue Me Away!" for the blue sky, NYC "French White Tip" for the clouds and I used Sinful Colors "Ruby Ruby", Pure Ice "Excuse Me" and Sinful Colors "Let's Talk" for the rainbow.


For fine lines I use Kiss Nail Artist. The brush is very thin and very easy to use! It comes in a pack of three. Black, white and silver sparkle. Whenever I need to make fine lines in other colors all I do is put a little nail polish remover on a cotton round and wipe the sparkle brush clean, dip it into whatever color I'm using and it works perfectly! Then when I'm done with that color I wipe it off again and put it back in the sparkle container. You can go out and buy a special brush for all other colors but this method works fine with me and until it stops working I don't see the need to spend more money on a brush I don't need!


It took 2 coats of "Blue Me Away" I really like this color it's nice and bright and looks exactly like a perfect blue sky! It went on nice and smooth and wasn't lumpy at all! (I've had problems with lumpy Sally Hansen nail polish before)

I wanted the tips to look like clouds so I started close to the tip on the left side of the nail, then in the middle of the nail I started a little higher up, then closer to the tip again on the right side. I made sure to make nice rounded little curves to get the cloud affect. It took two coats of white to make them really white.








After I was done with the clouds on the tips I took my fine tip brush and made 3 thin lines in white (so the rainbow colors would show up) I started in the middle of the nail and swiped in an arch to the top corner of the nail (I tried one finger without putting white first and the colors didn't show up well) then I carefull traced over the white line with the "Ruby Ruby", "Excuse Me" and "Let's Talk" to create the rainbow. I wasn't worried about getting nail polish on the skin, I figured it would get a little messy while making the rainbow. For easy clean up I use an old angled eyeliner brush (E.L.F. brand has some for $3 at Target) and dip it into the nail polish remover and CAREFULLY clean up the messes.

TA-DA! Rainbow nails (:

Birthday Nails!!! (:

This week is my birthday week!! Yay! so I wanted something really bright that stood out from everyone else and I definitely got what I wanted!

These are the nail polish I used. I personally don't think they're expensive but others have told me I'm crazy for spending 10 on one nail polish... but it was such a pretty sparkle so I couldn't help myself! You can either go to the places if you want exactly what I have but there are colors REALLY similar for cheaper I just prefer China Glaze over other brands. But I have yet to see a sparkle like this one anywhere else most have a color mixed in this is simply clear coat with TONS of different sized sparkles. (:

So the neon orange is China Glaze Orange Knockout I got mine at Sally's Beauty Supply
and the sparkle is Sephora by OPI Spark-tacular! it says it's a top coat, but obviously with 3 coats it works perfectly as a regular nail polish if you're a fan of that much sparkle like I am. (I did my toes only with the sparkle and they turned out AWESOME!)





I always start out with freshly cleaned and filed nails. I prefer to only file because my nails peel really easily and I find if I clip them they peel more than if I just file. Normally I wash my hands with hot hot hot water after I file and then put some body lotion on my cuticles to soften them before I push them back and trim them. I also ALWAYS use Sally Hansen Diamond Strength hardener. I got mine for $6 at Target and I love it!! Anyways after that you're ready to start! (:

The best way I've found to put on polish is to take it kinda slow. Start with a little blob of polish in the top middle of your nail WITHOUT touching your cuticle and gently push the nail polish toward your cuticle and sort of slide it across the top and down the complete side (if you start at the cuticle they end up sloppy and messy) start over and do the other side of the nail. Then repeat for every nail.












I wait normally 2-3 minutes before doing another coat so it has time to completely dry otherwise it will end up goopy and lumpy. With these two colors I did a total of 3 coats and was satisfied with how they turned out (:

After looking at them for a few minutes I decided one finger on each hand just wasn't enough sparkle for the look I was going for so I thought I would do a fade of sparkle at the bottom of each nail.

I put a glob of polish at the very bottom of the nail and put most at the very tip and with whatever was left over on the brush I dabbed on nail further up, so by the time I got to the top of each nail there was barely anything there. I did each nail the same way and then waited 2-3 minutes to dry.

On the second coat of glitter I put a smaller glob of nail polish and didn't go up as far on the nail so there was less glitter at the top and slightly more in the middle.

On the third coat of glitter I only put more glitter on my tips and looked for spots that needed a more glitter.

I hope this was detailed enough that you understood what I was trying to say and I hope you're able to do this with my explanations and my pictures (:



Talk to you all next week!! After my 21st birthday!! (:

So for short while now I've really been into doing my own nail art and my friends have complimented them like crazy! Some have even come over so that I could do their nails for them! I see people pinning pictures of awesome nail art on Pinterest all the time and I thought to myself, "Uhm hello! I can do that!" and then I click on the picture and there is no description of how the person did it! Just a sometimes slightly bigger picture of the nails! So I figured I could start a blog about the nail art I do myself (:

So tough out my first few weeks as I figure out how to blog in the first place! lol
I paint my nails normally at least once a week so hopefully I'll have a new blog with pictures and descriptions weekly! I can't promise that they will all be super awesome but I do like to do animal print and I love doing seasonal nail themes and special occasion nail art!


So hopefully there is more than just my mom and best friend reading these words and I hope that I can explain myself enough that you can do the same art to you own nails!!


XOXO
Courtney
Belle Creations