Easter Egg Nails

Arden: Ok, here's my second try at Easter egg nails, and these were much more successful!  They might be the design I go with on Easter Sunday itself!

I was trying to go for the kinds of Easter eggs my family used to dye-- where you've drawn on designs in white crayon before you dye them, and then the dye leaves them unevenly colored.  Like this:

Using that as my inspiration, here's what I came up with:

How I Did It:
I started my painting each nail white (Sally Hansen White On) and then applied a fast-drying top coat (Essie Good to Go).  Once each nail was dry, I applied tape.  I used both striping tape for the thin lines and washi tape cut using zigzig scissors.  Then I applied several shades of the same color to a makeup sponge, and sponged over the tape.  I immediately removed the tape, and voila!  Easter egg nails!

Left hand pic!  I think my egg designs got better on my left hand, but sadly my hand positioning for pictures with that hand needs some work!

Colors Used (so many!):

Orange/Yellow:
Julep Marjorie
Color Club Ringo & Love Letter

Pink:
Julep Drew & Helen
Color Club Hot Tub

Purple:
Julep Bette, Charlotte, Joanna, & Helen


Blue:
Julep Annie & Joanna
Essie Bouncer, It's Me

Green:
Julep Diana & Shenae
Color Club Double Dare

What do you think?  Have you decided on your Easter manicure yet?  Let me know in the comments!

Casa de Polish Returns!

Arden: Hey everyone!  We're back!  Sorry for our long absence, but we're hoping to post regularly again now (in a little more simplified form).  Just so you know, even when we aren't updating the blog, we're always posting our manicures on our individual Instagram accounts, so you should follow us:

Arden: @arden_elise
Lisl: @slisl

Here are some of the manicures I've done recently:

Glitter sandwich using Julep Soraphine & Autumn, with dots of Julep Myriam, Majorie, Karen, & Helen.

Striping tape nails with Julep Roc Solid and Diamond Theory for St. Patrick's Day.

Neon dotted nails using Color Club Double Dare and Love Letter.

 Rainbow nails with a twist: sponged on a rainbow gradient, applied striping tape, painted over nails with black, and then removed the tape!  (Used wayyyy too many colors to list.)

Passion fruit tips with Julep Paige and Veronica.  (P.S. Veronica is an amaaazing color for spring!)

More dots using Julep Diana and Bette.  (I just keep being drawn to dots this spring!)

Bright sponged on colorful nails (again, too many colors to list!)

Blue sparkly chevrons with Julep Joanna, Tracy, & Jordan.  (P.S. Julep reposted these nails in a blog post about spring manis-- check it out here.  How cool is that?)

All right, that's it for now.  Will post again soon!

Chevron Nails: Take 2!

Arden: So I learned yesterday that apparently there are two kinds of chevrons: a single v-shape, and zigzags like I did yesterday (which are basically a bunch of chevrons all strung together).  (And yes, some people will argue that zigzags aren't really chevrons, but I'm sticking to my guns!)  I enjoyed yesterday's manicure so much, I decided to try out the other kind of chevron today!

My method to create these nails was pretty similar to yesterday's: I started with a base of two coats of Julep Kendra.  I had some leftover dried silver polish (Julep Missy) on a Ziploc from the chevrons I'd already created, so I just cut out some v-shapes using those leftovers.  Then I applied them to my nails, trimmed the edges, and added a top coat.  Voila!  DIY decals are ridiculously easy once you get the hang of them (and, y'know, remember to paint a Ziploc with a polish the night before). 

Since both of these colors came from my October Julep Maven box, I've entered this manicure in their monthly #MyMaven contest.  I'll let you know if my entry is chosen as a finalist, but feel free to go like it here now!

It's only now occurred to me that this color combination seems to really be encouraging some Slytherin house school spirit.  That was not intentional, but if anyone's planning on going as a Harry Potter character for Halloween, consider making this manicure part of your costume!

Let me know what you think!

Chevron Nails

Arden: Hey everyone!  Today's assignment in the 33 Day Challenge is to make chevron nails.  I was pretty pumped about this one, because I love chevrons and I've always wanted to try to figure out how to do them on my nails.

I think there are a lot of different ways to do chevron nails: stamping, using special stickers, cutting tape with pinking shears, but I decided to use the method where you basically make your own chevron nail polish decals.  Lisl's done a lot with DIY nail decals in the past (see her Easter egg nails and fruit nails) but I'd never done them before!  For those following at home, I used the method detailed in this video.

I started by painting a large swatch of Julep Missy on a Ziploc and letting it dry overnight.

Then today, I applied my base color: my new Morgan Taylor Under the Stars.  I'd seen this shade on Pinterest and fell in love with it and was so excited when I found out that one of the local beauty supply stores in town stocks Morgan Taylor!  A word to the wise: the application of this polish was a hot mess.  The thin navy jelly polish and thick holographic glitter don't mix super well.  I used three coats and eventually felt like it was pretty even.  But even with two coats of top coat, the glitter in the polish was still pretty bumpy.

I then turned my attention to creating the silver chevrons and cut strips out of my Ziploc using pinking shears.  (I'd tried making chevron by just cutting pieces of tape in chevron stripes using the pinking shears and trying to paint over them, and I found it really hard to get the polish to leave straight chevron lines.  My attempts were always really messy.)

Pinking shears!

I left the Ziploc backing on when I cut the chevrons because I didn't want the polish to fall apart.  The hardest part was making the second cut line up with the first one (I had some that didn't line up and weren't perfect chevrons).  But eventually I ended up with a bunch of strips that looked like this:

Then I peeled off the Ziploc backing and stuck each strip to my nail.  They stuck fairly well-- you could easily reposition them, but it would take some vigorous hand waving for them to fall off completely.

After they were all in place, I trimmed the edges of each one and applied two coats of Essie Good to Go on top.  I then cleaned up the edges using a small brush dipped in acetone and voila!  Galactic silver chevron nails!

As I'm sure you gathered from all of those instructions, these weren't the easiest nail art I've ever done, but they were actually pretty fun!  And being able to split the steps up across two days made it seem like not too much of a chore.  Plus, the results are awesome!

The one problem I encountered with these chevron technique is that my silver chevrons developed some bubbles after I applied the top coat.  I imagine this is because the stripes weren't 100% pressed down flush against the base color when I added the top coat to seal them in.  I think it's probably just really noticeable with these nails because the stripes are metallic (and every little imperfection shows with silver polish), but it could be a problem in general with the decal process.  I'll have to try it again using a creme polish and report back.

They're not perfect, but I'm pretty pleased with my first attempt at chevron nails.  What do you think?  Do you recommend a different chevron technique?  Let me know!

And as always, check out everyone else's entries below!