Tropical Spring Break Nails

Everyone was going away for spring break recently, which was the inspiration for this manicure. I have one student who adores flamingos and had a “flamingo experience” where she got to interact with them in person while she was in Florida, which sounded amazing! These nails are dedicated to her.

I chose a rosy salmon pink as the base color for this design. This was achieved with 3 thin layers of Belen gel polish in color NU016. Each coat was cured for 60 seconds in a 36W UV/LED lamp.

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Glam Punk Sheep Nails

I had the wonderful opportunity to play with New Camerata Opera last week for their double bill of John Blow’s Venus and Adonis and Savitri by Gustav Holst. Everyone sounded amazing, but I was especially inspired by the costuming for the production of Venus and Adonis. They went for an MTV 80’s glam rock/punk interpretation of this 17th century opera with vibrant neon pinks and black mesh, leather, and lace.

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@bstar630 and @slindroth as the title characters in “Venus and Adonis”. . TICKET LINK BIO.

A post shared by New Camerata Opera (@newcamerataopera) on Nov 29, 2018 at 1:41pm PST

After our first dress rehearsal, I promptly went home and created these nails.

I started by painting my nails white with Laguna Moon Classic Soak-Off UV-LED Gel Polish in color CL361.

2 coats of gel polish were applied with each coat cured at 30 seconds with a UV/LED lamp.

Review of Born Pretty Clear AB Beads

Today I’m going to introduce you to some pretty microbeads that I found on the Born Pretty website. They are super pretty because of their pearlescent rainbow AB finish and look like tiny bubbles!

Born Pretty clear microbeads have an iridescent look to them.

Review of Rhinestone Picker and Brush Pen

Today I have a very interesting and useful tool to show you all. It is a dual ended rhinestone picker and brush pen to help with your nail art designs.

This tool is similar in size to an actual pen and combines two functions: the ability to pick up stones and glitters on one end and a brush on the other to either dust away excess powders or glitters from your nails or help push excess charms back into their container. The shape is easy to hold, and the white and clear hot pink plastic of the handle makes for an attractive addition to your nail art area.

Sandy Beach Nails

It’s hard to believe that we’re halfway through August already! I have no idea how time has been flying by. To be honest, I did these nails 2 weeks ago but am only just now starting to catch up with my blog.

In any case, I still haven’t been to the beach this summer because I’ve been so busy. The closest I can get to one is through some nail art.

I started by painting my nails with Born Pretty Thermal Gel in color BP-5730. I love thermal polishes for their natural gradient effect and also for their ability to entertain me in different temperature settings! This one looks like a pale periwinkle blue in warm temperatures and a deep royal blue in cold temperatures. It also has the perfect sprinkling of two different sized glitters in the formula which truly makes it look more special.

 

I applied and cured this polish for about 1 minute and repeated the process for a second coat.

My next step was to create a sandy beach line along the half moon area of my nails. 

Jellyfish Ocean Manicure

Happy summer, everyone! Who is looking forward to going to the beach? I have to live vicariously through my memories of previous summers for now because I’ve been ridiculously busy this month with gigs, so I brought the beach to my nails with this jellyfish design.

I started by painting my nails with Recall from Born Pretty’s Flower in Sunshine Series. It’s a beautiful mermaid turquoise green color with a pearl pink sheen and holographic sparkles.

To create an ocean effect with some depth, I sponged on dabs of Diva into the Pool from Nicole by OPI.

For more contrast, I added a few dabs of Queen for a Night from Finger Paints. This was also a good choice for me because it alludes to the Queen of the Night character from Mozart’s opera The Magic Flute, which I am currently playing!

Sparkly Multichrome Manicure

I’ve still been pretty busy these days, but I needed a change from my last manicure, so I went for something that would be quick and easy to put together for this week.

My polish of choice was something that looks stunning on its own: a multichrome polish from Beauty Big Bang. They call this Chameleon Polish 001, and the color is amazingly shifty in a good way! It has forest green tones that border on teal blue and has a dark purple undertone in indirect light.

Beauty Big Bang Chameleon Polish 001

This polish alone would have been enough for me, but I added some multi-toned rhinestones purchased from AliExpress to make it look even more fetching.

These rhinestones come in a few different sizes and have a somewhat iridescent sheen to them that make them appear multicolored.