Monday, May 28, 2012

Verticle Stripes



Hello, all! 
I really loved my new colors from last week, so I just had to use them again. So I used both Essie's Navigate Her and my black striper in this design. Enjoy!

You will need:
- Base coat
- Light Green polish
- Gold polish
- A Black striper
- Top coat

First paint your nails with the base coat. Next, paint it two solid coats of the green. 
Essie - Navigate Her

Now use the gold nail polish to create a vertical stripe down each nail.

China Glaze - Harvest Moon

Take the black striper to outline the edges of each gold stripe.

It's So Easy Stripe Rite - Black

Cover with a top coat and that's it!

Sally Hansen - Super Shine

This design is quick, professional, and easy. I hope you all have a great week, and please leave your comments below!
- Muffin

Monday, May 21, 2012

Green Leaves


Happy monday! I happened to come across some new nail polish this weekend, and I decided to use it in a design. I hope you like it!

You will need:
- Base coat
- A light green nail polish (I used Essie's Navigate Her, one of my new finds)
- Makeup sponges/art sponge brush/etc.
- A dark green nail polish (Here is China Glaze's Agro, one of the colors in the Hunger Games themed line)
- A yellow nail polish
- Black striper
- Top coat

First, paint on a base coat to protect your nails. Next, paint two coats of the lighter green.


Take the sponge and dab a bit of the darker green polish onto it. Using the sponge, lightly press nail polish onto the top one third of each nail. Place more polish onto the sponge as necessary.


Your nails should end up looking somewhat like this. This method is naturally messy, so save the cleanup of your cuticles and skin for the very end. 


Using the same sponging method, dab on the yellow nail polish onto the top third of each nail. Your fingers should now look like this. 


Using the black striper, draw a line straight down the center of each nail.


Next, use the striper to paint diagonal lines branching out from the center line. 


Cover your nails with a clear coat and use a cotton swab and nail polish remover to clean up any unwanted polish.


I hope you enjoyed this tutorial! Please post your questions and comments below- I'd love to hear what you think!
- Muffin

Monday, May 14, 2012

Black French Tip Mani


Hey, readers! So for this week's design, I decided to stick with a simple french tip. But instead of using the typical boring white french tip, I mixed it up a little with some darker colors. 

You will need:
- Base coat/ Top coat
- Any matte black polish (I'm using a more glittery polish, China Glaze's Stone cold, but any color that's matte will work)
- A shinier black polish
- Clear Tape

First use a base coat to protect your nails. Next, paint them two coats of the matte black polish.


Doing these next steps one at a time, place a piece of tape horizontally across the nail. Make sure the first polish has dried completely to prevent the tape from pulling it up.


Next, paint the showing tips in the second black nail polish. Quickly pull the tape off.


Repeat for the rest of your nails, and  you're finished! Cover with a top coat to give them a nice shine.


I hope you enjoyed this simple design! Thanks for reading!
- Muffin

Monday, May 7, 2012

Tiger Stripes


Hey, all! This week's tutorial is the fun and exotic tiger nail pattern. It's pretty time-consuming, so make sure you only start this one when you have a good stretch of free time ahead of you. For these nails you will need:
- a clear base and top coat
- Yellow nail polish (yes, I'm aware that normal tiger stripes are orange, but normal = boring in my book, hence the yellow)
- black nail polish
- clear tape
- a pair of scissors


As usual, start off with a base coat to protect your nails. Next, paint each nail with two coats of a solid yellow.


Let the yellow dry COMPLETELY before moving on the the next step!
The next three steps will be done one nail at a time to prevent tearing the nail polish or any other unthinkable mistakes.
Cut a piece of tape into small little strips and criss-cross them on your nails, just as I did in the picture below.   You want that yellow to be solid because if it isn't completely dry, you'll peel up some of it when you take the tape off.


Now paint your nail with the black polish. It's fine to paint over the tape. 


DO NOT wait for the black to dry- take the tape off as quickly as you can.


Repeat for all of your nails and cover with a top-coat to add some shine. 


I hope you enjoyed letting your inner tiger shine through with this design! Thanks for reading!
- Muffin