Piggies!

Hello, guys! Today I thought I’d try out something I’ve wanted to do for a long time on my nails. So without further rambling on my part, please enjoy this tutorial on decorating your nails with cute little piggies!

You will need:

- Base coat

- White polish

- Light pink polish

- A darker pink polish

- A Black striper

- Brown polish

- Top Coat

Paint your nails with a base coat as usual, and then paint all nails with two coats of white polish.

Sally Hansen - Timeless White

Next, use the light pink polish to make semi-circles on your thumbs and ring fingers.

Unforgettable Moments - Twirl

Use the darker pink to outline the nose and ears.

Unforgettable Moments - Ballroom

Using the black striper, draw the eyes and nose.

It's So Easy Stripe Rite - Black

With the brown polish, dab a large amount onto the tips of your first fingers, middle fingers, and pinkies. Make separate dots of varying sizes on the nails and connect them to the main amount of polish at the top to get the dripping mud look (I apologize that the polish looks black in the picture, but it is meant to be brown).

Essie - Little Brown Dress

Now all you need is a top coat and these little critters will be ready for a night on the town!

Northern Lights Hologram Silver Top Coat

I hope you love these cute little piggies as much as I did! Let me know in the comments what you'd like to see in the next tutorial and don't forget to follow!

-Muffin

Pokemon Nails

I recently rediscovered the fun game that is Pokemon, and couldn't help but recreate one of my favorite little critters on my nails. This tutorial will teach you how to design your nails like a Pokemon Master!

You will need: 

- Base coat 

- White polish 

- A plastic bag

- Yellow Polish

- Black Striper / Black nail polish and tooth pick

- White striper / white nail polish and tooth pick

- Red nail polish

- Top coat

As usual, paint a base coat at the beginning to protect your nails.

Paint on two light coats of white polish on all nails.

Sally Hansen - Timeless White

Pikachu Nails:

 I was going to use the plastic bag technique. However, I ran out of time waiting for them to dry and had to quickly freehand them on my nails instead. I forgot to take step-by-step pictures for the freehand ones, though, so I will show the ones I did using the plastic bag technique.

First, paint on little Pikachu shapes roughly the same size as your third fingers and thumbs onto a plastic bag.

Sally Hansen - Lightening

Next, use a black striper to make the eyes and nose.

It's So Easy Stripe Rite - Black 

Fill in the eyes with white.

Sally Hansen - Timeless White

Now use red polish to make the little cheeks.

Kiss Colors - True Red

Let this dry for 1-4 hours, until you can easily peel it off.

Pokeball Nails:

While you are waiting for the Pikachu nails to dry on the plastic bag, finish the pokeball nails.

First, paint the top halves of the pinkies, index, and middle finger nail red. I also did this freehand, but if you don’t have a steady hand or dislike painting with your non-dominant hand, then you can use tape to guide it.

Kiss Colors - True Red

Use a black striper to outline the separation between the white and red.

It's So Easy Stripe Rite - Black

Draw a black dot in the center.

It's So Easy Stripe Rite - Black

Draw a white dot in the center of the black dot.

Sally Hansen - Timeless White

Finishing Up:

Once the Pikachu drawings are dry, carefully peel them off and place them on your thumbs and third fingers.

Cover each nail with a top coat.

L.A. Colors - Base coat / topcoat

And that’s it! I hope you liked having this cute pokemon on your nails!

- Muffin

Color Blocking, Part 2

This is part two of my last post. Here I'll spiff up the color blocking design even more!

You will need:

- your nails, already painted with the color blocking design

- a black striper

- top coat

Use the black striper to outline the different colors.

It's So Easy Stripe Rite - Black

Next, use it to make stripes on the blue section.

It's So Easy Stripe Rite - Black

Use the striper to make lines going a different direction in the yellow section.

It's So Easy Stripe Rite - Black

Finally, draw stripes going a third direction in the green section.

It's So Easy Stripe Rite - Black

Follow up with a top coat and you're done!

L.A. Colors - base coat / topcoat

Thanks for reading!

Color Blocking

Hey all! Happy Monday!

Color blocking is becoming extremely popular, so I thought I'd post a tutorial about it. This is also the base for a second nail design, which I will post after I get this one up. You will get better results using tape in this design, but it's very time consuming so if you're short on time I would suggest attempting it freehand. 

You will need:

- Base coat

- light green polish (yes, I know I've used the same color three weeks in a row... I promise this is the last time!)

- yellow polish

- light blue polish

- topcoat

Paint on a base coat and apply two coats of the green polish.

Essie - Navigate Her

Let this dry completely and place a piece of tape running from the middle of one side of the nail to the bottom corner of the other (such as in the picture).

Paint the part of the nail not covered with tape.

Sally Hansen - Lightening

Quickly remove the tape. Repeat for all nails and let dry completely.

Now take another piece of tape and place it from the middle of one side of the nail to the top corner of the other side.

Paint the nail with the blue polish.

Nicole By OPI - My Lifesaver

Remove the tape quickly.

Cover with a top coat to protect your design.

L.A. Colors - Base coat / topcoat

I hope you enjoyed this design! Read the next blog post if you'd like a way to add even more fun to the design.

Thanks for reading!

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

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

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