Black & White Butterflies

I was trying out several different designs to do for Berry Polished's Black and White Nail Art Competition. As the name suggests you can enter a design but only use black and white nail polish. One of the designs I decided to try was black and white butterflies.

I started off with a Ulta3 Base Coat. I then applied 2 coats of Ulta3 Lily White to all nails but my thumb and ring finger. For those I applied one coat of BYS Black Satin. Once dry I used Black Satin and a small nail art brush to drawn butterfly wings on my index, middle and pinkie fingers and then a small dotting tool and Lily White to draw dots. Then for my ring finger I used Lily White for the wings and Black Satin for the dots.

I wanted to do something different on my thumb so I stamped with the flower design from M26 and the butterfly design from M20 in Konad Special Polish White.

Butterfly Design from M20 (Image from ICNA)

Flower Design from M26 (Image from ICNA)

Finally I topped it all off with Ulta3 top coat. Ooh and then I smudged a nail which I tried to fix :'( Lol and I broke both sides off my thumbs!! :'''''''(

But here are the photos anyway :)

Black & White Butterflies in Artificial Light

Black & White Butterflies in Natural Light

Black & White Butterflies in Natural Light

Black & White Butterflies in the Shade

Black & White Butterflies in the Shade

I don't like how this turned out. My white wasn't opaque enough against my black and I was too impatient to let everything dry completely between each step. I think these butterflies look better on longer nails where I can make the outline of wings thicker so the dots fit on better.

Nude Accent with Flowers

It was getting late at night and my nails were still bare because I'd been swatching. I didn't want to leave my nails bare *GASP* so I decided to do a simple design .

I wanted to go with a bare nail look to save time but my nails are slightly stained so instead I applied Konad Regular Base Coat and then a thin layer of Maybelline Sheer Ballet Pink. Once that was dry I used scotch tape for one hand for a red accent across my nails in Revlon Revlon Red and then I freehanded the others. Once that was dry I used the flower image from Konad image Plate M31 and stamped it onto my nail. Then I stamped half the image again onto my nail. I cleaned up my manicure and added a coat of Seche Vite Dry Fast Top Coat and my trusty Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Quick Dry Drops.

These photo's were taken in artificial light once my design was dry. Sorry about the crappy lighting but the white flowers kept getting washed out.

The following day I took photo's of these before it started to chip. From previous experience I know that Maybelline Sheer Ballet Pink only lasts about a day before it starts to chip.

I love how simple this design is!! I think it looks amazing with the small splash of vibrant red against the delicate flower stamps. Although I keep wishing that I has added just one more flower across the edge of my nail along the red. I'll probably end up doing this design again when I need a quick manicure but add the flower across the top because it was really driving me nuts! That's not to say I don't love this design as it is because I do!

Revlon Iced Mauve and Angled Accent with Flowers

I wanted to play around with a few different techniques to build a nail art design on my Revlon Iced Mauve manicure. To begin with I decided to do an accent angle and I chose to use Maybelline Colorama Dark Plum as I thought it would contrast nicely with Iced Mauve. The design needed something more to it, and to help cover up the shoddy lines I made for my accent nail, so I decided to stamp it. I wanted a design that was long enough to cover the join between the two colours and decided on a flower design from Konad Image Plate M25. So I stamped that image on each nail in Konad Special Polish White. One coat of Seche Vite to make sure I didn't drag my stamped image and it was done!

I took these photo's in artificial light just after I finished so the top coat was still slightly wet.

 

 

Then I took these photo's just as the sun was going down so there wasn't as much sunlight as I would have hoped for. Actually there was only one small spot in my backyard that had a single beam of sunlight shining through!

Wow I love this manicure! I can't wait to mix and match the nail polish colours and the Konad design. There are endless possibilities to this design and I would love to see it in blue. So next time you see it will probably be a blue version!

China Glaze Velvet Bow and M64

I decided to add a Konad design to my Velvet Bow manicure to make it more festive. So of course when Christmas shopping I managed to scratch off some of my polish whilst looking around Priceline. So I went ahead and stamped my nails with the criss-cross design on Konad plate M64. I can't remember whether I bought this plate from ICNA, a good website for fellow Aussies after Konad items, or KonadNailArt, where I've bought Konad from before .

Konad Plate M64 from ICNA (International Creative Nail Art)

I haven't stamped my nails for some time and must say I am a bit rusty. Most of them weren't too bad except for the thumb of my left hand where I managed to get the design completely on one side. Using the Double Sided Stamper Set I stamped the design on every nail in Konad Special Nail Polish White and then fixed up my manicure where I scrapped off my nail polish. I sealed the design with Konad Top Coat and used the Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Speed Dry Drops to make it dry faster. The only annoying thing about stamping my nails is the long time it takes the Konad Top Coat to dry because it is so thick to stop it from dragging the design. Finally to top it all off I managed to scrape the middle finger of my left hand pulling off my nail polish, stamp and topcoat - FRUSTRATING! This was not one of my best days! I did a bit of a hatchet job to "fix" the finger I ruined by removing the section of top coat and polish I scraped and repainting it. So unfortunately my Konad stamp just abruptly ends on that nail.

Anyway here is the end product, flaws and all! I took this photo in artificial light after stamping it.

Velvet Bow with M64 in Artificial Light

I took this photo the day after I did the stamping and lucky it wasn't as overcast as it has been lately so I at least had some decent light to work with.

Velvet Bow with M64 in Natural Light

I like this design a great deal, to me it looks like a bunch of Christmas presents all wrapped up sitting under a Christmas tree!