Spun Sugar Gradient

I'm sorry this didn't go up yesterday! I finished these quite late at night and didn't have it in me to edit photos and write up a post. But I am doing so right now (hiyah).

For these, I started with a base of Still Waters-- it's a lovely colour deserving on its own post, and its incredible glowiness is a big part of why the jellies light up in the sunlight as above. It also applied like a dream in 2 coats; because the shimmer is almost (but not!) frosty in its intensity, you need to work your brushstrokes a bit to get them evened out, and Still Waters is probably the most indulgent polish I've worked with in months. It has an almost marshmallow squishiness to it and it stays smooth as butter for as long as you need it to. Superb.

I then dusted the tops of my nails in the turquoise glitter. Once done, I did the spun sugar technique with the three jellies, going from light green at the tips to dark green in the middle to dark teal up top. I left space for the glitter to shine through. I then topcoated it all to make it last until I could take photos today, but I won't do that next time. It takes away from the spun-sugariness.

Getting the colour balance proper on these was nigh impossible. Sorry for kinda leprotic hand colouring.

Purposefully blurry to show the glitter shininess.

Polishes used:
Liquid Sky Lacquers - Still Waters
Nfu Oh - JS34, JS35
Zoya - Frida
Duri - Rejuvacote (base coat)
INM - Out the Door (top coat)
Martha Stewart micro iridescent glitter in Wintermint

I think I'll do a painting next! I have some ideas, but it seems all my pre-planning goes off the rails lately...


J.

Hand-stitched Quilted Nails

Hello friends!

As promised, I've tried to bring you something more entertaining today. A total sweetheart named Shivani over on Instagram wanted to see quilted nails, so that's what I've done!

Sorry for dry fingers! I forgot to moisturize!!

For this look, I used three coats of Oodiful, which I pressed in using a cuticle pusher when the paint was not yet fully dry. I then painted in the seams first with silver, then with black hand stitching. Lastly, I painted a couple little flowers and petals using acrylic ink mixed with acrylic modeling paste for texture.

Polishes used:

Nail Pattern Boldness - Oodiful

Sally Hansen - Silver Sweep

black, white, red, yellow & green acrylic paints

INM - Out the Door (top coat)

acrylic modeling paste

detail brush

I hope you enjoyed these. And, because it's impossible to avoid current affairs and it isn't desirable to do so anyway, I just want to say that I hope that anybody you may know in love in Boston is safe and sound tonight. My heart goes out to everybody affected by this unconscionable and unfathomable crime.

J.

SIMPLE(R) SUNDAY: Black Day

Hello to my single readers!

Today is Black Day in South Korea. Unlike the Western world, which celebrates Valentine's Day as a one-time affair, South Koreans separate out the holiday into three parts. Technically, the 14th of every month is an obscure love-related holiday, but these three days are the main attractions:

1) 14 February: Valentine's Day: women give chocolate, preferably homemade, to their men;

2) 14 March: White Day: men give non-chocolate sweets or other gifts, preferably at a much higher value than the original Valentine's gift, to their women;

3) 14 April: Black Day: anybody who didn't receive gifts on Valentine's Day or White Day get together and eat jajangmyeon, wheat noodles in black bean sauce, to mourn their singledom.

So, though I am not single, I find the idea of single people getting together to eat a certain food on a certain day to be curiously charming in the extreme. And I thought it'd make a good subject for simple nail art!

Here's what you will need to do:

Materials! Sorry for cell phone picture, forgot to take a photo of this and then didn't want to reupload from my camera.

Step 1: paint your nails your base colour. I used Ain't No Sunshine because it seemed appropriate! It's a lovely greyed-out blue with subtle multicoloured shimmer and white flakes. It applied beautifully in two coats, like all Contrary Polish colours. I applied a coat of quick-dry topcoat to speed up drying time.

Step 2: have your handsome cat take over your lightbox because he's a butt like that.

Step 3: paint your noodles. I used You Don't Know Jacques because the wheat noodles, when covered in the sauce, take on a darker brownish colour.

Step 4: add some sauce. I used JS01 for this, which is a black jelly, but you could use a regular black polish with some thinner added, or you could wait until your noodles are dry and use watered-down black acrylic paint.

Step 5: add some shine so the sauce look saucier. I used Funny Bunny for this, a white jelly, but you could use either of the options in Step 3 to get around not having a white jelly.

Step 6: matte it! I wanted the added heart detail to stand out, so I matted the whole mani. You then have to wait for it to be completely dry. (I used a quick dry topcoat under my matte top coat to speed it up.) This is critical, otherwise the next step will pull up the paint and ruin everything!

AND THEN

Step 7: black heart! For this, I folded over a piece of tape, cut out half a heart, then peeled the tape open again. This gives a heart template, which I stuck to my nail. Make sure you get a good seal so the polish doesn't bleed! Then paint the broken heart in black polish and immediately remove the tape.

Step 8: clean up the mess along your cuticles with some acetone and a small brush, and you're done!

Polishes used:
Contrary Polish - Ain't No Sunshine
OPI - You Don't Know Jacques, Funny Bunny
GOSH - Nero
Nfu Oh - JS01
Essie - Matte About You
Scotch tape
scissors

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial. I think I will try to turn every Simple(r) Sunday into a tutorial-- let me know what you think of this idea. If it's a waste of time, I'll stop doing it! :P


J.