4th of July Water Marble~!!!

Yes its been a while, but here I am with 4th of July inspired water marble!! :D It's a little early but I was thinking of maybe doing some other designs for the 4th as well. And I would have like to have taken more pictures but I cracked a nail playing with my dog LOL! So I am thinking of cutting my nails down soon. This is my forth crack/break between both hands, and I am getting slightly annoyed LOL!! Also I want to mention that Shellac does not give longer nails the added support it does with shorter nails. So I will be trying Gelish out soon to see if it gives longer nails that little bit of extra toughness. :D  And a quick shout out to Minni, just cause that girl is so damn awesome at 3D Nail Art! I love all kinds of nail art and I want to do them all,  and sometimes I get so distracted I forget my own nails!! >_<  So forgive me please for taking longer than usual to post!!! =x

Now on to the pictures~!!!

A little side note I can't believe I only own 3!!! red polishes how can that be I have no idea LOL!! And 2 of them are essie Ruby Slippers and FC (femme couture) Ruby Slippers from Sallys. LOL and yes they look almost identical, except the FC one is easier to water marble with hehe. 

SO polishes used:

FC (femme couture) -  Ruby Slippers

Sally Hansen - Blue It

Sally Hansen - Lavender Cloud

Top Coat - Seche Ultra - V

(UV activated top coat)

which smeared my water marble ARG!!!!!!!

Yes I know Lavendar Cloud is not a true white but to be honest I was to lazy to take my butt to the store for a different one >_<

Please let me know what you think, would love your thoughts!!! :D

X&D Lizard Shatter Crackle .... Yummy crackle shatter goodness~!!

 A little different post today about this Shatter/Crackle polish I purchased on ebay. The seller is everbella and they have 30 different color shatter/crackle polishes. Now before I show my swatches I made I will tell you a little about the polish. 

Its not clumpy at all, in fact it has a thin consistency, which makes it easier to work with. You can make little tiny cracks or huge shatter type effects, also you can go over the areas that already have the polish on it. You don't have to worry about it not cracking if you get polish on it, you can add to it to make bigger cracks. I personally think its great, after trying the Sally Hansen overcoat crackles I hesitated trying any other crackles. But I decided to give this one a try since I couldn't find any swatches online. The color I picked is BH-14 its a dark green and it has shimmer!!! I made three samples showing different color combinations and strokes. I did not put it on my nails because I have China Glaze Awaken which is a dark silvery color, and knew it would not show up well. :(  

The polish came with a base color which is picked randomly I think, the color  is a light shimmery green very pretty has no name but a number 05 on it and a top coat with a bunny on it!

 This sample I painted at an angle and does not have a top coat.

I painted across on Wet n Wild - Fuchsia Rama polish that had a fade effect on it. Can you see the glitter in the crackle? Love it!

Base is the color that came with it 05 and topcoat.

Base is an orange with only numbers 56 and  Zoya - Gabrielle. This one at the top I used very little polish to create the tiny cracks, then filled up brush to make the bigger cracks down.

So here are the samples I think you can click on them to see it larger. I also recorded some video of painting the orange nail working on editing it now since I recorded in parts since I had to wait for the polish to dry hehe

So what do you think? :)

*Hugs* to everyone that follows my blog or just visits. I appreciate it!  :D

Building, Making & Decorating

Warning pic heavy!!! =x

After I finished my foil nails I decided to work on a couple of projects. Storage for my fast growing nail polish collection and a light box for pictures. First up nail polish storage now I know I don't have as many polishes as some of the nail polish collectors do, but my addiction started around christmas. And I am now the owner of 153 polishes give or take some floating around on my desk hehe. So I looked at IKEA's Helmer and the 3 drawer storage (melmer) at Micheal's and decided on the one at Micheal's because of the additions that I can add around it for other crafty items. :D

And my little diva decorated it for me.

And now for the light box fun!

The tutorial I used to make the light box I will post at the end of this.

 Here's how to make it.

First up a cardboard box I used a 12" x12" x12" box, but you can use a bigger box. I would not go smaller than 12x12x12, tho.

Basically we are gonna cut windows in three sides of the box. 

I used a knife to slice the boxes, but if you have a box cutter that would work to. Try not to cut yourself okay? Don't need any blood in our pretty nail pictures do we? ;)

  For the next step you will need tracing paper, vellum paper or  tissue paper and tape the paper to the sides of the box. This is the paper I bought at Micheal's.

And my light box with the paper taped on! :D

I also cut the top and bottom flap off and left the sides on to help control the lighting.

 

Also for the inside you will want to buy some construction paper to fill up the space (which I forgot to buy).  >_<  and you'll need at least one light source for the outside a bright lamp or work light will work. Also it might help to put the camera on a tripod to keep it still during the exposure.

You could even use the sun, making it come from whatever direction you need by rotating the box.

If you use only one light, the tissue paper acts as a fill reflector all around your subject. If you want to kill the reflection on the darker side, stick a square of black poster board on that side on the inside and also on the top.

When using two light sources, you can change the light intensity by moving one of your lamps further away or closer.

The tutorial I used can be found here :)

My little diva wanted to take pictures first hehe

Shes a natural!!!

Now on to mine~!!

(polishes in picture from left to right Gabrielle, Dovima, Crystal, Edyta, Midori, and Ibiza)

I still have to buy larger size construction paper but for these I borrowed some of her construction paper. After all it was a test to see how my light box worked, so I used my Zoya polishes.  They  finally came in from the recycle event, there was some error or some thingamajig that prevented me getting it sooner *shrugs*. I will make a post about them as soon as I swatch and take more pictures. :D

Well my quest for my light box solved and I have storage for my polishes for now. 

So what do you think?