Pacific Palm- Tropical Design

Hello everyone! Hope all of you are having a great summer. As you all know, if you have been following my blog I just recently went to Hawaii. I am still in a tropical mood, and thought I would share a little piece of Hawaii with you, through nail art. 

For this nail tutorial I am somewhat using a different medium, other than nail polish. For this tutorial along with nail polish, I will be using acrylic paint. 

     Tropical palm tree nail design, using both nail polish and acrylic pant.

Here are the polishes and tools used for this tropical nail design:

Base and Top coat- Nicole OPI-  3in1- base, top, & strengthener and - Revlon Extra Life No Chip top coat.

Nail polishes-  Finger paints- Tiffany imposter, Cover Girl- glosstinis Blue Hawaiian, NYC- Water street blue, and NYC- Water street blue.

Acrylic paint- (the actually paint I used not shown in the photo above) red, yellow, white, blue, green, and black.

 

Nail art tools- a very thin detail nail art brush, and a makeup sponge.

* Other tools- (not shown) a paint brush to mix the paint together, foil for putting the paint on or any surface to mix paint on, a cup of water to clean your brush off with. 

The Skill level for this tropical palm tree nail design is:

 Intermediate to Advanced

This design is rated intermediate to advanced, due to the difficulty with the fine details of the palm trees and the mixing of the acrylic paint to get the correct colors. Other than that the actual design it self really is not too difficult. For this design I suggest having some knowledge in painting on a canvas, it may come in handy. 

Want to know how to paint fine details with acrylic paint to create a beautiful tropical scene? Then follow these steps:

 1. Start off with a thin layer of base coat.

2. Paint all of your nail with a sky blue.

3. Next we will be creating a sponge gradient or ombre for the ocean. Take a small piece of a makeup sponge, paint the sponge with a slightly darker blue, then dab on the color part way up your nail. Repeat this step with a darker blue, by going half way up on the last color you just sponged on. You should have three colors for your gradient.  

4. To finish off your ocean/ beach scene, we will be adding sand. Take a tan sand color polish, and the brush that came with the polish and paint a french tip, this does not need to be perfect. I actually painted upward, other then sideways the way you normally do a french tip. 

5. Now for the fun and different part. We will be using acyclic paint for the rest of this design. To make a brown color, seeing how we don't have a brown we will have to make one. Take your red, yellow, and blue and squirt a small bit of paint on to your foil, then with a basic paint brush mix all three colors together to make a brown. 

Once you have the brown you like, take your very thin nail art brush and draw a thin curved line for your palm tree trunk. 

*Make sure to clean off your nail art brush with water each time you change colors. 

6. Once again we will be making a different shade of green. We will first start off with a lighter green then add a darker green to the leaves. Take a small amount of green and yellow paint and mix then together on your foil, to make a lighter green. 

Once you have the light green that you like, take very thin nail art brush and draw four curved lines to start your palm tree leaves.

7. For the small palm leaves, take the same light green paint that you just made, and dip your thin nail art brush and slowly make very small lines to make the leaves. Repeat this for each curved line you make. 

8. Once your palm tree has the palm tree shape. We will add more depth to the leaves, by adding a dark green. Take your original green paint color and add a small bit of black paint to make the green darker.

Once again, when you have the dark green that you like, with your thin nail art brush go over the curved lines, and then draw a few darker lines over the light green lines, for the leaves.  

9. For some details in the ocean, take the blue paint and some white paint, mix the two together to make a lighter blue, then make a messy line over the sand. Then once again  take a very small amount of white paint and make another messy line under the light blue.  

10. Just for a added touch, we will add a sun on the pinky nail. Take your yellow paint and draw a sun shape in the corner of the nail near the cuticle. Also if needed you can always add more palm leaves to your tree, I ended up adding another leaf to the thumb nail. 

As usual apply a top coat once your design has dried. For this design I felt that applying a top coat is very important, that way you design will not smudge. Acyclic paint is a plastic paint, that can be cleaned with water. That was one reason why I was a little bit afraid to use acyclic paint, not knowing if it would rub off, but with top coat it seem to be just fine.

Unlike nail polish, using acyclic paint for your small details in your nail designs is much easier to work with, it is blend-able, does not dry out as quick, and just much easier to work with.    

I really enjoyed working with acyclic paint for small details, and recommend using it.

Hope all of you enjoyed this tropical palm tree nail design! 

See you next time for more fun and bright nail designs!  

Minions

Hello everyone! If you know me personally you know that I am a big kid, that loves Minions and cartoons in general. That's why when I heard that their was going to be a Minions movie this summer I was very excited! I actually have already seen the movie two times! 
To celebrate the release of the Minions movie, we will be creating Minions on our nails.

Fun and Cute Minion nail design!

Here are the polishes and tools used for this Minion nail design:

Base and top coat- Nicole OPI-  3in1- base, top, & strengthener and Revlon Extra Life No Chip top coat.

Nail polishes- Sinful Color-Let's Meet, Color Club- Daisy Does it, Zoya- Dream, China glaze- white on white, Sally Hansen- Hard as Nails- Black Heart, and Sinful Color- Midnight blue.

Nail art polish- Kiss nail art stripper- Black.

Nail art tools- Glass jar with nail polish remover in it for cleaning nail art brushes, small thin nail art brush, extra large and large dotting tool. 


The Skill level for this Minion design is:
  

Beginner Basic

This design is somewhat simple. It mainly consist of a few circles for the eyes and a square for the overhauls. The part that can be difficult is outlining the overhauls. 

Let's start this cute Minions nail design!

1. As always start off with a thin layer of base coat to protect your nails.

2. Paint your thumb, middle, and ring finger nail with a yellow polish. Then your pinky finger nail with a glittery yellow, and then your index finger nail with a glittery blue. 

3. We will first start off with making the Minions big eyes or eye. Take your thin nail art brush dipped into grey polish. I actually don't have a grey polish (surprisingly) so I mixed black and white polish on a piece of paper with a dotting tool, to make grey. Then make one or two circles near the top of the nail for their eyes or eye.

*I only made three Minions, on the thumb, middle and ring finger. You can make as many as you would like.

4. As we wait for the grey part of the eyes to dry, we will make the cute smiles. I decided to keep the smile simple, by just taking a black nail art stripper polish and swiping a line to make a smile. 

5. Now we will make the Minions blue overhauls. With a blue nail polish use the brush that comes with your nail polish and make a square, while leaving just a little bit of yellow on the sides.

6. When you are finished with the Minions overhauls, the grey part of the eyes should be dry now. We will now make the white part of the eyes. Once again take your thin nail art brush dipped in to white polish, and make a circle over the grey one, just make sure to leave a little bit of the grey showing.

7. To add a little more to the overhauls, we will be outlining them. This can be a little bit tricky.Take your black nail art stripper polish and carefully and slowly, draw a line on the top and the sides of the square. Then on both sides of the square make two lines for the straps. For the last detail, the pocket of their overhauls, make a square with your black nail stripper polish.

 

8. To finish the eyes we need to add the pupils, take your extra large dotting tool dipped in black and place a black dot in the middle of the white circle.

9. For a little more detail for the goggles, we will add the black straps on the sides. Take your black nail art stripper polish and make two small rectangles on the sides of the eyes.   

Once your Minions have fully dried, apply a top coat to seal your design.

 Hope all of you enjoyed this Minion nail design!

See you next time for more fun and bright nail tutorials!   

Paradise Sun

Hello everyone! Sorry it has been a while since I have done a nail post. If you saw my last quick post,titled Big News, then you would know that something big happened to me over the time I have been away, I got married!
Anyways now that I am back, I have a summer collection to share with all of you (well three colors from that collection). The three colors that I got are from Zoya's Paradise Sun collection for Summer 2015. 

 Zoya Paradise Sun collection- Oceane, Aphroite, and Selene

The Paradise Sun collection contains six shimmer polishes. The three I bought, a pink, purple, and a shimmery white. Also another part of this collection is actually a second  collection, the Island fun collection, which contains six creme polishes that are similar to the paradise sun collection.

 

      

The fist color that I will be going over is Oceane, this is a beautiful shimmery ocean blue. That is described on Zoya's website as a turquoise with a micronized metallic pearl finish that is like the blue ocean waters.

Next is Selene, this is a shimmery green color that goes well with Oceane. On the Zoya website this is described as a teal with an aqua fleck, also with a metallic pearl finish.

Last but not least is the last color that I got from this collection, Aphrodite. This is a bright shimmery red, which is described on Zoya's website as a vibrant summer red with metallic pearl finish, which might remind you of tropical fruit.

When it comes to the three colors that I purchased I really liked them, they were all beautiful. They all applied great in two coats, very little chipping by the end of the week, manly just tip wear and chipping near the cuticles. I would say my most favorite of the polishes I got, would have to be Oceane. I love blues and seeing how I just came back from Hawaii this color reminds me of the beautiful blue ocean.

If you are interested in the Paradise Sun or Island fun collection they are available on 
Zoya Website .They are $9 a bottle or $54 for all six per collection. 

If you really enjoy Zoya polish I strongly suggest signing up for their emails or following them on Facebook, because it seems like they always have some kind of deal going on. For their emails you do have to create an account, but if you are going to buy from them it is worth it. 

For the three polishes I purchased I got a deal buy three for $15, and I found this out from their emails and Facebook.

Hope all of you enjoyed this review! 

See you next time for more fun nail tutorials!