Gotta paint 'em all, Pokéballs!

Finally, the much delayed Pokéball mani post! Why is this post delayed? Because I made a major mistake - I didn't make sure I had all my supplies before I started my mani & found myself in a rough spot. 

The polishes I used to create my Pokéballs were Orly Forever Crimson, Sinful Colors Show me White & Stripe Rite in black. 


It was not until I had painted all my nails red before I realized my blunder. I must say this Orly color is beautiful & I love how smooth Orly polish goes on. I used two coats to get a nice bright red. 

I originally tried to do the white halves freehand but it looked awful. I'm a bit obsessive with detail, even though I'm still new at this I will do a finger over four or five times if necessary to get it as perfect as possible - which is why my manis can sometimes take hours. After trying the freehand I removed it, painted it red & decided to take my chances with sealing the red with a top coat. I wasn't sure how well the white would paint over the top coat but since I knew I wouldn't be able to get tape right away I didn't want the red coat to be wasted. I hate wasting polish. As I've said before I'm a college student working retail & these nicer brands of polish aren't cheap. I don't feel like I've gotten my money's worth if the mani doesn't last at least five days but I usually aim for a week. Lucky for me, the red held up until I was able to grab tape a couple days later!

I lined my tape up halfway down the nail. When taping, make sure that the edge of the tape is completely stuck to the nail. As you can see in my picture there were some bubbles in the tape but it was sealed at the end & that is all that mattered. I made especially sure to press it down tight where the side of the nail meets the skin so I didn't get bleeding. If you're doing this mani in one setting like I intended make sure your red is completely dry before you start taping.

Once the tape is sealed paint the white polish on. Make sure to cover up all the red & try to paint it on as smoothly as possible. All of the area not covered in tape should be covered. 

When I did my laser mani I let the polish dry before removing the tape. However on this one I removed the tape as fast while the white polish was still dry. I was quite happy with the result, I got a smooth nice like without bleeding. 

If your white line isn't perfect don't worry, the black line that is drawn where the white & red meet will cover up any small mistakes. For the line I decided to attempt freehand with the striper. One does not realize how much their hands are capable of shaking until attempting something like this! But the Stripe Rite did make it really easy to get a clean line. I did mine in one quick swipe to try to get as clean of a line as possible. 

Now to be accurate all we need is the the dots in the middle of the black line. This requires a larger black dot & then a white dot inside the black dot. I didn't have a dotting tool that was quite up for the challenge so I figured I would challenge myself & use the striper to freehand paint the larger dot. The result was not perfect bit better than I expected. 

For the smaller white dot I wanted a more precise shape. I know not everybody has dotting tools, especially if you're starting out like me, so I decided to test out the bobby pin method I had heard about from a couple friends. This involves using the rounded ends of a bobby pin dipped in paint to make a dot. Cool right? I decided to bend my bobby pin into a shape that served this purpose a bit more.

You could dip the pin right into the polish jar if you wish but I decided to just lightly dip the tip into the brush since it requires very little paint to make one dot. The result was actually quite nice, I was impressed.

There you have it! A relatively easy, cute mani. I chose to only do two balls as accent nails but you could paint as many or a as few as you like. 

Here they are holding Pokémon Conquest, the game that inspired them! If you're a fan of Pokémon I definatelty recommend the game, I couldn't put it down yesterday which is why this post wasn't up yesterday, sorry! This game is a crossover between Pokémon & Nobunaga's Ambition. You play a warlord with an Eevee traveling through the Ransei region with the goal of conquering all the kingdoms within the region. You can form links with new Pokémon & recruit allies to achieve this goal. I really enjoyed how it is nostalgic of classic battles but with a new twist. I think Nintendo underestimated how many people were excited for this game, when I went to pick mine up from Gamestop they told me they were only sent enough to fill preorders and had to turn people away. My sister was unable to find a copy today but I'm sure over the next couple weeks more copies will come in. 

Simple Ways to Spice it Up

Hello readers!
For this post I am bringing you two simple manis. I love complicated, unique manis as much as the next girl - after all that is how this blog started! But this past week work has been hectic & life can be crazy in other ways - school, family, responsibilities - sometimes spending a couple hours on an awesome mani just isn't feasible. But that doesn't mean your nails have to look boring. So in this post I'm going to go over some simple, quick techniques you can use to give your mani some flair.

First things first - colors! Chose bright colors that are eye catching on their own. Glitter or high definition polishes comes with flair of their own & need little, if any, enhancement to turn some heads. Crackle polishes also add a cool effect with little effort. These polishes can be expensive but look out for sales! Today while browsing CVS I scored some Sally Hansen HD & crackle polishes for $1.82 down from $7.29. Neon polishes are also quite popular right now - not surprising considering it is summer.

Byte, Wavelength, Hue, Spectrum, & Antiqued Gold. Love a bargain!

So you got your color, now what? One really easy way to spice up a mani is to add an accent nail. Accent nails started as a way to highlight your ring finger & your engagement/wedding ring. But even if you don't have a ring an accent nail is still a fun trick & some people prefer to either do the thumb instead or in addition to the ring finger. But there are no rules - your accent finger(s) can be any one(s) you like! Here are a couple examples I played around with tonight -

Sally Hansen's HD Byte & Orly's Luxe 

Orly's Luxe & China Glaze's Dorothy Who?

Notice the shine on the blue accent nail? That is Essie's high definition topcoat Shine of the Times. There are a lot of top coats out there that can add shine & accents to your mani quickly.

Some other suggestions for a quick, fun mani -

• Taping like I used in my sunset pedi post.
• Dotting! I will do a post elaborating more on this in the future.
• Striping tape such as I used here, but instead of painting over them for a laser effect use the colors of the tape to add some colorful accent stripes.
• If you're talented, some freehand nail art can add some flair. This may take some practice to become quick at though
• Nail stickers can be added to one accent nail or your whole mani for some quick embellishments 

Love Those Beach Sunsets

Hello Lovely Lacquer Lovers,

I hope you all enjoyed the laser mani! I have a couple days off of work & I got that itch to paint something but since I just took so much time on the laser mani I thought why not do a pedi! It is summer after all - the time for sleeping in, sandals, & spending time at the beach. Back in my first or second year of college my best friend was taking a Spanish class at the same community college I went to. Every now & then if class was cancelled (I know, I'm not fooling anyone) we would go down to the beach to use the swing set by the pier. Once the sun started going most of the families would disperse & we would swing our little hearts out while watching the sun set over the water. So for my summery beach pedi I decided to do a sunset theme.

To capture the essence of the sunset I used Orly's Beach Cruiser & Melt Your Popsicle along with a glittery gold Stripe Rite nail art polish. For this pedi I am going to use a taping technique on the big toe, my others toes are so short I figured I would leave it to the big toe for now. If you have a mani on your fingers that you won't want ruined I was recommend using gloves if you plan to do any clean up - I didn't have gloves & I got lucky but I wouldn't recommend taking the risk. I do recommend spacers for your toes but they aren't a necessity. Just like the fingers, don't forget the base coat!

Based Up & Spaced Out!

I chose to alternate the two colors on my smaller toes & paint the littler color, in this case the pink, on my big toe.

After my experiments with the laser mani I decided to sandwich my top coats again so I top coated all my toes & made sure they were completely dry before applying the tape. Lay the tape however you like, I went for a diagonal line halfway across.

Make sure your tape is pressed down securely so none of the top color can seep through & make a mess. Once you are sure your tape is secure, paint the second color over the exposed part of the nail.

Messy I know, but I was making sure to cover up every bit of pink & clean up is simple.

Let the top coat dry completely & then take the tape off. You should be left with a nice, straight stripe. Mine was a bit messy so I did it over again.

I did this over to get a cleaner line. For the final step, I took my striping gold paint & drew a line right along the tape divide. If you have minor imperfections in your taping line it is possible the gold can cover it up & you won't need to redo it. I also chose to do a little stripe along each little toe since I was excited to try out the striping brush. It was easier than I thought! Once finished striping, seal with your top coat.

I hope you enjoyed these! They aren't perfect but I had fun trying out a couple new techniques & making my toes look pretty for my sandals.

Ready Your Laser Beams!

As promised, here it is - the laser mani post! I meant to have this up last night but it ended up taking longer than I thought but better late than never, right?

So what exactly is a laser mani? A laser mani is a type of striping mani involving neon colors that look like little lazer beams. In this post I will be following the neon/black style but you can use this technique with any colors you want to create tons of different looks.

The neons I used for this many are all Orly polishes. They are (from left to right) Beach Cruiser, Melt Your Popsicle, Glowstick, Purple Crush, & Skinny Dip. The black is Wet n' Wild Ebony Hates Chris. See that little ring on the black polish? That is our striping tape.

I opted to use special thin tape made for nail art that I purchased here. This tape comes in different beautiful colors & can be used to do some really neat things, I will be sure to showcase more ways to use it in the future. Now if you don't want to order striping tape you can cut your own strips of tape. The pro of cutting your own is you can do whatever length you want, however you aren't guaranteed straight cuts & that would drive me crazy.

Remember the Shine of the Times I mentioned in my last post? Before removing the seran wrap mani I painted it on one nail to get an idea of how it looks.

Awesome right? I also wanted to include this picture for another reason. Notice how the tips no longer have much polish despite the fact that the mani has held up pretty well - I credit the holding up to the Seche Vite topcoat. This mani phenomena is often referred to as shrinkage. So when we do our laser mani we are going to utilize a strategy known as wrapping the tips to minimize this.

Before starting make sure your nails are color (sweeping a dab of acetone over each nail helps ensure this) & cuticles taken care of. Once the base coat is on wrap it - ideally the base, color, & topcoat should be wrapped for maximum efficiency. Once you've painted a coat holding your nail brush up facing towards the ceiling.

Gentle swipe the very tip of your nail across the brush to get a nice even layer over the very tip. Some people prefer to paint a strip across the tip but I've personally found this way gets less polish under the nail. Don't worry if you have a bit of overlap on top of the nail, just paint another layer over the top of your nail & it will look even.

Once your base coat is on paint your nail whatever color you want your lasers to be. I chose to do a different color on each nail.

I loved all of these colors except Glowstick. It took several tries to get a decent coat because it was very streaky & just wouldn't cooperate. In the end I settled for this since the majority will be covered up anyway.

Once your polish is completely dry cut strips of your tape & lay them over your nail in the design you would like for your lasers. I found that the colors come out much nicer if you apply a topcoat, then the black, & then a topcoat again. You should experiment with your colors of choice & see what works for you. Some of the colors like the pink looked great regardless but the blue really benefited from the sandwiching. When cutting your tape remember to cut enough so that you can easily pull the strips off later.

 

Taped up & ready to go!

Press down firmly on the tape & make sure there are no wrinkles in the tape and nowhere where your top polish can seep underneath the tape. Once your tape is securely in place, paint your topcoat over the tape making sure to cover up all of the original color. It is okay if it is messy, mine was since I was making sure to cover up the pink, we can clean up later.

I was impressed with this black considering it was a 99 cent polish - had a nice shine & dried quickly

For me the hardest part was waiting for the black to dry fully - I'm not a patient person so learning manis has forced me to push that. But I learned the hard way if you pull the tape off too quickly you will get a goopy, ugly mess. If that happens don't be afraid to start over - but remember, if you remove your polish & start again don't forget to reapply the base coat! Since I can be a bit of a perfectionist I did several nails over a few times. Once you're sure your polish is dry, carefully remove the strips & seal your design in with a base coat.

On this nail & a couple others I had slight fading of the neon color underneath so I took a very fine detail brush, dipped it in polish & carefully touched up the line. Now, onto the rest of the fingers!

 

Pretty neat eh? Overall this isn't a difficult mani but for me was a time consuming one since I did multiple nails over.

During cleanup I made a pretty big mistake. Remember how I mentioned dipping your brush right into the acetone could be bad if you have painted brushes? Well I got lazy & ignored my own advice. Then my hand slipped & I dropped my brush right into the acetone. The result...

Gross, black acetone that leaves smudgy black marks

So learn from my mistake & don't do that! Just pour a little acetone into the cap & fill that as needed. I would be careful putting it in a plastic bowl since acetone can erode plastics.

I hope you are inspired to try some striping! As I mentioned in my first post I got an early copy of Richelle Mead's The Golden Lily but next week in honor of the real release date I will be doing a gold gradient design. The week after that I will be doing Pokéball nails to celebrate the release of Pokémon Conquest which I reserved a couple days ago. When I was 10 years old I asked for a Gameboy color specifically to play Pokémon Blue. Fourteen years & many games later I'm still playing & loving it! Don't forget to vote in the poll on my Facebook page for what manis you would like to see in the future & feel free to drop me any comments or suggestions.