Geometric Freehand Fail

Hello Lovelies!  I hope everyone has had a wonderful holiday!  I am finally back home after spending some quality time with family and am just getting back into the swing of things.  Today, I am sharing my freehand geometric design for the Freehand Nail Art Instagram challenge that I am participating in during the month of April (man! I can't believe it is April already!).

Materials I used:
Base Coat - Seche Vite
Silver polish - Cinema Swatch Lacquer's 'Smoke & Fire'
Black polish - from a Nail Art stripper
Detail Brush
Large dotting tool
Top Coat - Seche Vite

I began with two coats of my silver polish, this silver is one of the limited edition polishes from Cinema Swatch Lacquers second Walking Dead trio.  I love The Walking Dead and I love this polish which was created to represent Carol, one of my favorite characters.

This pretty grey jelly-ish polish is full of blue and pink shimmery flakies.  When I swatched these for a previous post I did not own a macro lens, but I do now.  Here is a macro shot, it gives you a much better view of how pretty this is...

I then used a small detail brush and black polish to draw different shapes on each of my fingers.  To create the circle I used a large dotting tool.

I then used the same small brush and black polish and outlined the shape in a spiraling pattern all the way to the edge of my nail.

I finished up with my usual clean up and application of top coat.  As you can see the top coat smeared the black polish.  I have been having this problem a lot lately.  I am deeming this a fail because of the top coat smear and because this is a less than perfect freehand design.  In my defense, I did paint this with my non-dominant hand after about a week long break.  I do like the design though, I think the triangle shape on my thumb is my favorite.

Oh well, this is why I practice.  I have another geometric design in mind, that I might create as a second entry for the Freehand Nail Art challenge, if I have time.  I'm off to do something else to my nails.  I hope you kind of liked this design, even if it is the best.  Thanks for stopping by, see you next time.

Your Fellow Plebe,

 



Fail File - Trying to do Too Much

So, I had this great idea to create a layered design using striping tape to create thin lines and then to do some stamping over it. I decided to stick with Halloween colors and add a layer of glow in the dark polish between the stripping layer and the stamping layer.  This project started out great though a bit tedious. Stripping tape is great for a lot of projects but it can be really aggravating to work with.

I started this project off with a solid base of Sinful Colors 'Snow Me White' and applied a quick drying top coat.

Once it was dry I completely covered my nail with stripping tape. This was very time consuming but I felt it was necessary to get the look that I wanted.

I then removed one tape at a time and with a stripping brush and yellow and orange polish I began creating my thin stripes. For this pattern, I removed a tape and painted a yellow stripe in Sinful Colors 'Let's Meet'. I would then immediately remove the stripes on either side of the yellow to keep the polish from drying and pulling with the tape. I would leave the stripe above the yellow, white but with a stripping brush and orange polish I would carefully fill in the row under the yellow. For my orange I used Sinful Colors 'Sunburnt'. I then proceeded by leaving the tape under the orange stripe and pulled the next one down and then repeat my pattern with the yellow.

I did this same pattern and procedure on all my fingers but changing the direction of the stripping. This took several hours and a lot of tape. I topped this all off with Sinful Colors 'Glow in the Dark' polish. I was really excited about this because it actually glows very well, compared to the other glow in the dark polish.

At this point it was one in the morning and I was exhausted from all the stripping tape that I decided to through in the towel for the evening and pick this back up in the morning.

So, part two and this is where the failing begins. I decided to use my Konad m63 plate and use the loopy image to stamp in black over all the stripping I had already done. I thought this would create an interesting look when it glowed in the dark. To say the least my stamp would not transfer properly.  I can not get a successful stamped image from any Konad plate and it is very frustrating.

After attempting to stamp two fingers I gave up on the stamp all together and using a black nail art stripper touched up the bad stamping and drew a similar pattern on the rest of my fingers (well on my left hand anyways).

Some how while going through all this I inadvertently laid my right hand pinkie in black polish and ruined my stripes. At this pointed I surrendered and decided to give up on this project all together.

Conceptually I thought this was going to be a really cool and different kind of Halloween nail art design but instead I was left with a mess and a whole lot of frustration. I really should have just left it with the stripping or done a plain base color with stamping but I tried to do to much. Some say simpler is better and I'm learning the hard way that, that is mostly true with nail art. The only thing I really achieved besides exhaustion (from lack of sleep) was that I got to see my glow in the dark polish in action, which it looks awesome by the way.  I hope you find my debacle insightful and know you are not alone with your nail art frustration. Thank you for stopping by, see you next time.

Your Fellow Plebe,