More Experiments with Gelish

Happy Sunday! I hope you all enjoyed your weekend, I am on the road to recovery from my recent illness. It was not serious but it was enough to keep me from my blog and nail art for awhile.

While I was away, I did change my gelish and for those of you that also follow my twitter, I discussed trying to create a gelish sandwich and a sunset gradient. My sunset gradient is one of my most popular nail art designs, especially in the gel. However, during the removal of my old gelish manicure, I accidently broke THREE nails down to the nail bed. It was pretty devastating for me because they are so short, it looks like I bite my nails or something like that. But I can't stand uneven nail lengths, so I cringed and cut and filed away. I reapplied my new gelish mani doing it in the usual way on my left hand and trying to incorporate the "jelly sandwich" technique into this gradient.

I have very mixed feelings about how this experiment came out. You be the judge.

It came out ok but unlike the previous attempt with the sheer color - the glitter doesn't really pop through...it's so much more subtle. This is a disappointment for me, because the boldness of the colors with a sunset gradient requires less subtlety and that super visible depth that I had with my regular Gelly Sandwich.

There's a macro shot of this one. Please pardon the horrible length.  You can see the glitter is there if you go poke someone's eye out or stare at it for awhile. Let me post the pix of the sunset gradient the way I normally do it with the shimmery glitter coat on top of the gradient.

I think the regular sunset gradient came out much better. Not just because of the shimmery glitter being on top but also because I did a better job sponging it on with this hand too. This was an all around experiment on a number of levels. Normally, when doing a gradient using gelish, I do one coat with more definite 'lines' and then sponge on the next color to blur the line. I had used this technique because each color requires two coats and when I started working this out with the Gelish I was not as good with gradients in general or working with the gel itself as I have become over the last few months. 

The change in my gradient technique is a definite WIN, but the Sunset Gelly Sandwich is a fail in my book. What do you think?? 

More Experimental Nail Art

Happy Friday Eve to you!!  Today I have some more experimental nail art to show you.  This time I'll be showing you two Gelish nail arts. I usually do just the Gelish as my base color, but these are completely done using Gelish polishes.

You can see the larger pieces of holo glitter in this photo and some of the pink holo shimmer as well. It's super sparkly that's for sure!!

This second one is a super glittery sunset with a beaded palm tree done in black. This is the same glitter I used in the one above but it doesn't quite catch the "holo" like the one above did. I was dying to do something beaded with the gel and here it the first one! 

That's it for today. I'll be back tomorrow to show you some of my first attempts at using acrylic paints with nail polish to make flowers. I twitted some of them yesterday if you care to scroll back through my tweets to get a sneak peek!

Pineapples

Today's Nail Art is relatively simple but I was just inspired by one of my favorite crystal and crochet patterns - the pineapple. One of my recent purchases has been a few new stamping plates and I have really wanted to do the pineapples. I couldn't think of any colors that just "go" with a pineapple - so I decided to just go ahead and put it over my Gelish Sunset Mani. The sunset always reminds people of the beach and I thought a pineapple would give it a tropical flavor.

Taken in full sun

Also taken in full sun

Taken in the shade outdoors

Also taken in the shade outdoors

That's all for today. Starting tomorrow I'll be doing St. Patrick's day themed Nail Art. Putting the luck of the Irish at your  fingertips, literally.

Ocean Sunsets

Thank you for your patience! I am finally back at it and did a few quick ones this morning! I'm still wearing my Gelish Sunset Gradient and I decided to use that at my starting point. I'll be changing that soon to prepare for St. Patrick's Day this week!

I don't really have many pictures of this one to post because I just didn't like how they came out. Lots of shadows! It really has been awhile since I took pictures of my Nail Art in the sunshine!

That's all for today, I'll be back tomorrow with a few more pictures since by that time I'd gotten the hang of direct sunlight pictures!! Enjoy the last bit of the weekend!!

Palms in the Sunset

I'm very excited to bring you today's nail art - I hope it inspires you to relax and enjoy the weekend - even if you have work through it - hopefully you can catch a few moments to relax!!

One of the things I love about living where I do is we get some amazing sunsets. Even better we have views of the sunset with the shadowed trees in the foreground. It's an amazing sight and I thought I'd do my best to bring that to you today. This is one of my better efforts. I'm so in love with it right now that I'm going to post all four pictures!

I'm holding the bottle of shimmer I used on the gradient to give the sunset a little sparkle.  This particular one by Orly is awesome! It has a variety of shimmer colors and pretty much goes with EVERYTHING. 

Yah, I bought the plate for this solely for the palm tree. It also has a pineapple...now i need to figure out what do I do with a pineapple nail art?? ohhh now i have an idea!! ok back to the pictures.

One last one because I can.

I can see this one being popular. Mom's maid asked me today about me doing her nails...I think her hands would look GREAT in this! I think I even have the colors to do this one in Gelish, gotta make sure her mani lasts!!

Ok folks, I hope you found today's nail art worth the wait. I just needed a night to relax and finally finish reading hunger games. I can see my teenager didn't like it....but I like it. I'm not as embarrassed by the romance as she is.