Floral Splatter Nails (Tutorial)

I was going through my heaps of body sprays and lotions and if any of you are like me, you have way too much of both. I decided to start repurposing my spray bottles. As soon as they are empty or low of body spray, I wash them out and use them for other things.

*Rinse, take off label and there you go. No need to go buy empty spray bottles.

 

This is when I decided that it would be cool to use these bottles for splatter nails. When splatter nails first got popular, they were made by dipping one end of a straw into polish, and then blowing on the opposite end of the straw. This would spray polish onto the nail and create a cool splatter effect.. but it was way too much work.

 

Instead, take a clean, empty spray bottle and add whatever color acrylic paint you like plus water.

 

The water to paint ratio here is about 3:1. I wanted my splatter to be more of a spray and less goopy. But if you want thicker, bolder splatters, use less water.

 

 

 

Step 1: Paint your nails any color of your choice for your base. Here I chose black.

 

 

 

Step 2: This is optional. I applied tape to the skin around the nails. This helps for easier clean up.

 

 

 

Step 3: Once your nails are taped and ready to go, make sure you have some paper towel beneath you so you don't get paint everywhere.

 

 

 

Step 4: This is the fun part. Apply your homemade spray paint. Acrylic paint is much more forgiving than nail polish. If you feel that it doesn't look the way that you would like, carefully wipe the paint off with a damp q-tip and start over.

 

 

  

Step 5: Once you have the look that you like, add a top coat to seal in your design.

 

 

 

You can choose to stop here if you would like, but I decided to add some floral prints on top.

 

 

 

This is the basic guideline I used to create my flowers.

Apply 5 dots in a circle and add a piece of glitter in the center.

 

 

 

This is my finished look. If you have any comments/questions feel free to leave them below!

 

 

<3

 

Galaxy Nails (Tutorial)

Galaxy print has been on just about every form of clothing lately. Shirts, socks, shoes, pants, you name it. Black Milk Clothing's ridiculously awesome leggings would be by far the most popular of the galaxy theme. You can check them out here.

 

If you feel like galaxy print is too loud for your clothing style (like me), applying the print to your nails is a cool way to show it off in a much quieter way.

 

Here's how I create my galaxy nails:

(This was my reference picture, I suggest you find a picture of a galaxy that you love and recreate it!)

 

 

 

Step 1: Paint your nails black. I used OPI- Black Onyx.

 

 

Step 2: Take a cotton wedge and cut a random chunk of it off. This does not need to be perfect in any way. The weirder and more ragged it is, the cooler the stamp. Since the wedge chunk is so small, I used tweezers to hold it.

 

Step 3: Apply a drop of polish onto some scrap paper and stamp your sponge into it.

 

*Tip: stamp your sponge onto your paper a few times to remove any large amount of polish.

 

 

 

Step 4: Sponge your blue onto random areas of the nail. If you feel like you've applied too much blue, stamp over it with the black. This is fool proof and there's no right or wrong way.

 

 

 

Step 5: Repeat Steps 2 & 3. Except this time instead of blue, use a green color and then stamp it onto your nail. As you can see, I stamped the green lightly around the blue.

 

 

 

Step 6: Repeat the same process as you did with the blue and green, except this time add purple.

 

 

 

Step 7: Sponge on some white. These will resemble the random clusters of stars.

 

 

 

Step 8: Take a tack or something with a very fine tip, and apply some of your bigger brighter stars. Here I used white and gold.

 

 

 

Step 9: Lastly, add a glitter top coat. This is the best part. It really pulls together the entire print and it looks like tons of tiny little stars. I suggest adding only a thin coat of glitter at a time, you don't want to completely hide all of your cool colors underneath.

 

 

 

And that's how I created my galaxy nails. This would also look cool as an accent nail if you didn't feel like taking the time out and doing every nail like I did. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to leave them below.

 

 

 

<3

Vibrant Purple Smokey Eye (Tutorial)

Smokey eyes are great for any sort of night out look. Once you start experimenting with smokey eyes, you realize that there are different kinds. This particular one focuses the dark shadows in the inner and outer corners of the eye.

 

 

This is my vibrant smokey eye of the night:

 

 

Before I get into it, I want to explain some things. The color purple may not be the best color choice for your particular eye color. Whenever you're putting eye shadow on, always try to choose colors that enhance your eyes. Enhancing is the entire purpose of makeup, after all. This purple shade can be switched out for any shade of your liking.

 

 

 

Step 1: Take a vibrant color of your choice (purple looks awesome on brown and green eyes) and place it right in the middle of your lid.

 

 

 

Step 2: With a fluffy brush, add some dark brown to the inner and outer corners of your lid.

 

* You will be adding black shadow, so the purpose of laying down the brown first is so that everything blends together with more ease. Brown is a nice transitional color.

 

* The color used was Buck from Urban Decay- Naked Palette.

Check it out here.

 

 

 

Step 3: With a pencil brush, add some black shadow in the inner and outer corners of your lid. This is the step that you should take your time with. Always start with a little black and work your way to your ideal black shade.

 

* The color used was Crave from Urban Decay - Naked Basics Palette.

Check it out here.

 

 

 

Step 4: Add eye kohl to the top and to the bottom. You could do a crazy cat eye with this, or keep it simple like I did. Both would look great.

 

* The eye kohl used was Smolder by MAC Cosmetics.

Check it out here.

 

 

 

Step 5: Lastly, add your favorite mascara to your top and bottom lashes.

 

* The mascara used was Benefit- BADgal Lash.

Check it out here.

 

 

 

And that's it! If you have any questions or comments, leave them below. If you recreate this look I'd love to see it. Tag me @aubreyhannah on Instagram so I can check them out!

 

 

Leopard Ombre Manicure (Tutorial)

 

Hey everyone! I can't believe that this is my first post in 2013 and it's already March.. yikes. I will try to do a better job at keeping up with posting. I'm always on instagram, so if you're interested in keeping up with me, you can find me at @aubreyhannah.

 

 

Onto the nails!

 

I recently posted a small tutorial on my instragram of leopard ombre nails which were inspired by @ohtammm. You all seemed to enjoy them so I figured I would explain how I made them in a little more detail.

 

 

Here is my leopard ombre look. I chose to incorporate it as an accent nail, but you could add it to every nail if you wanted! Both ways look great.

 

 

 

 

Step 1: Paint your nails a neutral or a white shade. Here I used OPI- Barefoot in Barcelona. This will be a base for your ombre colors, and will allow the ombre to fully pop.

 

 

 

 

Step 2: Take a makeup sponge and dampen it. Wring out any excess water and paint a dark brown, a lighter brown and a white onto it. Here I used OPI- You Don't Know Jacques!, OPI- Barefoot in Barcelona and China Glaze- White on White.

 

 

 

 

Step 3. Bounce your sponge on top of your nail. The bouncing will lay the colors down and blend them together at the same time. Repeat steps 2 & 3 as many times as it takes to achieve the ombre you're looking for.

 

 

 

 

Step 4: Once you're satisfied with your ombre, clean up around the edges. You'll notice that the sponge has left your nails with a textured look, to smooth everything out, apply a fast drying top coat. Not only will the top coat smooth out your texture, but it will help the colors blend.

 

 

 

 

Step 5: Once your top coat has dried, grab a gold polish and apply random dots on your nail. Here I've used OPI- Glitzerland. You can use the polish brush for this, just make sure your brush isn't dripping with polish. You don't want your spots to be too raised.

 

 

 

 

Step 6: Take a black polish, here I used OPI- Black Onyx and line your gold spots. For a more in depth explanation on how I create my leopard print, click here. Once your spots have dried, add another coat of fast drying top coat. Be sure to wait for the spots to fully dry, otherwise the black and gold could bleed into your ombre, ruining all the time you just put into them.

 

 

 

 

I hope you all enjoyed this quick tutorial. As always, feel free to ask any questions or leave any comments down below.

 

 

 

Happy polishing!

Aubrey

Pink Leopard Print (Tutorial)

Hey guys! Sorry I've been M.I.A. for a little bit. I've been focusing a lot of my designated "nail time" for drawing time. Drawing was something that I really loved in high school and I guess I'm starting to pick back up on it.

Since I've been gone longer than I should have, I'm here with a tutorial for you guys, (it's only fair). I've never done a tutorial on leopard print before because it's really so simple. But I figured I'd show you guys how I create the print. A lot of people do it differently than I do, so by all means, add your own individual touch to it.


This is the pink leopard print mani :

If you'd like to see how I made this, keep on reading!

This is what you'll need:

From left to right : NYC- Matte Me Crazy (optional), Orly- Kiss The Bride, Pure Ice- Love and China Glaze- Rich & Famous. I also used a very tiny brush, if you don't have a tiny brush like this, you can use a striper polish.

Step 1: Paint your base color on every nail. I used Pure Ice- Love for my base color. As you can see the application isn't the best. If you run into a problem where the finish isn't as smooth as you'd like it to be, adding a top coat will even everything out for you.

Step 2: For my spots I used Orly- Kiss The Bride. What you want to do is take your paint brush and make small spots in random places on your nail. You want to make sure that your brush doesn't have too much polish on it or you'll end up with globs for spots and you don't want that.

Step 3: If you're using a tiny brush like I am, take your 3rd color and place a few drops onto a piece of paper. Here I'm using China Glaze- Rich & Famous. Dip your brush into the polish.

Step 4: Create a semi-rounded line along one of your spots.

Step 5: Create a 2nd semi-rounded line. You'll want the 2 lines to connect.

Step 6: Create one more line along the bottom of the spot. This time make sure that it doesn't touch your first 2 lines. And there's your spot. Some people prefer to use a dotting tool for this part, some people connect all of the lines. It's personal preference. If you're confused, you can always google a picture of a leopard and mock their print.

Step 7: Now that the first print is done, you'll want to repeat this process with all of your spots. As you can see I've started my first line on my second spot.

Step 8: Create your 2nd line. As you can see I did it a little differently than the first print. My 2 lines are connecting in a downward point. My connecting lines in my first print are in an upward point. You'll want to alternate throughout your spots so they don't look completely uniform.

Step 9: Create your 3rd line, again making sure that it doesn't touch your first 2 lines.

Step 10: Once you've created all of your prints, go ahead and with that same color, add random dots to fill in any open space. You can create these dots with a dotting tool, tooth pick, ball-point pen, whatever you prefer.

Step 11: Once you've completed all of your nails. Add a top coat to seal in your design. Here I used a matte top coat but that's completely optional.

Hope you guys enjoyed this tutorial! As always, feel free to leave any comments/questions below!

Happy Polishing!

Aubrey

Purple Ombre Nails (Tutorial)

Ombre is one of the biggest trends this year. Whether it's ombre hair, ombre clothing, ombre eyes/lips. It's everywhere, so of course it needs to be incorporated on the nails as well :)

Here are my purple ombre nails. The key to a nice ombre is to use colors that are a few shades darker/lighter from each other. You can also create ombre nails from a blue to an orange for example, but the blending process will be a little harder since the colors aren't similar.

If you'd like to see how I did this, keep reading!

What you'll need :

Here I have a matte top coat (optional), 4 different shades of purple and a makeup sponge. From left to right : NYC- Matte Me Crazy, Essie- Nice is Nice, China Glaze- Spontaneous, China Glaze- Coconut Kiss and OPI- Siberian Nights.

Step 1: You'll need to apply a white or nude color on every nail as your base, this will help the next set of colors pop. Wait for this to dry completely. This is OPI- Sweet Heart (it was not shown in the picture above.)

Step 2: Dampen your makeup sponge and wring out any excess water. This will help your polish stay on the surface and not soak so far into the sponge. Take your polishes, and apply a line for each color, going from light to dark.

Step 3: Line your sponge up on your nail and press down. If you like where all of your colors are placed, you can then blend the colors by bouncing the sponge on top of the nail. Be careful. You don't want to over-do it or the sponge will start to pull your color up instead of laying it down.

Step 4: Apply the first coat with your sponge on every nail. By the time you're finished with your last nail, your first one should be dry enough for the second coat. Apply as many coats as you see fit. Here I've applied 3 coats. You'll notice that your sponge will leave a little bit of a bumpy finish (you can see in the picture) But don't worry. Once you add your top coat, it'll even everything out.

Step 5: Clean up time! I like to pour a bit of acetone in the bottle cap and dip my cotton swab into that. It's much more convenient.

Step 6: Once your nails are all clean, you can then add a top coat. As you can see, the nail texture has evened itself out.

Step 7: You can stop there or choose to add a matte top coat like I did. It was hard for me to decide what finish I liked better, so I just ended up sticking with this one!

Hope you guys enjoyed this tutorial. It's simple and the results are pretty! What's better than that?! As always, feel free to leave any comments/questions below.

Happy sponging! ;)

Aubrey