Stone Marble Nails

For about the past year, everywhere I look, I see stone marble nails!

I've seen this effect done in so many different ways and in any possible color combination.

Done with gel polish, sharpies and rubbing alcohol, acrylic paint, thinned out nail polish, decals (either ready ones or handmade), stamping (the Nailasaurus has a great tutorial for stamped on marble nails), using plastic wrap, topped with some foils for a more luxurious effect..And the list could probably go on and on..

I don't know about you guys, but I am in LOVE with this effect. I've been flirting with the idea of trying these out for such a long time and now that summer is finally here, it only felt right.

I was going for a classic white and greyish marble look, so I started off with a white nail polish as my base. It really helps if you have a reference picture to look at while you are doing this, so this is what I used.

As far as I know, marbles don't have a flat matte color, they always seem to have some shimmery particles. To give it a realistic look and some depth, I used two sheer shimmery polishes and some scrunched up plastic wrap to randomely dab them on my nails and then sealed it with a fast drying topcoat. One polish was almost clear with a yellow/green shimmer and the other one was a sheer grey with a pink/purple shimmer. Unfortunately, the camera couldn't pick up the shimmer and it seems as if I used a sheer light grey polish for the background.

When that was completely dry, I mixed up some white and black acrylic paint to get a nice grey color and thinned it out with water to a very thin consistency. With a thin nail art brush I made some squiggly lines here and there, some a bit darker than the others..And finally topped it with a fast drying topcoat.

Keep in mind that marbles are natural and like anything coming from nature, each piece is unique. So the more random the lines are, the better. And the little imperfections are what sometimes make it perfect!

I'm really loving stone marble nails and I'd like to experiment with more techniques and colors. I can't wait to find out what works best! If you have tried this effect, I'd love to know what's your favorite technique. :)


Polishes used:

Orly Bonder Rubberized Basecoat
Orly - White Tips
Erre Due - 147
Erre Due - 155
Orly Sec 'N Dry Quick-Dry Topcoat

Pusheen Cat Mermaid Nail Art

Hey everyone!

February is almost over and just yesterday I realised that the Pusheen Cat design that I had done for International Cat Day hit 360 pins on Pinerest. As you can imagine I was super excited and since you guys loved it so much I decided to do another one.

This time I was inspired by this picture I found on Instagram.

Isn't it adorable??

And here is my version of it!

For the nails with Pusheen Cat on them, I decided to use a dark petrol polish as my base and for the rest of the nails I wanted to do a mermaid tail look. I thought a gradient would look perfect for this effect and was inspired by Pusheen Cat's mermaid tail colors. So I used a pink polish as my base and with a make up sponge I dabbed the 3 colors (dark petrol, mint, pink) on the nails to create the gradient. I did that 2 times to achieve a nice airbrush look, topped them with a glitter and finally topped all nails with a fast drying top coat.

When all nails were dry I used acrylic paint for the designs and topped them again with fast drying top coat.

I hope you guys like this one as much as my older design. Tell me what you think! :)

Polishes used:

Orly Bonder Rubberized Basecoat

CND Vinylux - Couture Covet

Tommy G - 469

Wet n Wild - I Need a Refresh-Mint

Essence - Space Queen (103)

Orly Sec 'n Dry Quick-Dry Topcoat

Pop Art Frankenstein Nail Art

Hey everyone!

Today I have another Halloween design for you, this one inspired by Alex Faction's Pop Art Frankenstein tutorial.

For those of you who may not know him, he is an extremely talented make up artist, he uploads amazing make up and body painting tutorials on Youtube. He's doing 31 Days of Halloween during October on his channel, so when I saw this look I immediately wanted to do it on my nails. Anything cartoonish has a place in my heart. And is it just me, or do those teeth look like the evil minion teeth? LUUUV IT!!

Let's get to it!

For this look, I started off with a black nail polish as my base color and used acrylic paint for the design.

I painted Frankenstein first and to fill in the rest of the nails I decided to use some elements from the body painting than go on painting random Halloween stuff. And since it is a pop art design, what better than the pink tears and broken heart, for that pop of color that we need! For the finishing details I used white paint to do some stitches and outline the tears and heart for the cartoonish effect.

That's pretty much it..

I hope you like it! :)

Polishes used:

Orly Bonder Rubberized Basecoat

Orly - Liquid Vinyl

Orly Sec 'N Dry Quick-Dry Topcoat

Tie Dye Gradient & Geometric Nail Art Tutorial

After uploading the previous post about the tie dye gradient with the geometric pattern, I prepared a tutorial for it. Even though I did explain how I created this look, I thought that something more visual would be helpful. Somehow though, I forgot to upload it. Silly me! So now that I found it, I figured I'd upload it even a little late.

This was the final look:

Now, on to the tutorial!

All the products are listed in the previous post (here). The only different polish I used, was the white one (Seventeen - 103), because it was near the bottom so I threw it away.

This was actually my first time making a tutorial. Feel free to tell me what you think about it!

Tie Dye Gradient & Geometric Nail Art

Long time no see!

A lot of things were going on during the past months, that made my mood and inspiration go down the drain. To top that, my nails were very weak at that point, so I decided to take a long break not only from blogging but from polishing my nails as well.

Now I'm back and even though summer is typically over, here in Greece it's very hot and sunny, so I'm still in a very colorful mood!

Before we even move on to the pictures, just let me say this.

1. I love gradients even though they're a real pain to clean up.

2. I love line work, geometric shapes and aztec prints on nails and there are so many nail artists out there that I admire just for that!

So after that being said and the title of the post, I guess you can see where this is going..

Here we go..

For this look I started off with two coats of white nail polish as a base, so that the colors I'd use on top of it would pop and applied a fast drying top coat. We need our base to be completely dry before we start "sponging" the color on. Then I took a make up sponge, cut it in a square shape and made it as smooth as possible for the polish to apply evenly. I chose very bright and neon colors for this almost tie dye looking gradient effect, randomly placed them on the sponge (see picture below) and dabbed it onto my nails. After the first layer had dried I did a second layer, reapplying nail polish on the sponge after each use, to get a more intense look. Wherever I felt like I needed more color, I just used small pieces of the sponge to apply the nail polish and topped it again with a fast drying top coat for an even finish.

This is what my nails looked like after the clean up.

PS: You could also leave your nails like this if you like. It still looks very beautiful.

However, I chose to keep going..

After the messy part was over, I took a long bristle nail art brush, that I had trimmed to be very thin and used white acrylic paint to do my line work. Keep in mind that brushes with very long bristles help us to make very straight and long lines, compared to short bristle brushes that are better for smaller details. Once that was dry, I used fast drying top coat (Again!) to seal everything.

All in all this was quite a time consuming design, but I believe it's fun, eye catching and well worth a try. Feel free to leave comments with your thoughts! :)

Polishes used:

OPI Nail Envy Maintenance Nail Strengthener

Seventeen - 103

Orly - Purple Crush

Orly - Risky Behavior

Orly - Key Lime Twist

China Glaze - Too Yacht To Handle

Sinful Colors - Endless Blue

Seche Vite Fast Drying Topcoat

Alice in Wonderland 3D Nail Art

Long time no see! It's been almost two months since I last posted anything here, but I'm back with good news. Another award!! I won 1st place for Nail Design! I'm so excited and I want to share my experience with you!

The beauty school I attended, "Eva Beauty Studies", hosted its 8th Annual Competition on June 3rd with the theme: Fairytales, Cartoons and Comics. Groups of three were formed to work on a model with the theme of their choice, in order to present a total look. Each person specialized in Hair Styling, Nail Design and Makeup. There were 18 groups and 4 awards: 1) Best Hair Styling, 2) Best Nail Design, 3) Best Makeup, 4) Best Total Look and plenty of gifts for the winners.

All groups had amazing ideas and put a lot of effort in their work! Unfortunately I didn't manage to take pictures because it was crazy! You can check "Eva Beauty Studies" facebook page, they'll be uploading pictures during the next days if you are interested.

My theme was Alice in Wonderland. In the first competition I participated (post here) I was mesmerized by all the awesome 3D nail art that I had seen and I decided that I had to try it ! So what better opportunity than this? I got to see the Disney Movie again, to take screenshots. (I admit, I saw it more than once and really enjoyed it!!) And started working!

Making this kind of 3D nail art was a new thing for me, up until now I had only done flowers. It was a very time consuming process because of all the details I wanted to put in the pieces. But all in all it was very creative and worth all the time spent on them!! Enough with my blabbing, let the picture shower begin!!

I had to sculpt really long acrylic nails for all the pieces to fit properly. So here is a picture before everything was attached to the nails.

And after..

And some close-ups...

Last but not least a picture of my beautiful team! And a special thank you to our model for being so patient!! (Just in case you were wondering, I'm the one on the right.)

Painting the Roses Red

They say spring is here, but I have a hard time believing it..Here in Athens the weather has a different opinion! It's a little cold for the season and at times it tends to be cloudy..So I decided I had enough of that and wanted to bring spring back..And where else? My nails of course!

A few days ago during a class at nail school, our teacher showed us different types of easy yet eye-catching patterns. I instantly fell in love with this vintage floral design and so I had to recreate it and share it with you. It's too beautiful to keep it all for myself!!

For this design I used a black polish for the backround and the rest is all acrylic paint. I started off with white and red paint for the flower shapes and put in the details with those same colors and pink as well. I added some green leaves and to finish the pattern I used some light blue to make tiny daisies and a little bit of yellow for the dots inside. Finally, I sealed it with a fast drying topcoat to protect the acrylic paint from coming off and of course to make them nice and shiny!

I really love this and I can't wait to try it in more color combinations!! If you have any suggestions feel free to leave comments. :)

Polishes used:

Orly Bonder Rubberized Basecoat

Orly - Liquid Vinyl

Orly Sec 'N Dry Quick-Dry Topcoat

My First Award! | Marvel Comics Nail Art

Happy March everyone!

I couldn't be more excited, first of all because spring is finally here and second of all because this month started in the most amazing way for me. 

The Greek "Les Nouvelles Esthetiques Spa" magazine was hosting the Live Nail Chic 2015 competition, with the theme "Gourmet & Gateau" and two Inbox Nail Art competions as well. The first one involved flat nail art designs, with the theme "Comics", in which I participated and the second inbox competition involved 3D nail art, with the theme "Greek Mythology".

So yesterday was the big day, the awards! I won second place! In a National competition! I still can't believe it! I was so nervous about the results, my heart felt like it was pounding out of my chest and I was all shaky. But in the end I was happier than ever! It was truly the most amazing experience I've ever had until now and I really wanted to share some pictures of my work with you.

Here's a picture of my award, my medal and trophy along with my entry for the competition. My precious! LOL!!

 I took the tips outside the box where I originally had them to take better pictures of the full set for you to see and some close-up pictures as well.

They were also kind enough to give away some goodie bags to all the winners. These were the products inside mine and they also included a Hair Styling Seminar from the Greek beauty school "Atelier de Beaute" and a set of 4 issues from the Greek nail magazine "ΝΥΧΙΑ". What else can a girl ask for?

This whole process was very creative and challenging for me and I feel very proud and grateful. I'm definitely looking forward to more competitions in the future.

I hope you like it and feel free to leave any comments. :)