moody roses

I remember that when Nino was here back in December, he glanced at my nail magazine while I was going through it and he mentioned that he liked the dark nail style (black with red roses and gold chains motif). But he said he knew it probably wasn't something I'd normally wear. I guess I got my cue from that.. and b/c I was on a flower binge apparently with the last few sets I did, I chose to paint roses. but I went DARK. Black to be exact. I rarely paint my entire nail black (except for halloween 2009). But I went for it. And at first I thought "OH GEEz.. WAAAY TOO BLACK" but then as soon as I started painted the purple roses... I fell in love. lol. That doesn't mean I'll be doing black regularly. Like Nino said.. It's not really my style. But I'd told Joni that I wanted to do purple roses on black polish so I got stuck on the idea. And I titled this entry "moody roses" because I kept having this feeling that the black polish made me feel moody... but I got a lot of compliments on it. In any case, I only kept this set on for 4 days. lol.

♥ notes: This was the 3rd time I was able to use the tiny brushes I'd bought from Daiso

♥ duration: 40 mins (2 episodes of Nodame Cantabile)

♥ colors/steps for polish:
▪ Orly Bonder base coat
▪ black polish - Orly Liquid Vinyl (2 coats)
▪ Seche Vite

♥ colors/steps for flowers:
▪ dark purple and white acrylic craft paint was used.
▪ start with dipping the tiny brush (set of 8 for $1.50 from Daiso!) into the purple paint (just a bit) then a tad in the white paint. so the brush should have both colors on it already. then I painted in a pattern like these nail seals.
▪ I did the same paint dip trick for the green leaves. I didn't want the flowers so dark, that they'd be difficult to see.
▪ I was tempted to add silver or glitter on them but after giving a bit of glitter to one of the roses on my pinky, I decided against it. I thought it looked so nice as plain art.

swirled roses v 1.1

Just like version 1.0 but with a bit of extra fun ^_^

♥ duration: 35 mins (2 episodes of Azumanga Daioh)

♥ colors/steps for polish:
▪ Orly Bonder
▪ base color: OPI's Italian Love Affair
▪ 2nd color over base coat: OPI's I'll Take The Cake (to soften the color)
▪ used small dotting tool to make evenly spaced white polka dot pattern

♥ colors/steps for flowers:
▪ reference post from swirled roses 1.0

swirled roses v 1.0

my first attempt at a new style of flowers. I scanned the tutorial out of the magazine but I haven't uploaded that. I'll get to it later. I've seen this done a few times in examples in the nail magazines I picked up but finally, one of the magazines had a simple photo tutorial to show how it's done. So here's my first attempt at it. I actually started out with the plain polish a few days before and then finally decided to add something fun ^_^

♥ duration: 15-20 mins (not including polish time.. while watching Apollo do qualification rounds on TV)

♥ colors/steps for polish:
▪ Orly Bonder
▪ base color: OPI's Italian Love Affair
▪ in addition, on one hand I did a second color coat using Winmax Pink Diamond polish to give it a bit of snowy glitter.

♥ colors/steps for flowers:
▪ 1 drop of white acrylic craft paint using a dotting tool where I want the roses to be.
▪ 2 smaller drop of magenta acrylic paint in the middle of each white drop. (purchased the magenta paint ages ago at Mitsuwa near the makeup section)
▪ Use a thin brush to gently swirl (not mix) the paint together. I went in both directions (CW and CCW) and if necessary, added a tiny amount extra of white or magenta paint depending on how the flower was looking.
▪ I'd recommend doing each nail one at a time so the paint won't dry out when you're trying to swirl the paint.
▪ paint green leaves with any green acrylic craft paint. (I use the green in one of this kiddie sets that's all stuck together. (something like the paint included in these things). I've probably had those sets for years and since I rarely open them, they're still usable.