Konad Nail Art Tutorial

 

Pretty nails! > w <

~ * ♥ * ~  The finished manicure  ~ * ♥ * ~

Polish Details:  N.Y.C. Color in Redhead 

Top Tip:  Use a top coat over the Konad to make the nail art last longer.  You want to be super careful applying a top coat though, because it is very easy to smear the designs.  I find if you use a big blob of top coat and only stroke over each part of the nail once, the designs stay reasonably intact.  My favourite top coat is Sally Hansen’s Insta-Dri Anti-Chip Top Coat.  You can buy it at supermarkets, pharmacies, or online here.   

I have listed everything I used in the video for easy reference.  You can find everything you need regarding the stamping kit at wowsocool.com. A basic starter kit would involve:

~  a stamper and scraper {which you can buy together}; make sure you get the double sided stamper kit as the smaller side can be really useful for transferring smaller designs with precision.  
~  a stamping/design plate
~  a Konad polish

Other useful tools:

~  Nail polish remover
~  Cotton pads for removing nail polish
~  Paper towel, newspaper, anything that can get messy and protect the surface you are working on

I hope the tutorial explains the technique of stamping nail art clearly for you.  If you have any further questions please feel free to put them as a comment or email me bonita{at}bdotdepictions.com.  > ω <

xox,

bonita

P.S. ~ I have a dressage and show jumping competition on Sunday, so I shall be away this weekend.  However, I hope you have a good one, and I shall be back on Tuesday with a thrift haul vlog! : D

Nail Art ~ Blue Lagoon

Before we get to the good stuff I just had to share this amazing diagram I found on Pintrest yesterday.  And the best thing about this is that it works!  I used the technique it depicts when I did this manicure and proceeded to paint the neatest job I have ever managed to achieve…   See ~

And that’s before the tidy up! 

Top Tip:  For the best tutorial on cleaning up a manicure that I ever come across go here.

~ * ♥ * ~ 
On my nails:

~  BYS Polish in Matte Aqua
~  Konad Plate m80 & m40

~ * ♥ * ~

I am really loving solid cream polishes at the moment. This lovely blue by BYS is more of a sky or bluebird blue rather than an aqua ~ so it’s a bit misnamed in my opinion, but it’s still a gorgeous colour.  And as always, any excuse to add a bit of sparkle to my nails in the form of these tiny deco gems is more than welcome!

I really enjoy creating nail art ~ there is something about the small, temporary canvases that are your finger nails that holds a strong appeal to the artist in me.  I am not sure whether it’s the limited space, or the myriad of different colours you can use, or the multitude of looks that you can create, or the fact that you can start anew any time you like. 

Either one of those reasons are good enough for me ~ I like to give myself a manicure whenever I can{which isn’t always as often as I would like these days!}  It is somewhat of weekly ritual now, so of course my polish collection is slowly expanding!  I am keeping my eye out for a good light purple polish, because I don’t have one yet.  I am really craving lilacs and duck egg teals, and of course you can never go wrong with fairy floss pink.  Pastels are great for spring and I think they work really well with a vintage wardrobe as you can see from this delightful 1950s Revlon ad. 

What are your favourite colours to splash on your nails?

xox,

bonita  

Sparkly Sparkly! Nail Art

It has long been my ambition to get some serious sparkle on my nails.  I don’t mean of the glitter variety, but of the rhinestone sort. 

Yes, this is me not some mind eating alien spawn.  I still have a 70% black wardrobe and I still wear and adore vintage.  I did however warn you a while ago that the simple housewife who likes neatness and order also has a strange thirst for decoden and over the top, Japanese styled nails. 

Prime examples here and here:

    

I do not know where my elegant, refined, classic and simplicity loving self {*snort* elegant, refined, classic?  Yeah.  Right.} vanishes too when I see pictures like the ones above, but vanishes she does and I am left positively longing to do this:

to my iPhone.  

DH was not impressed when I told him about my awesome idea.  Mainly because he is super obsessive over his technology almost to the point of OCD ~ each piece of equipment must be kept in pristine original condition.  That’s what you get when you marry a software developer I guess!

He did give me his old iPhone when he got the new one, so he most likely won’t want it back, but still.  Deco?  On the iPhone?   Oh noes!  >o<

Thankfully, he did come around, but only if I deco a case for the phone and not the phone itself.  Which is fair enough and what I was planning to do in the first place just in case I ended up hating it.

But the fact of the matter is I haven’t even gotten around to starting the iPhone deco project as I do not have a case, nor that many supplies yet.  So I have to make do with blinging up my nails instead.   Mind you, I didn’t really go all out, simply because these are my first experiments.  I don’t know how long the nail sparkles will last, or how to do proper gel nails. 

Or if I even want to do gel nails because I am petrified of ruining my admittedly already decent nail bed.  I get even nails with a nice length to them on a regular basis.  How long the evenness lasts depends on how rough I am and what I doing.  

But that was a side track.  Let’s get on with the real stuff.  Photos!! 

I have basically created a step by step of how I do my nails for no particular reason.  Hope you like.

  

Gather your materials  ~ I have a Konad Stamping Kit and BYS Matte Aqua Polish.   Then prepare your nails by cleaning them, pushing back the cuticles and putting on a base coat.  I use Sally Hansen’s Miracle Cure as it is a treatment and it dries super fast.

Yes, this is how I put my nail polish on.  It’s good because the bottle is firmly wedged between your knees so that you can’t knock it over, but it’s also bad because you have to be careful not to get nail polish on your favourite jeans!  >.<

 

I found this BYS polish to be really good.  It was so thick that after one coat your nails were the same colour as the bottle.  The aqua colour is not really aqua though ~ more like a dark sky blue.  It’s a very intense colour and the matte makes it look very saturated.  Also, at $3.00 a bottle, you can’t go wrong!!

Next step is to Konad ~ I did a polka dot bow on my right thumb and both ring fingers, and a dotted love heart on my left pointer and right middle finger.

Normally I’d do a top coat at this stage, because I find it definitely helps your nail art to last longer, but as this polish was matte and I don’t have a matte top coat, so it seemed a waste of time to me.   I guess I’ll just have to see how well the nails will last now.

    

Then it was sparkle time!!  I bought this nail art wheel that was chockers with different coloured rhinestones from a local beauty supplies shop.  It was a about $5.00 and I think the brand is Oker Brand.  Never heard of it before, but the wheel works really well.   The only thing was that all the different colours got muddled up in the packaging.   I haven’t sorted them out yet, and the gems are so small I don’t know if I can be bothered!  

Each gem is 2mm and I got the square ones. I decided on light purple and used super glue to attach them.  The super glue worked really well  You just had to make sure you didn’t get any on your finger or the gem would pull off again and leave a mess in your nail polish. 

I stuck three on my left thumb, one on my middle finger and two on my pinkie.   I did one on my right pointer and two on my right pinkie.

   

TaDa!!   The finished result! 

xox,

bonita

Nail Art & bonita answers

So to start off with the text and end with a bang….  That’s what I figure, so here is part one ~ the confessions Q&A. 

♥  ~ Topic:  Fashion  ~  ♥

1.  ~   When did you first get interested in style and fashion?

I was first interested in fashion when I was thirteen.  For my early years, I was aware that stuff was cool or not cool, but I often didn’t really know why.  Most of my inspiration came from street style around me.

It was not until my late teens {very late teens} and early~mid twenties before I really started to take notice of high fashion and couture and the like.  But now I love checking out blog styles and vintage fashion; that is where my heart is.  ♥

2.  ~   Do you think that there is a difference between style and fashion? Why?

I do.  I think that fashion is what comes from the designer houses, magazines and it is the season to season items/outfits that everyone wears and when they do they all look the same!  To me, fashion is a uniform.  You have to have a certain look to be fashionable.

Style on the other hand, it’s often undefinable.  You can look at someone and just know that they have style, even though the clothes they are wearing may not be in ‘uniform’.  I think style is an attitude.  It is an approach to the way you dress usually based on what you like to wear mixed in with a nonconformist tang.  The leaders of fashion ~ they have style.  The followers are usually just fashionable.  

3.  ~  What is your favourite fashion?

My favourite fashion is based on 30s, 40s, 50s wear ~ usually girly~goth.  My favourite style is vintage and doll~like clothes.  ^__^

4.  ~  What is your least liked fashion?

Hmmm.   Where to start….  Tights as pants.  Mini shorts/skirts that look like belts.  Swimwear as clothing.  Lingerie as clothing {although the corset over a blouse thing can be very attractive}.  Sheer clothes without anything but underwear underneath.  Sheer clothes with nothing but a strategically arranged piece of embroidery.  Leopard print ~ animal prints full stop actually.  Anything neon except nail polish!!   And I will stop there to save your sanity.  >o<

5.  What fashion/style do you wish you could pull off but do not have the guts?

A full head to toe vintage look, hair and makeup included.  That or Hime Gyaru.  I wish I had the man parts to do it, but I can not see myself doing this any time soon.   I would also need all the required items for both outfits, so there is also the difficulty there. 

6.  ~  Flowers or  chocolate and why?

Flowers!  Mainly because although I loved chocolate, I prefer it in the form of frozen dairy.  Yes, Ben and Jerry ~ I will confess my undying adoration for you and lay my heart at your feet.  Well, I would, but it is already taken.  So sorry.  

I just love receiving a bouquet or even a single wild flower.   They are so pretty and just brighten up my day.  DH brings me roses and I have dried all the petals so now I have three pretty glass bowls filled with beautiful petals as a constant reminder that he loves me.  Is not he the best?   Oh yes, he is the best.   > ω <   ~ ♥

~ * ♥ * ~ * ♥ * ~ * ♥ * ~

I was hanging out with my sister {number two} today ~ as we do every Friday.  It was nice and relaxing.  We had tea and raspberry tarts, painted our nails and amused ourselves on YouTube.  Yes, I converted her to the guildside too.  ><

Anyway, my nail art turned out pretty good if I do say so myself, so I took some photos.   Yay!  Photos!!

 

 

 

~ * The Dragon Flies over Flowers Nails * ~

Konad Nail Polish ~ White

Konad Plate ~  M5

OPI Nail Lacquer  ~  Matte Aqua Green {I can’t actually read the colour; it’s in French...}

Klean Color  ~  Madly Matte {matte finisher ~ take the shine out of the shiniest polishes, it’s brilliant!!}

Okay, all these polishes, Konad tools included, are my sister’s as my Konad stuff was at home.  I love the matte green and the matte finisher is soooo cool.  It goes over the top of your colour polish, like any top coat and takes the shine out of the polish.  It looks so awesome.  I really want a matte finisher myself now.

And finally, the wind was blowing the plum tree all about today, and the blossoms looked so pretty that I thought I’d take a video to show you.

My first video!  Sorry it is so short, but I figured you would only want to see so much of trees in the wind.

I am still thinking about what else I would like to video.  I like watching vlogs {video blog posts, which should technically be vlogosts??}, so I am trying to think of some good content that you might be interested in watching.  Any ideas??

I hope you all enjoy your weekend.  ^__^  

xox,

bonita