CND Shellac Christmas Nail Art - #10 The Reinvented French

And it's the last Christmas manicure of the season. Simple yet effective with a reinvented french manicure for Jene. She opted for a simple clear, nude base and two suitably festive colours on her tips.

I used one coat of Negligee for the base colour (after base coat) and then with a bit of striping tape help, I created a diagonal along one edge with Sugared Spice. Make sure you remove the tape before curing! I did three coats of the Sugared Spice in the end - the second two coats I did freehand once the tape had given me a nice clean edge to work from. I then repeated the process, three coats, in Tinted Love on the other side of each nail. As you can see in the top photo, I alternated the colours on each hand - like a mirror image.

Subtly Christmassy don't you think? Next up is New Year's nails.... oh how 2013 has flown by!

Disclaimer - I purchased all the products used for this manicure myself, and if you want more info about myself and CND Shellac then check out my disclaimer page here. What's not to like about nail art that actually lasts?!

CND Shellac Nail Art - Pastel Diagonals

So I've just got my new pastels in and Jene likes to be the first for new looks or colours (much like her last mani here). Therefore naturally, the Sweetdreams collection that I blogged about ages ago was her colour collection of choice.

Jene went for the pale pink - Cake Pop - for her base colour and decided to add an accent colour of purple - Lilac Longing - in a diagonal across each nail.

I used two coats of each colour to create an opaque finish, but looking at the photos above (bottom was with flash) it could have possibly even done with three for the purple.

Stay posted for more pastel themed nail art coming your way....

Disclaimer - All products used for this manicure were bought myself, for more info about myself and CND Shellac please check out my disclaimer page here. Once you Shellac you never go back!

CND Shellac Nail Art - Tutti Frutti Glitter

So I've FINALLY caught up with the last few manicures of 2012 and I can finally move into this year... Thank God!

To start us of we have Rachel again (last seen here with the Hot Pop Pink diamantés). In keeping with her love of pink, she decided to try out a new colour in the collection, Tutti Frutti, a beautiful opalescent pink that just screamed for something extra. So we added a bit of purple glitter to pick out the shimmer in the base colour.

To recreate this mani just follow these steps:
Apply base coat, cure, then two coats of Tutti Frutti making sure to cure between each. Then mix a glitter paste of Mother of Pearl and Gosh Nail Glitter in Topaz Lavender in a palette. Take some striping tape/foil and mark off the diagonal on each nail. Then use a nail art brush to paint the chosen half of your nail in the glitter mix - make sure you carefully remove the tape/foil before you cure. After curing, add more glitter freehand where needed, then cure again, finally add top coat and cure for one last time.

Voila! Perfect pinky-purple.

Disclaimer - All products used for this manicure were bought myself, for more info about myself and CND Shellac please check out my disclaimer page here. I might not be a professional, but I sure love me some Shellac nail art :)

CND Shellac Christmas Nail Art - #4 Iridescent Ice Queen

Iridescent Ice Queen  - glitzy enough for both Christmas and New Year. These are Maddie's, you haven't seen her since here as she is usually favouring the classic French, but for this Winter she wanted to glam it up a little more.

We opted for one of her favourite colours - Moonlight and Roses, but to make it stand out a little more we used some Studio White underneath. If I remember correctly it was one coat of Studio White then two of Moonlight and Roses (curing for 120 seconds after each). I then mixed up a glitter pastes of Mother of Pearl, Gosh Nail Glitter in Silver, some white iridescent nail glitter and CND Additive in Spectrum Shimmer. I placed a piece of striping tape diagonally across each nail - to get a nice crisp line - and painted the glitter paste on the cuticle side of the diagonal. I carefully removed the striping tape and then cured before adding top coat and curing one last time (probably for 180 seconds due to the number of layers).

Apologies for the grow out in these photos, I forgot to take one when I first did them and didn't see Maddie for another week or so after, so these are actually about a week and a half old - still shiny and chip free!!

Disclaimer - All products used for this manicure were bought myself, for more info about myself and CND Shellac please check out my disclaimer page here. I might not be a professional, but I sure love me some Shellac nail art :)

CND Shellac Nail Art - Super Chevrons

Following my first trial with striping tape and Shellac - here - I was keen to try it out again with other designs. So of course in steps Stacey, offering me a blank canvas for a little experimentation - we called this one "Super Chevrons"...

Inspiration came from Jane at nailside.blogspot.co.uk - her designs are always so neat and striking and especially brilliant to recreate in Shellac. In particular we liked the look of her South Africa? post but changed the colours up a little bit.

I started of with two white coats (cured between each) of Cream Puff as a base colour. I then added a vertical strip of the beautiful blood-red Decadence to the left half of each nail. After curing the red, I added two strips of thin striping tape to each nail, in a chevron style, near the tip. I mixed some Gosh Nail Glitter in Gold with some Shellac Mother of Pearl to make a glitter paste and painted it into the chevron 'V' area. I removed the striping tape and cured the glitter tip. To create the blue accent, I mixed some of my Cerulean Blue Additive with Cream Puff and painted a border along the 'V' edge of the chevrons, with a small detailer brush, and cured. I sealed it all in with top coat and then Stacey decided to add some studs to her ring fingers as a little extra. So I pressed those into the tacky layer of the top coat and added another coat, before curing for the last time.

And there you have it, Super Chevron nails, 'super' because there's just something very superhero about them don't you think?

Disclaimer - All products used for this manicure were bought myself, for more info about myself and CND Shellac please check out my disclaimer page here. I might not be a professional, but I sure love me some Shellac nail art :)

CND Shellac Nail Art - Gotcha & Silver Glitter Chevrons

Ah, here's another one from the archives.... this was an experiment I tried out on myself after I was bored of the silver glitter tips and I think it turned out really well.

I'd just ordered a couple of new Shellac colours and decided to try out the Gotcha. I was trawling through my instagram 'likes' to find some inspiration when I came across one of Michelles Poena's designs I thought I'd try (find Michelle's blog here - http://michelleinwonderland-michelle.blogspot.co.uk/ and on instagram - @michellepoena).

I painted all my nails (bar the ring finger) with Gotcha then mixed up a silver glitter paste with Mother of Pearl and some Gosh nail glitter in silver, and I painted that on as an accent nail. The first coat was cured for 120 seconds and then I added a second, curing for 120 seconds, on all nails. I used some striping tape to tape off the triangular area on my Gotcha nails and then used the glitter paste to fill in the chevrons. After curing the glitter detail for 120 seconds, I added the small diamantés to the tips of the triangles and topped it off with top coat to seal it all in.

A little barbie-ish but I like it all the same :) What do you think?

Disclaimer - All products used for this manicure were bought myself, for more info about myself and CND Shellac please check out my disclaimer page here. I might not be a professional, but I sure love me some Shellac nail art :)