Marbled Nail Tutorial

I've got a great tutorial to share with you today from Alexandra. It's a short video showing step by step how to get marbled nails! It's not water-marbling, this gives you the same kind of effect but a lot faster and way less messy. Big time selling points for me haha.

Check out the video!

so to recap, here's the picture of the supplies you'll want to have:

and here's two different versions of the finished product...

After I watched the video Alexandra made for us, I feel like this is something I could definitely do. I can't wait til my midterms are over this week so I'll finally have some free time and can try this! I'm thinking maybe using purples... China Glaze - Grape Pop and Light As Air perhaps?

How about you, have you ever tried marbling like this or with water? Are you brave enough to now after watching Alexandra's tutorial?

Festive!

Hi again! Second post today... told you I was playing catch up here haha. I just finished my radio show and I'm sneaking in really quick to show you a perfect holiday mani that Alexandra just did! And it's super easy, I promise.

base colors
close - up of some of the stickers

finished product!

Alexandra alternated Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear - Emerald City and Orly - Bus Stop Crimson for the green and red base colors. And then topped it off with some holiday Cina nail stickers from Sally's Beauty Supply. I think most of the time you can find these seasonal style stickers by the registers at Sally's if you want to pick some up to try this yourself!

I love it! I need to get to Sally's to get a pack of these stickers, they are so adorable :) Thanks again Alexandra!! Have any of you started doing holiday manis yet?

Giveaway! Nail Art Style

I've got another little giveaway for you all today! This one is a bit different from the last few that I've had, it's going to be for nail art, specifically stamping. I'm not very good at freehanding nail art designs, but I do love konad and faux-nad plates; they are much more my speed :) I recently heard about a place to get different kinds of nail art materials and stamping plates http://www.bf-beauty.com/ A few weeks ago I placed an order for a few plates, and got them earlier this week (about a week and a half after I ordered, pretty good for coming from Hong Kong!). Everything arrived perfectly and I've already played with the plates and they are wonderful! No problems at all, and since I (and many others) have had such great experiences with BF Beauty, I'd like to give you the opportunity to as well

Win your choice of FOUR stamping plates from www.bf-beauty.com!

(these are the four that I recently got)

you can go to: http://www.bf-beauty.com/en/category/165_172/index_home.html to view all the different plates - and there are a TON of choices! (the website is a little slow loading, don't let that discourage you!)

Now on to the best part - how to win! This is open internationally!

1) You MUST be a public follower! Please tell me how you follow and the name you follow under along with an email I can contact you at (1 entry - Mandatory)
2) Let me know which four plates you would choose (1 entry - Mandatory)

For additional entries:

1) Blog about this giveaway or put it in your side bar - please leave a link in the comments (1 entry)
2) Put Jeweled Tips in your blog roll - leave a link in the comments (1 entry)
3) Follow me on twitter (@JeweledTips) and tweet about this giveaway (make sure to include the link to this post and @JeweledTips) - leave a link in the comments (1 entry)

So you can have a total of FIVE entries!

This giveaway will be open until 11:59pm (that's Eastern Standard Time) on December 3rd and is open to all! Good luck everyone :)

Happy Halloween!

Just a quick post today with some Halloween nail art! I hope you're having a fun Halloween or October 31st, whichever you observe :) Today I've got some more great nail art compliments of Alexandra for you. There is a ton of really cool Halloween manis around the blogs and MUA that I've seen and been inspired by, but this is one I haven't seen around. Check it out!

Alexandra used Pure Ice - Kiss Me Here as the base color and if you click to enlarge the picture you can see the round little black rhinestones on the tips. T he skulls are clay fimo slices and there's a stripe of black and silver glitter to finish off the look.

I really like this mani! I'm very into how colored french tips look lately and this feels a little more managable for me to try than a lot of nail art. Slowly working my way up in the nail art world haha, luckily we have Alexandra to put together fun nail art like this. What are you doing for your nails today? Are you dressing up?

Alexandra's back with Fruit Salad!

Today I've got another amazing tutorial from the lovely Alexandra. Last time she brought us pretty flowers on a Paradoxal background. This one we have for today is adorable summer Fruit Salad! She even made a video to go along with the tutorial, how cool is that? Also, this is a special kind of nail art called 3d Nail Art. Basically that means it's not under a lot of topcoat, that it's going to be raised on your nail a little bit. Which means this probably mean this mani won't last you 7 days, but how cute would it be for a weekend?! Read on!

Here's the video that goes with the tutorial, it's just under a minute and definitely worth the watch. Alexandra I NEED to know what the mani you have on in the video is! It's really nice!


Fruit Salad
Level: Intermediate
Materials: Adhesive tape, clay slices (4 different fruits), nail glue (AKA crazy glue), paper and pen.

Step 1: Color the tips of your nails in white (french style) or any bright color that goes with the fruits you chose. The advantage of this form of nail art, is that you don't have to make perfect lines, because the fruits will cover most of it. There are french tip guides available in certain stores, if you want to make sure to have all the tips be the same size.

Step 2: Apply top coat, and let the nail polish dry. This step is important because when you apply the fruit slices sometimes the glue is slippery and they move around, until they are secured by the tape.

Step 3: (Optional) calculate the width of the nail you are working on. Using a piece of paper measure it and draw lines at both ends with a pen. When working on your own nails place paper over the nail, press and make marks with your thumb and middle fingernails at the sides, then write lines on the dents made on the paper. After practicing with one hand this step becomes optional because one already has a sense of the width.

Step 4: Place a piece of the tape with the sticky side up, on top of the paper with the markings, holding it be the edges. Make sure to cut a piece that is big enough to be wrapped around the nail (or around th finger, when working on your own nails) so that the ends stick together to hold the fruits in place.

Step 5: Place the fruit slices on the sticky side of the tape one by one, with approximetely one third of each slice above the next.

Step 6: Apply Nail glue on all the clay slices.

Step 7: Grab the strip with the fruits and place on top of the nail, covering part of the base color and part of the tips. When using artificial nails, place the nail on the tape instead, as shown in the video.

Step 8: Join both ends of the tape to hold the fruit slices in place and check that they look straight while the glue is still wet, rearrange when needed.

Step 9: After approximately 10 minutes, or when you feel the glue has dried, carefully remove the tape. No top coat needed.

Tips:
-You can also apply the slices one by one, but this takes more time, because, depending on how thin the clay is, they tend to wrinkle outwards with the wet glue, so one has to press, wait for the glue to dry, making sure the fruit is stable and then proceed to do the others.
-To make mirror images on both hands, note the order of the fruits. For example if on the left hand you started with apple, lemon, kiwi and strawberry from left to right, when doing the right hand start from right to left.

Colors used for this tutorial: Video was made on french falsies, but any white polish would do the trick.

Here's the finished product!







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Thanks again for another amazing tutorial and cute nail art, Alexandra! I though the video was a great addition for this one, it helped me understand exactly what to do after initially reading through the steps. What do you guys think? I love it for summer!

Nail art, a tutorial, Paradoxal swatches.. oh my!

Hello lovelies! I'm all kinds of out of wack today. Why you may ask? Well, I've been up since 4 am (on purpose!) to watch golf. The Open Championship in Scotland started today and TV coverage started at 4 am EST, so I'm rocking 2 hours of sleep and have happily been watching golf all day. Yes, I am very aware that this is insane behavior; but I love it! My sports addiction might be a wee bit out of control haha.

But since I knew all week I was planning to do this, I figured today was the perfect day to introduce you all to my friend Alexandra and show you all the wonderful things she has in store for us. First up Paradoxal swatches! I asked Alexandra if she would mind taking a couple of Paradoxal swatches inside because, 1) I can't get enough of this polish! and 2) I feel like every picture highlights the shimmer in Paradoxal, but most of the time the shimmer isn't very visable. So Alexandra indulged me and took pictures of Paradoxal to show us what it normally looks like :)




Ahhh, I can't get over how pretty this nail polish is!

Are you up for some nail art? Alexandra provided an incredible step by step tutorial to create some really really pretty flowers. Here are her instructions:

Basic Flowers
Level: beginner
Materials: Rhinestones, tooth pick and 2 small bottle caps. If you don’t have rhinestones choose another color for the center.

Steps:

1) Start by getting a table lamp or getting close to a well illuminated place. Add 1 coat of the nail polish you like to all of your nails.


2) Add a generous second coat to only one nail, it is costumary to start with an average size finger, because you can get a sense of the layout.


3) Fill a little container with water and dip the toothpick, this will help for picking up the rhinestone, although you can also get a “picker-upper” at a beauty supply store.


4) Place the rhinestone on the nail while the polish is still wet, and press slightly.


5) Make sure the rhinestones follow a curved pattern, and not a “/” or an “L” pattern, a “moon” shape looks more subtle.


6) Place a drop of a contrasting color of nail polish in a small container, I use a bottle cap. Dip only a tiny portion of the toothpick and “touch” the surface of the nail, the color will transfer much like a refrigirator magnet, there is no need to press or sink it in. Some people use dotting tools and press on to make an effect, but usually for bigger flowers. Nail art brushes also work well, some even come within a bottle of nail polish.




7) Work each nail one by one, or add the rhinestones to all your nails and then start the dotting process. Add top coat.




One last thing, don’t be afraid to try it, the previous picture was made very cautiously to show the detail, but the following ones show flowers made really fast and not so perfect. The big picture is what matters, the overall look is still very good, even if the close-up shows some flowers are missing petals and some dots are bigger than others.




Tips: - to keep a more together look, draw flowers on the outside corners only, meaning the flowers on the right hand will be on the right side and the ones on the left hand will be on the left side.

- try on one nail first, with just clear base/top coat, or on a fake nail, so you can get a sense of the separation of the rhinestones.

- the polish used for dotting dries really fast, since it is just a drop, so you must work fast and use a new drop when it does. However, when I first pour the drop it is too watery, not optimal for dotting, I wait about 20 seconds. It takes practice, but it’s a good idea to always try the first flowers on a piece of paper.

- when in doubt, make very tiny dots first and put your hand about two feet away to see the overall picture, and if the flower petals need to be thicker, just dip in the polish again and dot over it.

Colors used for this tutorial: Chanel 509 Paradoxal and OPI Alpine Snow.

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How pretty is that?! Thank you SO much for the tutorial and swatches Alexandra! What do you guys think? Are any of you going to try this? I think I am, hopefully soon. I'll be sure to post pictures when I try it. I think it looks so classy and professionally done... I hope mine turns out just as nice!