Christmas Splashes

Heey! I hope you all enjoyed Christmas, I have one more christmas mani to show you today. I wanted to try "fake splatter" for a long time, it didn't really end up too great (or did it? you tell me) but good enough.

Geometric Diamonds #2: Skittles (+tutorial)

I pushed myself this time with quite time-consuming mani, but hey, look at the result!

You can see my previous try on this pattern here, it was inspired by Precious Polish, who also made a tutorial, but I came up with different way to do this and I'd like to share it with you.
I couldn't decide about the colour combo, I wanted something pop-art-ish, so I ended up with different combo on each nail, skittles.

Tutorial and more photos after the jump.

Dripping Winter Evening

Hi! With the days getting shorter I don't always make to take my photos in proper light, that's why I named this "Winter Evening" - the photos were taken around 3:30 pm but the light was shit, felt more like 6 pm. But hey, they don't look that bad after all, do they?
By the way, I switched to extra large photos and jumps on the home page, what do you think?

left hand

Pink Sugar

Hello there!  I needed something really quick so I chose to polish my nails with textured Gabriella Salvete 07 Princess and add an accent nail.

left hand

Christmas Tribal Tutorial

Hey! Tutorial time, you can find more photos of this mani in previous post.
Tuto after the jump!

Wrapped in Christmas

I couldn't decide what to call this mani. Christmas Sweater? Christmas Tribal? And the third and final option: Christmas Wrapping Paper.

I'm planning to post a tutorial next, I'm splitting this in two posts so they are not so long and picture heavy, you see.

Argyle Nails (+tutorial)

Oh yes, incredibly creative title. Well, at least you know exactely what I have for you today.

Imperiale Roses (+tutorial)

Hey! I have a tutorial for you! It's a computer one, not photos, cause I had terrible light painting this design and I didn't capture everything anyway.

This is the polish that inspired me in the first place. Gabriella Salvete STARS 14 Blu Imperiale. Textured two coater with shimmer, and you must love the colour!

Dripping Cane Sugar

I bought new textured polish.

Matching Waterfall

I wanted to outline my nails the other day so I looked for a design that would look good outlined. I ended up with waterfall mani, as The Nailasaurus calls it.

Originally I wanted to outline all nails but I liked the way they looked without outline too much.

(My photos get sometimes greyish for no reason, blogger makes them go wrong, especialy white parts. Do you know how to fix this?)

Candy Trip Tutorial

I promised you a tutorial in this post, pictorial, to be exact.

So.

The Process:

1. Start with white base.
2. Choose light colour and sketch shape of your swirls.

3.-5. Add more colours.

6. Adjust colours, contrast, shapes. Seal your design with top coat.

Candy Trip

Heey! I wanted something quick... And then it went wrong and ended up like this.

I really loved the result on right hand, painted with non-dominant. I don't like left hand so much cause I feel like I over-did it.

Glittered Blueing

Hey! Today I have another old mani to show you, because I didn't have the time to be more productive this week. It is really simple and I think I wore it just for a day or two.

Princess' Roses

I wanted something nice, something that goes well with red and something I enjoy doing.

Movember Nails

It's no surprise, after reading the title, I have moustache nails for you!

Triangle Princess

Hello there! This is a mani I made for my trip to London. I bought (this) Gabriella Salvete 07 Princess textured polish two days before departure and I wanted to use it in my trip nails.The morning I did these, I didn't have much time, so I went with quite uncomplicated design I've done before, it's originally inspired by Chalkboard Nails' design.

right hand surprisingly turned out better than left

do not disturb my circles (+tutorial)

Hey! Today's mani was inspired by Nailtale's design (check out her IG!) but I guess you couldn't tell without being told (:D is this English?). I wanted to do skittlette, so I chose two colours, yellow and mint, one of my favourite combos, and...

left hand

right hand

You can see I didn't menage to make both hands the same and I kinda like the right more.
I made a tutorial, computer one again, cause I really enjoy making these much more then editing photo tutos.

Glow, little skulls, glow! (+tutorial)

This time I joined the Halloween craziness but, to be honest, I'm getting sick of seeing halloween designs all the time, no matter how awesome they are, so I can't even think of making another myself.

Still, I got these on today. The skull print was entirely inspired by awesome Try My Hand's mani, the only thing I changed is base colour of thumb, which is grey Rimmel 803 Man Overboard, the rest are black Rimmel 800 Black Out. White is acrylic paint and top coat is NYC Turbo Dry.
To the tutorial. I don't think this needs any explaining, the pictures speak for themselves.

Outlined Marble Tutorial

Heey, I have the Outlined Marble tutorial for you today!

final result

You'll need black (and white, not necessary, though) acrylic paint, water, normal nail art brush, flat paint brush (optional) and white polish. And top coat, obviously.

The Process:
1. Paint your nails white (with polish) and let it dry. Now you need to cover it in water, but the water most probably won't stay where you want it (because of the glossy polish finish). To make it work, dip your brush in a little bit of white paint (you can dip it in any other colour), then in water, and cover your nail in paint dissolved in water. Wipe it off. Your nails should be ready to be covered in pure water now.
2. Cover your nails in water, dip brush in colour you want to dissolve and touch your nail with it gently. Regular watercolour.
3. Keep doing n. 2.
4. If the colour gets where you don't want it, just grab a piece of tissue and soak it off. But carefully, this can ruin all you've done.
5.-7. Experiment. The result depends on your tools and will always be different. Add colour(s) and water and see where it gets you.
8. Outline.
9. Finish outlining. Wait for it to dry and seal it with top coat.

Additional Tips:
Get rid of the water left around cuticles before you move to outlining.
If you don't like what you created you can always wipe it off while it's still wet.
I can always see some sort of cracks in the top coat after sealing my design, don't worry if that happens to you too, just add another layer of top coat.
If you're thinking of buying acrylics but you're not entirely sure yet, stop that hesitating and get them, I can't imagine doing this with polish.

The Brushes:
In this mani, I use flat paint brush from craft store, it has hard hair and I cut down its size. It is not a one stroke brush, not at all.

dipped in paint

For outlining I use the longer brush from the photo below:

Alternatives:
I really like this technique as it is quite quick and simple, I've used it three times so far, it always turns out different. (Photos are linked to original posts.)

Outlined Galaxy

Don't Panic

Outlined Marble

I did my best to explain the process, but I feel like it wasn't enough anyway, so if you have any questions, feel free to ask! I'll be happy to answer them.
If you recreate this sort-of-watercolour, be sure to let me know (even in the comments), I'd love to see it! :)
And, just to remind you, @nailuminium is on Instagram now, check it out and follow for more up-to-date mani photos.
Take care!

Slavic Skittlette

Hi! I did these after I saw  The Nailasaurus' inspired by artwork design. I loved it the moment I saw it and I thought this is exactly my style. Well, it ended up pretty different, looked interesting in person, I'm not so sure about the photos.

Matching Stripes

Ahoj!
I have another matching-an-outfit nails for you, not as much matching as last time, because when I wore those with the outfit, I kinda hated how much it matched, if you know what I mean.

At the beginning, I had three basic colours I knew I wanted to use: red, white and black, but I couldn't think of a design that would use them, would be nice to look at and matched the outfit at the same time. Way out? Stripes, of course.

Greyscale Tribal

Hi!
I just bought this Rimmel 803 Man Overboard and there is nothing more inspiring to me than a new bottle of polish. I knew what I was going to do with it the moment I left the drug store.

The right hand was surprisingly easy to do, maybe because I had just two nails to paint?

Gold and Pink Swirls

Hello!
I have two manis to show you in this post, they are pretty similar, one older than the other. Really. I don't even have good quality photo of the older (gold) mani and the newer (pink) one was the very first I took nice quality pictures of. (And I didn't publish it until now, for some reason)

Matching Chevron

Hi! This is gonna be a short one I hope.
I wanted my nails to match my outfit and I ended up with this. You can see the outfit in second photo's background.

Outlined Marble keeps glowing

Hello there, finally I have time to write. I'm back to neutral colours, black and white today. There were two things on my mind when I planned this: glowing polish and outlining. But outlining pure white space would be far too simple for me and that's why I decided to go with acrylic watercolor effect, also used in Outlined Galaxy and Don't Panic manis.

I painted my nails Gabriella Salvete 148 white and then two coats of Essence 18 fly firefly fly glow in the night top coat before adding the black (black topped with this glowing top coat looks off, it ruins the contrast). Then I did this acrylic-watercolor technique and when that dried, I outlined my nails with black acrylic paint. Everything is sealed with NYC Turbo Dry top coat.

You can see my right hand above, this time I didn't have much trouble outlining with my non-dominant hand (unlike the first time).
I even menaged to properly capture brightness of the glowing:

 Yea, funny shapes.

On the other hand, both hands photos turned out rather weird. I blame the colour scheme.
To the title - don't these remind you of marble rock? They do to me.

I have one more thing to ask you: would you like to see a tutorial? Tutorial on how I do this watercolor with acrylics, cause you can find a lot of tutorials on outlining out there. Also, would you like to see a tutorial for any other of my designs? (And seriously, what preposition does tutorial come with? Tutorial on st/ tutorial for st? I wasn't able to find it on the internet.)
Bye!