Yuletide nails!

As Christmas is approaching I opted for a gold glitter gradation with green and red holograms- not terribly original but as I keep reiterating I'm quite limited with colour!  That said, I think the result is effective and xmassy =)  Happy holidays everyone!

Red & green holograms shaped into hearts

Japanese inspired purple gradation

So then it was time to redo my nails again =)  It's always fun to think out a design and even better when it turns out the way it was expected to!  I've been wanting to create a Japanese inspired design after having seen some others online and the result is what can be seen here.  I'm quite pleased with my first go at it, especially as it was my first time to try colour gradation (and not glitter like I usually do).  Now I'm really looking forward to some more colours that my darling sister will supply me with =)  And some more stickers and stones.

Purple gradation with flower stickers and silver holograms

Next time I plan on having something Xmassy so we'll see what that ends up looking like!  Design cap is on and thinking....

Gel accessories & parts

Glitter, hearts & stars

 Here are some pictures of my gel nails accessories- lots of different coloured glitter that I mix with clear gel to make all kinds of beautiful sparkly designs.  I also have different hearts and stars in a variety of colours to add to any design as well as holograms and shells.  Any of these can be added on top as a finishing touch to make tons of original designs.  The sky is the limit!

More glitter and flower stickers

Shells

Holograms

Holograms closer up

Shells closer up (make designs really pretty!)

French with blue and green rhinestones

I decided that I couldn't wait another 2 weeks to let my marbled nails grow out (not that I need to but the beautiful thing about gel nails is the infrequency of having to redo them!) as I was just itching to have french nails!  So here they are- I'm constantly trying to perfect the smile line technique with and without the aid of nail strips; this time I decided to free-hand it and practice is making perfect.  Still not entirely satisfied but pretty good for free-hand.  I then added blue and green rhinestones for an extra touch.  I do plan to have these for the next 3 weeks or so but you never know when my mood will change- plus I just love applying gel nails!  My sister and I were talking about getting some clear fake nails to practice different designs on- this way we don't need to keep changing our own every other day!

Marble effect with blue holograms

This week I decided to take another stab at the marbling technique...it went ok, not my best work but I'm also limited with colour so I ended up doing a white marble with bright blue holograms.  I look forward to perfecting the marbling technique once I have more gel colours to play around with! =)  Applying gel nails is very therapeutic for me so it's a shame that I only need to do them once every 3 weeks or so...on the upside however, taking them off is a bit of a hassle so it's nice not to have to deal with that too often!  See you in November then!  Happy Halloween!

Welcome to my wonderful world of gel nails!  I first started getting my nails done in 2007 when I was still living in Osaka, Japan and I haven't been able to stop since.  The negative thing was all the money being spent at nail salons (one session usually went for 15,000 yen) so I was thrilled when my sister found a gel-nails home kit!  4 years later and we're both still happily gelling away at our nails =)

Anyway, I thought I would start a blog about gel nails with photos of my "work"- updates will come at 2-3 weekly intervals as that is how long the gel usually lasts, sometimes even longer, depending on how much housework has been done!  The photo above with the pink glitter is what I currently have on my nails and it took less than an hour to do all 10 nails.  I also added some bigger pink hologram glitter for an extra touch.  Let me know what you think!