Day 52: DIY Nail Swatch cards - painters swatches

Hello darlings! I promised to make a blog post on nail polish swatching tips, if you responded to my original pic via instagram. You all graciously responded, and many thanks for that. Here is the awaited HOW-TO on nail polish swatching and organization.

I wont waste any time, im gonna jump right into it. :)

STEP ONE: one 3X5 note card

 STEP TWO: Fold in thirds and cut or tear in equal pieces

 TURN CARD OVER

YOU will need nail polishes you want to swatch, by color, brand, etc, whatever way you prefer swatching your collection. I PREFER by color because its just makes it even more organized and if i need a pink, for example, i can go to my swatch cards in the PINK section and find all the pinks i own. I would think swatching them by brand would not be as organized or efficient but its your choice lovelies. MOST IMPORTANT: you have to like the swatch cards, to use them, so do what FLOATS  your boat :)~

STEP FOUR: APPLY 1-2 good coats evenly across the note card. Most people use 2-3 coats of polish on each nail to get that perfect color their after. With swatching, if you use ONE thick coat of polish and swipe across gently, it should give you that 2 coat on the nails look. 

CAUTION:  swiping too many coats of nail polish on the notecard will result in color inaccuracy because it would be like applying 5 OR MORE coats of polish on your nails. Do you understand what i mean? IF NOT, COMMENT AND I WILL CLARIFY. :) 

 STEP FIVE: Let your lovely swatch dry completely. Once you get the hang of it, you can swatch 4-5 polishes on ONE card, leaving the right amount of space between each swatch to label THE polish.

STEP SIX: LABEL, LABEL, LABEL! 

AND Voila, you can now make TONS of nail polish swatch cards and keep organized. 

BELOW is how i store my nail polish swatch cards. AKA Painters cards :) :) 

 Bought this little photo book at a thrift store for 99 CENTS! This is not an expensive DIY :)

 The clear plastic is perfect to PROTECT your nail polish swatch cards. I would HIGHLY RECOMMEND a photo book like this, that opens long ways and the sleeve opens at the top NOT the side. I tried the tradition 4X6 photo book but, oh what a pain to organize little swatch cards and move them around in the plastic to get them just right.  :/ 

 This is how my cards look, all wonderfully colored with my reds and ORGANIZED. Thats the whole point of a DIY, to help your life and STAY organized. PLEASE let me know in the comments below if this helped your life, even if just a little.

I have been there, done that with nail polish sticks, wheels, nails, stickies, THE WHOLE NINE. This has to be, by far, the EASIEST, NICEST, and MOST EFFECTIVE way i have found to organize a LARGE nail polish collection.

Until next time,

"Have a grand day and dont forget to Glaze!"

Day 50: Sally Hansen Nail art Contest - staycation - sally hansen nail polish

Today's post is about a contest ive entered in. It is the Sally Hansen Vacation nails contest. If you would like more info on how to join click HERE. After having joined preen.me and won several contests, I was offered FREE products from Sally Hansen. How cool is that?!! Then, preen.me contacted me last month to tell me about Sally Hansen's latest nail contest. Prizes are any where from $500 - $2000 and a trip to NYC to meet the Sally Hansen people. So you know, im trying a win this thing right? :)

Here is my representation of a vacation, a luxurious stay in Dubai, where luxury, comfort and price are NOT AN ISSUE!!! :)

So what do you all think? Do i have a chance of winning? 

Enter NOW for your chance to win great prizes too!!

Until next time,

"Have a grand day and dont forget to Glaze!"

Day 49: DIY Crayola Watercolor Nail art

Hello lovelies,
Today is a different kind of post. I have been dabbling in creativity and using different mediums in hopes to create different kinds of nail art and techniques. I saw somewhere on pinterest that a lady used her kids watercolor paints to create nail art. So you know i had to try this too. ;)~

I began hunting for the cheapest water color paint set i could find, while sticking to the Crayola brand, as i have loved that brand since a child. Nothing worked better than Crayola for me. Not Roseart, store brand, etc. I was an absolute Crayola fanatic as a child. Thinking back, i have always loved art and creating things. Any who, i remember having the big, almost briefcase looking, crayon holder. Anyone else have one of those as a kid? PLEASE do share if you have. This briefcase contraption looked very much like the one (i found via google) below.

So now as an adult, i traveled store to store in hopes to find Crayola water color paints. I ended up finding one for less than $2 bucks and then the following week, found another one for $1.49 while on a grocery run. Both i brought home with me.  :) :)

TECHNIQUES:
I have never worked with watercolor paints on the nails so i didnt have a technique to go off. SORRY folks. It was a trial and error kind of thing.

 The above picture is the watercolor paints and the different dots i played around with

FROM LEFT TO RIGHT:
Nail #1 was me using a dotting tool and dipping it in water color paints then dotting on the nail
Nail #2 was me using a cutip and lightly dabbing at the wet dots to soak up some colors (in attempts to try the bubble effect i see alot on instagram.....don't think it worked quite well. What do you think?)
Nail #3 After letting the water color dots dry for a few minutes, I again used the cutip and dabbed more of the watercolor off, to create a washout effect (kinda like this one alot....why? idk)

EACH nail was painted 2 coats of white polish and let to dry BEFORE attempting water color on them. This is a MUST unless you want a big smeary mess.

The picture above is some of my favorite designs using the Crayola water color paints. 

So, what do you guys think?Are you tempted to try watercolor nail art too?

Do you hate it?

Lemme know PLEASE :) :) 

Until next time,

"Have a grand day and dont forget to Glaze!"