TUTORIAL: Neon Cut-Out Nails

   'Ello 'ello 'ello! How are we all today? :D So you all remember my most recent neon cut-out nails right? 

   Well today, for all my beautiful followers, I've put together a (hopefully simple to follow) picture tutorial - I have left it unfiltered so you get the joy of seeing my naked nails in all their stained glory ♥

What you'll need:

Top Coat 

White Polish/ Black Polish

2 Neon Polishes

Small Nail Art Brush

   1. Start off by marking out the cut-out design with some black polish - I used Sinful Colors Black on Black - and a small nail art brush.
   2. Again with the small brush, colour in the panels you want to be coloured later in a white polish - I used Sinful Colors Snow Me White.
   3. Alternating between your 2 neon colours of choice - mine were BYS Anyone for Tennis? and Australis #totesamaze - colour in the panels. Depending on your polish, you may need more than 1 coat - I used 2 coats of each colour.
   4. With your black polish and small brush, re-trace over the black outline making each coloured panel more defined. If you make a mistake, dipping the small brush into acetone and "rubbing out" your mistake on the nail like an eraser really helps in keeping the lines straight!
   5. Wait for the black polish to dry before painting a layer of top coat on to seal it all in! Make sure to give it all time to dry before top coating - or use a top coat you know won't smudge - so you don't smear the design.

   Et Voila! Neon cut out nails! Hopefully that was easy enough to understand, and if not, feel free to shoot me a message or leave a comment, and I'll get back to you as soon as I read it!

   I'd also love to see your recreations using this tutorial if you do choose to recreate it! Just post it onto my facebook page Nails at 2am, or tag me on Instagram @xtinemayyy!

NOTD: Neon Leopard Print + Tutorial

AND BAM! 

Back to neons *grin* 

   My mini breakdown over pastels and neons in my last blogpost (and a little "Who are you, and where is Christine?!" comment from Kirsty over at Nail Cake) I'm back to sporting neons. This gradient is more eye catching then I'd imagined.. I even thought it may have been a little too bright, but really, who am I kidding?! :P 

   I used Ulta3 Tangelo, W7 Fuchsia and Kleancolor Neon Amethyst for the gradient - you can just barely see the purple tips in the photo. Though I LOVED these as they were (gradients are always a good go-to when lacking inspiration) I was craving more "pop". And hence, these:

   REOWR! I used a dotting tool to add the spots and the golden rectangle accent stud is from the bornprettystore online. A slick of top coat to seal everything in and my fingers were ready to blind and amaze! :P

   I also put together a quick picture tutorial:

What you'll need:

Base Coat / Top Coat

White / Black Polish

3 Neon Polishes

Dotting Tool

Make Up Sponge

Stud (Optional)

   1. Start off with your favourite base coat, then one to two coats of white (depending on opacity). Mine is one coat of Sinful Colors Snow Me White. Wait a few minutes until the white is at least touch dry.
   2. Sponge on your neon gradient. I used Ulta3 Tangelo, W7 Fuchsia and Kleancolor Neon Amethyst in that order. Optional - seal off with a fast drying top coat, in my opinion this makes the gradient blend better.

   3. With your dotting tool (or anything similar, a bobby pin, a toothpick), create 'spots' using alternating colours as the background - i.e. orange spots on the purple tips, pink spots on the orange half etc.

   4. Again with your dotting tool, add the black leopard accents on the spots, also adding the smaller leopard spots in the spaces in between.

   5. Seal everything off with a top coat, and et voila! ♥

   6. Optional - keep an accent nail spot free and add a golden rectangular stud. 

   Also remember you don't have to stick to the colours I used - I dare y'all to use some neon yellow, or neon blues or greens!) and if any of you do do a mani like this I'd love to see it, so tag me on Instagram (@xtinemayyy) or leave me a comment here and I'll go check it out.

   OR..

   You can share it on my facebook page! Yes I now have one - and I'll make a separate blog post to announce it later of course. Just search Nails At 2am on facebook or go to https://www.facebook.com/NailsAtTwoAm 

   And just as a little side rant... I hate the fact I had to use "TwoAm" instead of "2am"!!?!?!?! 

   Anywayssss :P I hope you'll continue to support me over on facebook as well :D

Floral French Tip + Tutorial

   Hey lovelies! How are we all today? :D 

   I've been feeling a little girly recently and really felt like rocking some classic french tips, but I just couldn't keep it plain... just had to add some nail art on top. 

   I REALLY loved how these turned out! Especially with my makeshift rhinestone accent piece :P I also had my dad's SLR camera this weekend so I was able to take nice lightbox pics of these babies. I've been wearing this mani for the past 4 days.. longer than most of my other manis!!

   I also squeezed in time to create a picture tutorial on these today just before work. They're actually quite quick and easy to do! A lot of blobbing and swirling :P

  So I started with 1 coat of a nude/pink jelly Essence Sweet as Candy and topped that off with 1 coat of Ulta3 xoxo. Then, using a small brush (or the brush straight from the bottle) paint on the white french tip following your smile line.

   With a purple (Beauty Attitude Grape Smoothie) and a pink (Revlon Sweet Tart), make a couple of blobs as bases for your roses. With a green (Ulta3 Tahitian Lime) and a black (Sinful Colors Black on Black) fill in the white gaps.

   With darker purples and pinks, draw the squiggly lines for your petals. Then with your original purple and pink, and a white polish, add highlights to your roses and continue swirling the colours until you're happy. Then with a gold polish, I used Orly Glitzy, add highlights onto your black leaves. 

   For the rhinestone accent, dab a bit of topcoat near the base of the nail and attach the crystal flatback rhinestone. Then add the silver caviar beads one by one around the rhinestone. That was probably the hardest part of the design! haha in my case, it was difficult to create the circle around the rhinestone *D'oh*

   A coat of top coat should seal in the design, and et voila! A floral french tip mani that I reallllllly don't want to take off.. and I might actually keep it on for a couple more days :P Though I do feel like trying some heart shaped tips! 

   I encourage you all to give it a try, and I'd love to see your recreations if you do so tag me, or give me a shoutout and ill check it out! 

xx Christine

Colourama

   I'm ALIVE! I survived the rush at work today! Although my previous mani wasn't chipped, my hands and cuticles were in pretty bad shape afterwards. So as much as it pained me to see my neon grunge nails gone, I took them off and showed my hands and cuticles a little TLC. 

   After they were all oiled up and moisturised, I topped them off with this neon geometric pattern. I used Ulta3 Citrus (seriously can't get enough of this polish), Face of Australia Polyester Girl, BC Co. Shade 12, Rimmel Sky High, China Glaze Flip Flop Fantasy and BC Co. Shade 13. 

   After taking pictures of the mani and uploading them onto the computer, I realized maybe these would look a little more interesting with a black linear pattern on top. It's 4:04am over here, so I'm not really in the mood to add the black and retake the photos haha So I'll try the black tomorrow and add those photos in the next post. 

 

   These seemed simple enough in my head, but took a lot longer than I anticipated! So I haven't actually painted my right hand yet. That'll have to wait until tomorrow, and those will probably be in the next post too. Instead, have more pictures of my left hand! :P

   ALSO! As promised, I did a quick picture tutorial for the Neon Grunge nails from yesterday. 

   It's basically starting off with a white base, then with the brush from the nail polish bottle, paint on the neon colours. Wait for the colours to dry, then with a black polish, make sure to have as little polish on the brush as possible, and just swipe it over the nail in random strokes. Then top it off with a top coat of your choice (: Et voila neon grunge nails. 

   If you guys have any further questions, feel free to leave a comment and I'll get back to you ASAP ^^

I♥IKAT TUTORIAL

Tada, tutorial! ;D

The picture tutorial itself is pretty self explanatory but I've provided, what I hope to be a clear description of the steps as well. So here goes!
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Start off with your base coat and 2 coats of white polish.

Need: 6 pastel polishes, 1 black polish, a nail art brush (base coat+top coat as per usual and acetone + brush for clean up)

For the purpose of this tutorial I've labelled the nails 1, 2 and 3.

For nail #1
1. With your nail art brush, starting with yellow, paint tiny vertical strokes/ dashes, one next to the other, creating the zigzag pattern.
2. With your remaining colours, paint on the same tiny strokes/ dashes following the zigzag pattern created in step 1.
3. With your nail art brush and black nail polish, using the same techniques in steps 1 and 2, paint tiny black strokes between the light pink and yellow, and between the blue and purple, also creating a zigzag pattern.

For nail #2
1. Using the same technique in Nail #1 create a V shape pattern with all 6 colours.2. With your black polish and nail art brush, create an ikat heart shape by painting small strokes following the V shape.

For nail #3
1. Create a dark pink to light pink to white gradient.2. With your nail art brush, create miniature heart shapes on top of the gradient.3. Again with your nail art brush and using the same technique in Nails #1 and #2, create an ikat heart shape by outlining the miniature hearts with your black polish.

Top it off with your favourite top coat and don't forget to clean up your cuticles (:

**Remember you don't have to follow the design colour for colour, be creative and if ever you try it, leave a comment with a link, I'd love to see what all your imaginations come up with! (:


Toodles~