NOTD: French Manicure with Ribbons & Gold

Please s'cuse my big hands.

Picked up a few little nail decorations at Daiso earlier in the day, yesterday, and did this manicure in the evening. The beads are a little off now since I fell asleep while the nails were still drying (I had applied mass amounts of top coat). Also, I only finished my left hand. Haha~ Still have to do the right... but this is usually where I get kind of lazy if it's not just a simple one color manicure.





Does anyone have tips on how to shape your nails? If you couldn't tell, this was my first attempt at shaping my nails and oh boy, I have no idea how. :)

Gradient Nail Tutorial & Hello Kitty NOTD

(Click on pictures for larger image. Blogger shrinks my pictures down for some reason).

It's been a while since I've blogged but I'm back with a Gradient Nail Tutorial! I posted a similar tutorial on my old blog but do not have a copy of it to post here for some reason. For this tutorial, I decided to do the tutorial on fake nails since my natural nails aren't long enough. Plus I have cruddy cuticles. This was my first time working with fake nails so excuse the butchered nail. I tried to trim and file without any prior knowledge of how-to.

Onwards to the tutorial! My apologies for the blurry/off pictures. I'm using a new camera that I haven't used before.


Apply a coat of dark pink (or any other color) to the tip of your nails. Here I used Zoya Kate.


Apply a sheer coat of pink (or other color) to the majority of the nail, leaving a bit of white space near your nail bed.


Apply another layer of this sheer pink a little above the previous line. You're slowly creating a gradient.

Continue adding more layers of the sheer polish while slowly moving upwards towards the solid color that you originally applied.








Here I applied PA Nail Color in A116 across the top of the nail:


Then I applied PA Nail Color Premier Lame Grande in AA07 across the entire nail. Apply top coat and then you're finished!:


Thank you, T, for getting me a bunch of nail decals from her recent trip to Asia! :D


Does any one have recommendations on colors to use under nail decals? I have flowers, Disney princesses (YES!), Hello Kitty, and others. I was thinking a nude color but I don't know..