Monday, November 24, 2014

Fun with Black and White




Hello Lovely Readers!

Today's nail design is all about different looks with black and white! I only showed 2 in my mani but the possibilities are practically endless.

I absolutely love black and white together, seriously. Anyone who knows me knows it is in my top five color combos. In fact, my bedsheets are varied patterns of black and white and my room is painted with 1 black accent wall and 3 very very light grey walls. The black wall has some turquoise diamonds for a pop of color. I LOVE BLACK AND WHITE! So, it was only natural that it should end up on my nails.
Left hand
I started off with a basecoat, as always to protect my natural nails and then two coats of Sinful Colors 'Snow Me White' as my base color. Now I did the white as a base color on all my nails because I thought originally that I would paint them all in the jigsaw design.


Starting at my thumbs, I used off-brand invisible scotch tape cut into small squares with smooth edges to block off opposite sides on the top and bottom of my nail. Then I painted over the open areas with Sally Hansen's Hard as Nails 'Black Heart'. While the polish was still wet, I carefully removed the tape to 'hopefully' get clean lines. Most of my lines did come out clean.
Right hand
For the few smudged lines I used a very small (size 2, I think) square brush to touch it up a bit. Then I used my little homemade dotting tool to put one dot of black in the white boxes where they met, and vice versa for the white dots. Voila! Easy jigsaw puzzle pieces!
Right hand


I moved on and started the design on my index fingers, but even though I'm not sure how much you can tell by the pictures, I have VERY small nail beds. Every manicurist I have ever had has commented on my tiny nails, LOL. Anyway, because my nails are so small, the puzzle piece came out looking very smushed. I didn't like it at all. So, I took it off and decided to only do the jigsaws as accent nails on my larger nails, specifically the thumbs and middle fingers.

Left Hand

For the remaining nails, I went over the white with a single coat of black and then added my dots! I liked the idea of the dots because it kind of stayed with the geometric theme of the puzzle pieces. I added a topcoat for some shine and to seal in the design. I will be shopping for a new top coat this weekend because my drugstore brand topcoat is still smudging my designs ten minutes after applying the polish. Any recommendations? Leave them in the comments! Thanks for reading and 'see' you next time!

9 comments:

  1. Black and white is my all time fav. color combination too. This color combo is timeless and never fails. Loved your nail designs..

    ReplyDelete
  2. I love your puzzle pieces! And the black/white combo is perfect!

    ReplyDelete
  3. So cute! I have small nail beds too. When I used to wear acrylics, it's the one thing all the nail techs complained about.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I love those puzzle pieces, so cute! :)

    ReplyDelete
  5. Black and White is SO in right now! I'm seeing it all over the place in fashion! I need to translate this onto my nails soon! For a top coat I'm currently using Beauty Wonder Products Marvel Top coat. Most drug store brands just don't quite cut it for me!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Black and white manis are my weakness lol love the jigjaw.

    ReplyDelete
  7. The puzzle pieces are my favourite! I use Seche Vite. It is the only top coat I've tried that doesn't smudge nail art.

    ReplyDelete