Konad: M65 Design with French Tip

It has been so long since I attempted to Konad because, my nails were not worthy of polish or paint due to how brittle it was and how easily it broke. I have been taking Biotin supplements alongside my usual vitamins and I must say my nails are looking much better and stronger now. Another problem I have is dry and scaly cuticles. My cuticles grow very quickly and become rough and hard causing me to pull and peel at them - bad right? I'd like to think that I have kept to my resolution this year which is to take better care of my nails and cuticles. So I present to you my latest Konad adventure.

For the design you see above, I primed my nails by giving them a clear coat of Sally Hansen's Hard as Nails and then used one coat of light pink natural tone from a Sally Hansen French Manicure set. 

I then took out my M65 plate and chose this design - you can still see the white Konad Special Nail polish that I used for the design on it! I transferred this design as best as I could placing it on one side of my nail and stamping it all the way to the other side.

For the white tips, I free handed the French design on my nail tips with the white polish you see above and set everything again with Hard as Nails. I stamped the nail design first and then did the french tips for a neater look. I was quite pleased at how my french tips turned out seeing that I could not for the life of me pick up the french tip design on my Konad plate. It came off in bits. I also did not have any nail tip stickers with me for the french tip so a freehand was what I settled on and it turned out ok.

This look lasted one whole week with light washing involved so it is really worth the time and effort you take to use a top coat and Sally Hansen's Hard as Nails, really deliver. Make sure you also coat the edges of your nails and the underside with the product to ensure that everything is well protected!

My First O.P.I and Some New Konad Plates

Love, love, love these O.P.I polishes and they are my first O.P.I.

The cutest quad on the block!

Meet Mauving to Manhattan, Brisbane Bronze, Royal Rajah Ruby and Malaga Wine.

Some swatches of the quadruplets.

From the top now....

• Royal Rajah Ruby is a deep red that has a delicious dose of shimmer worked into it
• Malaga Wine is the perfect shade of red and RED is my absolute favourite color!
• Brisbane Bronze - orangey brown and also has shimmer worked in
• Mauving to Manhattan - a sweet pinky purple

Royal Rajah Ruby and Malaga wine are difficult colors to wear in a corporate office. If your nails are kept super short then it would be totally wearable as it won't seem OTT. If you have long nails on the other hand, I would stay away from these two babies and keep them for weekends.

Brisbane Bronze and Malaga Wine on the other hand are more office friendly and totally wearable because your nails won't scream "Look at me!"  

I also picked up some Konad plates (S6, M69, M70 and M72) which means only one thing - you, dear readers can look forward to some nail porn! 

Birthday Nails!

This is a design I did for my precious daughter who celebrated her 8th birthday on the 23rd. She had asked me to do her nails for her birthday and I wanted her to have something sweet on her special day. Besides, school is now out in this part of the world so it is good that she gets to enjoy looking at her nails for a while.

My little girl simply adores the color blue...so most of what we buy her usually has some blue in it. Hence I chose this bright and cheery blue color from Etude House.

As you can see in this picture below, she is posing with a little doggie soft toy which she calls "Vanilla". Vanilla has been with her since she was a few months old and my little girl usually has him cuddled in her arms when she goes to sleep every night.

I'm sure you are wondering why, dear reader, we call him Vanilla.....well, when my husband first brought him home, my daughter was only a few months old and could not talk yet, so we decided that he needed a name and came up with Vanilla because of his slightly milky color.

He is such a cutie. However, if you see, my daughter has her hands on the top of Vanilla's head in the photo's - this is because there is a big hole there! This was unfortunately caused by her younger sister poking a pencil through his head one day!!

The design that I chose for this Konad was a cute little bow ( see plate M71 below) done using the Konad Special nail polish in white. She initially decided on the design of the girls head on the left but it was a little too big to fit on to her wee nails.

Do you like this design dear readers?

Christmassy Nails!

Christmas is but a few short weeks away and already I am excited! The children have dragged out and dusted off last years Christmas CD's and the songs are really adding to the festive feel around our home.

So, dear readers, I decided to do a Konad with a Christmas theme.

Below are the colors that I chose for this nail design. You can also see the Konad stamping set that I have used. My first stamping set is the smaller stamper and plastic scraper. I much prefer this one which I purchased at InQBox at One U.

I like this set because I am able to grip the stamper better and there are two ends one large and one smaller, (the green end which is hard to see in this picture) which I use to stamp on my little pinky. As I mentioned in previous posts, my first few attempts at stamping designs were awful because my stamper refused to pick up the design. I now know that you should always use a fine file to file your stamper before you begin your very first stamping - this works like a dream as the finely buffed rubber surface picks up the design well.

All the colors I used including the Etude House clear coat.

Here are the details of the colors that were involved in this Konad:-

Etude House - No. 40 - (A sheer pink with subtle glittery goodness in it!) I used 2 coats of this.

Elianto - No. 40 (what a coincidence that both are No.40!) - Grape Wine.

Etude House - Clear Nail Top Coat - No. 05

Not really good for Konads as they smudge the design - I do have the Special Konad clear nail varnish but chose to use this one instead.....bummer!

Etude House - Mini French - Gold
This was used to add accents - altho' my legendary crap skills at photo taking did not capture the golden goodness on my nails well.

The M63 image plate was used to create this design.

There is no close up of this nail because in my excitement to capture this on film before my little girls smudged them, I forgot to clean up my nails and they look so bad!

KOTW - Konad of the Week!

Please say hello to my Konad of the Week!


For this Konad I started out with a clear coat of polish and added a French Tip.

I saw a really good tip via youtube on using sticky tape (cellophane tape or cellotape) to do the french tip instead of the special french tip stickers that are commonly used. I was quite interested to know whether this would really work because the last time I used the french tip stickers, it left a sticky film on my painted nails and I had to take off the polish and start over!


This is how this NOTW was done. I painted a clear coat of polish on my nails and waited 10 minutes for it to dry well. I then snipped up 10 small pieces of cellotape. Once my nails were really dry, I stuck the tape carefully across to do a straight french tip. I then painted on Sally Hansens white French Tip color twice and waited for that to dry well before I took off the cellotape. I then carefully peeled off the cellotape and voila, perfect french tips without leaving a sticky film on my nails!


I then stamped a design from M71 to the tips using the Dark Maroon Special Nail Polish

This design that you see on the M71 is the one that I used on my tips. Below is a close-up of my nail.

After about 3 days, I got a little tired of the design and added this from the M57. Again, I used cellotape to achieve this design! I taped off the tips and stamped the design to the rest of my nail. As you can see on my middle finger, I did not really do a good job of stamping the design, I was a little tired that evening...

If you are doing a french tip, why not try using cellotape instead of french nail stickers?

I hope you enjoyed viewing my little Konad adventure!

K.O.T.D

Today I would like to show you another of my Konad creations. Do let me know what you think...



For this Konad I used 2 layers of Sally Hansen's Buffed Sand which is a sheer brown and Konad's Special Nail Polish in Black.





This is the plate that I used - M9 - and the design is the one that is boxed in the image below.

Here is a closer look at the design and how it turned out so clearly on my thumbnail.

I had read on many websites that working with the Black Special Nail Polish can get a little messy and it is true. However, because I knew what to expect I was more careful and did not pick up a lot of color on the brush to cover the design on the plate. This helped as I did not get too much excess paint to deal with. The black color did stain one of my fingers and after a few washes, it came off so it was not much of a problem.

What do you think of this design dear reader?

KOTW - Konad of the Week!

Hello dear readers,

I have yet another Konad to show you and I am really having a fun time with my Konads, I must say!

I have called this the "Mehendi" or henna tattoo Konad because I chose the maroon Konad Special Nail polish on nude nails for this and I used Plate Number 9 - the image is the one to the left of the 'belt' image.

After I had done the image and put on a clear coat of polish, I thought that the nail looked plain and so I added a bit of brown glitter to the tips. I must admit that I took these photo's close to a week after I had done the nail so the tips were beginning to show some wear and tear.

I am by no means good at this yet but I do hope you enjoyed looking at the pictures!

Have a lovely day!

TNOTD!

I thought you should also see a ToeNail of the Day! I am Toe'Nading now!

This is not the clearest of pictures as it was taken using my mobile phone. I used the M41 plate you see above with a design that fit nicely on the top corner of my toe. Its the design right above the butterfly. I don't remember now, but the polish I used would have been one from Maybelline.

I cannot tell you how much I enjoy having designs on my fingers and toes. Its like having a secret and keeping it with you. I delight in looking at them or if my shoes are totally covered, I get a little buzz of happiness just thinking that my toes are all pretty inside my shoes. I feel sexy too. Its like a little pick me up when I need it to get me through the day! Hope you enjoyed my Toe'Nading!

Konad Crazy! My First NOTD!

I have been indeed a happy camper these past few weeks. Remember my Konad haul? Yep, my introduction to the world of Konading came via PrettyBeautiful and her NOTD's. I was so fascinated by Konad that I went out and bought the stuff. I had read that Etude House (Bukit Bintang) and InQBox (1Utama) carried them and initially made my way to EH to check it out. Sadly, they carried limited plates and were out of the stamping tool when I was there. I then purchased the stamping tool as well as the special nail polishes from http://konad.com.my/ and two (yes! just two) days later, my products arrived!

I must say, my intial excitement was met with disappointment when I was unable to stamp the beautiful designs on to my nails as easily as I had seen them being done on youtube! It was really strange because the first image usually transferred nicely but subsequently they all never came off the plate on to the stamping tool! I was stumped. I tried everything.....to stamping without the fan switched on to pressing the stamper really hard to pick up the image....nothing worked! I am not one to give up easily so I left the stuff aside for a couple of days and started to do my research on the net on how to get around this problem. I sent prettybeautiful an e-mail which she replied with useful tips and I also looked for videos online for help. Here is what I found:-

Casual Lavish has a good tutorial with plenty of tips here- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWDsEyS8nPs and together with prettybeautiful and her tips, I was successful in learning how to do it correctly.

For those who are starting out, a few key things to remember are:-

• filing the stamping tool with a fine nail file before you begin using it - this is particularly helpful if the tool is too smooth and is not picking up your design.
  


• ensuring that you do not touch the image plates with your fingers, as the natural oils may get in the way of the design sticking to the stamper



• using nail polish that is 100% acetone or one that does not have moisturizers that could introduce oils to the image plates/stamper

So, now I would like to introduce you to my NOTD!

For this look I used a pinky brown nail color from Bloop de Paris and topped it off with a design from the M57 plate you see above. I was really happy with the outcome as I had been trying really hard for some weeks now to produce something worthy for my readers (hey MOM!!) to see. I hope you like it and I hope to do more NOTD's.