What I did in December...

Wow, that went fast!  This month I learned how to do Gel Nails (different from Gel Polish or Acrylic Nails) and I did a few sets of Gel Nails and one set of Acrylics.  I REALLY like doing Gel Nails - they're easy, you just brush the gel on the nails.  They're quicker, not nearly as much sanding as acrylic nails and I think doing designs with Gel Nails offers many more possibilities than with acrylics so I'm looking forward to playing around with them more!

Here's my month in pictures, in random order:

Gel Nails!  Allie, one of my co-workers came in to school and let me practice on her - thanks Allie!

I am LOVING Gel Nails because I can put embelishments like the stars and glitter between the layers of Gel!  For Allie I used white tips and my own clear gel, stars and glitter.

Acrylics for Jill - note the glitzy gold tips for Christmas, whoo hoo!

Jill is the first client I have worked on who wanted longer nails - I was so excited!  I used the darker Pink powder and my own gold glitter with a clear top coat.

This is my very first set of Gel Nails - I practiced on Stefani, a classmate.  I used the schools gel (a pearly, glittery gel) and my own blue glitter.  The white circle on her ring finger is actually a snowflake... we learned that it's important to put the snowflake a little closer to the surface layer of gel than the foundation layer of gel when using a pearly/glittery gel because it went from being a snowflake to a circle, lol!

Another set of Gel Nails for my daughter Rachel.  She prefers the rounded corners and I used white tips, my own clear gel and silver glitter.

I'm finding that the glitter tends to go all over the nail as I brush the next layer on.  So far everyone likes it but I'm going to have to find another way to deal with wayward glitter for the people who don't want it!

And last but not least I did my own Gel Nails!  I used natural tips, my own clear Gel and rhinestones for a simple, elegant and natural look.

I really like how I was able to use the gel to cover the rhinestones leaving the surface of the nail smooth!

Nails, Nails, Nails Everywhere!

Wow, so it's just barely over a week since my last blog but it seems like a lot longer than that!  For Thanksgiving I got a four-day holiday from both work and school and  it was absolutely fantastic.

Here's what I did (or didn't do):  I slept in and cooked Thursday for Thanksgiving, I slept in and did a little shopping on Black Friday for the first time in probably 10 years but I'm not sure it really counted as "Black Friday" shopping because by the time we got there the stores are nearly empty, making it the perfect time to go!  I slept in and  did acrylic nails and toes and two gel polishes on Saturday, I slept in and went to church then did two more gel polishes on Sunday.

Out of the five people who live in my house four of us are girls and we all have pretty nails now!  So here's what I did in the order I did them:

MY FIRST PINK AND WHITES:  I did my very first set of pink and whites on my daughter Rachel, which was also my very first set of sculpted acrylics.  They didn't seem as hard as I thought they would be and yet they didn't come out quite as good as I hoped they would be either, lol!

Reusable forms and beginning the white tips

To sculpt the nails I used a set of reusable forms that I got at a beauty supply store near my school and they were sooooo much easier than the sticker forms.  Those were definitely a great purchase...  I used the white powder for the tips and formed those first.  Even though I thought I made them too thick on some nails the smile line wasn't very difficult - except for the pointy ends, ha, ha.  They were uneven but that's why I need the practice, eh?

The first finger has the pink powder, the rest of the fingers
only have the white tip

After completing the white tips I filled the rest of the nail in with a pink powder, which was probably one of the easiest things I've ever done, yay!  Although after I was done I realized that I didn't make the white tips thick enough after all and had to go back over them, which  made a couple of them look funny after I filed them because they had a white layer on the bottom, a clear/pink layer in the middle and another, very thin, white layer on the top.  Hmmm...




This is also the first set of nails that I did almost all of my filing with my dremel.  Awesome!  I picked up a box of medium and a box of fine sanding bands and a carbide bit on Black Friday and got to use them Saturday.  :)  The result was the sanding took a lot less time but I was left with some flat spots so obviously I need more practice with the dremel and neither the sanding band nor the carbide bit gave me the silky-smooth finish I was looking for so I still had to do the fine buffing by hand.  I'm hoping there's a finer carbide bit out there somewhere that
will give me a super smooth and shiny finish.  Has anybody used the buffing bits? I'm wondering if that would be a good investment as well.  Hmmm...

At any rate, the dremel and bits made the sanding faster for me and more tolerable for Rachel.  She didn't say "ouch" nearly as often as she does when I hand-file her nails, yay!

The finished product - my very first set of Pink and Whites!

I topped the nails off with a clear coat of gel polish and voila!  Rachel loves her nails, yay!

Now we'll see how long they last...  ;)

MY ACRYLIC TOES:  I have sad, strange little toenails and have put acrylics on them a couple of other times in my life using those little acrylic kits from Walmart.  I've even tried to get a professional shop to put acrylics on my toes a couple of different times and they always say no because my toenails were too small!  I, however, remain undaunted and continue to do it myself from time to time but this is the first time I've ever applied them with professional products and real training under my belt!  Although my timing may be a bit off because it's not really open-toed sandal season right now but that's never really stopped me from wearing sandals either, lol!

Yes, I wore my pretty sandals to church on Sunday
so I could show off my cheery, holiday sparkling red toes!

I used the sticker forms because the reusable ones weren't big enough for my big toes and it was just easier to use the stickers on the smaller toes too.  The acrylic I used was a pink/natural color and then I covered them with a sparkly red gel polish.  The shape of the acrylics are not perfect, I see several spots I should have done better and that's in part because I'm getting old and my eyesight isn't so good, trying to look clear down to my toes and also because my "girlish figure" prevented me from leaning over for extended periods of time so I just got the job done and wasn't able to do the best job I could do.  I know I would do a lot better on someone else's toes so keep me in mind for spring and summer, eh?

See the stars on her big toes?

Sara and I have matching toes now!

SARA'S TOES:  My daughter Sara wanted acrylics on her toes too but I talked her into just getting gel polish instead as she wears tennis shoes most of the time.  She chose the same sparkly red gel polish that I had used on my toes and we put some star accents on her big toes just fun!

Putting the stars on her toes was interesting and I need to figure out a better way to do it.  Gel polish has a sticky inhibition layer after being cured and so the stars stick to it just fine when I'm placing them but when I try to cover them with the top coat to seal them in they slide around so I had to do some rearranging before putting her feet into the UV lamp to cure.

My  fun, color-
changing hearts!

MY FINGERS:  I tried to soak the gel polish off my acrylics but they were so overdue for a fill that they just popped off.  Sad.  I'm sure I could apply acrylics to my left hand but I'm afraid my right hand would look like a bunch of lumpy globs at the end of my fingers, ha, ha, so I went for gel polish instead.

Stepping outside of the box so far (for me anyway) that I couldn't even see there was a box anymore I chose a granny-apple green gel polish and color-changing hearts that go from blue to green depending on which angle you're looking at them.  Please realize that this is waaayyy out of my comfort zone, seriously!  I rarely put wild colors on my nails and if I'm going to wear green clothing I like more of a classy, emerald green - this light green is much too close to neon for me - and I would have never gone for hearts like this (I'm not a big fan of decorating with hearts, don't know why) but I'm purposefully pushing myself to try new things and I'm finding out that it's kind of fun... and not as scary as I thought it might be, yay!



SARA'S FINGERS:  Sara can't wear bright nail polishes at her job so she wanted a natural colored gel polish - and then picked some gigantic black and white bows to put on her thumbs!

These things are crazy, they are absolutely straight and do not curve at all so only the very center is attached to the nail and the sides stick out.  I used a dot of superglue to hold them on and then tried to fill under the sides with gel topcoat and then cure it.

Hopefully they stay on...

Update - while she was at work last night one of the bows came off, bummer!  Now I need to file the nail smooth and re-apply the gel polish to match the others - but that will probably be tomorrow.





And my final nail-related activity of the weekend:


MARIYA'S FINGERS:  Mariya picked a pretty pink color of gel polish and then some light purple rhinestones to accent the tips.  So pretty!

Having learned from putting the bows on Sara's thumbs I tried something new with the rhinestones on Mariya's fingers - I put each rhinestone on the sticky layer, just dabbed them with the top coat and then cured them, then went  back over the nails with a complete top coat.  The rhinestones did not go anywhere so I think that really helped.  The only thing I noticed was that on a few rhinestones I used too much top coat in my "dab" and it made a little mountain around the rhinestone.  The final top coat did smooth the mountain out a little bit but the next time I do it I will try to dab just enough to cure the rhinestones in place and not make a mountain so the finished nail will be smoother.

And that was my Thanksgiving weekend activities, lots of fun!