So Many Nails!!!

It's been close to a year since I had to leave my comfy day job because of an injury. (Well let's face it, I'm getting up there. It was time.) And although I miss all of my coworkers immensely, I've been really enjoying my time getting familiar with nail tech life. Even though it's been a bit hair raising to leave the steady income behind. We (James and I) have decided that two clients a day is all we need to replace my full time income. That's left me LOADS of time with the grand-baby and I thought it would mean I would have heaps of blogging time. It's been very surprising to learn that I had less time for documenting things. Our wee Beastie will be heading off to school in September and I'll be left to my own devices more and more. We'll have to see how that plays out. In the meantime, Here are a bazzillion (well, not quite) nail art pics from the last month or so. Most are client requests so I can't take credit for the designs, just their execution. 

Bubble Flowers from UV Gel

There are video tutorials of these bubble roses all over YouTube so I won't be documenting the process. I can tell you that these are more than addicting! They are made by what reminds me of a candle making process. Dipping the very tip of a needle tool into gel and curing it repeatedly. Between each dip, I painted petals with gel paint (it seems to work better than gel polish because of it's more opaque qualities. crisper edges) before re-dipping in a light bodied builder gel. Each bubble is finished off with a clear topcoat and cured. When I removed them from the needle tool I needed to file the back to flatten it so I can apply earring studs or pin backs. 

started these guys by dipping into tiny caviar beads. Some are clear and some are silver. I mixed a gradient palette from soft sage green to a peachy pink and each petal layer was a reflection of that palette.

You can see that the petals in the center of the flower look a bit fuzzy or out of focus. I tried to use gel polish for those guys. I realized right away that I needed something more opaque and switched to gel paint. Much better results. The outer petals are slightly darker in shade to the inner ones.

Three shades of purple gel paint to make three layers of petals but the flowers still look full and finished.

I think this flower set showed me that twinning was difficult with more petals. I really do love the look of more and thinner petals though. I think I'll have to have a go with other colours. I used a fine yellow glitter in the center of these flowers instead of the caviar beads.