Short Nail Growth Progress

by VioletLeBeaux | Nov 15, 2012 | Life, Nails

So it’s been just over 2 months since I started growing out my nails and has there been any progress? There has!

Here are some progress shots along the way!

Honestly this time has been a lot easier than it was last time. I think last time I focused on the growing part and obsessed about it. As a result I had really nice nails but it seemed like it took forever to get them to a decent length and I was doing a different nail art designe very few days so it took up a lot of time.

This time I didn’t have time for that at all. I barely managed to paint them let alone do nail art. Having Lottie really helped to take my mind of it as well as all of the crafting and sewing I’ve been doing for Home Sweet Home. I think that’s been the key, rather than thinking about biting my nails I replaced the habit with something a lot more constructive: making things and getting the rest of my life on track.

Of course I didn’t manage to grown my nails as long as James’ epic guitar thumbnail. I don’t know if I’ll ever be a pro like him XD

Seriously, I don’t know how he does it and manages to keep it so strong!

This was around two weeks ago:

And now:

This was the length that I was aiming for and in 2 months I achieved it! Goals for the win!

Of course they look a bit more impressive painted. I did this Lady Rainicorn nail art from Adventure Time for Halloween. Tutorial coming soon!!!

Now if I can get them even longer it’s just a bonus. I’m going to grow them for a few more weeks and see if I can maintain that length. Not sure how I’ll deal with it if there’s a breakage, I might file them all back then and start from scratch.

Either way I’m happy to have reached a goal. I think I’ve finally kicked my nail biting habit which is even better!

For those of you who were doing this with me, how have you gone with your goals? Are your nails nice and healthy?

Puppy Introduction and Finally a Curly One Sided Updo Tutorial! Also Kiss Nail Sticker!

by VioletLeBeaux | Oct 29, 2012 | Hair, Hair-Tutorials, Nail-Art-Tutorials, Nails, Tutorial, Video-Tutorials, Violet Vision Videos

Round up time!

First up my favorite video of all time because it features Miss Lottie!

This tutorial has been requested for aaaages and honestly I’m not sure why I didn’t do it earlier, it’s so easy XD So here’s my all time favorite hairstyle, the big curly one sided thing… it really needs a catchier name -_-‘

This week I played with the first set of Kiss Nail Stickers which were given to me by the lovely Sefie! I preferred these to the other vinyl ones I’ve tried which had a tendency to peel off and the designs are very blingy 😀

Following on form Zombies last week, here is the behind the scenes video! It’s pretty funny, well the dancing is XD This is what usually happens on our photo shoots haha!

Hope you all had a good weekend! ^_^

Short Nail Painting Tips and My Favorite Mannicure

by VioletLeBeaux | Oct 16, 2012 | Nail-Art-Tutorials, Nails, Tutorial

Still growing out my nails! I haven’t written about it as much I meant to because of the fluffy little dog who’s sleeping in my lap at the moment. Lottie can be a very distracting puppy with all of her adorableness… also her love of standing on my keyboard doesn’t really help either XD

Aaaanyway today I wanted to share my manicure routine and show you guys an easy way to do retro styled moon manicures.

I used:

Base coat from Daiso
Purple Pretty Serious Polish
Gold glitter Ulta 3 polish
Top coat from Daiso
Nivea hand cream
Clippers
A thick rubber band

First off is some basic maintenance, I use hand cream to soften everything up and moisturise my fingers. I try to use hand cream a couple of times a day but I am quite forgetful.

Next I use the point part of the clippers to remove any dirt under the nail gently. Normally I would use a cuticle stick for this because I hate the feel of metal but I’m totally out at the moment >_<

My cuticles are pretty dry and beat up because I use my hands a lot day to day but they’re getting better slowly.

After my hands are dry I paint a base coat, sometimes two. This prevents the polish from staining the nail and also give it some strength.

Really short nails can be kind of irritating to paint clearly because it can be hard to keep the polish off the end of the finger. My solution to this is using a rubberband to pull back the skin and you’ll get a clean coat every time.

Hold the rubberband like this and it will gently move the skin away and make a barrier for the polish.

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Now just paint as normal and go straight over the rubberband.

Take the rubberband away and it will take the extra polish with it. Keep going with each finger and you’ve got nice perfect manicure!

You can use the same technique for making vintage moons or french tips without any overflow too. You just need to hold the rubberband tightly in the shape you want. I decided to do some glitter moon shapes so I held the rubberband like this:

Then painted the glitter polish over the top.

After removing the rubberband (while the polish is still wet) you should get something like this:

As long as you can hold the rubberband steady you’ll get a good result. This makes painting your non-dominant hand much easier too.

Once everything it dry it’s time for a top coat!

Super shiny and pretty 😀 Much less clean up than usual too!

I hope the tips were a bit helpful for those of you tying to grow out your nails too! Mine are starting to come along nicely, I took these photos quite a while ago! To be honest, it’s been a lot easier this time because I’ve been so busy I haven’t even had time to think about it XD

How are you all going with your progress?

Short Nail Art And My Nail Growing Pledge!

by VioletLeBeaux | Sep 4, 2012 | Nail-Art-Tutorials, Nails, Tutorial

Once every couple of years I go through a nail growing kick. If I don’t have acrylics I always have short nails. Partially because I have naturally weak nails, partially because I am terrible with fidgeting/biting them and partially because I hate the idea that when one of them breaks I have to get rid of all of them.

Ok the real reason is that I have no self control. Like at all. None. Not even a little bit.

But I really want to grow them out again. I thought maybe if I make myself accountable to all of you guys I might actually do it!! In fact if any of you guys want to grow out your nails too we could all be accountable to each other. We can share tips, blog about it and measure our progress etc 😀

So who’s with me?!

Leave me a comment if you want to join in and maybe we can do a weekly progress check. I can link any posts you make about it and do a heap of nail art too.

I’m going to grow them out starting right now, I’m feeling inspired!

As some more inspiration, here are some photos of nail art from the last time I grew out my nails. I was actually pretty successful so here’s hoping we can all do it this time!

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My favorite look from last time:

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For Lunar New Year:

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They got to be around this length before one of them snapped and I cut them all off:

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I’m totally on a mission now, no more biting, no more fiddling and no more poor cuticle care!

From now on only nail polish, hand cream and awesome looking fingers.

I think with all of us trying to do this together I can develop will power 😀 Leave me a comment if you’re going to take up the challenge too!!

Bornite Stone AKA Peacock Stone Nail Art Tutorial

by VioletLeBeaux | Jul 29, 2012 | Nail-Art-Tutorials, Nails, Tutorial

Phew it’s been a while since I did nail art. I’m hoping to be able to do it more often soon. At the moment we’re kind of distracted by all of the puppy planning 😀 I had a craft day last week though and I’ve managed to cross off some reader requests coming up this week! I visited Daiso this week too so now I feel like I have a bit more inspiration for the Home Sweet Home project. recently I’ve been flailing about a bit with a lack of inspiration and motivation but now I have lots of plans!

This nail art look was inspired by Bornite aka Peacock stone. It’s really pretty so make sure you google some photos of it!

This tutorial is in one long image because it was made originally for Tumblr/Pinterest/Deviantart feel free to add me on there or share it around! You can also download it by right clicking and saving as 😀

Hope you enjoyed 😀

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Looking Back on Nail Art

by VioletLeBeaux | May 9, 2012 | Nails

I started cleaning out my craft area today and found a stash old my old nails 😀 I know not all of you have been around here for years so I thought you might enjoy seeing some of my older nail art styles!

Hope you enjoyed 😀

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