Teeny Tiny Glitter Quilted Nails

You guys know I'm a little bit cray about glitter by now so I'll spare you the defensive excuses-so-you-don't-judge-me bit and move straight to the glitter.  Because holy crap, look at this glitter would you.  I ordered some new glitter from LoveNailz and just *die*.  I got a whole mess of glitter but the ones that really stood out for me were the tiny holo squares in red, blue, purple and pink.  I had some free time the other day and knew I had to use this glitter, to its full potential.  I think I did that. 

Let me say up front that this was not a quick process.  You need a lot of patience, and that's fine, because I have that.  This was so time-consuming I only did two fingers.  TWO.  But if you have less time, the other three fingers don't take long at all.  This is what you do, for both complex and simple designs: to start, apply your two coats of base colour.  I keep using Rimmel Black Satin because it keeps being on sale and it applies nicely and is shiny.  Using a slow-drying top coat - I'm using Maybelline Color Show clear right now but it really doesn't matter - apply a stripe of top coat down the middle of your nail and lay down your first line of glitter.  If you're going to be particular about the positioning, it should be with this first line because you'll build out either side, using this as a guild.  Just keep doing it til you're sick of doing it, make sure you have something on each nail and call it good.  I have a tutorial (with video!) here, if you want to see more detail.

The Verdict:  I love this so much I can't even think straight, not the least because I finally have square glitter that's actually square and is reasonably straight cut.  Sure, this took forever to do but the holo glitter is so sparkly, it's so complex-looking, it's worth it.  If any of you are quilters as well, I just had to do a bargello pattern with the colours :)

This is What 640 Pieces of Glitter Looks Like On One Hand

So I got some glitter in the mail last week from Glitties.com.  In it, was a bunch of glitter colours small square glitter in a mixture of metallic and holo finishes.  You surely know what's coming right?  With a long weekend of not much happening because I'm Australian and have no family in Canada?  That's right.  ALL.  THE.  FREAKING.  GLITTER.

I posted a picture of this on Instagram earlier this morning and the response was predictable: awesome, but who has the time?? I DO.  I will sacrifice as much time as I need to to show you maximum sparklies!

Right, so I did the usual start, three coats of black polish.  My top coat is running low so I tried an experiment with the glue that came with my nail foils which is pretty much just PVA glue.  It worked ok, and was good for not creating build up but gets glue everywhere.  If I had to rank adhesives, it would go new cheap top coat, glue, old cheap top coat that's gluggy, Seche Vite.  You will cry trying to use Seche Vite to stick glitter on.  Use it for when you're done.  Anyway, so usual technique with the glitter which is to start with a column down the middle of your nail then build out each side.  With so much glitter, do very thin stripes of top coat at a time.  It gets very thick very quickly and your glitter can look uneven.  For the ends of my nails, I stuck the pieces on then trimmed them when they dried.  I cut the pieces beforehand for around my cuticles. 

The Verdict:  I wish my gold glitter was properly gold, I wish I'd added that extra bit of glitter on the ends of my index and middle fingers, I wish I'd cleaned up just a bit more but otherwise I guess it's ok :P.  It's just when you spend this long - I'm not even sure how long really, at this point - you want it to be perfect.  NEXT TIME I WILL HAVE PERFECTION.