Sunday, February 14, 2010

Happy Chinese New Year + Valentine's Day!


I decided about a month ago that for February 14th, I was going to present you with over-the-top fimo nail art manis. That or manis in red and/or gold polishes. I decided tacky-ass fimo nail art was a more fun idea. I mean, what on earth was I going to do with all of these fimo canes I got off of eBay??


You know what's weird? I want MORE!! The cuteness, it seduces! (I think the little critter underneath the watermelon is supposed to be My Melody.)

Unfortunately, I had a recent break in my index finger and had to shorten my nails. My nails are pretty tiny to begin and it is hard to do truly OTT fimo designs on itty bitty nails. So I did it on some nail wheels instead. (Sorry it's such a cop-out. When my nails get long again, I'll actually put, like, fruit and dragonflies on them.)

For those wondering about how thick these things are, they're not that thick and most of them are not that big. This leaf is about 75% the normal size of a lot of the fimo canes I have:
Behold, a dime. And a fimo leaf.

I bought whole canes and sliced them myself: some of them are sliced thicker than others but some are sliced pretty thinly. Using a tissue blade, I can get some very thin slices. However, the thinner I try for, the more likely I'll mess up the slice.

Behold, the same dime. And four fimo leaves. The thickest slice is less than one-half the thickness of the dime. The thinnest slice is pretty much as thin as paper.

It's not always desirable to get them paper-thin though because then the color of the slice will be translucent and be less vibrant on the nail. I'll try to put together a tutorial on how I sliced my fimo canes since I used a slightly different technique than a lot of the YouTube tutorials I watched. (Hoping to get that posted before the month's out.)

Anyway, onto the (fake) nails. Go easy on me: I'm just a beginner! ;)

Chinese New Year #1


When the heck else would I ever get a chance to use these opera mask fimo canes? The background is Color Club Feel the Beat and I used some gold foil... badly. But I kind of like the effect: sort of like gold leaf. (Gold and red are traditional Chinese colors.)

Chinese New Year #2
Here I used Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Whirlwind White and Misa Secrets. The "branches" are Orly Solid Gold. I also tore off the leaves off some nail art stickers and used them as leaves here. Why is this spring-y design included? Because Chinese New Year is also the Spring Festival. (Growing up, when using Mandarin, I referred to the Western New Year holiday as "New Year's" and the Chinese New Year holiday as 'Spring Festival'.)

Chinese New Year #3
I like the use of the masks much better on this one. The base color is Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Lightening. The failed-gradient glitter is a Fasio glitter (but I'm not remembering the number right now).

Valentine's Day #1
Base color is Cetuem 163. I had these foil heart nail decals so I decided to jazz up an idea that might have turned out alright if I had used heart slices of substantial and uniform thickness. A good illustration of why cutting the fimo cane too thin is sometimes going to backfire: it becomes translucent and curls when the glue/topcoat dries.

Valentine's Day #2
I have no idea when I amassed so much nail art crap. I am totally forgetting which pink I used (Orly Polo Princess, possibly) and some nail art stickers, gems and, of course, fimo hearts. I didn't even realize that the middle layers of the heart matches the base color I chose until I looked at the pictures I took.

Valentine's Day #3
I liked the effect with the opera mask tips on the other one enough to try it again with a V-Day (or rather, anti-VDay mani). The base color is Revlon Street Wear Tar, which needed more coats than seemed necessary to achieve opacity.

Valentine's Day #4

The base color for this one was a gold holo Icing mini. This one started out as a CNY design but then I changed my mind on it and made it into a... sort of V-Day design. There was a single lonely fimo opera masks on each nail, surrounded by some magenta mylar flakies but it looked boring and dumb so I scraped off the masks and then glued some rose and leaf fimo slices on. I actually think it's very useful to have fimo slices that aren't uniform in thickness and partial slices: it makes layering a bit easier and more interesting.

Well, that's it for now. I really enjoyed making these and will probably do more of them in the future. (That and I bought, like, 50 more fimo canes. And more nail art stickers. So I should use them.)


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14 comments:

Anonymous said...

They look like sticks of rock you buy when you go to the seaside! My favourite one out of the mani's you did has to be Valentine No.4. So gorgeous! Makes me wanna buy some of those even though I'll never use them. They're just too cute!

mKat said...

Is it sad that I never knew these existed until now?! They look like so much fun! (Though to be honest, I can't see myself wearing this out of the house.) :) I agree with Kelly. I love Valentine's Day #4.

Feline Flodin said...

Oooh, I love stuff like that! In theory, at least. Haha... Where did you get the whole canes? I have tossed in ready-sliced fimo nailart several times while I was at ordering wheels from timtimng, whose shop you so gracefully recommended to me once. :) But the whole canes looks awesome, and some of the shapes are really cool!

Paige said...

Those designs are gorgeous!

Anonymous said...

Ahhhh I want to try this! Super kawaii!

Unknown said...

i love it :)

Piff said...

I love this post!!

The Asian Girl said...

OMG...I used to LOVE My Melody back in the day <3 <3 <3

Lucy said...

I LOVE fimo canes, but I've never used them as the likelihood is I'd lose a fingertip trying to cut them!

http://beauty-and-the-blogger.blogspot.com/

paintedladyfingers said...

I've only used the precut slices. I figure since I have trouble slicing bread straight, fimo canes may be too much of an adventure for me. I love the layering looks you did with these. My nailbeds might be too curved from side to side to attempt this successfully, but that probably won't stop me from trying to pile up the fimo. ;)

Anonymous said...

What great manicures!

新年快乐!

Arrianne said...

I love #3 with the skull. These are so adorable, too bad I'd never use these if I got them.

flinty said...

@kelly: like I said, the cuteness, it seduces. I didn't really like the look of a lot of manis I've seen with these but the cuteness just sucked me in. Also, the cheap price for the cuteness. :)

@mKat: ...how did you not know about fimo canes? They're fun! Even if you don't wear them out. If you cut them thin enough, you may be able to incorporate them into some of your nail art designs without them looking too different than, say, stickers.

@feline: eBay... always eBay. And almost always sellers from Hong Kong. :) Just be careful to see how long the canes are. I got suckered into an auction where I didn't realize each cane would be 1cm long! (I can get 30-35 slices out of a 1cm cane but I totally wasn't expecting to pay the amount I did for something that's a quarter the size of a normal cane.)

@gildedangel: thanks!

@hausofpolish: LOL, kawaii is exactly the right term for it.

@lily: thanks!

@D:) It's gotta look sort of weird along with the other posts, don't you think?

@The Asian Girl: She was the cutest! Hello Kitty had nothin' on her.

@Lucy: I definitely cut some of my nails with the blade. It was not fun.

@paintedladyfingers: If you slice the fimo very thinly, they're pretty flexible... and I can't slice anything straight. Or cut anything straight. Actually, most of these pieces are kinda crooked. But it's all so silly that it doesn't matter that much. :)

@LacquerMuse: to you too! :)

@Arrianne: I think that VDay #4 is the prettiest but I do like #3 the best. The heart nose on the skull just puts it over the top.

Piff said...

That's why I love it. New territory. I like the thinness comparison. That's what I love about our blog...we're clinical about out nail decals.

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