And the manicure:
It's two coats of OPI The Spy Who Loved Me, with little Cina decals I got from Sally a few weeks ago and meant to use before now.
I also came up with a brilliant idea to deal with the OPI minis I have collected, but that will be another post.
I hope you had a lovely holiday! I hope to find another challenge group because I really enjoyed the stretching and creativity I got to both see and experience for myself.
My tinsel mani was really cute when I finished it. A few hours later, my thumb paint seemed to buckle. Weird.
As always, pics aren't great. I liked the sparkleflashmess though, so I left it in.
I google imaged a lot of Christmas elf pictures, and the main cohesive theme I saw was their stripey green and white tights, so I did a base of NOPI Lights Kim-era Action, and striped Kleancolor Green Grass. I have craft scissors that are zig-zagged and so I masked off my tips and painted them red with OPI The Spy Who Loved Me (which I love, and should get a full-size of soon, because it's such an interesting red). The zig-zags don't show well - my craft scissors have a wider zig than I really envisioned, and real pinking shears might have worked better. I used my NYC Matte Me Crazy topcoat, and I really liked the effect.
Still, I had multiple compliments from total strangers, although not one could guess I was aiming for an elf theme. Ah, well.
Go see what my other challengers did!
I used Finger Paints Sketch n Etch as a base, and covered it with Nailtini Millionaire, which I got in my ipsy haul last month. It looked kind of fuzzy and festive, like I think a wreath should look. I used my hole reinforcers (you know why they cut them in half in tutorials? It's not because they're cheap -- hole reinforcers cost about a half a penny apiece -- it's because they bend up if you use the whole thing. Now you know!) to make a moonicure, and painted over the whole thing in Sinful Colors' Black on Black. Which is still my favorite black, even if it's cheap. It covered glitter smoothly in one coat. Dang. After I pulled off the reinforcers, I freehanded some bows in Orly Monroe's Red. The whole result was cute as a button.
So I snapped a few pictures (light box will likely come after Christmas, if I ever have money ever again) and they looked okay on my phone, so I removed the polish. I wanted to get a head start on the weekend manicures -- I have six church services to attend or perform in between Sunday and Monday, plus wrapping gifts, plus making food, plus not going insane, so being a few days ahead seemed like a good idea.
Yay for lessons! Sorry the pictures stink. I'll figure it out someday, I swear.
In the meantime, go see what everyone else did! I bet they have better photos!
I started with a couple of coats of white (I'm almost out! Time to try a new white!) and overlaid many, many (like....5 or 6 or 8 or 12....but probably 5) coats of OPI Fresh Frog of Bel Air to have a glittery tree backdrop. I dotted on big dots of OPI Into the Night, Orly On the List and Monroe's Red, and Sally Girl Dumped. It looks like ornaments on a tree to me, and that's what counts, right? Right? :)
Also, when I was at Sally, I bought "acetone nail polish remover" instead of straight acetone, and while it smells pretty good, it doesn't work as well for cleaning up around my cuticles. I think I have to go back to acetone, at least for clean-up.
My fellow challengers did beautiful things! Go look!
Strangely, I got a lot of compliments from total strangers, even though you have to squint to see the snowflakes underneath my mess of topcoat.
The base is Revlon Royal, and I used my dotting tool in Sally Hansen White On and NOPI Lights Kim-era Action to make snowflakes. I wanted more sparkle, so I decided to break out my new bottle of Color Club Covered In Diamonds, and it was jell-o thick and really clumpy. I put some thinner in after the manicure, so I'll try it again later. And use a very light hand.
Once again, I'm certain the others following the challenge had far prettier results. Go check them out!
I also managed to delete the notes I took on what colors are where. They include Orly Dazzle, Naughty Or Nice, and Shining Star, OPI Goldeneye and Live and Let Die, and China Glaze Ruby Pumps.
Hopefully the other challengers have more scintillating conversation:
In honor of this movie, my manicure is based on A Christmas Story. And it had about as many disasters as the movie.
Guess what? The reason why no one decoupages paper onto their nails is because it doesn't really work. Even with the PVA base. It sticks up at the edges, the paper doesn't conform to the shape of the nail, and... it's annoying as all heck.
I figured this out about ten minutes after finishing the last coat and realizing that the Seche Vite on top was never going to dry, that the paper was never going to lay flat, and I snapped some pictures without bothering to clean up, the sooner to get it off.
Maybe I was doomed by picking that movie. I had some wrapping paper and thought I could go with the theme. The base is Sinful Colors' Sugar Sugar, the black is Black on Black, and the white in the broken glasses on my index finger is White On by Sally Hansen.
Ah, being humbled by my own lack of skill. It's good for the soul.
In the meantime, I'm certain the other challengers had far more success. Go check them out!
While I didn't have the exact same colors on hand, I think my version isn't bad...but I made his head too small to be able to fit on decent sized features, and there's no way a scarf will work since his mouth sorta covers his neck-al area.
The turquoise base is Sally Girl Dumped and the nose is Amped. The snowman and ground are Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear White On, the black is Sinful Colors Black on Black, the silver is Elle Dancing Queen, and the shimmery white is NOPI Lights, Kim-era, Action.
I got dotting tools (straight from scenic Guangzhou!) and used a bunch of them. Unfortunately, the biggest one fell out of the tool within 10 or so dots. I'm going to try to epoxy it back together. I'm pretty sure the epoxy will cost more than the entire set of tools did, including shipping. I know, I shoulda ordered from bornprettystore or ... not China, but we've been poor lately. Maybe Santa will bring me some cash. And I won't feel obligated to spend it on "bills" or "living indoors".
I can't wait to see what my fellow challengers did! Check it out here!
The base is Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear White On. I used Finger Paints Sketch n Etch and China Glaze Ruby Pumps, with more white between the dots. I'm getting better at this, but the only finger that really looks candy cane-y is the middle. By the way, double dipping leads to interesting, but not really pretty results, as is evidenced by my index finger. I also figured out how to get two fingers out of each marble, which feels less wasteful.
I did tape the heck out of my fingers, but oh, there was still a ton of clean-up. Here's my right hand, after tape removal, before acetone.
Go see what awesome candy canes my fellow challengers came up with!
For the 12 Days of Christmas Nail Art Challenge, the song I couldn't get out of my head was the Fred Astaire version of "Santa Claus is Coming to Town".
You're very welcome.
Does it look like a town? Like a beard? I think I have Santa's belly under control (though if it were black, it might look more like a pilgrim hat than a belted torso!)
It's a learning experience, and I'm having a ton of fun trying new things. I sometimes wish the actual results had any connection to what I'm picturing in my head, though!
Go see what the awesome things my fellow challengers did!
I started with a couple of coats of Sally Girl Epic, and added a top coat of Different Dimensions Inner Goddess to give all of my nails that blue snow-globe look. Next, I painted a brown tree trunk about 3/4 up my accent nail and let that dry, and threw on a triangle shape of tape.
Next, using the spun sugar technique, I added random strands of Kleancolor Jazz Olive, Mystic Grass, and TLC, and then put on Finger Paints Sketch N Etch for the dominant top color. I fished a star out of my Kawaii Nail Lacquer Sparkler for the top of the tree.
The overall effect seemed pretty organic to me, though it was impossible to photograph well. Here is the second-best photo I got of it:
I love the holo flakies in Inner Goddess, but it was a pain to remove -- I really needed the foil method or a PVA basecoat. I'll remember that in the future! All-in-all, it worked out okay. Go check out other challenge members' attempts!
So this is my second shot at a water marble. I started with a coat of Sally Hansen CSM Haute Chocolate, then marbled a mix of Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Mellow Yellow, L'Oreal Downtown Chic, Finger Paints Sketch n Etch, and Sally Girl Amped. It started out rough, but I got better at it with each finger, so my right hand worked better than my left.
I dotted on each individual color in the barer spots, and I really like it. I think I've got more of the hang of water marbling. It's still a huge pain and messy as heck.
Time for me to make some green bean casseroles and give thanks with my loved ones.
I did my manicure in response to Lacquer Lad's request for support in honoring the Transgender Day of Remembrance. The guidelines he gave in particular were that blue and purple should be used and maybe a candle.
Here's our frank discussion, now. We all perform gender roles as we've been trained. I know, love, and respect several human beings who perform gender roles in different ways than society wishes they would, and you know whose problem that is? It's society's problem, not theirs.
We're afraid of what we don't understand. We're afraid of people who seem strange or don't do what we expect. Without teaching ourselves to consciously accept people who are different from us, we end up missing out on amazing experiences and relationships, we add hate to the world, we add justification to those who hurt people for being who they are, and that makes us complicit in the violence against transgender or gender-queer people.
I sincerely doubt anyone reading this is the type to perpetuate violence on people who look or behave differently, but on this day, please remember those who died because other people had no such compunction:
Transgender Day of Remembrance Memorial List 2012
How's that for a hilarious hand position?
So I used a base of Finger Paints' Sketch N Etch, and then dotted each nail with a bit of each of my Kleancolor greens -- green grass, jazz olive, melon grass, mystic grass, and TLC, going from blue-est to yellow-est. And then I added a row of dots on each side to make the gradient more gradient-y. Which is a word. Swear. Then I threw on a coat of starry meteor, which was the star of the show. It's a beautiful holo top coat with duochrome bar glitter. And it wasn't a huge pain to take off!
There was no good way to photograph this. But it was cute! Three different retail workers complimented it over the weekend while I wore it. They weren't even the kind of retail workers you're expected to tip!
So I asked my 11-year-old daughter to find four colors that worked together but weren't too similar. She did a great job, picking Sally Hansen CSM Black Platinum, Sinful Colors' Let's Talk, NOPI Lights, Kim-era, Action!, and Circus by Andrea's Choice Tightrope.
I put on two coats of the NOPI, then took my fan brush, spread the bristles, and dipped it into drops on my palette. I did light horizontal swipes each way, changing between the Circus, Sally Hansen, and Sinful Colors after completing both hands.
It's a cool effect, but the versions done by Kimber and her inspiration were both better executed. I think my fan brush wasn't quite stiff enough, plus I think I had too much paint on the brush.
I'll try again sometime, perhaps with a craft fan brush instead of a (totally never used) make-up fan brush. It's a learning process. :)
I'm older and wiser, now. I was sure I could do it. I've read every tutorial, seen every YouTube video, have a dramatically better stash...
But for some feeble-minded reason, I didn't use my awesome polishes. I tried with two Style Essentials unnamed polishes (I got a set of four at ROSS for $4) and one Finger Paints lacquer, Cerulean Seascape.
Guess what? It was a mess. While I used filtered room temperature water, the Style Essentials polishes didn't spread AT ALL, so even when I had a pretty design in the water, they were super thick and gloppy. I'm only really happy with my index finger.
On the good side, while this dried before my topcoat, I spent a while seeing what various polishes did in the water and I think I have a chance of a good result on my next effort. The Sally Girl stuff and Sally Hansen polishes seemed to behave well, the OPI cremes did okay, but the shimmers didn't spread at all. The L'oreal stuff seemed to play along nicely, too. I didn't try with any glitters or indies because it seems like a waste.
If you have any tips for a good watermarble, I'm all ears! I shall overcome the dread watermarble! And we will all rejoice! Someday.
Well, it's not bad, really. A girl at 7-11 admired it without me actively waving my nails under her nose or anything. The sparkles from Chancer show up really nicely. But it's BUMPY and irritates me. You can see the topography on my thumb. I think I like smooth nails better. It could be that my bottle of SV is beginning to get gloppy, it could be that I'm still incompetent with my dotting tool, but it feels like there's STUFF on my nails that I should scrub off. This manicure won't last long.
Also, the formula of Chancer was really tough to work with. Streaky coverage in the first coat, too liquidy to avoid a ton of clean-up, and with all of the shimmer in it, I'm pretty sure it's going to be a royal pain to take off unless I go with the foil method.
We can chalk this up to a learning experience, I think. I learned that I prefer smooth nails, and also that I need a new bottle of SV.
Anyway, I knew when I got Dandy Nails' Caught in the Crowd that I was in love and wanted to use it really soon, but I thought it needed to be over a deep blue for true perfection in manicuration. I hereby declare manicuration a word. Work with me. The deep blue came in the form of Finger Paints' Cerulean Seascape, which went on like a dream.
My original plan was to have "Caught in the Crowd" as a gradient going from bottom to top of the nail. It turned out to have a thicker base than I expected, and I didn't have sponges handy to do a gradient that way, so I ended up painting my thumbnails and then dabbing on french-ish tips on the rest of the nails. I really loved the effect.
A couple of things about Caught in the Crowd. It's got aqua and silver microglitter and small aqua hexes. It feels REALLY smooth to the touch, almost like a creme. I don't know how that was possible, but it was really lovely. I want more; it feels that good on the nail! Also, it wore like a champ. I painted my nails Friday night and took the pictures this afternoon. No chips, no tipwear, and I type for a living. No clean-up, either, and I know you can tell. I'll do better, I promise.
I'm trying to think of more ways to use Caught in the Crowd. And more ways to budget lots more Dandy Nails' polishes. Lovely.
Personally, I am so new to beauty blogging that I haven't had enough exposure to be bullied, but there is something in our culture, and especially on the Internet, that leads people to one-upmanship in hurtful, cruel ways. I've seen it on other blogs, and I can't imagine how it would feel to be knocked down for no good reason based on the quality of one's cuticles.
Today's manicure was inspired by Vicky Boombastic Nails, who did it with a silver, blue, and purple combination. I had never heard of the technique before, and found a NYFW tutorial on the Daily Makeover, which made it look humanly possible for my talent level.
I really like the completed effect -- I wondered how such a red and such a blue purple would look next to each other, but it seems to work. I started with several coats of Sinful Colors' Let Me Go on the inside edge of my nails. After that was dry, it took just one coat of OPI's Suzi & the 7 Dusseldorfs in another thin, slightly curved line, and I filled in the rest of my nails with Sinful Colors' Let's Talk. A coat of SV on top smoothed it all out.
Bullying is not funny. It is not cool. It is not right. And more importantly, it is not okay. Most of us are, thankfully, residents of countries that support tolerance and many of our families have settled in these places simply for that reason. Generations later, it is our responsibility to perpetuate that message of tolerance across our new social platforms, including the internet.
As members of the nail polish blogging community, we all share a love of beauty, color, and lacquer. Other than that, we are remarkably different: from our race to our religion to our hair color...even to our polish application techniques. To marginalize anyone because of those differences is completely unacceptable and today I take a stand against that. I refuse to allow other people's view of "normal" dictate how I behave, believe, and blog.
In solidarity with a multitude of bloggers linked below, my purple manicure represents my proud commitment to the No H8 movement. Today, November 8, I dedicate my post to ending bullying of any kind and to encouraging diversity and imperfection among our colorful community.
The base is actually an unnamed L.A. Colors color craze polish -- I had bought a set of six of them at ROSS Dress For Less for my kids to use before the Great Polish Disappearance of ought-twelve (only two remain). I don't have any good non-shimmery blues in the good stuff. It only took two coats for decent coverage. Then I used two coats of Sparkler, by Kawaii Nail Lacquer. I love this polish, I hate this polish.
On the good side: there's microglitter in red, silver, and blue. There are red, white, and blue medium squares and hexes. There is white bar glitter and silver and blue stars, all in a nice clear base.
On the not-so-awesome side: I had a heck of a time convincing any big pieces to come out, even though I had flipped the bottle between each nail and rolled it between my hands. I had to use a toothpick to tease the big stuff not to all glomp together when I did get it on the nail. While the medium and small stuff lay nicely, the stars just wouldn't, and I had to pick one off of my ring finger even after three coats of SV.
Overall, it's pretty, it's patriotic, and I love how it looks, but it's a pain in the ganeckdagazoink to make it work.
So now, since I went to all of that effort to inspire you to vote with my lovely manicure, did it work? :) I'm totally willing to take complete credit for it.
In my awesome grab bag from Love For Lacquer came a really neat pink crelly with periwinkle and purple glitter, Galinda, by Lacquer Convention. I put two coats of it over three coats of Sally Hansen CSM's Shell We Dance.
I loved this manicure -- the pink wasn't so saturated that it was Pepto Bismol-y, the purple and periwinkle was lovely and came out of the bottle really nicely and evenly, and the micro fuschia glitter added great visual interest. It held up really well for like four days, and no chips marred its loveliness. I skipped a top coat because I really liked the amount of shine in the glitter and crelly polish.
But...
I used the PVA (or Elmer's Glue) base coat since I was putting on some glittery polish. I've had the same bottle made up for a few weeks now, and I used it exactly the same as I have since I started putting PVA under manicures, and it came off in tiny little chips, not at all in the lovely full-nail (or close to it) sheets that I've gotten when removing previous manicures. I felt beat up and violated by the time I peeled it off. I'm not sure if the Sally Hansen color base was the problem, if the Galinda stuff just didn't want to cooperate, or if I didn't use enough base coat this time. Regardless, it was a pain in the bleepity to get off.
I've got another glitter manicure on now to last through the election and possibly Veteran's Day, but I used Seche Clear and will try the foil method to remove it when it's time. I need a break from the PVA base coat. It's usually worked so well!
So here it is. I did My First Ruffian (without actually referring to pictures I've seen before, so maybe it's more like a framed mani. My next ruffian won't have the underwear showing on the sides) and kept my left ring finger un-ruffianed for the art.
So on the bottom, we have Sinful Colors' Black on Black, then two coats of Sally Hansen CSM's Commander in Chic. On my ring finger, I put on two coats of the black, and then mixed 3 drops of Commander in Chic with 5 drops of White On to make a lighter, more bandage-y color. I taped my finger to avoid some mess, and taped off an area for the mummy's eyes, and mixed and stirred and mixed the combo color, for a long time. It was probably 5 minutes or so, before it got gummy enough to become stringy.
I followed the spun sugar manicure directions and it really, actually...worked! Amazing! Success isn't my normal outcome with these experiments.
I dotted on eyeballs and pupils, and I let the whole thing dry for about an hour, and then put on a topcoat of SV, which ended up ruining some of the definition of the strands, but I'm overall happy with my effort.
Happy Halloween!
I have a terrible time checking my mail -- I mostly have bills (that I already get and pay online), junk mail, and the ubiquitous political advertising that makes me like my chosen candidates a little less and hate the other fellas with the fire of 10,000 angry suns. And I voted like two weeks ago! Thank god the election is only a week away.
So...I get the mail every two weeks at best, every month or so more often. I signed up for MyGlam (now ipsy) and I love having a reason to check my mail once a month for that. I'm trying to branch out now, and having joined the Copious brigade, I have exciting stuff coming for not much money, every so often.
Anyway, I was super excited when Love For Lacquer offered five indie polishes for $25 a week or so ago, and was lucky enough to get in. She sent the five polishes above, which I poorly photographed under fluorescent lighting in my kitchen:
That's never a good sign for my manicures. It needed something...more! Yes! What would complete this manicure? Why...a poorly-free-handed french tip in WnW's "Precious Petals!" It was exactly...too much.
It reminds me of something. I suspect it might be a bedspread I had in high school. Or perhaps my eyeshadow/lip gloss combination of choice back then. NO! I know what it is it reminds me of... my mom and I frankensteined a pretty velvet dress for winter formal in my junior year of high school.
See?
