O Tannenbaum!

I joined a really neat 12 Manicures of Christmas challenge, and here is my attempt at the first challenge: Christmas Trees.

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!

Flocks in Flight!

So for my Llama Nails weekly challenge, F, I had a vision. And as usual, the execution of the vision is....suboptimal. But I'm getting better.

I first mixed up sally girl Epic and Sally Hansen White On to get a sky blue for two coats. Then I sponged on more White On for clouds, and gave it a couple of hours to dry while I saw an arachnologist debunk the Spiderman movies (did they need debunking? No. But it was entertaining) at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science.

After I got back home, I cut up some masking tape and made mountain shapes. I didn't have a great mountain color, so I mixed some Sally Hansen CSM Good to Grape and Haute Chocolate (Walgreen's has all Sally Hansen CSM polishes for $1.88 right now! Go!) and painted it on, one nail at a time, removing the tape right after painting.

I used my smallest skinniest brush (I need a smaller skinnier one!) to paint on wide Ms to be birds in flight, with the V being on my middle nail, with the Haute Chocolate.

Overall, I think I got the effect I wanted, though as always, it would be better if I had steadier hands.