Abstractly Ornamental

My original plan (is it just me, or do most of my posts seem to start this way? Maybe it's just me) was to do one beautiful ornament on each nail and detail it and ... maybe that will work next year. My original manicure was a mess and I wanted to actually show a success for the first time in a few attempts, so I went back to the drawing board and came up with this:

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!

Frosty the poorly proportioned snowdude...

For this challenge, I looked for some snowman ideas, and I saw, and really liked, this one:

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!

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!

Turkey Marble!

Happy Thanksgiving, to those of you who are celebrating today. I think it's wonderful that we take time to expressly put gratitude into the world, whether we do it every day, or just today.

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.

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.

NOTD: Fire! Flames? Something like that....

So my original plan here was to make a sun-rise gradient, but halfway through the process, I decided I wanted brighter red on the tips, so I changed it to flames by sponging on the color in a oval way instead of straight across, and added the blue dot like the center of a burning match.

I used Sally Hansen Hard as Nails Mellow Yellow, Sally Girl Amped, and Maybelline Keep Up the Flame for the gradient, and the blue dot is OPI Unfor-greta-bly Blue. SV is the topcoat. I think I

I did this manicure on Friday, and it hasn't worn well -- lots of tip-wear, and some other assorted chips. On the other hand, this morning I went to the DMV to renew a car registration for a friend, and the DMV lady went on about how cute my nails were and seemed agog that I had done them myself. It totally made my day. I bet she doesn't hear "you totally made my day!" that often at the DMV, so it was good for both of us.

Also! I found a really cool website for style stuff through another blogger, iHeartPrettyPolish: Copious. She found a great Deborah Lippmann Across the Universe dupe: here. It's by Hot Mess, and called "Across the Trailer Park". I joined up with Copious, and I'll put a link for anyone else interested in joining here. They offer $10 credit for signing up, so the polish will be free! (Well, $0.60 in fees, but it's got free shipping. I'm all about this!) I'll post again with pictures when it comes and I can show it off.

Abominable Beginnings...

Hi! I'm Mela. I'm new to blogging and pretty new to the delightful world of polish and nail art. I'm rather terrible, and I can pretty much guarantee that no PR people are desperate for me to swatch their formulas and describe each color in detail.

Still, I like to write, I like to show off my pathetic efforts, and I'm a sucker for positive feedback.

I joined the Llama Nails group on Facebook, and they have an alphabet challenge. This week's challenge is the letter "E", so I did "E is for Extraterrestrials". I did a Galaxy manicure, like so many I've seen done by better and more accomplished nail bloggers.

I used:
Sally Hansen Black Platinum for the base, and then sponged on sally girl Dumped, Mean Streak, Amped and TTFN. I put on a coat of sally girl Glitzy and Later to make stars, and painted on little alien dudes in green and red acrylics with white and black eyes.

It was harder to work with the acrylics than I thought it would be -- I'm learning, though!