The Day of The Doctor

I've already established that I am a Doctor Who fan, so I have definitely been looking forward to today - the 50th anniversary of the show.

I figured I should do a manicure that would be appropriate for today.

I think I am most proud of my ring finger - it turned out pretty much exactly how I wanted.

The TARDIS on my thumb:

• China Glaze First Mate - for the base
• It's So Easy Stripe Rite Blue Metallic - for detailing
• It's So Easy Stripe Rite Black - for detailing
• Claire's White striping polish - for detailing
• Sinful Colors Snow Me White - for the windows and the door sign

The 10th Doctor on my index finger:

• Revlon Chocolate Truffle - for the jacket
• It's So Easy Stripe Rite Blue Metallic - for the pinstripes
• It's So Easy Stripe Rite Black - for detailing
• Claire's White striping Polish - for the shirt
• Chine Glaze First Mate - for the tie

The 11th Doctor on my middle finger:

• Icing Skinny Dipping Beauty - for the jacket
• It's So Easy Stripe Rite Black - for detailing and pants
• Claire's White striping Polish - for the shirt
• Sally Hansen Celeb City - for the buttons
• Ink Nail Art Dark Red - for the bowtie

A Dalek on my ring finger:

• Revlon Vincent Van Gold - for the base
• It's So Easy Stripe Rite Black - for detailing
• Claire's Gem Wheel - yellow rhinestones - for the "Dalek bumps"
• Claire's Gem Wheel - silver rhinestones - for the eye stalk.

A Cyberman on my pinky:

• Claire's Celeb City - for the base
• It's So Easy Stripe Rite Black - for detailing

Also ... I just finished watching the special. So. Good.

Flakie Comic Nails

I wanted to do comic book nails again, but I thought it might be fun to add some flakies to it.

Two coats Color Club Love Links - this is a red with just a hint of orange. I picked this one up a while back on clearance from a local nail supply place. I was going to buy OPI's My Paprika Is Hotter Than Yours, but spotted this bottle for $1.99. It looked pretty close in the bottle, except the OPI had a slight shimmer to it. I was mostly looking for the shade, and I love a bargain, so Color Club won.

I added a coat of Icing By Claire's Rave Royalty - I really wish this one photographed better. The flakies are an iridescent orange-gold.

I applied a black outline using It's So Easy black striping polish and the "shine" detail using Claire's white striping polish. I think I could have left out the white, but it still looks good.

Reddit Challenge - Inspired by a Pattern

My "inspired by a pattern" manicure was actually inspired by a game!

My gaming group is just starting a Pathfinder game set in Ancient Greece, so I thought, why not do a Greek Key pattern on my nails.

2 coats of Sinful Colors White on White - I finally switched over to my new white. My Zoya one is getting a bit thick, and it's also an off-white, so I didn't think it would work as well with this one, especially since I was going to be using a white detail polish.

On my ring finger, I did one coat of It's So Easy Stripe Rite polish in blue.

For the white nails, I used the same striper polish to add the design
On the blue nail, I used my Claire's white striper polish.
I also used these for corrections where needed. Unfortunately, the Clair's polish has a single long hair that sticks out and I couldn't find my nail scissors to trim it down, so it was a bit messy. I'll have to fix that before I try another really detailed manicure.

I think it came out pretty well.

Time And Relative Dimension In Space

Before Christmas, I decided that I was going to finally sit down and teach myself how to knit, so I could make a Doctor Who scarf (4th Doctor, Tom Baker).

Fan Expo also came back to Vancouver for it's second year last weekend, and I decided I wanted to try and finish the scarf in time for the convention. To make it even more fun, I figured that I should keep an eye out in my travels for other pieces to make a Femme 4th Doctor costume.

Well, I managed to finish everything and find the costume pieces just in the nick of time, and I couldn't just go with any old manicure ...

Ardene Elektronika - two coats on each nail.

China Glaze Cosmic Dust - two coats on top of the blue. Yep, I finally managed to track down some holographic polish. I absolutely love it. I grabbed this one (silver) and Galactic Grey (gunmetal). New favourite polishes. The holographic effect is strongest in bright sunlight, but you can still get a bit of a shine under artificial lighting. Neither is completely in your face holographic like some of the other polishes out there, but it's definitely there. This one also doesn't seem to dull under topcoat, as I've read about other holographic polishes (it does at first, but once the topcoat is dry, you're good to go).
Someone described it as appropriately 'wibbly wobbly'.

To create the tardis, I just used my striping polishes in white, black and metallic blue. I wasn't originally intending on using the blue, but I felt the nails needed a little more definition.

Also ... one of the dealers had a Tardis set up for photo ops, so ... I just had to.

Reddit Challenge - Stripes

This week is stripes - they are probably some of the easiest nail art you can do!

I wasn't really sure what to do, so I just grabbed some colours, tried a couple of things and finally settled on this:

Two coats of Color Club Wild Orchid - a medium grey with a pink-ish shimmer. In sunlight this polish looks purple. It's really pretty! The first coat was a little patchy, but the second coat fixed it right up.

Off to one side, I did a single thick stripe of Essence Fortune Cookie from their Cherry Blossom line. It's kind of a mustard yellow with a very slight simmer to it. I had to do two coats to get good coverage over the grey.

Then I outlined the yellow stripe using my Stripe Rite black polish. I didn't think it was quite done, so I added a stripe down the middle of the yellow as well.

I keep thinking it looks like a street.

Reddit Challenge - Inspired by a Tutorial

It took me a while to find one, but I finally settled on this Hello Kitty tutorial by Kayla Shevonne

I used Wet n Wild Lavender as my base
Dots were added using Sinful Colors Fusion Neon

Hello Kitty's shape was painted on using Claire's white detail polish
The nose was Essence Wanna Be Your Sunshine, and the eyes and whiskers were It's So Easy black Stripe Rite polish.
The bow is from the Claire's Girly Fimo Wheel.

Reddit Challenge - Shooting Star French

The challenge theme this week was French manicure.
After I did my Valentine's French manicure, I thought it would be fun to use little jewels to do shooting stars as a French mani.

Just like last week, I used Essence Sweet as Candy on my whole nail, then painted French tips on with Avon Licorice.

I used my It's So Easy Stripe Rite turquoise polish to draw some lines on top of the black.

Then I added some little gems - I had purple and red stars, so I went with purple.

Finished it off with a thick coat of topcoat to keep the gems on.

I think it's super cute - I want to find a red or purple striper polish and do it again.
The gems started popping off my left hand the next day, and lasted about 3 days before I picked them all off.

I've got an attempt at a tutorial I saw to show you later in the week!
Next week's challenge is a "Jelly Sandwich"

Reddit Challenge - Inspired by Nature

I've wanted to do a butterfly manicure for a while, and I figured the 'Inspired by Nature' theme was the perfect opportunity.
I first saw it when a friend sent me a pretty purple and blue version; the tutorial I found was an orange gradient.
I decided to go with the orange version after receiving the Sally Hansen HD polishes for Christmas. Super shimmery and pretty, and sheer enough that I can do an easy gradient.

Unfortunately, I couldn't get a good photo right after I finished the manicure, and I got some pretty bad tip-wear (I think it's actually chipping) by the next day.

I started with a coat of NYC Pumpkin to get a base colour on there.

I haven't had much success with sponge gradients in the past, so I went with a brushed on one. I think I'll try a sponge gradient next time.

I went over Pumpkin with Sally Hansen HD in Lite (bright shimmery yellow) from the cuticle to about 2/3 the way down my nail.

I coated the whole nail with a thin coat of Sally Hansen HD in Three D - it's more of a red toned orange.

I went back over the top 1/3 of my nail with Lite again to finish off the gradient.

Once that was satisfactorily dry, I used my It's So Easy Stripe Rite detail polish in Black to do the detail lines, and my Claire's detail polish in White to add the spots at the tips.
ALWAYS wait for your detail to dry before putting on topcoat - or else you get smudgy dots, like I did.

It's a very summery manicure - adds a bit of brightness to all this cold rainy weather!

Comic Nails and my Storage Unit

Ok, so this manicure has been sweeping across Reddit - and I love the way it looks - so I wanted to give it a shot. It's called a "Comic Book Manicure"
It's a take on the outline manicure, but the colours and a bit of detail makes it look like it's right out of a comic book or cartoon:

I started with 3 coats of Essence Flame Fatale - this is a lovely classic red. I think I like red nail polish now.
It goes on really evenly even with only one coat, but I had a pretty visible nail line. 3 coats made it opaque.

For the outline, I used my new It's So Easy Stripe Rite polish in Black. Flows nicely, opaque in one coat and dries kind of matte. Because detail brushes are so thin, I did a couple of stripes side-by-side to get the thickness that I wanted.

Then, the final detail to make it look like it's out of a comic book - add a 'shine' with white nail polish!
I used my Claire's white detail polish, and essentially did an exclamation point near the edge of the red on each nail.

Love it! I've been getting so many comments and compliments!

---

And now, my new nail polish storage!

If you go wayyyy back, you'll see I kept my nail polish in a box.
Well ... after many gifts and some purchases, my collection grew - the box was mostly full and I had a second smaller box for my minis (aaand, I used the lid of that box for my topcoat/basecoat/remover/etc). Everything else was kind of strewn all over my vanity.

Since I bought the Melmer, I have all my nail junk organized and pretty. My other makeup however ...

Here is the unit - there is a bit of a smudge on the top drawer, not sure where it came from:

Top Drawer is my full-size nail polish. It is primarily organized by colour, then I have sheers, glitters and other effects. I originally had this on the bottom, but it squeaked horribly whenever I opened it, so I switched it to the top. The empty spots are polishes I've set aside for a couple of possible future manicures (you can see some of them on top):

Middle drawer is my basecoats and topcoats, smaller polishes, scented polishes, and my detail polishes - this one is mostly sorted by brand:

And bottom drawer is all my other junk - nail files, cuticle goo, lotions, jewels and fimo bits, stamping supplies, removal supplies, and nail stickers - the straw is for my splatter manicures and I use the little plastic cup for water marbling!:

I keep my stamping plates on top in baseball card holders - it's a bit of a pain, but they work for now: