Catching Up

Since I got back from the UK, work has been crazy, with terrible shifts, and when I'm not at work, we've been going out a lot.
It's just been a crazy summer, and I haven't been able to keep up here.

I've still been doing my nails though - so here's what I've got:

Polka Dots:

This was a base of Sinful Colors Rain Storm
Dots were done using two sizes of a dotting tool and China Glaze Holographic in Cosmic Dust and Galactic Grey.
This was for the Reddit challenge "Polka Dots"

Neon:

I started with Sinful Colors Snow Me White to give the neon a solid base.
Three coats of Ardene Neon Yellow - this is a highlighter yellow. It's ridiculously bright.
Over top of that, I dabbed Icing By Claire's Shredded. This one is pretty neat, it's not really what I'd call flakies, but it's shredded black glitter. The clear base has a slight blue tint to it, so it unfortunately changed the yellow a bit. I tried to do a sort of gradient with it, and reversed the gradient on my ring finger.
This was for the Reddit challenge "Neon"

Secret Periwinkle:

oops! this was my 100th manicure on here.
um ... I'll try to remember to do something fancy for 150?
I bought China Glaze Secret Periwinkle, because periwinkle is an awesome colour. Not quite blue, a hint of lilac. This is a really nice polish - 2 coats. I will be wearing this often.

Green Mermaid:

Three coats of Wet n Wild Fast Dry Sage in the City.
For my ring finger, I poured out a small amount of hexagonal glitter on to a piece of tin foil, and added a dab of topcoat next to it (not fast dry!). I applied a coat of the same topcoat to my ring finger, and then used a toothpick dipped in the topcoat to pick up the glitter and applied it one-by-one to my nail. This didn't take as long as you'd think - but I don't know that I'd have the patience to do my whole hand. I had to apply two coats of a thick topcoat to seal it off, and even then, there was some texture.
This was also a giant pain in the butt to take off, even with the foil method.

Jeans:

My friend bought me a bottle of Maybelline Color Show Denim Dash - it's a pretty blue polish with fine silver glitter that dries matte. I used two coats for this manicure.
I added a stud to my ring finger, to look like the button, or the rivets on jeans.

Gorgeous Bling Bling:

In honour of the cooler weather these last few days, and inspired by the pumpkin body lotion I just bought from Bath and Body works, I decided I needed to use an autumn shade on my nails.
This colour is essence Gorgeous Bling Bling (what a terrible name!), but it really is a gorgeous colour. Rusty orange with teeny tiny orange-gold flakies.

phew. OK, I'll try to keep up with this a little better.

Reddit Challenge - Pink Two Ways

This week's Reddit Challenge is Pink - in honour of Valentine's day.

Someone at work wanted to see a water marble, and I wanted to try another sponge gradient, so I decided to do both at once.

I started with two coats of Sally Hansen Pink Blink

For the sponge gradient, I painted Pink Blink, Sally Hansen HD Digital, and Avon Vintage Vamp in slightly overlapping stripes onto one side of a makeup sponge, then I dabbed it on my nails.

As usual, it worked way better on one nail (middle finger) than the others ... which is why I haven't posted any yet ... but it still looks not bad!

For the Water Marble, I used the same colours. At first, I tried to do a heart shape, but my bullseye wasn't small enough to pull it off, so I just swirled it all around.


I've used Pink Blink for several manicures - it's a baby pink creme.
Sally Hansen HD Digital is a bright pink, slightly sheer shimmery thing - I loved the way it swirled in the water marble. There was a lot of depth to this shade.
Avon Vintage Vamp is from their old line of polish - it's a burgundy creme that leans toward purple.

The two techniques didn't quite go together as well as I had hoped, but it's still cute and very, very pink.

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!

New Year's Manicure

This week's Reddit Challenge was New Years - even if I wasn't doing the challenges, I'd still want pretty nails for New Years Eve.

I knew months ago that I wanted to do a glitter gradient, and it seems that they're the 'it' thing right now - which is pretty awesome.

I tried it with the glitter at the top of my nail this time and I went with a subtle colour combo.
Please pardon the tip wear - my nails are too short for me to wrap the tips and the top coat I used seems to be causing the polish to shrink (you can see on my thumb where I didn't quite get it all the way to the edge, so the polish cracked vertically)

I used two coats Color Club Blue-topia - it looks black, but it's actually a deep inky blue. First coat is pretty sheer, but it would be hard to do this one as a single-coat polish because wherever you overlap, it gets darker.

The gradient was done using Essence Choose Me! a teal glass fleck polish. I dabbed it on near the cuticle and dragged it down my nail to create the gradient effect - I used a few layers to build it up closer to the cuticle.

This one was really hard to photograph - the contrast is much more obvious in person.

Reddit Challenge - Winter Nails

I had a really pretty blue to white gradient in mind, and wanted to try a sponge gradient. Problem is, the colours I chose were all way too sheer, so I had to improvise.

I started with two coats of Zoya White to create a solid base.

Working one finger at a time, I dabbed on some NYC Turquoise Seas at the cuticle, then dabbed some of it off with a sponge. I bought this polish so many years ago when I had turquoise in my hair, and a lot of turquoise in my wardrobe. It's a really pretty shimmery sheer turquoise.
I added some Sinful Colors Cinderella in the middle. I am still in love with this blue. I keep looking for more, because I'd love to have a backup bottle.
Then I finished the gradient by dabbing on some Sally Hansen Polar Bare, a white jelly polish.

While the polish was still a bit sticky, I added a coat of Wet n Wild Hallucinate - iridescent glitter - to help blend it even more.

I like the icy look of this manicure.

Next week is glitter ...
I found out that some people are using white glue as a basecoat when dealing with glitter polishes - it sort of turns it into a peel off nail polish. I think I'll give it a shot!

52 Week Challenges - Slime and Spiderwebs

The Reddit challenge this week is Gradient or Ombre.
The I'm Simply Complex challenge is Spiderwebs.

It's the week before Halloween, so I figured why not combine the two challenges?
I didn't do any cleanup on this one, because by the time I was finally finished, I was so frustrated with it, I just wanted to take the pictures and be done with it all.
I had to do it several times - due to bumps, colours not working properly together ... you name it - ugh.
I do love the manicure though!

For the Gradient portion, I decided to do a green syrup manicure.
I started with a coat of Wet n Wild Jade covering 3/4 of my nails.
I added a second coat about half-way down.
For the tip, I didn't think another coat of Jade would do it, so I used Sinful Colors Show Me The Way.
To blend it all together, I went over it with OPI Firefly
Then, to give it that extra Halloween "oomph" I used Wet n Wild's Glow in the Dark topcoat.

Once that was thoroughly dry, I stamped on a spiderweb using Bundle Monster plate BM13 and OPI Black Onyx.
I added a spider from the same plate on my thumb.

52 Week Challenge - Gradient Nails

This week is a gradient manicure - there are three main styles:
The first is the ombre, which I did about a month ago - a different shade on each nail creating a gradient across the hand. The other two are very similar - it involves creating a gradient on each nail. The syrup mani, which involves multiple layers of a sheer polish and the sponged or layered gradient like what I did for my Earth appreciation mani.

I decided to do a layered gradient - I tried sponging, but it didn't quite take with the nail polish I chose.
It was really hard to get a good photo of this one - I took about a dozen in different light.

I chose these colours, because I wanted to wear the manicure to a steampunk concert. I dressed up, and I figured why not have my nails match my look?

Started with Color Club Boho Mojo, 2 coats for the base - I've used this one before in a couple of manicures - obviously I like it!

I painted and sponged on OPI Shim-merry Chic from their Christmas '09 collection - I did this in two thin layers, one starting lower than the other to help the gradient along. I like this one - it's a sheer brown with red-green flakies and blue, green and orange iridescent glitter - fun! I grabbed the 'mini merries' set on sale after Christmas. I wish I had realized how pretty Shim-merry Chic was at the time so I could have picked up a full size bottle. Oh well! I'll just have to use my mini sparingly!

Then I finished off the tips with Color Club Nouveau Vintage, which is a nice shimmery bronze with some red-green in it as well.

Next week's is a Rock Star manicure ... not too sure what makes a manicure a "rock star" one ... hopefully google is my friend!

52 Week Challenge - Ombre Manicure

This week's challenge is an "Ombre" manicure.

I've seen them done two ways - a different shade on each nail or a gradient on each nail.

Since there is a "gradient manicure" further down the list, I decided to go with a different shade on each nail:

Color Club Rebel Spirit on my thumb nail (3 coats)

OPI You Don't Know Jacques on my middle finger (3 coats)

OPI Skull and Glossbones on my pinkie (3 coats)

For my ring finger, I mixed You Don't Know Jacques and Skull and Glossbones in a 1:1 ratio.

For my index finger, I mixed Rebel Spirit with You Don't know Jacques in a 1:2 ratio.

The mixes were painted on with a paintbrush I had kicking around. These took 4 thin coats each - there was a bit of drag from the brush, so it was tough to get a nice coat.

I REALLY like this.
They have ombre manicure kits available at Nordstrom in the States - The Husband and I are going to Bellingham in July, so I might just stop at a Nordstrom and pick up a set or two!


This photo was actually taken with my new phone. My contract was up, so I figured I'd finally get a smartphone (Google Nexus S) - I think it takes better photos than my actual camera. Sheesh!


Next week's manicure is a "Flag Manicure"
There are lots of interesting flags - it'll be hard to choose (I'm saving Canada's flag for further down the list)