Pop!

This is an older one, but it's so bright and fun, it's great for summer.

This manicure used Nabi 3D Rainbow Effects holographic polish. They're not super strong, but they give a nice linear holo effect in bright light (you can just barely see it in this photo). I always wanted to get more of these, but the place locally that sold them stopped carrying them.

The glitter polish is by Hard Candy. It's called Mom & Pop. It has peach, pale green, pale yellow, pale pink, white, and silver holographic glitter.

3 coats Nabi 3D Rainbow Effects in Green

1 coat Hard Candy Mom & Pop

They go with my ukulele really well :D

Triforce

A friend gave me a bottle of polish in a present. It was L'Oreal The Temptress Touch

This is a gorgeous spring green with a bright gold almost duochrome effect.
After I applied it (3 coats, it's pretty sheer), I thought it needed something, so I went through my gem wheel, applied some studs and painted over them with Revlon Vincent Van Gold.

I thought it worked - especially while playing Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds.

I got a lot of compliments on this one from gamers and non-gamers alike.

Revlon Selects and Christmas

Revlon Selects sent me some of their Revlon by Marchesa 3D Jewel Appliques, and I saved them for my company Christmas party.

I used Gilded Mosaic - a very pretty gold and silver mosaic pattern.

Last time I tried the appliques, they only lasted a day before peeling up, and I kinda got frustrated with them. I had used a basecoat, which I think was part of the problem. 

This time I followed a how-to blog post from someone else (I forgot to save the link, and now I can't find it), and didn't use a basecoat.

The how-to said to use a "feather touch" when filing off the excess sticker, and ... yeah, these are so thick that you need a little pressure. I was still being gentle though. Some of the ends were still ragged - though I think that's a product of the design on these ones and my nail length - some of the jewels popped off at the ends of my nails.

I touched up the ends and wrapped the tips with some gold polish, and because the ragged edges were still bugging me, I went over it with a topcoat (it had to last a couple of days, because I was working the day of the party).

On my ring finger, I used Avon Matte Concrete, Essence Black is Back and Bundle Monster stamping plate 323 to create a nail that matched my party dress.

Now, the nail sitckers actually lasted several days this time before the design started to wear off, revealing the white base. 

I followed the directions, and peeled them up from the cuticle edge. Every finger except my thumbs (both hands), went well.

Here is what happened on my thumbs:

It peeled off a layer of my nail in some places - this was the better of the two. My other thumb had much larger sections peel off.

So, next time - basecoat for SURE.

---

After letting my nails rest for a few days, I decided that I needed to do something Christmas-y

I used Color Club Red De Rio, then applied Claire's Cranberry scented polish from last year's scented holiday collection (it didn't really smell ... I think it's faded now). It's a fine red glitter with slightly larger gold glitter strewn throughout.

On my ring finger, I used a tutorial from Nailside to make a Christmas tree. I used China Glaze Winter Holly for the tree, and applied a gem to the top.

Winter Holly is a fun colour - packed with fine dark green glitter, and I think I spotted some gold and silver in there too.

My only complaint is the base of the glitter somehow caused the red to soak through my basecoat and stain my nail.

Emerald Eve

I wanted to do something with a glittery feature nail, so I went looking at my glitter polishes, and saw one I hadn't used yet. I paired it with a complimentary shade for the rest of my nails.

I started with two coats of OPI Cuckoo For This Color - this was a gift from a friend with great taste - haha! It is a shimmery dark teal. I guess you could describe it as an emerald green with a hint of blue. I don't even know what to say other than that; it's just really pretty.

On my ring finger, I applied a coat of Hard Candy Emerald Eve. Hard Candy polishes always surprise me - they are with glitter. This polish has tiny round emerald green glitter and larger round holographic gold glitter. I applied a thick-ish coat, and then remembered something else about Hard Candy polishes ... they dry fast!

I applied two coats of topcoat to the glittery nail just to help smooth out the texture.

Catching up Part 2

I was looking up autumn nail trends, and found a couple of shades that I thought would really work well together: navy blue and chocolate brown. I also wanted to use the striping tape that I bought at a local Asian night market, so I thought diagonal two-tone would be fun.

I used China Glaze First Mate for the blue and Revlon Chocolate Truffle for the brown. The striping tape is a holographic gold.
My topcoat picked up the brown and deposited it on the blue on a couple of nails ... oops.

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Oxblood was another autumn trend, so I thought it would be a good choice.

I used two coats of Sally Hansen Burgundy Child for most of the fingers, and two coats of Nabi 3D Rainbow Effect in Tawny
The Nabi polishes aren't bad - I get them 3 for $5 at Urban Planet, and while not super strong, they do have a slight linear holo effect going on.

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I needed some orange for Thanksgiving / Halloween:

3 coats Nabi 3D Rainbow Effect in Bronze (mine is mislabeled as "Brone" - hah!) and I did a "sideways Fench" with Avon Golden Twilight - a black with gold glitter.
Fuzzy image for the slight holo effect:

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Finally, for Halloween, I decided to do something different on every finger.

- Thumb was a vampire mouth: Color Club Red de Rio for the base, Claire's black detail polish in the middle and detailing at the top, Claire's white detail polish for teeth and a "shine" on the bottom lip.
- Index finger was a jack-o-lantern: Revlon Nude Beige base, NYC Pumpkin for the pumpkin, Claire's black detail polish for the face and outline, I used a no-name green glitter detail polish for the stem.
- Middle finger was one of my favourites - a ghost. I used Sinful Colors Snow Me White, added Wet n Wild glow in the dark topcoat, then created the outline with Claire's black detail polish - I used a dotting tool for the bottom and the eyes.
- Ring finger was my other favourite - a blob of slime. Revlon Nude Beige for the base, Nabi 3D Rainbow Effect in Green for the slime, Claire's black detail polish for the outline.
- Pinky was done by applying a layer of Sinful Colors Snow Me White, a layer of Sally Hansen Sun Kissed and finally a layer of Sally Hansen Mellow Yellow. I outlined it all with Claire's black detail polish to create the triangular Candy Corn shape.

phew!

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 - Inspired by a Movie / TV

This one was actually pretty easy, because I've wanted to do this as a manicure for a little while ...

The movie I picked was "Oz the Great and Powerful"

Here is a picture where you can sort of see the manicure in question:

And, here is my version:

I started with one coat of Essence Sweet as Candy for a sheer base.
Then I drew a triangle on my nail with Zoya Envy - an almost-black pine green.
I went over top of that with China Glaze Winter Holly
Finally, I did a line of gold just inside the edges of the triangle - I used my Icing by Claire's gold striping polish.

Reddit Challenge - Summer and Galaxy

This is proving to be a busy few months!

I have two weeks for you again.

First up is Summer ... I actually received an email from Butter London with a video tutorial on how to achieve this look using their summer shades. I picked 3 similar shades from my collection and went at it. I'm not that great with my dotting tools yet ... but I'm sure I'll get better at it.
Super bright and super cute!

1 coat of Sinful Colors Snow Me White
1 coat of Essence Wanna Be Your Sunshine
Blue dots with an unnamed blue from an Ombre set I bought.
Pink dots are Sinful Colors Dream On

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After I took off the above manicure, the nails on my left hand started to peel really, really badly, so I had to cut and file my nails down to nubbins ...

Next challenge is Galaxy - I wanted to do a single galaxy on all my fingers - I think it worked.

This was done using mostly Essence polishes, so I'll just list the shades.
2 coats of  Black is Back
Using a sponge, I dabbed on (in order) Choose Me!, Walk on the Wild Side, Let's Get Lost, Grey-t To Be Here, and Date in the Moonlight.
On top, I dabbed a bit of KiSS Big Break Blue #3 (glitter in a very sheer blue jelly base) from their blue Gradation kit.
Then I finished it off with Quo silver glitter from their "Nice" Christmas nail polish pack.

phew!

Reddit Challenge - Inspired by Food

I was sorting through ideas for food related manicures, and settled on watermelon.
This is another super easy and cute manicure you can do.

1 coat Wet n Wild Lavender.

1 coat Sally Hansen HD Digital - Like the other Sally Hansen HD polishes, this is a sheer shimmery polish. Digital is a hot pink.

1 coat Color Club Green Scene for the french tip - this is a very pretty bright minty green. I got a mini bottle on clearance at a beauty supply store.

Seeds were added using Essence Black is Back and the small end of the Essence dotting tool.

I know I said way at the beginning that I didn't want to spend the money on dotting tools, but at $2.50, I figured I would give this one a try. It's not bad. I still say you can get the same effect with other tools, but it does what it's supposed to (I actually used it for painting something not-nail-related before I used it on my nails.)

My friend actually did a watermelon manicure as well - we were talking about the next thing we wanted to do, and we both said watermelon! The green on hers is up the side of her nail - super cute!

Next week's theme is Yellow. I'm going to go with something pretty simple.

Reddit Challenge - Inspired by Technology

I think everyone was going to do circuit board nails for this one and as soon as the first (awesome) one was posted, we all changed our minds.
I know my attempt would be nowhere near as good.

I was looking around for inspiration and I figured my phone would be easy and cute.

I have a Google Nexus S:

I went with the row of 'buttons' along the bottom, and then added an Android logo on my thumb :)

I started with two coats of Essence Lime Up! on my thumb and two coats of Essence Black is Back on the rest of my fingers.

Using my Claire's White detail polish, I painted all of the icons.

Using my Claire's Black detail polish, I blocked out the android and filled in the black space with Black is Back.

ta da!

Reddit Challenge - Splatter Manicure

My last splatter manicure was a feature nail, because I really wasn't sure how I'd like the technique.
I'm still undecided. It's fast, but it's messy. This time, I wanted to go with all my fingers, and it's actually growing on me ...

I started with a base of Essence High Spirits - in the bottle this looks like some sort of gold-ish olive colour, but on the nail, it's a gorgeous sage green with a subtle shimmer
I actually did this as a straight manicure on Friday night, so what you see here is 3 and a bit days wear - almost no tip-wear and no chipping! Oh Essence - for a cheapie polish, you are amazing.

Instead of removing a perfectly good colour to do a splatter manicure that I wasn't sure I'd leave on for any length of time, I just splattered over top of it.

I hunted through my collection and found one I thought would match well and be a good consistency for splattering (my last one was too thick and came out a bit lumpy).
I went with Color Club Port-Folio. I got it in a box set from a friend. At first, I thought it was a brown / green duochrome, but it's actually purple! (the "Port" portion of the name should have given that away, I guess ...). I think this is my third purple/green duochrome? oops! I really don't like having more than one of the same colour. Granted, the other two duo-chrome in opposite directions and are different shades, but still, it's a bit much - haha! I'll have to do a side-by-side comparison to see if they are too similar and then I'll give one or two away.
Anyways, you can *just* see the duochrome effect on my index and ring fingers, and a little bit on my thumb.

I love this colour combo, and will have to try it again sometime.

Later this week, I'll have a review of BOTH nail polishes that I received from Revlon Selects.
Next week, the challenge is "Inspired by Technology"
Finally, I also want to take some photos of my collection, now that it is nicely stored away in my Melmer!

Reddit Challenge - Red

I must have tried 3 or 4 times to get a good red manicure.

I really don't like red polish all that much.

I went with 2 coats of Avon Ruby Slippers (red jelly with tiny silver glitter in it.  It's really ugly in the bottle, but gorgeous on the nail. Only problem is, it takes a million years to dry.

I wanted to be a bit Christmassy, so I added a feature nail with Zoya Envy - a deep pine green - and finished it off with a matte topcoat.

The green is almost too dark, but I still like it.

The next challenge is New Years - I have some ideas, but we'll see what happens!
I will have a different manicure to post between now and then, provided it turns out - haha!

Christmas Haul

So, of course I asked for nail polish for Christmas ... here's what I got:

My sister-in law bought me:
It's So Easy Stripe Rite polishes in turquoise, blue, black and hot pink
Nail Bliss spiderweb nail stickers
Cina nail art pen in white

I did this manicure while we were opening presents:

My mom bought me a ton of polish - I asked her for the whole Essence collection (since it's pretty inexpensive). She wasn't able to find many of the new ones - I guess her Shopper's got all the old stock - but she bought me all of the old ones she could find, plus more!

Essence new collection:
110 Modern Romance (shimmery peach)
128 Let's Get Lost (bright blue)

Essence old collection:
04 Space Queen (iridescent glitter)
05 Sweet as Candy (sheer pink)
26 Break Through (purple with a slight hint of gold shimmer)
34 Walk of Fame (purple-brown-grey)
38 Choose Me! (teal glitter)
39 Lime Up (x2)
43 Where is the Party? (purple/green duochrome)
46 Wake Up! (traffic cone orange)
59 Black is Back (x2)
68 High Spirits (olive green / gold)
70 Nude It (brownish nude)
75 Gleam in Blue (shimmery light blue)
83 Luxury Secret (pewter?)
95 Wanna Be Your Sunshine (shimmery yellow)

Sally Hansen HD polishes (just the shimmery ones, not the duochromes):
Digital (hot pink)
Blu (um ... blue)
Pixel Pretty (turquoise)
Three D (orange)
Lite (yellow)

Sinful Colors neon mini polish collection, which comes with Dream On (fuchsia) Pink (derp), Irish Green, Neon Melon (surprisingly, yellow) and Fusion Neon (a bubblegum pink)


My husband bought me the Bundle Monster stamping plates 2012 Collection.
I didn't take a photo, but he even tagged the package "To: B2" haha!
I'm just trying to figure out which image to use for my nails right now.

Reddit Challenge - Inspired by a Song

I had a really tough time with this one, and I asked people for help.

I asked my husband first. At the time, I was painting my nails black for my company Christmas party, and he just looked at my nails, looked back at me and raised his eyebrows. "Paint it Black" ... I really didn't want to cop-out, but I kept it in my back pocket.

I asked a co-worker. "99 Red Balloons", he suggested and gave me a link to a website with a list of songs that have colours in the title. Very crafty!

I browsed the site and thought "Yellow Submarine!" but since I'm going to be taking it off quickly to do a manicure for another Christmas party, I didn't want to put a lot of time into it.

I started typing in bands, looking for lists of songs, I finally went back to The Beatles, and figured why not just go for their costumes for Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.

So ... here it is!

Thumb is 3 coats Claire's Scented Banana
Index finger is 2 coats Wet n Wild Lavender
Middle finger is 3 coats Claire's Scented Lime
Ring finger is 2 coats Fascino Blue
Pinkie is 2 coats Wet n Wild Red

Details are done with Claire's and Icing detail polishes in gold and silver.

Fast and cute!

Reddit Challenge - Rainbow

I've wanted to do a rainbow water marble for a while, so I thought this was the perfect opportunity.

Except, I didn't want to do it on every finger. I thought, why not do water marble tips?

A few tries and lots of nail polish remover later ...

2 coats OPI Black Onyx on each finger, except my ring finger. Then I taped off the tip and painted on a coat of Zoya White.

2 coats Zoya White on my ring finger.

Water marble: 

1 drop Zoya White, 

1 drop Wet'n'Wild Red, 

1 drop Sally Hansen Sun Kissed

1 drop Sally Hansen Mellow Yellow

1 drop Claire's Scented Lime

1 drop Ardene's Electrified

1 drop Essence Break Through

Swirl and dip!

For my ring fingers, I taped off around the edge of my nail to help cleanup and dipped the whole thing.

While my other fingers were still taped from the white, I dipped them 2 fingers at a time (to save time and polish). I did my index and middle finger, then my thumb and pinkie. 

I did not wrap the tape all the way around, so there was a LOT of clean up on those ones.

The photo shows some spots that I missed on cleanup - darn it - there was nail polish all over my hands.

I think it looks really neat! I don't think I'd do it again with that many colours, but if I was to do a water marble with 3 or 4 colours, just doing the tips would work really well.

Reddit Challenge - Earthbound

The theme this week was "Inspired by a Game"
I've been playing Earthbound lately, so I figured it might be fun to feature the four main characters.

Ness, Paula, Jeff and Poo ... (I guess that's sort of backwards, Ness is on my index finger)
I didn't think I could do their whole bodies, so I went with just their faces. I think Ness came out the best (too bad there's a shine on his mouth)

Image of the gang for reference:

I did a water marble on  my thumb, because in the game all of the battle backgrounds are weird psychedelic swirly things:

(imagine that animated)

Colours used:
Claire's Scented Lime (for the background - say 'fuzzy pickles'!)
Zoya White (to block out the face shapes and for Jeff's glasses)
Essence Modern Romance (nude with shimmer - for the skin)
Claire's Scented Banana (for Paula and Jeff's hair and the water marble)
QUO by ORLY Instant Artist Black (for the outlines and black details)
Wet n Wild Fantasy Makers Red (Ness's cap and the water marble)
Claire's Jazz (blue, for the bill of Ness's cap)
Wet n Wild Lavender (for Paula's bow and the water marble)
Sally Hansen Sun Kissed (for the water marble)

phew!
I only actually did my right hand ... I didn't have the patience to do a lumpy mess on my left hand, so it's just solid green.

The other challenge this week is Tribal ... but I think I can only do one fancy pants manicure in a week, so click here to see my last tribal one.

Next week is black and white for Reddit and Movember for the other challenge. hmm.

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 - Metallic/Magnetic

I wanted to try something combining metallic and magnetic polishes - like a half moon or something.
I tried it and it really, really didn't work.

So, here is a plain old magnetic manicure - easy and pretty.

I like putting a matching colour underneath the magnetic polish. Here I used Color Club Artsy Crafty - a dark green creme.
I find that using the magnetic polishes on their own can be a bit hit and miss - Most of them tell you to do a first coat, let it dry and then do a second coat that you use the magnet on. This seems to result in dull lines. The base polish can sometimes be pretty sheer, so you can see the metallic underneath.
Whenever I've used a regular polish in a matching dark shade (or even a black polish) it has given me a lot of definition between the lines.

The magnetic polish I used for this one is Claire's Magnetix, using the magnet provided.
The Claire's Magnetix is actually a really good polish. The brush is wide and flat - I could do my fingers in one swipe and my thumb in two. The polish is smooth, and the magnet is strong. I held the magnet over the wet polish for 10 seconds and it pulled the polish into super tight lines which spread out slowly as the polish dried.

I don't use them often, but I really love magnetic polishes.
I think I'd like to pick up some more colours if I can find them at a reasonable price. I don't like spending a lot, and magnetic polishes are usually $9 or more here in Canada.

52 Week Challenge - Patchwork

When I did a google search for patchwork manicures, two styles came up.
One that looks like a patchwork quilt, and another that just involves taping at angles.

I went with the quilt one and used the tutorial over at Kayla Shevonne's blog - easy to follow, great photos.

I skipped the white base step, because I was going to be doing greyed tones, and I didn't think it would help (if I were doing brights, I would definitely add it though)


I've been really bad about cleanup lately - this one is probably the worst! The black detail polish got everywhere (it was blobby and I accidentally got some on a finger, and it went downhill from there ...), so after spending the time getting that off and re-doing the ruined nails, I just really didn't want to spend any more time on it.
The topcoat caused the black to streak (worse on my other hand). Then, I bumped my middle finger on something and the polish rippled at the tip.

I love the look of this manicure, and it was super easy to do ... but this one was a bit disasterous.

I used my Claire's black detail polish and drew on the pattern (Kayla's worked really well, so I went with it - eep!). Since my nails are short, the patches weren't very square.
I elected to go with just my thumb and ring finger - I really seem to like doing the feature nails lately - don't know what it is!

The colours I chose were OPI You Don't Know Jacques, OPI Steady as She Rose and OPI Stranger Tides. I think the You Don't Know Jacques was a little too dark, so if I were to do this combo again, I'd pick a lighter colour. It still worked though - the greyed down colours are all pretty together.
I dabbed the polishes into the patchwork pattern, working one colour at a time. I ended up doing two coats of each.

Once the patches were dry, I went back in with the detail polish, re-drew the black lines and added "stitches"

For my other fingers, I just did two - three coats of each polish (index was Stranger Tides, middle was Steady as She Rose and pinkie was You Don't Know Jacques)

This week was actually supposed to be "Remember September 11th" or somesuch thing. I really couldn't bring myself to do something like that on my nails because a) I'm Canadian and b) I think it's a bit tacky.

Next week is magnetic or metallic ... I think I'm going to go with magnetic since I haven't done one in a while. Maybe I'll add metallic accents? We'll see!

52 Week Challenge - Two Again

OK, I've been lazy again ... I did two manicures, took photos, but never bothered to upload them or post about them.

Bleh.

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Crackle Manicure:
I guess the person who made the challenge wanted to give people a bit of a break?

I had a lovely vision in mind for this one, but it REALLY didn't work.
I used Avon Golden Twilight (black with golden-bronze flecks) and topped it off with Icing by Claire's gold crackle polish ... what a mess! The Avon polish was very pretty. The crackle polish? It was thick and goopy - If you put on a thin coat, you could see brush strokes, and it didn't crackle well at all. If you put on a thick coat, it was a nice colour, but still didn't crackle well.

Here's what I did instead:

2 coats of Revlon Stormy Night

Random dark teal crackle polish that I've used once before. XOX Cosmetics colour #N72. It's a very odd polish, thick and goopy as well (I remember it being thinner before), but this one crackled pretty well. It smells like paint / permanent marker when you apply it, but afterward, it's a sweet almost floral scent.

OPI Topcoat to seal it all off and shine it up - I would have just left it matte to have that shiny / matte contrast, but when this particular crackle polish dries, it lightens as well - some of the areas where it went on thicker remained shiny and dark, so I figured the shine would help mask some of the stripes, and it did!

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Rainbow / Pride Manicure:
I moved this one to this weekend, because Vancouver's Pride Parade was on August 5th. I missed the parade, but I did wear it downtown afterward.

I was trying to figure out how to approach this one, and I saw someone with vertically striped rainbow nails somewhere (I'm pretty sure it was in one of the blogs I read, but I can't find it)

I thought it looked really cool, and it would give me the opportunity to do ROYGBV (yep, I left out the I)

I really didn't have the patience to do sponging this weekend, so I did a few thin coats, and overlapped the colours. I used cremes for the primary colours (red, yellow, blue) and shimmers for the secondary colours (orange, green, purple)

Colours are:
Wet n Wild Fantasy Makers Venom
NYC Pumpkin
Sally Hansen Mellow Yellow
Wet n Wild Craze Jade
Fascino Colour #47
Icing By Claire's KTDID

phew!
I'm sure it would look better with the sponging, but I think this is pretty cute as-is.

Next week is a Galaxy Manicure - another one that I'm a bit intimidated by, but I'm sure I'll make it happen.