52 Week Challenge - Water Marble

I actually gave my nails an entire week to breathe ... sort of.
I wore the black rock star manicure for a few days, and took it off on Monday when I posted the blog entry.
I used my Revlon Calcium Gel Nail Hardener to see if it would make any difference. My nails didn't peel any further, so I guess that's good.

Anyways, super early post!

I spent a long time looking at my collection of polishes to find which colours I wanted to use on my water marble.

Here is what I went with:
OPI Steady as She Rose - dusty pink with a hint of lavender. I used it with my needle marble manicure.
Icing by Claires KTDID - metallic purple / maroon shade.
Sally Hansen Golden-I - gold glitter polish (super dense)

I started with 2 coats of Steady as She Rose over top of my Quo by ORLY rubberized basecoat.

I used Brita filtered water brought to room temperature - I had grabbed a couple of those little paper cups they give you at takeout sushi places for your soy sauce.
I taped my fingers around my nails so cleanup would be easier.

Into the water, I added 1 drop of my Zoya white - just to get started without wasting my colours.
Then I did 1 drop each Steady as She Rose, KTDID, Golden-I, and a final drop of Steady as She Rose to create a nice "bullseye"

I dragged a toothpick through the polish to create a design.
Once I was happy with the design, I lowered my finger in, and used a toothpick to pick up all the excess polish on the surface of the water.

I smudged my pinky a bit, which sucks, but I didn't really want to take it off and do it again. Cleanup was a bit of a pain - the gold is not easy to get off (you can see it's still a little messy), but I couldn't imagine what it would be like without the tape!

Pretty and surprisingly easy! I don't think I'd do it often, but for a special occasion? Definitely.

52 Week Challenge - Rock Star Manicure

Apparently to do a "rock star manicure", you do a clear coat and while it's still wet, you pour loose glitter all over it, then seal.
Yeah ... no. I don't have any loose glitter in the house, and I'm not about to go buy some. That stuff is evil.

Here is what I did instead:

First, I filed my nails pretty short, because I like short nails with dark polish. I was going to buff them too, but then I realized when I try to take this manicure off, I'm just going to dry out my nails and make them rough, so I'll buff them before the next one.

I used Quo by ORLY Strong Bond rubberized basecoat - I'm hoping this creates enough of a barrier that the glitter is easier to remove.

Two coats OPI Black Onyx.
One Coat Claire's Glitter Topcoat. I used this one for my glitter syrup mani. It was hell to remove.
Then, I dabbed on some of the black & holo polish from the Claire's Precious Metals set. You can't see the black glitter very well, but that's ok.

Cleanup was surprisingly easy - the only "tough part" was a few pieces of the large glitter that pooled at the edge of my nail - I used a bit of remover to soften it, then lifted it off with a cuticle trimmer.

I wasn't going to put a topcoat on, because the Claire's Precious Metals polish is pretty thick, and I didn't think another layer would be smart. It dried quickly and solidly enough that I figured I could chance it. I went with my Color Club topcoat, because it's not too thick and it dries quickly. I'm glad I did, because it brightened it up a lot.

I really like the holo glitter polish. I'm glad I didn't try the loose glitter ... I don't think it would have turned out as nice.

After sharing last week's blog post on Facebook, my mom suggested a Jem and the Holograms manicure for the rock star theme - since glitter is so hard to remove, I didn't want to do another full manicure, so I did some bonus Jem inspired polish on my thumb (pardon my dry cuticles, I *just* finished removing the black):

Started with Sally Hansen Insta Dri Pink Blink - 1 coat, just to give a bit of a base.
2 coats of Claire's High Maintenance mini polish. It's a sheer pink base with pink glitter.
Then I dabbed on my Claire's Precious Metals holo polish.


Next week is a Water Marble manicure. They're so pretty, and they look easy enough, but for some reason, I'm afraid to try them!

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 - Canada Day

I really meant to post this at the end of last week, but I've been so busy lately.

So, like I said at the end of last week's post - this was supposed to be a 4th of July manicure, but being a Canadian, I'd like to be a bit patriotic and do a manicure for Canada Day.

I grabbed the one colour I knew I HAD to use ...
OPI Nice Color Eh? (hah, they could have made the effort to spell it "colour") It's from their 2004 Canada collection. I believe it was added to their regular connection, and was discontinued sometime in 2010. I found it for $4 at a sidewalk sale in a mall a couple of years ago, and this is actually the first time I've worn it! (I don't normally do that)

The polish is a pale red / dark pink with a shimmer - it really is a nice colour!
I think my dark red carpet influenced my camera to pick up the red. In most light, it was a dark pink.
I painted it on all but my ring finger using 2 coats.

On my ring finger, I used my mystery Zoya off-white.
3 coats for nice non-streaky coverage.

Once that was thoroughly dry, I stamped a maple leaf  from Bundle Monster plate BM04 over the white using the Nice Color Eh?
The plate image is actually 3 maple leaves stacked on top of each other - small, medium, large, top to bottom. I just used the largest bottom leaf.

Next week's manicure is a gradient manicure ... trying to decide on colours!
And I'm going to try to get it posted earlier this time.

52 Week Challenge - Two weeks at once!

Yep, I'm a bit late posting.
I was super busy last week, so I didn't actually finish the manicure until Thursday afternoon. When that manicure didn't work, I decided to take it off and do this week's manicure on Friday morning.
Then I didn't get a chance to update, because we took in my sister's cat, and had to spend a lot of time helping her adjust.

But, anyways ... here are two manicures for you to (hopefully) enjoy:

Last post, I said that the next manicure was rainbow/pride and according to the list, it is.
I thought about it a bit and ... well, pride parade and festival (at least here in Vancouver) isn't until August 5th, so I swapped the August 5th manicure into the June 17th spot.

So, this week I'm doing a needle marble manicure.
Here goes nothing!

2 coats Steady as She Rose - I'm not much for pinks, but I really like this one, it's a pale dusty rose with a hint of lilac. I let it dry very thoroughly.
One finger at a time, painted the top half of my nail with You Don't Know Jacques and then - while it's still wet, working quickly - the bottom half with Steady as She Rose.
Again ... while it's still wet, working quickly and carefully, use a pin to drag the two colours into each other and create swirls.
Once it's all dry, apply topcoat to smooth it out and protect it.

My layers were too thick, and I got some bubbling. They took hours to dry - 3 hours after topcoat, I ended up peeling the still soft polish off of two nails.

---

Onto the next manicure ... Neon
Neon polish is incredibly hard to photograph - you never get true colour. I haven't tweaked this at all in photoshop, but I took it in a very well-lit area (hence the different carpet - I was at work, in front of giant windows)

This is the summer trend this year. I have the Sally Hansen Instra-Dri limited edition colour Heat Flash.
I think I'd call it a neon coral - it's a very red orange.

Oh Insta-Dri ... I don't much care for the formula or the brush.
The brush and stem are flat, so you can't wipe off excess polish very easily. The polish itself is thick, but it goes on streaky. I used 2 coats, but I could have easily gone with 3.
The best thing about this polish? I haven't used a topcoat, and while it has started to chip, it has a super high shine.

I added black crackle to my ring finger just to break up the brightness a little (random dollar store brand).
It's cute! I don't know that I'd jump on the neon trend and get more shades, but this one is nice.

Next week's manicure was supposed to be 4th of July, but since I'm Canadian, I'll be doing a Canada Day manicure.

52 Week Challenge - Flag Manicure

Thank Mom - I don't know why I didn't think of this flag myself!

Yarr!

*ahem*

I picked up a new basecoat to see how it works - Quo by ORLY Strong Bond, a "rubberized" basecoat. It's supposed to help prevent the polish from chipping.

2 coats of OPI Black Onyx

Then ...I just so happened to have a stamp plate with a version of the Jolly Roger on it.

This specific Jolly Roger (a skull and two crossed swords) was flown by English pirate Calico Jack Rackham. It was also featured in the Pirates of the Caribbean films as Captain Barbossa's flag.
(What's really sad, is that when I saw the plate, I knew it was Calico Jack's Jolly Roger, because I'm a little bit of a pirate nerd.)

The stamp is the centre image on Shany plate SH14. I stamped it onto my thumb, middle and pinky fingers using OPI Skull and Glossbones (yep, I couldn't resist).

Topped it off with OPI topcoat.

I'm still getting the hang of stamping, so of course the last one turned out best (my pinky in this photo). I've learned that the key with stamping is to be quick!

Next week's challenge is a Pride / Rainbow manicure

Filler Manicure

I'm still trying to figure out which flag to paint on my nails.
I'm thinking of just saying 'to hell with it' and doing the flag of Libya (it's solid green)

Anyways, my Ombre was chipping pretty badly, so I removed it and did another manicure before going to a family get-together yesterday.

2 coats of OPI Cuckoo for This Color (3 coats on a couple of nails, just because it didn't want to cooperate)

Then I chose Bundle Monster plate BM21 for the fancy filigree pattern and stamped it using Color Club Boho Mojo (seen in my very first post!)

It took a few tries, because the scraper wasn't getting all the polish off of the plate, so when I went to pick up the design, it was blobby.

I like how subtle the effect is - it's very delicate and pretty.

I'm providing two photos, because I chipped one of my nails while making dinner tonight (no, the nail polish didn't end up in the food - I'm more careful than that!), and because it was hard to get a photo.
Unfortunately, the tips are chipping already as well :(

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)

52 Week Nail Challenge - Splatter Manicure

Splatter manicures ... another one I wasn't too sure about.
The Husband was even less enthused at the prospect of nail polish getting everywhere.

Anyways, to achieve the look, you're supposed to dip the end of a straw in the nail polish and blow on the straw to, well, splatter it on your nails.

I decided to just do a feature nail.

To start, I painted my nails with Wet n Wild Craze in Rustic - 3 coats. I probably could have gotten away with 2 coats.
I decided to use Maybelline Express Finish in Be Scene in Green - turquoise with a gold shimmer as the base for my feature nail. Turquoise and copper always look good together. 3 coats of this one as well.

Once those were dry, I went into the kitchen and cut up a plastic bag to lay out on the counter. Then I drank a juice box, so I had a straw to use. heh.

I took Rustic again and dabbed a little puddle out onto the plastic. It took a few tries to get a splatter, but I discovered it works best if you make sure to get a 'film' over the end of the straw.
It's not as pretty as others - I think the nail polish was a bit thick, but I sill like the result.
I don't know that I will do this again, but it was fun to try.

Next week's manicure challenge is an Ombre manicure.

52 Week Nail Challenge - Fruit Manicure

I got all of my stamp plates on Friday.

I played around with them for a bit over the weekend and I decided that I wanted to use them for this week's manicure.

Please pardon the flash as always. If I remember, I'll bring my camera to work tomorrow to see if I can get a non-flash photo.

I picked up a pack of Claire's Sweet Scents - 5 scented nail polishes

Strawberry (pink), Orange (orange), Banana (yellow), Lime (green) Fruit Punch (turquoise)
I didn't want to choose just one, so I decided to do a skittles manicure.

Back when I worked at Claire's, their nail polishes weren't the best, so I was expecting to have to do multiple coats - these aren't too bad! Neon colours, dries matte, and dries quickly.

2 coats for each, except the yellow - it required 3, and it was kind of gloopy. :( I think if I want to use the yellow again, I'll do a basecoat with another yellow polish first.

Scent-wise, they're pretty standard artificial scents. The orange and lime were pretty 'cleaning supply' scented at first, but then they mellowed out.

Once they were on and dry, I went in with OPI Black Onyx to add the designs.

A strawberry on my thumb, orange slices on my index finger, bananas on my middle finger, a lime on my ring finger and a pineapple on my pinky.
Some of them are off-centre ... I'm still trying to figure out how to position the stamp.

I applied a topcoat to protect everything, which I figured would kill the fruit scent - I am surprised to say that it did not!

Next week is a Splatter Mani - remember splatter painting with straws from when you were a kid - yeah, picture that with nail polish. If it's nice next weekend, I'll do my nails outside. Must remember to keep a couple of straws this week.