Nothin' but Nail Guides Mani & Tutorial

How bad is it that as you're putting on one color of polish you're thinking of the different things you can do to it? I sometimes wonder if having so many polishes keeps me from truly appreciating the individual polishes. Umm...Ok, done philosophizing, lets move onto the polish. :)

As I was putting on OPI's Rising Star I was contemplating how I could turn it into another more glamorous Halloween look, I wanted to fit just one more in. Ug, can you believe this month is over!??

Anyway, here's what I came up with, and since my last tutorial was a hit, and this look is really simple and can be used with a variety of color combos, I figured I'd do another one.

Without embellishment

With embellishment

I must admit that I wish I'd left the jewels off, they just don't go with the look like I'd hoped.

Moving onto the tutorial!

Step 1: Apply your base coat and base color, (OPI Rising Star.) Make sure it's completely dry and apply french nail guides as shown.
Step 2: Apply a darker color (Orly Out of This World) to the area above the guides. Carefully remove the guides and apply a quicky drying top coat (Seche Vite) and let dry completely.
Step 3: Your nails will look like this, now you're going to take a fresh set of guides and using the diagram shown place them on your nails. The guide edge placement is important to achieve the crescent shape.
Step 3 cont.: Once your guides are in place, take your final color (OPI Take the Stage) and paint the area below the guides.
Step 4: Remove the guides, your nails will look like the pic above. Apply another top coat to smooth things out, you can also add embellishments if you like. Now sit back and enjoy.

OPI Rising Star

Oooo La La! Check out this glowing goodness!

This is OPI's Rising Star and isn't it just lovely! Although the plan was to use my usual two coats, I dinged up the middle and pinky so put an extra coat on all around to try and smooth out the damage. It's still noticeable but since I'd already done one mess up removal and repair I decided to live with it. (Pardon my in need of a fill nails)

The first two pictures were taken outside with cloudy conditions but the sun came out for the last two and look at how brilliant this becomes. I love the little glints of gold.
I'm loving this color for fall, it's a nice warm orangy copper that doesn't fall into the "orange" rut.
So off nail topic, check out the winter wonderland that Mother Nature sent my way. Isn't it pretty?
Are you ready for winter? I know I'm not. I have a friend that lives in New Zealand. It's going on Spring there. If I could I'd go spend the cold months here, there.

I hope you have a lovely day and until next time, ciao!

Designs by the Daughter

I'm having a bit of a guest artist today because I walked into the kitchen the other night and caught my 15 year old daughter working on a couple of nail designs.

She said this was her version of a water marble. I'm going to need to find out her technique because I think this is pretty cool.

These are her school colors and a Jaguar paw print. Pretty cute eh?

She used a little black rhinestone in the center of the paw.

Thanks for stopping by and until next time, ciao!

A little venting (none nail related post)

I know you all are here for the nails and they'll be here tomorrow I promise, but I need to vent just a little.
I've been unemployed for over a year. Ive been able to manage ok thanks to my wonderful boyfriend who shouldered the majority of the financial burden and with my occasional military stints (I'm a traditional reservist) that I've mentioned here. So when I give a week of my time, I expect to get paid. Yes?
Well it's been almost a month and I'm still waiting for the check on the 8 day week I worked at the first of the month. Turns out someone shredded my signed orders that just needed to get turned into the pay office and no one was kind enough to tell me. Now my landlord is threatening me with a notice and after a huge hassle of getting new orders printed and signed I won't get paid until the 3rd.
Yes, a late paycheck is better than not getting one, but really... My pride is bruised because we've had to go begging to family to get us out of the rut that we shouldn't be in in the first place. Argh!!
I have another military week coming up, the 30th through the 5th (more bland nails) and there had better not be a repeat of this fiasco.
I need a real job!...and a hug

Won't You Come Into My Parlor? Nails and Tutorial

I've been enjoying all of the adorable spiders that have been making their appearance on the nails of fellow bloggers. Not one to be left out I thought I'd jump on the bandwagon and do my own version. While I was at it I figured I'd do a tutorial. So lets get started.

First, here are some shots of the completed mani.


























Now, on with the tutorial.
On all the nails
Step 1. Apply your favorite base coat, I use OPI Ridge Filler.
Step 2. Create your base color, I used one coat of each in this order, Orly 'White Tips', Orly 'Platinum', Maybelline Salon Expert 'Rock Out', and a Quick dry top coat (I used SH Insta Dry but it was old and bubbled.)

On an accent finger
Step 3. Using black acrylic paint and a large dotting tool create the body and head of the spider. it should look like an upside down two tier snowman.

Step 4. Using the black paint (thinned with a bit of water so it flows better) and a liner brush paint in the legs and the web. Paint larger webs on two additional fingers.

Step 5. Highlight the web and spider. I used silver (Stripe Rite) for the web and NYX 'Asphalt' (a black base with tiny multi-colored glitter) for the spider

Step 6. With a detail brush and bright red acrylic paint, paint an hourglass shape in the center of the body of the spider. If you have small enough triangular jewels you could use those instead putting them point to point to create the hourglass. I used a red based glitter polish to highlight (NYX 'Dark Red Glitter').

From there it's just a matter of applying your top coat. I hope you all enjoyed my little tutorial. Have a great day and until next time, ciao!

Color Club Nothing but Truffle

We had about an hour of sun today, otherwise it's been overcast and rainy. But with that bit of sun I managed some pictures so as promised, here is Nothing but Truffle. I decided that I'm categorizing it as a chocolaty red, very deep and very rich. What do you think?

Did you notice? You're getting to see my before now never seen right hand! (Pardon the "I forgot to moisturize" cuticles.) The reason being that I have another mani going on my left hand that was also waiting on pictures. That and a tutorial for the look will be my next post.
Anyway, This is actually three coats of polish, all which applied beautifully. I forgot to do a quick dry top coat last night and woke up with some dings and sheet marks hence the third coat but if you were careful, this could almost be a one coat polish. It's a little on the thick side but it's not unmanageable. If you're looking for something dark with a hidden shimmer to it I think this would work well for Konading.

Off topic, I was hanging out on my computer last night and got interrupted. Apparently Toulouse thought I needed a break.

You all have a great rest of the weekend and until next time, ciao!

Naughty Haul

I was a naughty girl. I couldn't really afford to do this, but I stopped by the salon supply store just to look, honest... Well, there's this little man there, he's old and wizened, not so good on the English but what a salesman. He runs around grabbing items to show me. "Dis bran new!!" and "Ony fie dolla!" or "Buy foe get one flee!" Even as I was handing him my money he was still trying to get me to buy the ENTIRE Burlesque series for $40 something and change.
...At least that's what I think he was saying. Considering that they just got in the OPI Burlesque Collection and the Color Club Diamond Collection I promised to return and he seemed somewhat mollified.
Sigh, I don't seem to be able to buy polish by the onsies and twosies which would fit much nicer into my budget. Anyone else with the same penchant?

So anyway, here by the light of my ott lamp since it's well after dark is my naughty little haul.

Color Club from left to right: De-luxe-cious, Jewel of a Girl, Turn the Other Chic, Nothing but Truffle, Snakeskin,

OPI from left to right: Show It and Glow It, Take the Stage, Rising Star, Sparkle-icious

So I put the Color Club 'Nothing but Truffle' on and I'm trying to figure out exactly how to classify it color wise. The boyfriend is of the opinion that it's the color of some old exotic wood, neither red or brown and he's not far off mark. Hopefully there's sun tomorrow by which to take pictures and I can show you what I mean.

Until next time, ciao!

Orly Witches Blue from this witch to you

With a name like Witches Blue how could I not post this color? What's more, I'm completely infatuated. This is one of those colors that suits me to a "T". It makes my finger look long, slender and as lovely and pale as a White Court vampire (Jim Butcher Dresden Files reference, HIGHLY recommend if you're into fantasy novels) I just love it!
I've been wearing this for about three days now and I'm not sick of it. I think this needs to go into my top ten favorite polishes list.
Application was amazing, I used my OPI Ridge Filler as the base and while I wouldn't say this is a one coat wonder, it is wonderfully opaque, smooth applying, none streaky and beautiful at two coats. This is topped it with China Glaze Fast Forward top coat and I love the glassy finish.

And the Winner IS!!!

Danielle!! Congrats to you! (Winner has been notified via email.)

Thank you all for participating and keep in touch. I promised a 50 follower give away and I'm good on my word.

Anita

One of These Things is Not Like the Other

One of these things just doesn't belong,

Can you tell which thing is not like the others

By the time I finish my song?

I present to you a lovely chameleon color. In the bottle it's more of a rich, delicious looking brown, Kind of like you'd envision raspberry flavored chocolate would look like but put it on your nails and POW!

What we have here is a deep, exotic, luscious red. Look at the fire in there, that's because deep down there's the tiniest touch of copper shimmer, this is one sexy color ladies!

Have I piQued your interest? Do I have your attention? Qurious as to the color of this to die for red?

Hrmmm, I have given it away, not to mention it's plastered on the pics so I'll let you in on it.
This is Q.R.S's Red Square.
The formula was a bit thick, I think I'll add some thinner before using it again but two coats gives great coverage. This actually dried with some shine to it rather than the semi-matte like the other QRS polishes I've tried. Still, it benefited from a coat of Sally Hansen's Insta-Dri.

I must admit, I am in complete love with this color. Do you blame me?

If you haven't already signed up for my give away...HURRY! It closes at midnight tonight and the winner will be announced tomorrow!

Frankie goes to Utah

The green I used was Nina Ultra Pro 'Leaf Me Alone' the black tips are Orly 'Liquid Vinyl' and the details are acrylic paint.
I've been inspired by the cute little Frankensteins that have been making their appearances on numerous blogs and decided to attempt my own.
I wanted to have him peeking over the edge of my nail rather than full face. What do you think?

Have Yourself a Glamourous Halloween

So my Halloween nails have leaned towards whimsical and fun, but I wanted to do some more glamorous looks as well. Here I've created a French Curve manicure, I'm not sure if that's a name but it is now because I don't know what else to call it.
Using Color Club Revvolution I put down my base coat. Then I used a French guide to create the curve but instead of having it go across the tip of the nail I placed it on a diagonal.
From there I used that beautiful baked pumpkin color, China Glaze Cross Iron to paint up the side and over the tip. After I peeled off the guides I took my Stripe Rite gold (not the glitter and used it to go over the seam, covering any glitches that may have happened.
Finally, I took the little metallic hex's and used them over the gold on just the ring finger. A top coat and I was done.

Prince Charming

It's taking me a bit to get back in the groove of posting so I went back through some of my pics and dug up a polish that I hadn't posted yet.
Here is Orly's Prince Charming, I wore this on one of my military days because it's a very neutral color. It reminds me of chocolate milk with maybe just the tiniest amount of strawberry mixed in.

I actually had a hard time with the application, the formula was super thick and if I tried to get a thin coat it was really streaky but otherwise it laid down way to much. Drying time seemed to take longer than most of my other Orly polishes as well. It's not a problem I usually run into so I'm thinking it may be a bottle or batch issue for this color.
Once is was down and dry though, I thought it was lovely, especially if you like the neutral sort of none-colors.
I thought it would make a nice base for some faux-nading so I thought I'd give it a try. I used American Apparel Factory Gray and a faux-nad plate.
Now nail stamping is something I've done just a handful of times so I'm not very good at all. I really need to practice more. It didn't turn out horribly horrid but it could certainly use work. Maybe I should set a personal challenge for myself to use my stamps more often.
What do you think? Needs work huh.
Hey, if you haven't already done so, enter my giveaway, I'll be announcing the winner this coming Monday.

Hey....Thanks!

Every once in a while I go outside my little blog world to seek nail inspiration. I'm not really sure why but after pages and pages of blurry, dark pictures, nail "art" that looks like something that your Dr. would numb up and cut off or that burst from a persons chest cavity in a movie I come back here ever so much more appreciative of all of you that take the time and put in the effort to make pretty things for me to look at and enjoy.
Thanks

Giveaway

I made it through my 8 days of 12 hour shifts. Whoohooo for me! I spent the majority of yesterday sleeping but today I'm up and at 'em! ...Ok, I'm up, still working on the at 'em part.

As promised, I want to have a wee bit of a give away. so here is what is in store for the lucky winner.
We have OPI's My Private Jet, NYX's Purple Ave., Orglamix eye shadow in Neroli, a Halloween theme nail sticker and a Faux-nad plate.

As always you must be a follower to enter and you get an extra entry for sharing about my give away on your blog. To enter once simply comment on this post. To enter twice, just share the link to your blog entry where you mention it in a comment on this post. We'll make this a quick and easy so I shall announce the winner next Monday.

Have a great day!

Black and White

I decided to enter the weekly challenge over at Art of Nail. This week the challenge is Black and White. I had some major inspiration from Katrina at Katrina's Nail Blog, check out her Prince Charming Teddy.
Of course I had to modify it a bit to fit in the theme. I think it turned out ubber cute, how about you?