Snowed In

I want to show you my new favorite look for winter.  It's a subtle but elegant look and is super easy to accomplish. 

All I did was take a very fibrous sponge and using a basic white polish, Orly White Tips in this instance, but any white will do I started at the tip of the nail and worked my way back almost all the way to the cuticle. 

I repeated the process again only over about half the nail, then again just on the free edge allowing a minute or so between coats so I wasn't just moving around the color I'd laid down previously. 

Once I was satisfied with the look I let the white dry a bit and then followed it with a glitter top coat.  In this instance I wanted a really subtle and soft look so I used one of my new polishes.  This one is by Essence and is called Space Queen.  It's a lovely soft opalescent pink glitter. 

The finished look is soft french that is great on it's own and is a perfect base for some holiday nail art as I will be showing you in the next few days.  I hope you like it, thanks so much for stopping by and reading.  I appreciate all your comments.  Have a wonderful day!

Don't Touch My Cupcake!

I wish I could say I was shocked when I read THIS  post over on Emerald Sparkled but unfortunately I have encountered bigotry and bullying in the nail blog world before.  There are people that think that once they have a few followers that they are the authority on such things and they have the right to publicly belittle and demean others.
I will say that such behavior is the fastest way to lose me as a follower because I chose to have a zero tolerance policy on such things and I am glad that there are others willing to take a stand. 

 I want to show my support for all  the people that paint "outside the lines" and paint cupcakes, so here are my cupcake nails, complete with sprinkles and a cherry on top (mmm, hungry for cupcakes now).

For those of you that come across such catty entries in your blog surfing, I suggest that if you're not comfortable taking a stand, that you remain silent and not validate the behavior with any kind of comment that could be seen as supportive.  This includes lol'ing and statements of understanding, it makes you no better than a bully yourself. 

 If you support ALL nail bloggers regardless of their skill level a feel that everyone should be able to express themselves however they like, let people know.   

Blue Nails

I hope each of you had a wonderful and happy Thanksgiving.  My little family of three stayed home and I prepared a traditional meal of turkey with all the fixings, which we dined upon in a rather nontraditional way.  We took ourselves into the bedroom and feasted while sitting on the bed and watching Auntie Mame.

The nails that I ended up wearing for the event was a simple yet elegant look.  I took China Glaze Blue Year's Even and applied it to the entire nail.  I have to admit to being a bit of a sucker for a rich, juicy looking blue, and this is certainly that.  The application was straightforward and simple, just two coats to get full coverage, no issues. 

Once Blue Year's Eve had set for a moment I decided to do a swept french.  For this I used another of the China Glaze Let It Snow Collection, Tinsel Town.  This delightful glitter has multi sized glitters and small hexes.  I like the fact that the color feels more industrial than shiny precious metal.  It gives it more depth than just simple "silver glitter" would have.  It's also in a perfect blue tinted clear base that is thick enough to keep the glitter saturation well blended. 

So a swiped Tinsel Town across the tips and down one side of all but my accent nail which got the full treatment.  This was two coats of Tinsel Town and as you can see, coverage is excellent. 

You're seeing this after about a day, I changed my polish the night before Thanksgiving and didn't take pictures until the day after.  That being said, pardon the tip wear.

 This is my first Christmas holiday manicure.  I didn't want it to be too obvious and I think using these two colors succeeded.   Hopefully you my wonderful readers like it as well.  Thank you all so much for stopping by and reading and for the wonderful comments you leave.  I do appreciate knowing that you're out there.  

Until next time, take care. 

Foils

I love foils, don't you.  

Don't they look great?! (Ok, aside from some user application glitches) 

I had purchased several foils from Dollar Nail Art quite some time ago but had become very frustrated with the effect that the top coat, no matter which one I tried, had on them.  Places that sell "foil top coats" were calling it an "antiqued effect"  I called it just plain nasty!  I want that beautiful high, rainbow shine and I know I'm not alone.  I know a lot of you girls out there will wear foils for just a day with no top coat just to keep the effect.

So I've no idea what causes the dulling and crinkling when you use a regular top coat but I thought that it wouldn't hurt at all to try my soak off gel top coat over them.  One of the wonderful things about these soak off gels is that removal is no more difficult than removing a thick glitter polish, so acetone, cotton balls and some foil and you're good.

Application was par for the course, I did a base coordinating color, in this case Orly Dazzle.  Then the foil adhesive which I let dry a few more seconds past when the last of the milkiness disappeared then applied the foil.  From there I applied the gel top coat and cured under the uv lamp for the recommended time and viola!

These lasted three days before I had a corner lift and decided to move on.

Thanks so much for stopping by and reading.  Until next time you all take care!

Blue Flowers

I was in a nail art mood so I pulled out the acrylic paint, the glitter and the glitz for this one.

My sweetie came in and (jokingly) said "You've been at those nails for six hours!"  Maybe an hour from start to finish.  It was fun though, and I've gotten a lot of comments on them.  People want to know if they're stickers.  I guess it means I did ok. 

I started with Orly Androgynie  topped with Seche Vite.  I love it because of the different depth you get from the glitter, the flash you get is amazing.  Once the polish was completely dry I used Acrylic paints for the flowers.  I then used a loose glitter around the centers, then a large holographic hex for the final centers. .

 My nail art skills are getting better, I hope you like them and thanks so much for stopping by and reading. 

Sometimes it just won't work.

This started out as just being Loreal's Ravens Strength in a basic as basic can get polish job. I adore the color, and it was quite lovely until I wore it to work (without getting pictures first, darn it) and got some nasty tip wear.  Not being willing to tolerate the tip wear but not being willing to start from scratch I was left with a mani revamp.  The only problem is, that a revamp is supposed to improve upon...I'm not sure that's what happened.  Ok, I'm sure it didn't.

 I started by trying to do a fade with China Glaze Tinsel Town.  That didn't work so well, in that the end lines are very distinct and the fade...didn't.  -Note to self, when doing a fade, use a sponge and not a brush.

 Not one to throw in the towel easily I pulled out some of my polymer sticks and cut some slices off a half butterfly wing and a full butterfly, several were much too thick, but I insisted on using them anyway. -Next note to self.  When it comes to polymer, the thinner the better.

 Once I got them on and a coat of Seche Vite over the top of the whole thing I realized that I should have put a bit more though into it.   While it's not horrid, it certainly does look thrown together.  More haphazard than thought out.   -Final note to self, have a plan. 

But hey, we've got to blog the bad stuff too, right.  Thanks for sticking through the good and the not so good.  Until next time, be safe and take care.

A Field of Poppies

I seem to go in cycles as far as my posts.  I'll do really well for a couple of weeks, then slack off for a week.  Things got really hectic at work.  My hours increased by a whole day a week and an extra two hours a day, then our manager went to a conference this past week so they had me working every day to help cover. I didn't have time or energy for a polish change until I got hit by a bit of motivation to try a bit more of the one stroke nail art.  I hope you like.

 I used China Glaze Champagne Bubbles as my base color, but rather than apply it flat from the bottle, I did a gradient sponge with it being the darkest at the tip.  I did a lot of sponging because I wanted the fade to be very soft.  While a pronounced gradient has it's place, it wasn't the look I was going for. 

 Once my gradient was just how I wanted it, I took a pretty China Glaze gold holographic glitter (that I can't remember the name of and am too lazy to go find it) and coated the entire nail with it gave it a second or two to dry then applied a coat of Seche Vite and let it dry.  I found the Seche to be quite important to beginners like myself because that slick surface in combination with a damp cotton ball makes it easy to wipe the slate clean so to speak when the inevitable happens and you flub up.

 The poppies turned out better than I had hoped with my amateur one stroke skills, so I'm quite proud.  I did a custom blend of a deep red and a metallic copper acrylic to get the shade I wanted, the center is a straight black. 

 Once the acrylic was dry I took a loose gold glitter and with some clear polish and a brush applied it to the center of all of the poppies.  Once I was sure it was all stuck down I went over the whole with another coat of Seche Vite. 

 I really love this look and it has been an eye catcher at work, I've gotten several positive comments on them.  It's always so cool to get complements and know that they're for my own work, and not some tech down the street,  I try not to let it go to my head.  :) 

A word to all of my wonderful followers.  Hopefully you got this far in the post. :)  I can't help but notice that I've almost reached 200 followers!  Since I don't do a lot of giveaways, I feel that you're here because I have something to offer and that's a pretty good feeling.  I hope I continue to capture your interest and maybe even inspire you just a wee bit.  Needless to say, once the big two oh oh is reached, there will be a celebratory give away.  So stay tuned my lovelies.  The time is nigh upon us!

Feels Like Fall

Playing around with my China Glaze Metro polishes again.  This is after a day of at work, so pardon the chip and tip wear. 

 This is three coats each of Brownstone and Trendsetter.  It's a rather unexpected combination but I think it works.

 Brownstone is a delicious, red brick creme that dries darker on the nail than what showed in the bottle, while Trendsetter is goldenrod with a touch of olive green and is packed with shimmer.  It dries fairly true to the bottle color.

 Brownstone is super thick and rather streaky which necessitated the three coats.  Trendsetter wasn't as thick but the third coat helped make the color more dense and richer.

I am so in love with the Metro collection.  I'm sure you're all rather sick of it but I just adore it.  Thanks all for putting up with my gushing over it.  I appreciate all of you and your comments, Until next time (when I have something other than a Metro polish) take care!

Dry Marble for Fall

The dry marble and the do it yourself nail strips aren't anything new but I've been having fun experimenting with the two techniques.  Here is a look I created using that technique.

 For the marble I used China Glaze Trendsetter, Traffic Jam, Urban-night, and Brownstone from the Metro Collection as well as In Awe of Amber which is the copper shimmer you see and just a touch of Velvet Bow.

 

My main color is two coats of OPI Pepe's Purple Passion from the Muppets Collection.  This is a great dusty plum color with a subtle shimmer that lurks just below the surface

 Because Pepe's Purple Passion is so highly color saturated, cleanup was a bit of a mess and my cuticles were stained.  Another issue was cleanup around the overlay, you can probably see how it's really rough looking.  I think this would have been solved if I'd done a better job of trimming them to fit my nail shape. 

Overall I really think the look turned out quite well.  Have you tried either technique, if so, what has your experience been??

Nails by Revlon

I am totally impressed with these polishes by Revlon, the formula, the application and the absolutely fabulous color!

 To get this look I painted all of my nails with Fierce, which is a stunning silver/purple-fuchsia shimmer.  Then I took Facets of Fuchsia a black tinted base that's loaded with the same purple-fuchsia hexes and glitter and applied it over my ring and index fingers. 

 The colors tied together perfectly and the glitter coat was surprisingly smooth.  Both polishes benefited from a coat of Seche Vite though. 

 I picked both of these polishes up at Ulta for $4.99 if I remember correctly, but you can get these at most stores that have a cosmetic section.  For the cost I think that Revlon is a great polish.  I own several different colors and finishes and have always been very pleased. As far as "store" brands go, I think Revlon would be in my top three. 

Have you tried Revlon polishes and did you like them?  What's your favorite "store" brand.