A Peek Into My Collection - Pinks

As requested, here are my pink polishes.
While I always say that pink is probably my least favorite, I still have quite a few of them.

Some of my favorites in this group areNina Ultra Pro in Bittersweet, Orly Artificial Sweetner and Flirty.  But since I am pretty selective about my pinks,  I really like almost all of them.  

Until next time, take care!

Blues rather than Purples, Nugets rather than Flakes

I was going through my photo library and saw a few pictures that haven't been posted yet. 

These pictures were the bane of my morning while I tried and tried to get the purple to come out so the photos would be polish exact.  Well no luck there.

 So instead of a beautiful purple polish of pure amazement that is Tomorrow Never Dies, you get the blue version.  But trust me, it's purple, yes it has a blue flash, but nothing like this.  If I knew the first thing about color manipulation I would have made it color accurate but oh well, it's still really pretty.

 I took pictures a couple of days after the initial manicure so needed a way to cover up the tip wear, for that I used Orly Space Cadet from the Cosmic FX line.  It worked out quite well across the tips of the nails with some accent hexes. 

 The accent nail was a bit more fun.  I started with a couple of coats of GoldenEye then hand placed some hexes in the lower corner before covering it all with a top coat.  I wasn't done though.  I took a sponge and some Wet 'n Wild Black Cream and very lightly touched the cold. the end results resembles a gold nugget you'd pull out of the ground 

Until next time my loverlies.  Take Care!

A Peek Into My Collection - Blues

Blues are seem to have been my weakness.

Favorites here are Orly's Witches Blue and Star of Bombay.  Both are rich, deep blues.  Also love OPI's Yodel Me On My Cell, and China Glaze Secret Peri-wink-le

So I've shown you yellows/oranges, purples and blues, which colors would you like to see next?

Thanks for stopping by.  Have a lovely day, and until next time, take care. 

Mother the Dragon & Daughter the Siren Nails

How about a bit of nail art for a change?  Just to make sure I can still do it.  You're in for a real treat with this post, because first you get to see my daughters beautiful nails.  She has such amazing nailbeds and her nails    grow so fast it's almost not fair at all.  Here she is sporting Red-ical Gypsy from the Color Club Boho Collection.  A sexy crimson Red jelly/creme, it is made all the more amazing with the addition of hand placed gold flakes on the accent nail and thumb.

 Moms nails were going for a little more, how shall we say "scaly" look. Using China Glaze Argo with the New Bohemian Collection.in Unpredictable.  Add some stray gold flakes and a bit of acrylic paint for some scales and I had a fabulous dragon look courtesy of a fellow laquirista on a site I follow..Once I dig up all my favorites I will give proper credit. 

 Here is our tender moment of mother daughter nails.  We have quite different tastes but at least they break down into polish.  It's just another thing that I have to bond with her over and it makes me quite happy indeed. 

So what ways does polish bring your family together.  Post about your mommy daughter, father daughter, sisters and what not polish parties and come back and let us know all about them.  I may have a little something of a drawing for the participants.. 

A Peek Into My Polish Collection - Yellows and Oranges

Hello lovelys, onto another gaze at my certifiable polish collection no doubt.   Today we're doing yellows and oranges, "Oh My!"
I actually hide one of my eldest polishes in here, a lovely pumpkin orange from Wet n' Wild that flits about as if she were the matriarch of the collection.  Well, really she is, but we try not to let on too much,  The moment you favor one, the next will forget to put her lid on and will fall to the white carpet below.

I never really thought of yellows being my color until Sally Hansen Salon formula introduced me to Yellow Kitty.  A soft little gem of pale, pure, yellow that purrs her way into your nails while you stand and protest "no, I don't do yellow!"  But within moments your pulled in by the way it glides on, the color so soft and unassuming.  You're left with a moment of clarity in which you realize your nails are yellow, but you don't care.  But I digress

Over time I've become well rounded and no it's not the pastries! immune if you will to the dulcet tones of nail polish.  They are seductresses, teases and they wheedle their way into your collection in a most tawdry fashion.  I like it!  I do!
However, yellows are difficult to come by in an acceptable formula and I feel I can be selective on the oranges and so I maintain a medium of control with a mere 20 yellows and 41 orange.

So, where do the yellows and oranges stand in your collection?  Bring them out and leave a link for us to see and we'll stop by to take a peek.

Until next time my lovely ladies.  Make it a wonderful day.

Glitter All the Way

I love the new polishes for the holidays, there's so much sparkle and I am particularly fond of sparkle.  I am not however ready for holiday manicures.  So a little inventiveness was required.
 This is China Glaze Glitter All the Way and Wet n' Wild Black Creme with a few hand placed hexes and some Sinful Colors micro glitter.  

At first I was just testing the coverage of Glitter All the Way, so it's something like four or five coats on my middle finger with no base color.  I liked it so much that I decided to build a whole mani around it.  So WnW black went over the remaining four fingers.
From there I figured it would be a little odd to have the ever popular middle finger as the accent nail so I pulled out my hex glitter and selected the colors that are in Glitter All the Way, red, gold, purple and green.  My daughter calls it Mardi Gras in a bottle.
I usually don't have the patience for hand placed glitter, but really wanted to work it into the look.  Seriously, love it, going to have to do more.

 So, with my two accent fingers done, I went on to the rest of the nails.  I applied Glitter All the Way on the diagonal across the nails.  Once that was dry I took a thin line of foil glue between the glitter and black, I then adhered my Sinful Colors micro glitter in gold to create a definite line between the two.  I need to get some nail tape, I think that would have looked better. but anyway.

 Glitter All the Way isn't a terribly grainy glitter and happily doesn't drink a lot of top coat to get a smooth surface.  Even so, I think it took two coats of Out the Door and a coat of Seche Vite to get a mirror surface.  I love how it turned out though, very happy with this one!

A Peek Into My Collection - Purples

I recently had cause to go through and sort of organize my polish collection and figured that over the course of the next while, would share it with you. 
As of right now I'm just getting started on a spread sheet with all the names and brands but if you see a color you really love I may (emphasis on "may") be able to narrow it down for you. 
First off lets do purples since for a very long time that was my most favoritest color ever. 

I tried to break this down into brands, so all the OPI's are together etc.  It was actually a lot of fun seeing how much polish I actually have.  WOW, I'm either a nut job on a certifiable level or a true collector.  I like to think it's the latter.  At this count there were 92 bottles of purple polish.  Well, 91.5 if you take that itty bitty cute little OPI into consideration.

So, if you were to break your collection down, how many purples would you have.  Let me know, and leave links to your purple collection. 

Until next post.  Make it a most excellent day!  Ciao!

Blue and Purple Scrollwork

What a week.  Don't you just love it when it feels like you just spent a lifetime in one week but didn't really accomplish anything?

I finally managed to get a few minutes to paint my nails and chose a couple of colors I'd just brought home.  Both by China Glaze. I decided that I hate trying to use my phone camera, so I begged my sweetie into using his nice one for these.  I hope you like them. 

I used two colors by China Glaze, Want my Bawdy and No Plain Jane  Both are very subtle duo-chromes and I think the colors are amazingly rich and beautiful, having more of a depth to them due to the color shift. 

 The main color is about 4 coats of China Glaze Want my Bawdy on all but my accent nail which is about 4 coats of China Glaze No Plain Jane as well as just a touch of Revlon Orbit (of Moon Candy fame) and a layer of Wet n' Wild Fergie Dutchess to top it off before adding my topcoat. 

 I used black acrylic paint to do the scroll work.  I'm trying to re-learn my control after my long sabbatical from most nail art.  The saying that it's like riding a bicycle is true only to a certain extent, the use it or loose it is far more true and I've lost quite a bit of it.

Thanks so much for stopping by.  Until next time, make it a beautiful day and take care.

Oh Hai!...Again With Dots)

Well, I'm back, now as a happily married woman.  The wedding was beautiful and perfect (pictures to come), everything I wanted and hoped it would be.   Aside from the obvious, my change as far as the blog is concerned is that my trusty little digital camera died so now I'm going to have to work off of my Iphone's camera until I can afford a new one.  My sweetie tells me that it is just as good as my ancient digital camera, but we shall see.  

Although I've been taking a break from blogging I haven't taken a break from buying polish and have kept pretty well on top of the newest releases.  I don't have them all but I have enough to make me happy and that's what matters right.  I'm probably well over 500 bottles of polish at this point so I run no risk of running out of material.  Anyway, on to the polish.

This is actually one of the last set of pictures I got on my old camera so they're a bit dated, and unfortunately it didn't turn out quite like I envisioned, the colors weren't quite right, but it's still cute.

Colors used were OPI Thanks a Windmillion for my base color.  for the dots I used China Glaze Sunshine Pop (yellow) and Fuchsia Fanatic (pink) as well as OPI Did You 'ear About Van Gogh?  I used page reinforcements and a sponge to create my large dots.  I started with a base of Wet n' Wild white so they'd stand out more against the background.  I used a dotting tool for the smaller dots.

 It kind of reminds me of...I don't know what, I was going to say and Easter egg, but that's not right, the colors are a little too dirty for that.  Oh well.

 

These didn't turn out badly, just not as planned.  The overall look has potential so I'll probably try it again with different colors, we'll see.  

I think I need to do something to celebrate my return don't you?   I've collected up some grand polishes so maybe I'll start thinking of something to do with those.  For those of you reading this, thanks for sticking with me. 

Summer Bright Gradient

I picked up the Color Club Take Wing Collection from Ross Dress for Less.  I absolutely love the colors in this because they're so bright and fun and they actually have great coverage, even the yellow!  Pardon the tip wear, it's a mixture of my top coat and being a day into wear.

 You're also getting a sneak peek at a little project I'm working on, more on that to come though.

 For this look I used four of the colors, Daisy Does It (yellow) was the first to go down on the entire nail, followed by Fly With Me (green) over the lower two thirds of the nail.  I just used the brush to do the gradient, hence the rough look to it, but it looks great from a regular distance.

Once those two color were in place I followed it with Metamorphosis and then Sky High over just the tips, blending as much as possible with the brush.  It came out bright and fun, don't you think? 

 

It reminds me of some poolside drink you'd get made with pineapple juice and blue curacao  Served with one of those little umbrellas by some hunky guy with a great tan.  I think I'm going to slip off into this little daydream for a while, Until next time you all have a grand time and take care. 

Playing dress up

This great color is Zoya Freja, a black base that's swirled with shimmering gold and bronze.  Beautiful really and perfect for those that love dark vampy shades but not wanting to go all out black. 
I actually did these while on the road without any supplies but my base and color coat, so pardon the lack of cleanup and obviously poor lighting.  Hotel lighting is crap and I didn't see light of day until the second to last day there

. 
I had to go to a conference in Reno Nevada for work and on the last night there was a big gala dinner where I got to dress up. This is the polish I used because it was so perfect with the outfit I'd brought.  With the dark base color and flecks of gold and bronze the polish is much more stunning than these photos show. This was two coats. 

Here is the whole look.  I really rather liked how it all came together. (Excuse the bathroom shot, that's the only full length mirror there was in the hotel room.) 

With the golden, bronze top, the black skirt, and although unseen, fabulous black strappy heels I really felt that the entire look came together really well.  I felt beautiful.  And really, isn't that what it's all about anyway.  Thanks so much for reading and helping me support this little nail blog, I do appreciate you all.  Until next time.  Take care!!

Some Kind of Wonderful

I dug this out of my past pictures, I'm not sure why I didn't post it, but I love this color.

But I have to be honest.  I can't remember whether this is Essie Plumberry or Size Matters.  *shameface*  I may have to turn my laquerista card in.  I bought them both around the same time and honestly they're super close, just Size Matters is darker...so I think it's Plumberry but don't quote me.

The glitter is Milani Hot Pink which is fucsia and silver holo hexes in a clear base. 

A coat of  Seche Vite finishes the look off with high shine.  ...and I'm now seeing that I needed to do some work on my cuticles.  Oops.

So I know I'm being a terrible blogger, I'm pretty much a stranger on my own blog and I never have time to visit others.  I blame the wedding. I'm past the 3 month mark now so most of my time is tied up in plans and work.  My nails have suffered and even though I try to keep polish on them it's rare I get pics before they look horrid.  I'm planning a give away for after the wedding by way of thanks to those of you that are sticking with me through this. 
I'll post when I can, but I make no promises for frequency or fancy.    Until next time then, take care!

Boho blue

This is Color Club New Bohemian from the Boho Collection.  I picked this pre-packaged collection up for $7.99 at either Ross Dress for Less or TJ Maxx, I don't remember which. I love it though, where else can you get a collection that would usually be over $20 for that price?  My only issue is that the bottles aren't marked with color names so I have to write them on myself.  The agony of first world problems. :)

This is two to three coats, since it was a little bit sheer I decided to use Wet n' Wild white as a base coat, I figured that would make the color really pop, and I was right, the problem was that the white ended up showing in my cuticle area where I did my clean up, and also the tips.  Way too quickly too, this mani was only a couple of hours old when I took the pictures.  I guess I'm really hard on my nails.  

I love the earthy, very natural colors of this collection.  They are all for the most part very wearable.  Doesn't this color remind you of robin eggs?  Not sure when exactly this collection released, but it is very suitable for spring.

Much love to all of you that are hanging on while I go through a dry spell as far as posts. Stress has not been kind and I've had to cut off all my nails to nubs and most time I'm too busy or tired for polish.  I have a few older pics that haven't been posted yet, and a few new ones coming here and there so don't give up on my yet.  Until next time (whenever that will be) take care. 

Old Gold

Short post today.

 I love this color.  This is Orly Solid Gold

 It is actually matte, but obviously has been blinged up and a top coat added for extra shine.  I used two coats here and aside from the usual matte issue of drag caused by the quick surface dry time it applied pretty near perfectly.

 The glitter is a very fine loose glitter I picked up at my local nail supply store.  I applied it to the tips only using foil glue.  I applied the glue so it would have full coverage over the tips but somewhat fade the further toward the base I got.  Honestly once I got the glitter on it reminded me a lot of OPI's Warm and Fozzie from the Muppet collection. 

 I hope you enjoy this.  Thanks so much for stopping by and reading.  Until next time, take care. 

Done Up In Dots

I love how this turned out.  I was heavily influenced by ABOP and her ability to create amazing manicures with simple dots.  She has such an eye for color and placement.

My main color is China Glaze Fast Track, it was rather sheer so I needed three coats to get it to the point showing here.  Still some visible nail line, but I can work with it. 

The accent nail is done with OPI Wooden Shoe Like to Know? This one only took two coats.  It reminds me a lot of a rich chocolate milk, the kind you actually make with real chocolate not powder.  The kind that is so thick and delicious it's like drinking a chocolate bar.  YUM!

The Wooden Shoe Like to Know? showed up fine on it's own against the Fast Track but with Fast Track being as sheer as it is, it would have taken me forever to build it up enough to look good and then been a big bump, so I took one size smaller dotting tool than I wanted the finished look to have, and some white acrylic paint to create an opaque base, then I took the next size up of dotting tool and went over those with the Fast Track.  It worked out perfectly and I'm really pleased.

 

I hope you like this look, 

Hot Like Lava

Sorry to be MIA for so long, I've been traveling for work and really busy trying to get ready for my wedding in August, all this doesn't leave a lot of time for polish changes.

This is a continuation on my attempts at candy coating and I was really quite pleased with the way this turned out.

My base color is Fingerpaints Key to My Art, a pale gold, which I used two coats of.  I then used a top coat with a regular drying time to add areas for my diamond glitter "flowers"  with hex centers to adhere to.  Believe it or not the diamonds were red and the hexes were silver when I started.  This part took the longest but I really liked the way it came out in the end, so totally worth it. 

Once my flowers were in place I used two coats of Kleancolor Chunky Holo Poppy to go over the top.  I didn't mix the bottle to incorporate the glitter and tried to use the straight color on the top.  It gave everything a beautiful stained glass effect while turning it a beautiful lava orange.

I'm really really pleased with how this came out, I think I got it right this time.

 

What are some of your favorite layered effects? 

Random Rainbow

Quite some time ago I purchased some duel use nail art pens on ebay.  They aren't Migi nail art pens by a long stretch and the colors are really quite sheer as you can see, but most of them work and I've really hardly used them at all.  I pulled a few out for this nail art though and I think they're rather cute.

I didn't apply the colors in a traditional rainbow, but rather a more mixed up jumble.  I almost wanted more of a stained glass effect.  I carried the color up almost to the nail bed, but not quite.

 

Once I had the colors laid out, I used some thin acrylic paint and did wavy lines where each color intersected  It's no my favorite look, and I can think now of ways to improve it but it is what it is. 

Thank you so much for stopping by and reading, I appreciate you all and your comments so much.  Until next time, take care!