Tiger Tiger

Keeping my promise of something red. I recently picked up Maybelline's Chic Chocolate and fell in love with that deep red glow. Beautiful! I just thought I'd get all fanciful and add some tiger stripes using my Stripe Rite in gold (not the glitter) and this is what I ended up with. Pretty no?

So wish me luck, today I go to the dentist for my root canal and I'm sooo not looking forward to it. I detest dentists, not that they aren't good people, but they're dentists.

Foxy Lady

What sort of Karma would make me sick right after I get my big haul of China Glaze. The kind of sick where polish fumes make me cough a lung up. :(

I managed to get this mani done before it hit me full force.

Pardon the thumb cuticle, it's had some rough treatment as of late

This is two coats of China Glaze Foxy which is a glorious fiery rust color that applied like a dream. From there I took one of my ebay 2 way polish pens in a copper glitter and painted a diagonal line across the nail. Then I took Stripe Rite in the liquid gold color (not glitter) and did a thin line under it. Finally I took Sinful Colors All About You and painted from the glitter stripe to the tip.
I like the effect it gave, subtle but eye caching. Here is a better look at that close up.
The copper glitter is a lot courser and allows more of Foxy to show from beneath while the finer gold of All About You is more dense and opaque while still having the flash from some red glitter.

I really like this diagonal mani, it's super simple. I may have to fall back on it some more once I'm healthy again.
Off to nurse myself with a cup of Lemon Zinger tea with a lime slice (since we're out of lemons). It's my ultimate feel good for what ails me tea, and bed. Hope you all have a wonderful day.

Anita

Accent colors

Polish Hoarder always has these wonderful challenges where she supplies the theme and you supply the creativity. I love seeing what people come up. Last week she had a Color Accent challenge where you could only use black, white and grays and one pop of color. I couldn't participate since we were getting ready to go and actually on vacation, but it interested me enough that I really wanted to give it a whirl.
If you want to see a video tutorial for plaid nails, I pretty much stole this from Nails by Asami. I just thought the look would be perfect.















Now that I've done plaid nails I can say that I like them. How about you, have you tried them?

Whoops, forgot to mention what color I used (thanks peripatetic33). American Apparel Factory Grey is my base, the white and black stripes are Stripe Rite and I actually started using the bright green Stripe Rite for the green but it didn't pop enough so I went over it with Finger Paints Guggen I'm Lime (love that name).

The Cali Mani

So, I can't tell you how much I agonized over this mani. Not because it's all that, but because it's for my trip to L.A. and has to be simple yet awesome and last until Sunday.
Well I think I managed the simple yet awesome part, but we'll have to wait and see on the lasting until Sunday part. My last few mani's I've tried Orly Bonder for my base coat with fairly good success. I say fairly good because I am beyond wicked to my nails. Cruel and unusual treatment comes to mind and that is why all of them now have a nice thick layer of acrylic over them. If I didn't I would have nothing but sad little nubbs...but back to 'Bonder'.
As said it seems to really be helping the staying power of my polish, I just don't have a long enough attention span to let a polish go long enough to see how far it will take me. At the moment I think four days is my record and I came out with barely there tip wear and part of that was because I did a pedi and held the cotton ball with my finger tips... Someday I'll learn right?

So back on track, this polish is Finger Paints Artistic Azure which I'm sure you can see is a gorgeous blue. It reminds me of the ocean and the sky so I figured it would be perfect for Cali.
The first coat went on a little streaky but the second coat fixed that and because I can't leave well enough alone, a third coat went on topped by Sally Hansen's quick dry (in the red bottle which isn't in front of me at the moment to see what it's actual name is).
It was lovely but I wanted to bump it up just a wee bit more, so I took Stripe Rite's blue glitter and added the diagonal streak. I need to put the top coat over that (these pictures are sans top coat over glitter) to beef up the shine a bit but other than that I'm really please with how this mani turned out.
What do you think, is it suitable for Cali?

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My military nail fail

When worn, nail polish will be conservative, a single color or a French manicure that is natural or clear with white tips, and in good taste. The polish will not contain any ornamentation.

That is a summary of how your nails should look when you're in uniform...

Yeah, I think I failed on that one. I was surprised though, I went to renew my registration on the jeep and was complimented on them.

Edited to add that my base color was OPI's Burmese Blush, the stripes were done with Stripe Rite white and gold (not the glitter).

Red White and Blue Cont.

I decided to take my red white and blue theme down to my toes too. I decided to use different shades than what I used on my fingers though.

Used: Savvy 'Blush' for a base coat (it's a lovely clear red that does wonders for a bare nail), China Glaze 'Blue Sparrow (neon)', Orly 'Glam', and Stripe Rite 'White' & 'Silver'.

Hooray for the Red White and Blue!

This year is screaming by! Can you believe that it will be the Fourth of July in just a few short days? Me neither.

In the spirit of fun I suggested having a Fourth of July nail challenge to the Painted Ladies group on Ravelry. Ashley of I Enjoy Being a Girl graciously agreed to sponsor the event complete with a winner takes all prize. Fun Fun!!

Honestly, I can't count how many times I removed and reapplied polish to settle on the look I have now. I actually started going for something a lot more difficult. (Epic fail there for a beginner) then finally pared it down to the basics.

The challenge allows you to submit as many different looks as you like but I don't know if I'll have the fortitude to try another look on myself...maybe the daughter. But here it is.

Used: Orly 'Platinum' (white), Pure Ice 'Celestial' topped with 'Strapless' (blue), Sinful Colors 'Merlot' (red) and Stripe Rite Silver.