Dressing Things Up

Wow, can you believe it's December already?   Me neither. Time to start with some holiday mani's.  I decided to glam up my Snowed In manicure.  Something simple but with a bit of bling. 

I decided on gold flakes.  You can usually get these at the arts and crafts store.  They use these for gilding and they're real gold so don't tarnish or warp once you get the top coat on. 

I did each nail individually, first taking the gold flakes and breaking them down into tiny pieces.  I then applied a layer of clear polish then used a damp orange stick to place the flakes along one side of my nail. 

I like how it complements the sponged look of the polish, adding additional shine and dimension without being over the top or in your face.  I think this would be a great look for something like an office party.  Elegant yet festive.  What do you think? 

Thanks for stopping by and reading.  I love each comment I get, it lets me know I'm on the right track.  Until next time, take care!

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.