I've Been Told It's Summertime

There are many reasons I wanted to move to Oregon, but the main one: blissfully pretending that the season called Summer doesn't exist. The horrible furnace I came from typically gets to be somewhere near the temperature of the sun starting in April, maybe May if you're lucky, stretching all the way out to October. Today I'm looking out my window at an overcast sky enjoying some low 70's... in the middle of July!!! Do I even need to say how happy I am?

To sympathize with those of you who are stuck in less temperate zones I did some bright summery gradient nails. The matte finish reminds me of a frosty popsicle. I was originally going to do some stamping over these, but then couldn't bring myself to cover up such a fantastically colored gradient.

I started by painting two coats of Orly, Key Lime Twist since this yellow shade was the lightest color in my gradient and I didn't want to mess around with a white base. I used a make-up sponge to dab all three colors in a diagonal onto each nail. I probably did 3-4 sponged coats per nail. My other two colors are Island Girl, Diamond Head Breeze (the most eye-searing neon pink I own) and China Glaze, Too Yacht to Handle (not sure what neon teal has to do with yachts.. but whatever). The results are a magical unicorn-tail-like gradient. I topped it off with Wet n Wild Matte Top Coat which unfortunately doesn't last as long as a nice glossy top coat. I wish I could have worn these nails all month. I couldn't stop staring at my DayGlo fingers.

Meet my sweetest Sugar Glider, Leela.  She wasn't cooperating very well, but I'm trying to start a new #MyNailsAndMySugarGlider thing. Her brother Nibbler was too hyperactive and bitey to sit still for any pictures, but I'll try to get some shots of him for you soon.

New Years Nails: 2016

Happy New Years! I'm so excited about the three day weekend. 2015 was a great year for me, and I'm looking forward to things getting even better in 2016. I'm starting things off right in the new year with some of the easiest nail art and Fairy Dust! I finally bought it on sale at Sally's and I'm so glad. It's just the right amount of sparkle without overwhelming the art underneath. I'm also back to coffin shaped nails which I loved when I tried them at Halloween. I think I might keep this shape for a while this time.

Do you see what I did here? Count the number of studs on each finger and you'll see why these are my New Year's nails.

To create this look I dotted blobs of nail polish onto a plastic sheet and smooshed them with my stamper, then pressed onto my nails. I did a couple layers on some nails to get full coverage and give more depth. It's really easy to get an interesting an fun look with this technique. I'm sure it already has a name, but I'm calling it smoosh art.

I also picked up My Vampire is Buff by OPI on clearance at Sally's which I used as my base for this manicure. From the way everyone talks about how amazing this polish is, I expected the formula to be better. My first coat was really streaky and the brush dragged at the color. The second coat fixed the streaks, but I was a little disappointed to see them in the first place. For my color blobs I used shades of purple and teal. 

Sinful Colors- Dream On

China Glaze- Plur-ple, Violet Vibes, Queen B and Too Yacht to Handle

Island Girl- Aloha Paradise

Orly- Saturated

The two different sizes of studs are from Born Pretty. I topped it all off with Fairy Dust from China glaze and my favorite top coat.

 Are there any nail shapes or trends you're looking forward to trying in the new year? I think I'd have to answer "all of them." I love the challenge of trying new things.

Merry Sparkle-mas

It's still Christmas, this post still totally counts. I've been really busy today... killing dragons. Skyrim has been resurrected from the pile-o-games that I never quite finished the first time around. It's still just as addictive. I'm missing my family a ton, but being so far away means playing Skyrim all day in my pajamas guilt free. I'm taking a small break from dragons to post these sparkle overload nails.

I used a ton of polishes for these nails.

Thumb: Spoiled, Daddy's Credit Card; LA Colors, Sparkling Diamonds and Tinsel

Index: China Glaze, Seeing Red; Milani, Red (large hex glitter); 

Sally Girl, Red Glitter (snowman bottle)

Middle: Orly Color Amp'd, Hollywood Royalty (Christmas present from mom. Thanks!)

Ring: China Glaze, There's Snow One Like You; Zoya, Cosmo

Pinkie: Spoiled, Distant Memory; Milani, Teal (large hex glitters)

Most of these took three coats for complete glitter awesomeness, but were chosen because I know they have great coverage in about 2 coats. The Milanis are great for being packed with dense glitter. I feel like my nails are covered in metallic wrapping paper.

If not for the 75% off clearance sale at Sally's tomorrow, I wouldn't be leaving the house at all this weekend. Aside from that one short excursion I'm looking forward to two more solid days of dragon killing, looting and general mayhem. What are you up to this weekend?

30 Days of Colour: Favorite Brand/Technique

Can you guess what my favorite technique is? Officially I'm going with skittles, but it's just because I could never decide. The best part of doing my own nails is being able to change them as often as I want and pick whatever design seems fun at the moment. I've got a little of everything here and that's the way I like it! My favorite brand is whatever is in my untried pile at the moment. There's nothing better than using a new polish for the first time. I definitely have some old favorites, but it doesn't stop the itch to collect more.

This teal color is Tails of Love from the Finger Paints Mermaid Collection. I'm starting to come around on textured polishes and I rather like this one. It's a little bumpy, but I've added top coat to even it out. The finish was shiny already so top coating it didn't take anything away from this polish. The peach is one of my franken creations. I used Bundle Monster plate BM-423 for the chevrons and BM-401 for the octopus with Mundo de Unas white stamping polish. I got the iridescent rhinestones from ebay recently for $1.40 for a pack of 300. Pretty good deal if I say so myself. It came with both white and black rhinestones and I have a ton of ideas for using them. Which is good since there are 296 more.

Let's see what everyone else has as favorites:

An InLinkz Link-up

Sally Hansen Color Foil Minted Metal With Stamping

My Color Foil review continues with a look into stampability. I've read this on other blogs and it holds true for me- these don't seem to be great for stamping with, but are awesome for stamping on. I was a little disappointed that I couldn't get anything to pick up with my stamper. I'm sure I'll have to try again several more times out of stubbornness, but the first attempt was a failure. My original bottle of Chrome Nail Makeup is awesome for stamping so I'm not sure what's up with these new ones. 

I decided to go for a two-tone look. I don't have a ton of stamping polishes yet and this teal complemented the shade of foil the best. I stamped using Bundle Monster plate BM-212 and Mundo de Unas stamping polish #24. The pattern reminds me of foil wallpaper in the best possible way. I love how the polish shines under the stamping.

And because I can never leave well enough alone I went back several days later and added gold dots with a dotting tool. You can see a bit of tip wear but this is after about 3 days so not too bad at all for the type of polish.

Toesday- Paisley Pedicure

 Happy Toesday! Now that I got the hang of stamping I can't stop doing it. This time I painted a cute two-tone teal paisley pedicure. Try saying that ten times fast huh? Apparently Toesday is also bad joke day judging from my last post. Joking aside, I'm really enjoying playing with my new Mundo du Unas stamping polishes. The images come out so much brighter and crisper than I ever thought possible. It's made a huge difference in my stamping already.

The darker shade on my little toes is Island Girl, Aloha Paradise and lighter one is Orly, Jealous, Much? I stamped with Bundle Monster plate BM-315 and Mundo de Unas in Aqua. The paisley design on this plate is so detailed it was hard to get a good picture without being super creepy close up on some toes. I think we can all appreciate it at this much safer distance.

Doodles

How's everyone doing today? I can't lie, I'm really excited for the weekend, but not for the same reason as the other 90% of America. My parents are finally home after three years out of the country and the whole family is getting together on Sunday. They don't have a TV after being gone so long so we will definitely not be watching the Super Bowl. The only reason I'm even a little disappointed is because this is the only Sunday of the year when I can do my grocery shopping in almost completely deserted stores. Clearly I'm not much of a sports fan. If you love football which team will you be rooting for?

Now, on to the nails. I painted some random doodles over my base of Victoria's Secret, Break the Rules using Maybelline's Bold Gold. This gold is wonderfully opaque and gives a nice contrast against the teal glitter. I just don't love all the patterns I drew. The glitter was so pretty on its own I almost instantly regretted painting over it.

The leaf on my thumb was my favorite design. I'm making a note for my future self.

Surprisingly Aquamarine

What is it about short weeks that actually seem longer? I had Monday off for the holiday and the rest of the week has been extra hectic. I think everyone saved all their crazy up and made sure to unleash it over the last four days in concentrated form. The stress has sent my brain into overdrive, but I've come up with all kinds of ideas for manicures and franken polishes. Hopefully you'll enjoy the results over the next few weeks.

The polish I have for you today is extra sparkly and fun with a hint of crazy to go along with the rest of my week. It was so bright that the camera wouldn't even focus on it correctly!

I got some pictures out in the sun that really capture the sparkle. While the rest of the country is buried under a snow storm we broke records today at 76 degrees here in CA so there's not shortage of sunshine for great pictures. I think the brand of this polish is a bit of a surprise, at least it was to me. Every year for my birthday I get a $10 off coupon from Victoria's Secret. I don't really need anything there at the moment, but I can't let a coupon that good go to waste and I knew they had polish so off I went. The last time I was there the polish was all pretty ordinary- nothing to get too excited about. This time two colors really caught my eye. I got this gorgeous aquamarine glitter called Break the Rules and a similar gold glitter called Runway Angel. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.

I used one coat of Orly, Teal Unreal as my base topped with three coats of Break the Rules. It had really nice coverage with one and two coats, but I wanted more and it paid off. The formula was nice, but it did show wear a little fast. I think glitters can be brittle that way especially with all the extra coats so it wasn't a big deal. I'll definitely be wearing this again and keeping an eye out for more great polish at VS.

Bold Gold

You all know I had to do some nail art over my frankens. For manicure one I went with some simple stamping. I've been seeing a lot of love for Maybelline Color Show, Bold Gold so I gave it a try and I have to say it didn't disappoint. It has really great opacity and I was able to get some of my darkest and most crisp images yet. I think at least half of my stamping frustrations have been because I stubbornly try to stamp with polishes that aren't great for stamping. I always think something is opaque enough only to have it disappear into the polish. I'm really happy to have found a polish that works well.

This stamp is Bundle Monster plate 213.

Franken-Fest 2013: Happy Blue Year

There are just a few days left until the new year and I wanted to show off some "new" polishes that I made recently. I've got two so far. Let's see if I can find some creativity to come up with a third so I can post one for each day until New Years.

My first franken is a case of it didn't come out how I pictured, but who cares this thing is gorgeous!

 This franken idea came out of my hatred of pale/baby blue, and strangely inexplicable love of all shades of teal. I started out with the Milani 3D Holographic on the left. It's pretty, but just the wrong shade of blue for me. I wanted to see if I could darken up a holo without losing the effect. The answer turned out to be not really (at least not with the supplies I have available). I think the main problem is that the Milanis are scattered holos rather than linear so the effect wasn't as striking to begin with. I mixed in fairly equal parts of everything shown below and came up with this super shiny teal with subtle holo shimmer. 

Left to right- Milani 3D Holographic, Cyberspace; Color Club, Sky High; Sinful Colors, Endless Blue; Color Club, Harp On It; Island Girl, Aloha Paradise; Spoiled, Distant Memory; Milani 3D Holographic, HD.

This was two coats. It applied easily and had great wear time too. The bold color really popped and it was so much fun to wear. I'm having a hard time coming up with a name for it though. If you have any ideas let me know in the comments. Edit: I decided to give a small prize to the person whose name I choose so don't hold back ;)

Check back tomorrow for another franken creation.

Toesday: Teal Toes

Happy Toesday! I was at a complete loss for inspiration this time so I just started pulling polishes out of the helmer and the teal ones caught my eye the most. Then I couldn't commit to just one shade so I did an ombre effect across all the toes. I love teal and red together so I added some stamping, stripes and dots. These came out pretty crazy. I feel like I have schizophrenic toes this week.

What I used from left to right- 

Wet n Wild- I Need a Refresh-Mint

Sinful Colors- Mint Apple

Island Girl- Aloha Paradise

Revlon Top Speed- Ocean

Spoiled- Distant Memory

For the nail art-

Wet n Wild- Red Red

Pinkies- Bundle Monster plate BM-214

Middle and big right toe- BM-210

Big left toe- dotting tool

Middle right- striping brush

Chevrons and a Top Coat Disaster

I'm finally back with another post. I fully intended on writing this up Friday night but I fell victim to the siren call of the REI used gear sale. If you have an REI nearby you probably know what I'm talking about. Every third month they sell off all the gear that people have returned at heavily discounted prices. Some of the stuff is pretty sorry looking, but the majority of the items are brand new or barely used. They hand out numbered wristbands and have a lottery to see who goes in first. My husband got picked in one of the first groups and while I was upstairs looking at a pair of $100 shoes he found the exact same pair in the sale for $18. You all know I love a good sale so it was a great night. Speaking of sales (and getting back to the topic of nail polish) I picked up a couple polishes from the new Sinful Colors Leather Luxe collection. My Walgreens had them on sale for 99 cents each.

I used Sinful Colors, Calypso for my base. This is a beautiful dark teal shade and it truly was a one coater. The formula and coverage was great- no streaks at all which was unexpected for such a dark polish. Next I used striping tape to block off the chevron stripes and painted them in with one of my new Leather Luxe polishes, My Turn, which is the matte grey shade. If you want to see the rest of the seven matte shades from the collection check out this blog. 

I was really loving this chevron manicure and then everything went horribly wrong with the top coat. I was getting to the bottom of my bottle of Sally Hansen Insta-Dri and apparently in its old age it has grown to hate me with a vengeance. Normally this is my favorite top coat. It seems to dry as hard and fast as Seche Vite, but it's a couple dollars cheaper which I love. I've had the same problem with every brand of top coat I've tried becoming unusable by the bottom 1/4 of the bottle. Do you have this problem too and what do you do about it? Do you just toss it out, use polish thinner, something else? I hate to waste good polish, but this is obviously not good polish anymore! Here's a close up of the bubbles in all their glory.

Also, this picture: I can never unsee it and it will always bother me now!! 

Borrowed from this site.

My First Franken

Hi everyone! It's been way too long. My best intentions to keep up with posts while on vacation didn't really work out. There were too many things to see and do and our internet connection wasn't the best so I decided to take a mini vacation from blogging as well. I'm back now and battling some serious jet lag, but I have a small back log of nails to share so I hope you enjoy these while I get settled back in.

 

A while back I was lucky to win a giveaway from Becca at Franken Femme. The prize included a custom franken polish (which I'm still dying to try) as well as some loose glitter for my own frankening experiments. The glitter is a mix of just about every color and shape imaginable so I had a lot of fun deciding what to pair it with. I bought a few bottles of the cheap Wet n Wild top coat  to experiment with and got started on my first franken.

 

I started by pouring out about a quarter of the bottle of top coat to make room for all the glittery goodness. I wanted a teal shade for the base so I poured in alternating amounts of Spoiled, Distant Memory (a dark teal creme with subtle shimmer) and Sinful Colors, Mint Apple (a minty teal shade with more obvious shimmer) until I got the color you see here. Then I started adding in scoops of the glitter mix using a spoon and a homemade foil funnel. I really should have gotten pictures. It was quite a mess, but worked pretty well all things considered. A note for future frankeners- top coat isn't suspension base. All my glitter sinks right to the bottom. It's not really a big deal for me since I can give it a good shake when I want to use it, but you definitely wouldn't want to attempt to make a professional product this way. I applied three coats for maximum glitter coverage. No fishing or pushing was required. I really crammed a lot of glitter into that base. Just look at all that shimmer!

I decided to name this shade Elevator to the Moon. +10 internets to anyone who gets my obscure song reference. And a big thanks to Becca who always reminds me to keep it classy and creative and who inspired this awesome franken.