Spring Curtains through a Window Frame

My co-worker, L, has decided that she is going to name all of my manicures. I was really just going for plaid with this nail art, but she decided that the blue and light brown looked like curtain fabric behind the dark brown window frame, so the blog title was born.

The base color for the designed nails is Color Club Take Me To Your Chateau, and the plain nails are Barielle Aura Angora. Also used on the designs are Cherimoya Vernis Classique Cappucino and Primark Beuaty Neon Blue.

My left thumbnail decided to smudge the next morning even though it had been dry before I went to bed the night before. It was fine when I woke up, but after getting ready for work, the polish had smooshed itself back. I smoothed it out as best I could, but the closeup pics are tattletales!

Hearts Two Ewes

I don't actually celebrate Valentine's Day (I'd rather have flowers in a random day in March than on a specific day because everybody else is doing it) but for my co-workers' enjoyment, mainly, I do actually have hearts on my fingernails. That and I just really love the two red glitters I used!

I apologize for the quality, or lack thereof, of the pictures in this post. I just could not for the life of me get these nails to photograph well. I took a couple dozen pictures, like normal, and that normally gives me about 6-8 decent pics, but this manicure? Zero decent pics. Here are two of the best...

The base color is Rimmel London Burgundy Flirt. The hearts are outlined with Milani Whitest White. The glitter used on the index and middle fingers is Cherimoya Love Potion #Mine and on the ring and pinkie finger is Blackheart Beautiful Revenge. I love their glitters and the skull-shaped bottles don't hurt! They're adorable. ^_^

I hope everyone has a fabulous Friday, whether you like the commercial holiday or not. :)

Universe in Browns

I'm mostly on a no-buy these days, as I'm waiting on my exchange packages to trickle in, bringing me new polishes from several wonderful ladies and one awesome guy. But occasionally you just have a bad day...or in this case, a bad week...and impulse purchases happen. This, of course, was one of those. I have been eyeing the Revlon Moon Candy's for quite a while, but when Soflajo posted swatches last month of two new colors, I looked up her previous swatches and figured out just which ones I really wanted, and which I could live without. I ended up deciding that Cosmic, Moondust, and Universe were three that were gorgeous and significantly different than any other flakie I already had. (However, based on Nouveau Cheap's review last summer, which clarified that even though it looks a lot like it in pictures, Orbit is significantly different than Green Ocean in real life, I think I need to add that to my list.)

Anyway, I was wandering through the nail polish aisles of my local wally-world, looking for a treat on payday after a stressful week, and I ended up purchasing Universe. I decided to show it off over a skittle of browns, as you can see here.

Starting with my thumb, the base colors are Elevation Polish Temperance, Cherimoya Cappucino, Elevation Polish Cascade, China Glaze Brownstone, and finally the base color that comes in the Universe duo. I love my new brown almost as much as the topper! I tried to take pictures at a variety of angles to show how the flakes shift green-gold-pink. I did do a compilation, showcasing the changes, but what I never could quite capture was how bright the colors were when looking at a 90-degree angle (with the nails directly facing your eyes). If I used a flash, it drowned out the color, and without it, at that 90-degree angle, the nails weren't catching enough of my light source to see it as well in the photo as the eyes can pick up. If it had been a sunny day, I might have had better luck, but I had to make due with internal lighting, and I don't have a light box setup.

O Tannenbaum

My friend V had a holiday party for work this past week, and she wanted some appropriately festive nails to go with the celebration. She spent some time googling images for Christmas nail art, and she decided on a Christmas tree made with the tape method.

We started with a base of China Glaze Adventure Red-Y in the standard two coats. One coat is more than sufficient for opacity, but the second allows for a more even color and gets rid of any ornery brush lines, I find. She wanted sparkly red accent nails, so we added a nice layer of China Glaze Ruby Pumps over her thumbnails, and then topped them with Cherimoya Vernis Love Potion #Mine.

Using standard scotch tape to make the tree shape, we added small strips of striping tape across the tree area, and then we painted the trees with Nubar Greener and topped it with Girly Bits Magically Delicious for that added extra sparkle of a Christmas tree. We used Sally Hansen Celeb City and a dotting tool to add ornaments to the tree and a star-shaped glitter for the tree topper.

I included an out-of-focus picture to show just how beautifully sparkly this manicure came out!