June Tri-Polish Day #4

It's the last entry this month for the Tri-Polish Challenge from Crumpet's Nail Tarts! This month's Tri-Polish colors were red, pink, and purple. My polish choices for the month were China Glaze Adventure Red-Y, China Glaze Sugar High, and Cult Nails My Kind of Cool Aid. I decided on simple stripes and dots for this entry, and I really liked the way it came out! It's a base of Milani Whitest White, freehand stripes, and dots made with Adventure Red-Y with the smallest dotting tool of my five-piece set. There's not much else to say about it, except that I alternated the colors of stripes between my left and right hands. 

It's the fourth day of this month's challenge, and everyone is going strong!

June Tri-Polish Day #3

It's the third day of the June Tri-Polish Challenge from Crumpet's Nail Tarts! This month's Tri-Polish colors are red, pink, and purple. My polish choices for the month are China Glaze Adventure Red-Y, China Glaze Sugar High, and Cult Nails My Kind of Cool Aid.

I've said before that I'm not a terribly creative person. I frequently get my manicure designs from other nail artists, and today's is no different. If this challenge didn't have specific posting days, I would have put this up for Monday's Monkey See, Monkey Do (another Crumpet challenge! :) So, as I often do, I'm copying one of Raggio di Luna's amazing manis: 

I did rotate the diamond to take advantage of the fact that my nails tend to get long in the summer since I started keeping them polished. (I have a whole two summers of data now. Not statistically significant. :P) I used Milani Whitest White for the base dot color.

I love the shimmer in My Kind of Cool Aid, but I haven't been able to do a good job of picking it up in photos.

I wish I had a steadier hand for centering the over-dots better, honestly, but I love the way it came out anyway!

One of my co-workers said the index finger on this hand below looked like it was looking at her!

And now for something completely different! (Except for the red, pink, and purple, of course. ;)

June Tri-Polish Day #2

I'm almost too late for the second day of the June edition of the Tri-Polish Challenge from Crumpet's Nail Tarts, but not quite! There's still an hour before the end of the day in my time zone. :)

This month's Tri-Polish colors are red, pink, and purple. My polish choices for the month are China Glaze Adventure Red-Y, China Glaze Sugar High, and Cult Nails My Kind of Cool Aid, and my second manicure brings you a nail artist whose work has only been on this blog once or twice before: my nine-year-old daughter. Yep, I gave her the three polishes, and the rules of having to use at least two of them, and she could only add white, black, silver, or gold. (Though the rules also allow a clear-based glitter, but she didn't care about that.) She even went to the trouble of painting a practice pattern on a swatching stick first!

I turned this picture upside down so you could see what the pattern was actually supposed to be. She was going for hearts, but I think the one I circled here is the only one that really looks like a heart. But once I pointed that one out to everyone who was looking at them, they all went, "Ohhhhh, I see it now!"

So there's my second manicure using this month's Tri-Polish Challenge colors. Don't forget to go gaze on all the other pretties today!

June Tri-Polish Day #1

It's time for the first day of the June edition of the Tri-Polish Challenge from Crumpet's Nail Tarts! This month's Tri-Polish colors are red, pink, and purple. My polish choices for the month are China Glaze Adventure Red-Y, China Glaze Sugar High, and Cult Nails My Kind of Cool Aid.

I started off with two coats of My Kind of Cool Aid, and then added a french tip of Sugar High. I used a detail brush to draw flowers in Sugar High, and then lined the tip and added details to the flowers with Adventure Red-Y. A few details with Sinful Shine Wisp, and my pretties were done! Personally, I think the Sugar High comes off too bubblegum bright in this manicure, but that's just my preferences. I'm so not a pink person in the first place! :)

Stay tuned for Thursday's entry into the Tri-Polish challenge, where I let my nine-year-old daughter have free reign with the challenge on my nails!

Now check out what everyone else has come up with for the first day of pink, red, and purple!

The Cult of Plastic Wrap

March was my month to receive from my nail exchange buddies, and as anyone who knows me can tell you, I do not have many untried polishes in my stash. Ever. Because those brand-new polishes sit on my desk rather than getting put away on the shelf until they go on my fingers. ^_^ So when I received a package that contained my very first Cult Nails polishes? All four (three colors and a quick-dry top coat) went onto my nails that very evening!

I started with two coats of Let Me Fly on all my nails except the ring fingers. I used Scandalous on those. And then I cut up a strip of plastic wrap so I had ten little squares ready to go. One finger at a time, I put a generous layer of My Kind of Cool Aid on a nail, balled up a piece of plastic wrap, and daubed it on the wet nail. I have had a hard time getting this all-over texture from plastic wrap before, but I think I've finally got the hang of it! Also, I have to comment on this quick-dry top coat. I have two other top coats that are considered quick-dry: Seche Vite and one from Sinful Colors. However, I have to say, this is the FIRST top coat where I can actually feel it causing evaporation! Seriously, it makes the tips of my fingers feel cold for a minute! I still love my Seche Vite because I love the shine and the thick, lacquer-like feel of it. But lately I've started using the Cult Nails top coat first, and then topping it with my SV for the final look.

My exchange buddies also know that I like weird patterned socks. It's kind of my thing - I actually do wear these puppies to work, whether I'm wearing boots or shoes where the socks show. I love being quirky! So far every package I've got from my exchangers, that didn't get shipped straight from the polish company, has contained cool socks! See my cool socks?

More pretty nail pics, and I'll shut up now! :)