Rainbow Sprinkles

This is a really old manicure. I couldn't find the pictures for it for a while, and when they finally showed back up on my computer, I was well into the I-don't-wanna-post phase. But hey, I actually have the names of all the polishes I used!!

The white base was done in Milani Whitest White. The red dots on the thumb are done in China Glaze Salsa, and the glitter they're dotted with is Pure Joy. Orange is brought to you by Wet N Wild, The Clock Strikes Orange, and glitter-fied with Linderella's Cauldron Drippings. The middle fingers used Sinful Colors Exotic Green and Green Ocean, while the ring fingers are done in China Glaze Frostbite topped with Blackheart Royally Screwed. Last, but not least, the pinkies are dotted with Wet N Wild Who Is Ultra Violet and topped with dots of Max Factor Fantasy Fire. Phew, that's quite a list!

I didn't take pictures of the right hand, as it looked nearly identical to the left hand. Dotting tools balance the skill, or lack thereof, between the abilities of the dominant and non-dominant hands! I did take a handful of different pictures, at different angles and focus to show the pretty glitters as best I could.

Don't You Make My Brown Eyes Blue...

Okay, I don't have brown OR blue eyes, but I was so sick and tired of winter colors that I really wanted a nice, rich brown on my nails. However, the day I did this manicure the snow was sooo beautiful and delicate that I just really wanted to do snowflakes. So what you get is the first few snowflakes falling on rich winter soil!

I started with a base of Sinful Colors Coffee, and then layered Max Factor Fantasy Fire over it. I put two stripes of China Glaze I Herd That on each nail, and then I used Sinful Shine Wisp and my tiniest detail brush to draw snowflakes as delicately as I could manage. I even looked up the various crystal structures that snow can come in before drawing them! I also traced a hint of China Glaze I'm Not Lion along some lines of the snowflakes to make them sparkle and come alive. However, all that glitter and shine made it really difficult for the camera to focus, and quite a few of my pictures came out blurry. Here's one of the out-of-focus pictures to show off the glorious color of all the glitters, though!

I tried twice to draw snowflakes on my right hand, and they came out horrifically blobby so I gave up and just left them with the Coffee, Fantasy Fire, and I Herd That stripes, but I have a hard enough time getting pictures of my right hand to focus, as my left hand is shakier holding the camera. With this manicure, I failed entirely to get even a single decent picture of my dominant hand. But here's a few more pictures of the pretty half!

From the File Drawer - 52-Week Challenge: 5/27 - Inspired by a Pattern

Here's another one of those manicures that I did on time but didn't post. The 52-week challenge that I'm not slavishly following, but occasionally use for inspiration, had "inspired by a pattern" for the week of 5/27. Given my love affair with my dotting tools, I chose polka dots!

I started with a base of Sinful Shine Dark Room, followed by a lovely coat of Max Factor Fantasy Fire, and then dotted in two sizes with Sally Hansen Celeb City, my go-to silver!

Honestly, this came out even better than I pictured in my head! I absolutely loved wearing this and my only regret is not being able to capture in my pictures just how much the fantasy fire made this manicure flash.

And today you get a bonus mani, two for one deal! Actually, I just did my friend V's nails again, and this manicure was pretty enough that it just had to be shared. I don't remember what the occasion was, but she was going to some function at work that she needed a little extra classy for, so we did some pretty sparkle and flowers. I thought they came out pretty well, myself.

"This is Halloween" Day 3 - Ghosts

Day three of our Halloween challenge is GHOSTS! This manicure has almost too many polishes to mention, though I will say that my non-accent nails have two coats of China Glaze Man Hunt, two coats of Max Factor Fantasy Fire, and a thin layer of Pure Ice Strapless. The Fantasy Fire just made the nails a bit too red to go well with the rest of the mani. I can't wait to see how this looks in the daylight tomorrow, though!

The accent nails have four different blues and two different blacks sponged for the background colors, and
China Glaze Some Like It Haute sponged across the tops for stars in the night sky.

The ghosts were made with Sinful Colors Snow Me White, China Glaze Hook and Line, and China Glaze Elephant Walk. There's also a layer of Ghoulish Glow on all the ghosts and some dots in the starry skies, though those don't show up in the pictures! :) I did try and take some pictures, but while the glow looks awesome to the naked eye, it's not enough light to show up on my camera, at least with the settings I know how to manipulate.

Thanks to Lacquer Dreams for coming up with this challenge and sharing it with everyone!

MSMD Monday Mani

This is the latest picture to be added to be Pinterest nail art board, and so when I was trying to figure out what to do with my nails this time around, I decided I could make a rendition of this. I had to leave out certain elements because my nails are just not this long, so if I added glitter and rhinestones it would be way too busy! :)

I also just got a new polish in the mail, Rimmel Burgundy Flirt, and I thought it would be interesting to use it for this. I hardly ever have red nails! Please forgive the condition of my cuticles - my poor hands have been having a rough week! And I'm out of the Jack Black lotion I had. See me pout. :(

So after a base of my first Rimmel polish ever, I used striping tape to block off two lines, and put China Glaze Liquid Leather over the bottom portion, and Sex on the Beach for the center pink stripe. I also put Liquid Leather on the bottom half of my accent nail. I put one coat of Max Factor Fantasy Fire over the Liquid Leather, and across the entire accent nail. The diagonal line where the base color changes from burgundy to black on my accent nails is a lot more prominent in real life, but the entire manicure is such a dark color, I really couldn't capture it on the camera. I used Sinful Colors Secret Admirer to stripe both sides of the pink area, and then used a detail brush to draw the spirals.

I might have had better pictures if the sun had been shining the day I did these, but the outdoor pictures still came out clearer than the indoor lighting.

I also had a bit of a problem with a nail lately. The severe flaking that was in the middle of my nails when I used the Nail Life base coat have now grown out past my nail beds. This is why both of my thumbnails are so short - they both broke off nearly as soon as the weak spot grew out. This time, however, I was having problems with the middle nail on my right hand. First the squoval corner broke off, so I rounded the end. Then I got a crack across the end, but it didn't quite break. So I used the tea bag method for the first time to patch it so it would stay the same length as the rest of my nails...but for some reason something about what I did made the shape of my nail...well, obviously I don't think my nail actually changed shape, but the appearance of it changed. I have no idea why, though I'll probably figure it out some time over the next few weeks with changing manis.

Nail Mail: When Friendly Fire IS!

Earlier this month I made an order on EvilBay from two of the many many Hong Kong suppliers of cheap nail art supplies. I wasn't expecting to see the packages start hitting my mailbox in as little as two weeks! This was what I waiting for me when I got home Monday afternoon:

I love fountain pens (I learned calligraphy years ago), and I can't wait to get some acrylic paint to start drawing with them on my nails. The straight swatching sticks I'm going to use for just that - swatching my polish stash (I ordered three packs of 50, since I'm only just over 100 polishes at the moment, but only two have come in so far) and the circle tips I'll be using to test nail art designs before applying them to my nails. Orange sticks, of course, are an obvious need.

My daughter decided to test out the swatching rounds while I was at work.

Do I have an awesome eight-year-old (t-minus eight days and counting!) or what? That's Nubar Greener for the base, and Primark Beauty neon pink on top.

The greatest nail mail of all, however, was coming home Tuesday to find these goodies in my post!

Once upon a time, an old girlfriend of mine (old in the sense that she's not my girlfriend any longer, not old in age, since she's ten years younger than me!) fell in love with a guy from Scotland. He voyaged across the pond to woo her, I conducted their wedding ceremony, and as soon as their paperwork was in order, she joined him in the land of haggis and deep fried Snickers. So when I found a polish I was lemming was only available in the UK, I immediately called her up (for values of "calling" that equal "sending a private message on Facebook") and asked if it was available in her town, and if so, would she buy me a bottle? She told me she'd gotten ahold of it and asked for my address, and I've been waiting to hear how much the final total with shipping was...I assumed her life had gotten busy and she hadn't had a chance to make it to the post office yet. Totally stunned to receive this lovely little gift pack! That two, count them, two! bottles of Max Factor Fantasy Fire there, along with a lovely handmade Lush soap and a nice little selection of Milka. All presented to you by the lovely Avery, doing her impersonation of Vanna White. (Yes, it's my daughter's doll. She insisted that Avery wanted to show off the pretties. :)

Since I still have a bottle of Fantasy Fire (that I actually paid for!) on its way to me from a member of Facebook's Polish-aholics Anonymous who got her hands on a few and offered them up on the group, that will make three little bottles of this gem in my possession! Obviously at least one of them will go into a giveaway at some point, whether a blog giveaway or as part of my birthday exchange group (I'll need to check if any of those ladies have it on their wishlists! :)

Between the FF in transit and the nail art supplies I have winging their way from Hong Kong, who knows what tomorrow's mail may bring!