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.

Red Flakie

I am soooo far behind in posting manicures on here! I have no idea how long ago this one actually graced my fingers. Some time in January? Anyway. I started with a base of Zoya Karina and topped it with Chloe. On the accent fingers, I only put Chloe on half of my nail, on the diagonal, and then I used Milani Whitest White to draw the dividing line between the two and add some swirls and dots for design.

I was actually really happy about how this manicure came out. If you see the nail art I pin on my pinterest board you might notice how often I put notes like "simple", "elegant", and "trying to remind myself that less can be more". I really admire the simple elegant art that I see on a lot of blogs, but when I go to paint my own nails, I have a tendency to go for busy rather than elegant. I think I hit the bullseye for what I was trying for on this one, though.

Marbled Ice

V loved her last water marble so much that she wanted to do it again. And this time, she wanted to try it for herself! Since water marbling is one nail art technique that I do that doesn't require steady hands, she thought she might be able to do it on her own this time. But of course, she wasn't going to attempt her first solo nail art without a spotter, so she came over to my nail salon ::cough-living-room-cough:: to attempt her first masterpiece where I could help if she got stuck. (Not to mention that all the nail polish is at my house, anyway. ;)

Like much of the nail art I do, she started with a picture for inspiration. V is a big, big anime fan. Not that I've got anything against sitting down for an anime marathon, myself, but I'd just as soon read fanfiction based on the anime as watch it, myself. (It doesn't get much better than a well-written Harry Potter/Gundam Wing crossover, in my opinion...and yes, I know I'm a geek, and proud of it! :) So here's the picture V was going off of: 

Don't ask me who the characters are, as it's not an anime that I watch, and I don't try to keep track of what V's watching these days. She'll spout off a dozen Japanese names and tell me all about them like I know which one's which. The silly baka knows the only two anime I've ever watched with enough interest to remember who's who were Slayers and Gundam Wing.

So, blue, lavender, and white, with an icy look/feel is what she was going for. I pulled out Sinful Colors Snow Me White, China Glaze Agent Lavender, and Cover Girl Electric Blue for her water marbling. Most of her nails came out excellent, though a few of them weren't what she was going for, so she described to me what she wanted - lines, rather than flowers or stars - so I showed her how to manipulate the colors to get that effect, and then I helped her with the last few, but most of these nails are actually 100% her work.

To top off that icy look, we added a layer of China Glaze Luxe and Lush over the top. It added just enough flakes to look like shards of ice across her nails, and we declared this manicure experiment a complete success!

Week 31: Crackle

Good morning fellow hobbyists! This week's theme on the Year's Challenge is crackle. I tried a bunch of designs out on my nail wheels before deciding on this one. I also realized that while I have two Wet N Wild crackles (Free, Free at Last and You're Too Good For Him), I don't actually like either one. They're pretty colors, but they just don't crackle wide enough to actually show the base color. Maybe I'm applying them wrong, but since I haven't had any trouble getting my new Avon Mosaics to crackle properly, and I've so far hated the application of every other Wet N Wild polish I've used, other than their glitter topcoats, I suspect it's just that I don't get along with WNW polishes in general. :P

On to today's manicure! I've decided to call this Cracked Lava, because at the right angle (which I had a hard time capturing on photo, drat it!), most of my nails really do look like lava flowing under cracked, blackened rock. I love it!

There are six layers of polish here, not counting base and top coats! I started with two coats of NYC Black Lace Creme, followed by three coats of Zoya Opal on my ring fingers, and three coats of Essie LuxEffects Shine of the Times on all the others. This was topped, of course, by a single coat of Avon Mosaic Effects in Black, applied on the diagonal. I think crackle looks best applied at an angle, because that allows it to look more random, more natural than crackle applied on a straight line, which tends to look just like cracked pavement that needs repair. :P

 I took waaay more pictures than strictly necessary of this manicure. I just love color shifting polishes, and I take pictures at every conceivable angle of light, trying to show off the variation! The pictures above were taken indoors, as it seemed to be the only lighting that wanted to show the -red- on film. The remainder of these were taken in the sunlight, which is my favorite lighting for nail pictures. I've taken to taking my camera to work the day after I do my nails, so I can take pictures outside on my lunch hour, rather than taking pictures inside the night I do them.

Week 29: "Rock Star" Nails

Doing a google search on rock star nails leads to a lot of different manicures, but glitter bombs tend to be in the majority.

I started with a basic shimmery green that's new to my stash: Avon Nailwear Pro+ in Absinthe. Then I layered three different flakies over it - Nubar 2010, Sinful Colors Green Ocean, and Zoya Opal, in that order. For accent nails, on my ring finger and thumb, I used glitters instead of flakies: CND Gold Shimmer, follow by Windestine Rainforest and Sinful Colors Call You Later. Then I topped all the nails with a thin coat of Sinful Colors San Francisco.

A few days later, I added some taping with China Glaze Smoke and Ashes.

First Snowfall in Minnesota

No, fellow hobbyists, I'm not in Minnesota, and it's not snowing, there OR here in Arkansas in July. But I saw this picture on Pinterest, labelled "First Snowfall, Duluth, Minnesota," and the colors were so striking that I had to drop what I had planned for my nails that very night and do my best at recreating it.

I guess I did a decent job at it, as some of my co-workers this morning have said they think it might be their favorite manicure that I've done thus far. It's a rather Monet interpretation...but I do love the way the colors came out! I used a base of Sinful Colors Snow Me White (how appropriate!) and then added a layer of China Glaze Luxe and Lush to mimic the shine and sparkle of sunlight on snow. I then used the saran wrap technique of blotting on the leaves, both in the trees and on the ground, using (in this order) Primark Beauty Neon Orange, Sinful Colors Courtney Orange, and NYC Broadway Burgundy Frost. A thin striping brush with Pure Ice Magic produced the tree trunks, and voila! An early snowfall on a brilliant fall landscape. I did dabb a bit more Courtney Orange over some of the nails where the tree trunks seemed too crisp.

Given the few numbers of people I have following my blog, I haven't asked a whole lot of questions of you guys, and I figure most of you are other nail art people. But if any of you ever want me to generate a tutorial for anything you see me do, just let me know. In the short-term, I'll point you toward where I learned it from, but I'll take a note and create a tutorial for anything you ask for just as soon as I can. The thing is that when I want to learn how to do something, Google is my friend, and I search out three or four different tutorials for it and then amalgamate them all in my head down to whatever works best for me. However, I do realize that some of you either might not know where to look, or just want to ask me, and I thought I'd put it out there that anybody coming by can ask! I have to remind myself not to assume that just because I read a lot of nail art blogs doesn't mean everybody does...and sometimes seeing all the experts out there I forget that one of the reasons I started this blog wasn't just to keep a record of my nail art, but also to show a progression of skill from beginner to (hopefully, someday!) an advanced skill level...and to help other newbies like myself be less intimidated by the amazeballs artwork out there and go, "Hey, if she can do that, maybe I can, too!"

So yeah, if maybe you're less intimidated asking me how I did something than you would be asking one of the awe-inspiring nail artists out there, please do! And if there's a technique out there you've seen going around and you'd like to see me tackle it and maybe show you an "Idiot's Guide to Nail Art" version, I'd love to give it a try.

Neon Glow Beams

Different people react differently to crises. Some people panic, some people don't know what to do but will follow directions, and some people automatically react to adrenaline with a cool and clear head. I'm one of the latter. So when my husband called yesterday to tell me I needed to get home right away, he was calling 911 because he was having chest pains and felt like he was about to pass out, I went straight into action. (He turned out to be okay, thankfully, though he needs to get a primary care physician to find out what caused it, but everything was functioning fine and they did the EKG, X-ray, and blood workup to verify he was not having a cardiac event, and had not had one in the last 72 hours. A paramedic friend of mine, after discussing his full history with me, said that it's probably stable angina, which isn't life-threatening, but will need to be seen by a doctor and possibly treated.)

I shut down my computer, grabbed my coat, stopped to tell my supervisor why I was leaving, and headed straight out. Drove at the maximum safe speed I could drive in the rain, called my best friend on the way to let her know what was happening because she would need to watch the kids if I had to go to the hospital with him, and the paramedics were packing up when I got there. He wasn't in danger, but they wanted him to go to the hospital, either with them or with me, to get fully checked out. So I sent him on in the ambulance, called my friend (who said her boss had said she could leave right away) and got her on the way to my place to watch the kids, explained to the kids what was going on, posted on facebook to let my family know what was happening, grabbed some water, hit the bathroom, and I was ready to drive out to the hospital as soon as my bestest friend showed up. Sat with Chris 'til the tests were done, got home, got some dinner...and about an hour after we got home, I crashed. I panic AFTER the emergency is over.

So, needing something to make sure I didn't sit there thinking about all the things that could have happened and working up into a panic attack? I did my nails. <3

Ezili Freda Watercolour

I have a friend who is a Voudon priestess (though she may have a different title within the religion, this is what I call her, as I am not familiar with all of their terms.)  

"Ro, why the ::bleeep:: should I care about what religion your friends are?" 

I can hear you, you know... I don't expect you to care, so there! :P There is actually a reason I'm telling you, though. She invites her friends when she holds feasts for the loas, and this past weekend was a feast for Ezili Freda. 

"Ahhh, that's what the title of the post meant." 

See, told you I could hear you. I'm psychic, you know. ^_^ Anyway, her colours are pink, pale blue, and white. Since as you may have read on this blog, I don't do pastels, I didn't have any clothes to suit those suggestions (well, I have a few white shirts.) So instead, I wore a red skirt with a white shirt, and I did my nails for the occasion! (You expected anything less?)

My very first watercolour! After applying my Sally Hansen Miracle Cure as a base coat, I started with two coats of Sally Hansen White On. I then added one or two drops of China Glaze Sex on the Beach to one nail, took a paint brush dipped in acetone, and blobbed the colour around. After doing this on each nail, I went on to repeat this step with each of the following colours, one at a time: Sinful Colors Courtney Orange, a Pure Ice purple glitter that I've had for years and no longer has a color name sticker, and finally Zoya Karina. After all of that dried on both hands, I added a coat of Zoya Fleck Effects - Chloe to top it all off!

A few more views, with and without flash (I think it's obvious which is which!)

 

 

Well, I don't know if Freda appreciated my nails, but the other ladies at the party did, and I hope you did, too!

Green Ocean Grades

My Zoya Verushucka didn't manage to stay on my nails too long. The flakies were crying out to be tried! I had this gorgeous unopened bottle of green ocean that begged to be used. So use it, I did!

I started with a base of Sinful Colors Cinderella, and for a girl who doesn't like pastels, it means a lot for me to say that is such a pretty color. I then sponged on some China Glaze Tree Hugger, followed by Sinful Colors San Franciso on the ends. After that I liberally layered on the long-awaited (okay, so I first saw swatches about a month ago, that wasn't -too- long of a wait ;) Sinful Colors Green Ocean. I then made the mistake of putting a layer of top coat on top of it. I say mistake because my index finger went dull. The flakes no longer shone and glimmered, they just sort of lay there a solemn milky blue. I'm sure I've read other bloggers using top coat with flakies, but what do I know?

Here, this was the best picture I caught to show you the difference between that one finger and the rest. I honestly have no idea what happened here.

And a few more images of the prettiness, just because I spent the next few days wiggling my fingers to watch the shimmer.