Candy Corn at Sunset

And now for something completely different! Oops, wait, that will have to be another day, because this is the obligatory Halloween manicure. ^_^ Actually, I did this mani last week. As I write this post, I have no idea what I will have on my nails for my anniversary. Probably just plain black, as the kids have me dressing up as Death this year. My kids will be Ren & Lin dressed as Black Cats of Halloween. I am apparently officially *old* now, because I thought that this would be an extremely obscure costume...but apparently anyone into anime would know what this is. I was chatting with the clerk at the fabric store when I bought the material to make their shorts and cloaks, and she knew exactly what I meant when I told her. But then, she and her friends are going as the Teen Titans this Halloween. :)

Anyway, the manicure!

Obviously the index and middle fingers are meant to portray candy corn. The remaining three are not strictly Halloween scenes. They're just sunset with tree and bird/bat silhouettes. I didn't even paint any gravestones! And yet, because of the time of year, one immediately interprets the flying beasties as bats rather than birds.

I was really happy with the trees on my thumb. Not so much the one on my pinkie - I was trying for a spreading tree, like an oak, rather than the tall skinny ones like on the thumb - but it just came out blobby, I think. I started with a base coat of Pure Ice Superstar! which is my current white polish. The candy corn was done with Primary Beauty Neon Yellow and Wet N Wild The Clock Strikes Orange, though I touched up the yellow ends with Sally Girl Banana later, as my index fingernail broke and the polish chipped on the middle nail before I could get pictures (it was raining a lot when I had these nails.)

The sunset was done with a gradient of Barielle Jordana's Skinny Jeans, Broadway O! Jessica, and The Clock Strikes Orange, with the ground and silhouettes painted in Sinful Shine Dark Room, which is my current black polish. I didn't take any pictures of my right hand because it was just plain bad. The thumb smudged at some point and while sometimes I can draw decently left-handed, this manicure was not one of those times. :P

Belated Independence Day

As the title of the post suggests, this is the manicure I did for the Fourth of July. Not much else to say, but enjoy!

Shamrock Day

Proof that I have been taking pictures of all my manicures, even though I've terribly remiss about typing up my nail art posts - yes, this is actually my St. Patrick's Day manicure.

The green is Zoya Logan. The gold...well, I have written down three different Sinful Colors names and I have no idea which one or ones I used! The ones on my list are All About You, Let's Meet, and This Is It.

Peep Peep!

My co-worker, E, is a weeeee bit obsessed with Peeps. Not that she eats a lot of them, but she thinks they look adorable. So around this time of year she starts putting a few packages on her front desk as a display. And gradually, over the course of a few weeks, more start showing up. Because they come in a whole rainbow of colors, don't you know? So if she starts with pink, yellow, and blue, then someone will show up with a package of green. And someone else will find a package of rabbits instead of chicks. This year, I found orange for her when she had the rest of the rainbow but was only missing the orange. Then people started bringing in the new flavors... I printed up a sign for her, even, with three sides to it so she can change what it says. One side says, "Talk to my Peeps!" The second says, "Have your Peeps call my Peeps...", and the third declares that "Peeps who need Peeps are the happiest Peeps around!"

This is the current display as it was the Friday before Easter. Bwahahahaha! Beware the Peeps!! And if you don't already know where I work, there's one clue in this picture.

So I declared to all and sundry that this manicure was "for E..." when I showed it off. I'm sure you can clearly see why...

I even did my best to match the font in the logo! I did Peeps on my thumbs and middle fingers (given the dimensions of Peep chicks, I needed width more than length for these) and the rest of the fingers have decorated eggs. Now, in my family, eggs usually get decorated for the spring equinox, but I'm happy with this manicure any time of the year.

I used Sinful Shine Wisp and Alfresco for the background colors, and all the various details were done in those as well as Pragmatic, In The Limelight, Dark Room, Break Away, Bananappeal, and Sinful Colors Over It. I just haven't picked up a Sinful Shine pink yet, apparently. But then I have to consciously decide I'm missing a pink shade and go look for it, because I don't buy pinks 'just because'. I hate pink. :P

As I said, Easter's not my holiday, but I thought it was the appropriate day for these to be posted for everybody else. Enjoy!

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. :)

From the Archive Files: Independence Day Nails

Yeah, I've been skipping around on manicures getting the to the blog. It's sad, I know. But here are the nails I did way back for the fourth of July!

I used Revlon Moon Candy Galactic, Milani Whitest White, and Sally Hansen Celeb City, but I don't remember what I used for the red stripes. The glitter is Wet N Wild Hollywood Walk of Fame, and it is such a dense mass of star glitters that I hardly had to position the stars at all to get this coverage.

Look at this *sparkle*!

Belated St. Patrick's Day Post

As in keeping with my habits of late, I've been doing my nails, taking pictures, but not writing the blog posts to go with them. I'm only a day late on this one, at least! I've also got a bonus mani for you done by my 9-year-old daughter on her own nails, and a picture of our homemade "Shamrock Shakes" that we had in celebration of the day (as well as a link to where we got the recipe, of course!)

First, my nails:

Let's see if I remember everything I used to make these pretties... I started off with a base of China Glaze Re-Fresh Mint. I then used Sinful Colors San Franciso for the next layer, and then used the saran wrap method to make it marbled. The next addition was one coat of Girly Bits Magically Delicious on the entire thumb and swooshed in a curve across one half of the rest of the nails. Sinful Colors All About You  and a nail art brush produced a few accent curls, a shamrock on the ring finger and a four-leaf clover on my thumb. The clovers are a little subtle in the gold (and upside-down on my ring finger in this picture!) but they're very pretty in real life without just jumping out at you.

My 9-year-old B did these nails all by herself, from base coat to nail art. I did a bit of clean-up for her afterward, and did the topcoat for her as she was worried about smearing her beautiful shamrocks. The green splotches you can see here on various places of her fingers are actually green food coloring, not nail polish! She used a base of Sinful Colors Mint Apple and Nubar Greener for her shamrocks. I offered to show her an easy way to make shamrocks with a dotting tool, but she said that she could do them with just the nail polish brush...and proceeded to prove it!

 I think she did a great job, honestly. These are adorable! And here is the source of her green-splotched fingers:

We made shamrock shakes - I measured out the ice cream and milk, and she measured out and added the peppermint and green food coloring to the mixer! Our inspiration and the source of the recipe was:

Enjoy! Hope you had as good of a St. Patrick's Day as we did!

Your Stereotypical Valentine Manicure

I was laughing when I started this manicure. There I was with a bottle of Sinful Colors Black Diamond in hand, starting off a Valentine's Day manicure with black nail polish on my fingers. :) And the end result?

This manicure was made with only two nail polishes, pearlized rhinestones, and a small addition of flat heart-shaped glitter. A base of Black Diamond topped with two coats of a Pure Ice nail polish that lost its name label many, many years ago. I think it might be "Busted", but I only have online swatches to compare to what I have, so no promises on that. :) It looks very, VERY purple in these pictures, and only a few of them give the hint of pink that it actually shines in the light. It's really really pink in real life. Purple with pink shimmer, I guess? I don't know, but over black, it makes what I thought was the best color for a pretty, girly Valentine's Day manicure.

One of my co-workers has been mentioning...nudging...okay, badgering for a Valentine's manicure for nearly two weeks now. Any time I've had anything pink, red, girly-swirly on my nails for nearly a month, she's said something like, "That would make such a good Valentine's manicure!" So even though it's not a holiday I celebrate, I put the pretty hearts on my nails, just for her. :)

And no, I'm not bitter about love or anything silly like that. I'm very VERY happily married and I'm polyamorous on top of that, so I'm perfectly open to the idea of falling in love again if the right person comes along. To be honest, I still whole-heartedly love every person I ever *have* loved in my life. I don't stop loving people, even if we couldn't manage a relationship for one reason or another. Probably why I'm still friends with most of them. :) I just don't celebrate Valentine's Day any more than most Christians celebrate Beltane. It's a tribute to an old dead guy who was sainted by the Catholic Church. It started being associated with romantic love when Chaucer wrote it into something. People only started giving gifts rather than just love notes for the day (and more and more elaborate ones are becoming "required") in the past 50 years. If I were going to celebrate this day, I would do so by writing a letter to my loved one describing all the reasons I love him and how thankful I am to have him in my life. Other than that? I'd rather have a bouquet of chrysanthemums on a random day of the year than roses, chocolates, or jewelry today. It means more to me to be thought of as special on regular days rather than this day where every other commercial is reminding you that you're obligated to buy something to prove that you care.

So enjoy the hearts and flowers and pretty girly manicures that are all over the interwebs today. But if you want to tell me I'm special? Do it on a random Tuesday. Because it's Friday. The first week of every month. It actually means less today rather than more.

Memorial Day Marbling

I actually did two Memorial Day manicures this holiday weekend. My best friend V was over and brought chicken for Mr. IJAH to grill. So in keeping with the patriotic holiday, the same polishes I used on my manicure got put on V's nails as well:

We started with a base of Milani Whitest White, taped off the center triangle, and then added dots of China Glaze Salsa, China Glaze Frostbite, and just a weee little bit of the Milani, and then used my tiniest dotting tool (which is really a pointed end like a toothpick, which would work just as easily, but wasn't as handy, since my dotting tools are right at my polishing "station" :) to swirl the colors together. Remove the tape, let it dry for a bit, and then we added stripes of Pure Ice Strapless and a franken that I put together after realizing that I don't actually own any red glitter polish! So I pulled out my little container of red glitter, a clear top coat, and an empty mini bottle (I bought a batch of 20 bottles from TKD for frankening fun!) and went to town. I also got into my daughter's makeup (yes, my eight year old has more makeup than I do, because I don't wear the stuff) and took a few scrapings of a red eyeshadow to put into the bottle to add a bit of red tint to the clear topcoat - you can't tell it's there if I didn't tell you about it, but you'd be amazed at the difference that the tiny bit of tint made in making the line of glitter look more like a solid line.

V and I were both really excited at how well the diamonds on the thumbs turned out, and she wants to try diamonds on all of her fingers the next time. She really loves the dry marbling effect, so I get to play with color combinations on her nails a lot. ^_^ She's got a job interview coming up this week, so stay tuned for what her nails will be sporting on that day!

Week 11 - St. Patrick's Day

So this is a little belated - I actually did this manicure back on March 12th, but my family just took our first camping trip this weekend, and I was busy most of the week beforehand either with crazy load at work or planning that trip to try and make sure our first attempt at camping went as smoothly as it could. (Which, given that it was a first camping trip, was closer to a gravel road than glass. But fun was had by all, once the actual trip to get there was over, and both children have declared camping to be "awesome!" so I'm satisfied. :)

As for this manicure, I was quite excited the first day I wore it. I had the first random person compliment my nails! Y'all see them, and my co-workers see them, but nobody else has mentioned them...but on Wednesday a student came in to talk about the IRB process and how to submit her paperwork, and as she was leaving, she said, "By the way, I really like your nails! They're very festive!"

And actually, over the course of the day, three more people would give me the exact same comment on my nails. "They're festive!" In almost the exact same tone of voice, even! So, without further delay, I present to you my FESTIVE St. Patrick's Day manicure! (Which didn't actually survive to St. Patty's Day, but we'll let that one go...)

I didn't manage to record what polishes I used for this one (I did mention I was crazy busy last week, right? I did two manicures that didn't even get photographed, I'm sad to say.) but I'll see what I can do to recall. The base coat was two coats of Milani Whitest White. I'm not sure which Nubar I used for the green french tips, but most likely Greener. It's too dark to have been Reclaim, I think. The silver glitter on the two middle fingers is Essie Set in Stones, and the gold glitter on the index and pinkie is probably Sinful Colors All About You. There's some type of effect coat over the top of the fingers, but I don't remember what and I can't tell by looking at the pictures. The Irish flag was done with Nubar Forest and China Glaze Coral Star.
When I topcoated it, the Milani white spread onto the green, which is why it looks so much lighter than Forest should be.

The one thing I look at this manicure and think I should correct for the future? I need to remember to do my art so that it's right-side up when I'm showing it to other people, not when I'm looking at my own hand! It would be much easier to photograph that way, too! ^_^