Fall Marbling

My friend V really, really loves water marbling. And she's extremely excited that she's gotten the hang of doing it herself. I present to you, V's nails - my only contribution to her manicure was taping her fingers before hand and clean-up afterward...though I have to admit that cleanup involving red or black nail polishes is a BITCA.

I think she started with a base color of Desert Sun, and the water marbling was done with all China Glaze: Salsa, Brownstone, Riveting, and Desert Sun. I've found China Glaze to be pretty consistent for using in water marbling - if it isn't spreading easily, then your water's gone cold. It's never the polish. Sometimes I can use Sinful Colors for water marbling, and sometimes I can't, but China Glaze will tolerate the water getting a little colder than SC will.

"This is Halloween" Day 2 - Watermarble

Day 2 in the "This Is Halloween" Nail Art Challenge from Lacquer Dreams, and today's theme is watermarble. I love watermarble, but it's so much effort and so much clean-up, and there's invariably at least one nail that has to be wiped clean and re-done from scratch, that I just don't do it very often. So honestly, I'm quite happy when a challenge prompt requires it of me!

I started with a base layer of China Glaze Hook and Line for a nice, silvery color. Then I used China Glaze Smoke and Ashes, ChG Riveting, Sinful Colors Courtney Orange ), and last -but not least- China Glaze Ghoulish Glow to make the water marble. Though the Courtney Orange isn't on all my nails, as I couldn't really see the difference between it and Riveting after it was marbled, and it didn't spread well with the Ghoulish Glow at *all*, so I stopped using it after a bit.

Ghoulish Glow comes off as mostly transparent, of course, so that allowed the silver base color to shine through. I don't have any pictures of the glow-in-the-dark, though. I'll see if I can get some when I get home from work tonight, and I'll add them if they come out at all. :) I especially like the tiny stripes I got on the index finger here!

Have you ever had a plan set out for your nail art, and then realize after half of your nails are completed that you completely forgot a step that you had intended? I did that this time. I had intended to put a layer of Nubar 2010 down before the watermarbling...it makes such nice orange flakes over most colors! But I realized right after I dipped the first finger of my second hand that I'd completely forgotten it. So all the pictures above, and the pinky finger below, don't have it. But for the rest, you can clearly see the orange flakes on the silver, under the "clear" Ghoulish Glow. I tried for the tiny stripes again on the index finger, but I couldn't get them quite as thin.

This hand made me scratch my head several times, wondering How the heck did that happen? The huge black area on my thumb, for instance, and the fact that the pinky finger looks like I dipped it twice, which I didn't. (I did re-do two fingers on my left hand, but I took the polish off completely and started over on them!)

Go check out all these other gorgeous entries to the challenge!

"This is Halloween" - Day 1

I'm a late entry to this challenge because I am running behind in reading my nail art blogs and only saw the challenge this morning. I LOVED the idea, though, and decided I was going to start my participation as soon as I got home!

I have to thank Lacquer Dreams for coming up with this challenge. I love Halloween, it's one of my favorite holidays. I'm pagan, as well, so it's like New Year's AND Halloween AND it's my wedding anniversary, all rolled up into one fun day. So of course I'm going to jump on the bandwagon for a Halloween-themed challenge for my first Halloween since I started doing nail art!

So, horror movie. I love horror movies. I love the campy, cheesy ones, and I love the edge-of-your-seat nail biting ones. I especially love supernatural horror rather than the plain old serial killer version. But oddly enough, the movie I chose to base my nail art on is one I really don't care for. It's not that I dislike it, I just don't particularly like it. It does, however, have a certain odd sentimental value in my family because it was the first movie my daughter, Brianna, actually sat still for and watched all the way through. The movie that hyperactive little three-year-old decided was worth sitting still for a full 87 minutes for? Child's Play. There are reasons we call her a cross between Princess Barbie and Wednesday Addams, people! :)

I started with a base layer of two coats of Milani Whitest White on all of my nails, then I used China Glaze Frostbite, Avon Vintage Blue, Primary Beauty Pink Neon, and China glaze Adventure Red-Y to mimic the stripes on Chucky's shirt. I used Sally Hansen Black Pearl Chrome and Sinful Colors Celeb City to make the butcher knife and Adventure Red-Y and China Glaze Salsa to make the blood.

I tried - and failed miserably - to draw Chucky's face on my thumbnail. It's horrible, I know, and after I've let my co-workers see my horrible rendition of it tomorrow, I'll paint over that ugly mug.

I didn't even attempt to do any pictures on my off-hand, of course. I put the same stripes on, though quite a bit shakier drawing with my left hand, and I used a coffee stirrer for a straw to make blood splatters on my accent fingers, again with Adventure Red-Y and Salsa.

I enjoyed seeing all the other entries in this challenge, and I'll do my best to make sure all the rest of my entries are actually on the day they're scheduled for. Thanks for playing! Now, go check out all the other pretties:

Fall Phalanges

Maybe I am getting a hang of this "less is more" thing that I've been trying to teach myself. I've been pinning a lot of simple elegance manicures to my Nail Art pin board lately to try to keep this in mind. So this last manicure, I started with a base color of OPI Suzi Loves Cowboys. It took three coats for an even color, though, because even with careful application, it kept getting thin in patches.

Then I used China Glaze Electrify and Desert Sun to make alternating dotted circles. On both index fingers, I used Electrify, Desert Sun, Electrify, and on both ring fingers I used Desert Sun, Electrify, Desert Sun.

Week 39 - Dry Marble

Some days I'm a babble-ball, and some days I'm not. This is one of those 'not' days. It's a good thing you're here for the pretty pictures rather than my writing, eh?

This week's theme for A Year's Challenge is Dry Marble (also known as needle marble)! I felt like fall, and tried to pick some red/orange/yellow-ish colors. It ended up looking more like I dipped my fingers in blood than fall leaves, but as long as it's pretty, it works. :)

I started with two coats of Pure Ice Gold Mist, and then dotted on globs of China Glaze Adventure Red-y, Ruby Pumps, Kalahari Kiss, and Coral Star. I then used a fine dotting tool (feel free to grab a toothpick or needle if you don't have a dotting tool that comes to a point sitting handily at your workspace) and went to swirl-town. Short french-style tips, though I didn't tape and let the swirls make the "french" line wobbly as it pleased, and full-finger on the thumb and ring accents.

Plaid and Polka Dots

I love plaid manicures. I really do. But previously I've failed at creating a plaid manicure that I actually liked. I decided to try painting on scotch tape, cutting the tape into thin strips, and then putting those on my nails. Well, I love the way it looked, but it was sooooo time consuming to put down each little strip of tape, and very finicky at getting them positioned, that I realized that it would take me twice as long to position them on my dominant hand. So instead, I used the same colors to make polka dots!!

I am happy to say that I won Girls Night In's first ever giveaway recently (that makes three I've won in the past few months! My husband is wondering about the influx of packages! ;) and check out what she sent me!

From left to right, Ulta Eye Popping Poppy, China Glaze For Audrey, and Orly Fowl Play. Also a buffing block and a tube of foot scrub. (And a couple of pieces of candy that had my son complaining because he didn't get any. :P Mine!)

So I started this mani by painting all my nails with two nice coats of my favorite pale blue - Color Club Take Me To Your Chateau. I used Fowl Play, For Audrey, and China Glaze Frostbite to paint a few inches on Scotch Tape. After that was dry, I cut it into strips, put them onto my nails in a woven pattern, and top-coated the whole thing!

It was very tedious and took a lot longer than I expected it to. Much of it was spent with fiddling with the tape trying to get it into the right place, and straight, and weave it in with the other strips while not making it move again... I decided that it would probably take twice as long using my non-dominant hand to finagle the tape on my right hand, so I took the easy way out and used a dotting tool. Same colors: Orly Fowl Play, China Glaze For Audrey and Frostbite, and voila! (My Grammar!Bitch side is showing - doesn't "voila" have an accent on it somewhere? Harrumph.)

See my poor little index finger nubbin?? I am in dire need of more of the Haken Nail Magic base coat I used with such good results for months. I picked up the wrong one (still Haken, but not the same variety) last time I bought new base coat, and the original problem I had with flaking hasn't come back, I have had several side-breaks right at the edge of the nail bed that I've had to use the tea bag repair method on, and a few of them have broken off when they got a few millimeters past the end of the nail bed. That's why I trimmed down all the rest of them to a shorter length, so the nubbins wouldn't stand out so terribly badly! 

Week 38 - Metallic/Magnetic Nail Fail

Another semi-weekly installment of A Year's Challenge! Click on the link to see a list of the weekly themes and other amazing blogs that are following the challenges. I admit to having skipped last week's theme, because I honestly didn't feel like I would do it justice, and while I don't begrudge anyone else's desire to put a memorial/tribute to 9/11 on their manicures, it seemed too deep of a subject to put on my fingernails. If I had the creativity and artistic talent of 10 Blank Canvases or Sonoma Nail Art, then I would have tried my hand at giving homage. But my only creative talent lies in words, not pictures, so I declined.

But on to this week's attempt! And why I labeled it a 'nail fail' in the title of the post. If you've been reading my blog rather than just looking at the pretty (and sometimes not-so-pretty) pictures, you might remember that I've said my main failing is to not know when to stop? That I don't stick with simplicity? I always overcomplicate things? And I babble...but that usually makes people giggle rather than grumble, so I tend not to try to fix that one. ^_^

I'm really happy with the polish part of this manicure. I used Nabi Red Wine, and a straight line magnet on most of the fingers, and a star-shaped magnet on the accent nails - thumbs and ring fingers. If I'd stopped there, it would have been a beautiful manicure. Regrettably, I did not...

The stickers looked so cute on the sheet! They actually looked pretty cute going on my nails, too, but for several problems. The plastic was thick, so the cut edges of the stickers look extremely abrupt. That might have been okay, except that the stickers did not want to stick on a curved surface, like my nails. And topcoat? Didn't hold them down. At all. I ended up using nail glue to stick down a few stubborn edges!!

Also, do you see the difference between the different flowers? The pink, purple, and blue look like simple flat colors, while the green and yellow have holographic spots on them? There turned out to be a verrry thin clear plastic layer over the top of each sticker which decided to peel off overnight (and a few more peeled off after these pictures were taken, even!) Out from under two layers of topcoat, these things shed their iridescent film!

And the last annoying thing? One of the stickers either turned completely clear overnight, or it not only lost the iridescent layer, but the colored layer, too, leaving only a clear plastic bottom!

You see that index finger there? It was green when I went to bed the night I did these nails. I took these pictures the next day at lunch, as I frequently do to take advantage of the natural daylight for taking pictures, while I do my nails late in the evening most times.

In summary? I loved the magnetic polish (though the magnets that came on the lids are far too weak, but I fixed that by buying a 3-magnet set off of EvilBay) and HATED the stickers. I think I'll give the rest of the sheet to my short people (also known as spawn, or just children to normal people) to play with, as they're clearly not suited for nail adornment.

But at least that red striped sparkle is absolutely gorgeous!! :)