So you know the drill: Click on the picture to head over to her blog. And seriously, I don't follow everybody who's having a giveaway. I only follow them if I really LIKE the blog anyway. Besides which, I've been following this one for a while. :)
Thursday, April 5, 2012
The Nail Network - 1,000 follower giveaway!
Is it just me, or do other bloggers feel like they overuse exclamation points, too, but can't not use them, because if they were saying it out loud they would be exclaiming? I mean, seriously, how can you just say, "Hey, the Nail Network is having a giveaway." It deserves an exclamation point. But it seems like every post has one...Bah. Too much over thinking. You just want to hear about the freebies, anyway! :)
So you know the drill: Click on the picture to head over to her blog. And seriously, I don't follow everybody who's having a giveaway. I only follow them if I really LIKE the blog anyway. Besides which, I've been following this one for a while. :)
So you know the drill: Click on the picture to head over to her blog. And seriously, I don't follow everybody who's having a giveaway. I only follow them if I really LIKE the blog anyway. Besides which, I've been following this one for a while. :)
Tuesday, April 3, 2012
It's a Teeny-Tiny Warped Universe
My friend V, whose nails have previously graced these pages, and are likely to do so even more often in the future, works in the Physics department of our University. They've got their biiig yearly lecture today and she wanted a manicure to do it justice. The topic is "The Warped Side of Our Universe: From the Big Bang to Black Holes and Gravitational Waves" so of course I had to try my hand at galaxy nails!
I used a base of Sinful Colors Secret Admirer, topped with a coat of China Glaze Some Like It Haute for multi-colored stars in the background. Beyond that, I used too many colors to remember (though if you're really curious, my stash isn't that big, and I could probably figure it out; just ask.) Two or three blues, two purples, two reds, some Pure Ice purple sheer glitter (ooold bottle and name label long gone) and Splash, and topped off with Milani Whitest White for some dotted stars, a few drawn with a detail brush, and both constellations. I even stuck a few individual pieces of flakie out of Essie Shine of the Times on there in a few places.
I sponged tiny bits of one color at a time semi-randomly to some nails and not others. I specifically chose reds for her right-ring finger based on this picture:
Otherwise, I just had a variety of space and nebula pictures in my head when I sponged colors here and there. ^_^ Here's a gallery of her galaxies!
You can really see where I placed the Shine of the Times flakes on that one if you expand the picture, but thankfully it's much more subtle in real life.
For some reason, every picture I took of the thumbs came out with that yellow overtone, and most of them were a little blurry. Ah, well. I tried to portray one of the galaxies as being side-on, and the other at more of an angle, but I don't know if that came across very well.
We had a fun evening, and I don't know if you can tell, but I've actually made inroads into how dry her hands are! How? Well, my hands aren't particular about what moisturizer I use. My skin is naturally oily, and I have only had to worry about dryness during the extreme winter months (though I'm making sure to use moisturizer every time I use acetone or nail polish remover, to make sure that doesn't change!) so I tend to just pick up moisturizers and not remember how or where I got them. I have a sample sized tube of Gold Bond Ultimate Healing skin therapy cream with aloe, and that's what I've been using most of the winter any time my hands needed some moisture (and yes, I still have that sample sized tube in my purse, though it's getting kind of low.) I don't know if I picked it up at the grocery store at some point in the sample/travel section, or if it came in a mail package as a free sample when I bought something else. No telling. But I used it on V's hands when I first started doing her nails, and she was shocked within minutes by how much it helped, so she bought a bottle herself to have at home.
I've got yet another sample bottle of some-or-another moisturizer that I got as a free sample from Vitacost that I'm currently using to moisturize cuticles during manicures, and we always pay extra attention to moisturizing and massaging her cuticles, but she's been using that Gold Bond regularly, and I think I can clearly see the difference!
I used a base of Sinful Colors Secret Admirer, topped with a coat of China Glaze Some Like It Haute for multi-colored stars in the background. Beyond that, I used too many colors to remember (though if you're really curious, my stash isn't that big, and I could probably figure it out; just ask.) Two or three blues, two purples, two reds, some Pure Ice purple sheer glitter (ooold bottle and name label long gone) and Splash, and topped off with Milani Whitest White for some dotted stars, a few drawn with a detail brush, and both constellations. I even stuck a few individual pieces of flakie out of Essie Shine of the Times on there in a few places.
I sponged tiny bits of one color at a time semi-randomly to some nails and not others. I specifically chose reds for her right-ring finger based on this picture:
Otherwise, I just had a variety of space and nebula pictures in my head when I sponged colors here and there. ^_^ Here's a gallery of her galaxies!
You can really see where I placed the Shine of the Times flakes on that one if you expand the picture, but thankfully it's much more subtle in real life.
For some reason, every picture I took of the thumbs came out with that yellow overtone, and most of them were a little blurry. Ah, well. I tried to portray one of the galaxies as being side-on, and the other at more of an angle, but I don't know if that came across very well.
We had a fun evening, and I don't know if you can tell, but I've actually made inroads into how dry her hands are! How? Well, my hands aren't particular about what moisturizer I use. My skin is naturally oily, and I have only had to worry about dryness during the extreme winter months (though I'm making sure to use moisturizer every time I use acetone or nail polish remover, to make sure that doesn't change!) so I tend to just pick up moisturizers and not remember how or where I got them. I have a sample sized tube of Gold Bond Ultimate Healing skin therapy cream with aloe, and that's what I've been using most of the winter any time my hands needed some moisture (and yes, I still have that sample sized tube in my purse, though it's getting kind of low.) I don't know if I picked it up at the grocery store at some point in the sample/travel section, or if it came in a mail package as a free sample when I bought something else. No telling. But I used it on V's hands when I first started doing her nails, and she was shocked within minutes by how much it helped, so she bought a bottle herself to have at home.
I've got yet another sample bottle of some-or-another moisturizer that I got as a free sample from Vitacost that I'm currently using to moisturize cuticles during manicures, and we always pay extra attention to moisturizing and massaging her cuticles, but she's been using that Gold Bond regularly, and I think I can clearly see the difference!
A Polish Addict - 100 follower giveaway
Pretty much exactly what the subject line says: A Polish Addict is having a giveaway for reaching 100 followers! Yay her! You should check her out, anyway, because she has really pretty swatches and is annoyingly good at making you really want this or that color. Grrr. ^_^ You know the drill: click the pic to check out her giveaway, and make sure to check out the archives if you're not already a follower. Lots of prettiness to peruse!
Week 14 - Stripes
This week's theme in A Year's Challenge is striped mani. I originally had a different vision for this, but it didn't work out to my satisfaction (it was still a pretty manicure, and I'll post about it later in the week) so when I re-did my nails last night, I decided to do my second idea for stripes. I'm pretty happy with the way this one turned out! What do you think?
Some of the stripes are more subtle than others, but I'm pretty happy with the simple elegance of this one. I started with a base of three coats of Sinful Colors Daddy's Girl. It's a rich, deep purple jelly, with a nice hidden sparkle that shines when the light hits it. You can see it on the index finger of the picture just above. Then I added the rows of pearls in different sizes. I added a stripe of Sinful Colors Purple Diamond to the side of the pearls, and then outlined it in Rich in Heart. It's just a touch darker than the Daddy's Girl. If you click on the picture below to enlarge it, you can see the outline of the lavendar stripe on the thumb and ring fingers more clearly.
Then I used the pointy end of an orange stick to not-quite-individually place glitter from Essie LuxEffects A Cut Above in an off-center stripe on the other three nails of each hand. The middle finger's glitter stripe then got outlined with China Glaze Dress Me Up and Sally Hansen Celeb City.
I do have to say one thing about the tools I used. I bought a standard 7-piece nail art brush kit some time back. While it's been useful, I've found that I just couldn't make the thin lines I was hoping for, and when I was picked up a variety of tools on EvilBay last month, from one of the many Hong Kong suppliers of verrry cheap nail art supplies, I picked up a 3-piece striping set, thinking that if none of them are thin enough for my taste, I can cut one down until it's only one or two hairs. However, last week when V and I were wandering around Hobby Lobby, I happened to stop in at the model car section. I showed V the airbrush kit (and told her that I'd seen some amazingly cool stencils designed for airbrushing nails online...funnily enough, from a store that primarily sells car paint and tools!) and then joked about how Mr. IJAH has said I need to use car paint on my nails so it would quit chipping...and then I happened to look at the tools. Model painting is actually even finer than a most nail art. I picked up a set of detail brushes in the model aisle, and two of them are very fine - fine enough for me to finally be happy with thin stripes on my nails! I also found a package of detail brushes that are like tiny fuzzy brushes on wire, which is turning out to be the best cuticle clean-up tool EVER!
As you can see, they cost me a whole $2 for a set of 10, but I've only pulled one out and used it for clean-up on four manicures since then. As the back of it says, it doesn't drip. Dip it in acetone, and rub it along your cuticles for an easy clean-up! I still use a brush for the nice even line around my polish, but especially for the harder surface along the side of my nail, right up at the end of the cuticle? Where it's not quite a hang nail, because I do actually keep it lotioned and such, but it still always feels hard like a callous at the end there? Yeah, that's where I use these. ESPECIALLY with glitter, which is always so difficult to do clean-up for - this is like a teeny tiny scrubber!
Okay, enough getting excited about my new mini tool (though I encourage any of you doing nail art to check out the model section of your closest hobby or crafting store - my trip to Hobby Lobby was brief, but next paycheck I'll be spending a little more time in the model aisle to see what other useful tools I can find.)
One last picture of my pretties and I'll leave you be. Happy polishing!
Some of the stripes are more subtle than others, but I'm pretty happy with the simple elegance of this one. I started with a base of three coats of Sinful Colors Daddy's Girl. It's a rich, deep purple jelly, with a nice hidden sparkle that shines when the light hits it. You can see it on the index finger of the picture just above. Then I added the rows of pearls in different sizes. I added a stripe of Sinful Colors Purple Diamond to the side of the pearls, and then outlined it in Rich in Heart. It's just a touch darker than the Daddy's Girl. If you click on the picture below to enlarge it, you can see the outline of the lavendar stripe on the thumb and ring fingers more clearly.
Then I used the pointy end of an orange stick to not-quite-individually place glitter from Essie LuxEffects A Cut Above in an off-center stripe on the other three nails of each hand. The middle finger's glitter stripe then got outlined with China Glaze Dress Me Up and Sally Hansen Celeb City.
I do have to say one thing about the tools I used. I bought a standard 7-piece nail art brush kit some time back. While it's been useful, I've found that I just couldn't make the thin lines I was hoping for, and when I was picked up a variety of tools on EvilBay last month, from one of the many Hong Kong suppliers of verrry cheap nail art supplies, I picked up a 3-piece striping set, thinking that if none of them are thin enough for my taste, I can cut one down until it's only one or two hairs. However, last week when V and I were wandering around Hobby Lobby, I happened to stop in at the model car section. I showed V the airbrush kit (and told her that I'd seen some amazingly cool stencils designed for airbrushing nails online...funnily enough, from a store that primarily sells car paint and tools!) and then joked about how Mr. IJAH has said I need to use car paint on my nails so it would quit chipping...and then I happened to look at the tools. Model painting is actually even finer than a most nail art. I picked up a set of detail brushes in the model aisle, and two of them are very fine - fine enough for me to finally be happy with thin stripes on my nails! I also found a package of detail brushes that are like tiny fuzzy brushes on wire, which is turning out to be the best cuticle clean-up tool EVER!
As you can see, they cost me a whole $2 for a set of 10, but I've only pulled one out and used it for clean-up on four manicures since then. As the back of it says, it doesn't drip. Dip it in acetone, and rub it along your cuticles for an easy clean-up! I still use a brush for the nice even line around my polish, but especially for the harder surface along the side of my nail, right up at the end of the cuticle? Where it's not quite a hang nail, because I do actually keep it lotioned and such, but it still always feels hard like a callous at the end there? Yeah, that's where I use these. ESPECIALLY with glitter, which is always so difficult to do clean-up for - this is like a teeny tiny scrubber!
Okay, enough getting excited about my new mini tool (though I encourage any of you doing nail art to check out the model section of your closest hobby or crafting store - my trip to Hobby Lobby was brief, but next paycheck I'll be spending a little more time in the model aisle to see what other useful tools I can find.)
One last picture of my pretties and I'll leave you be. Happy polishing!
Sunday, April 1, 2012
Operation: Nail It! Giveaway
Operation: Nail It! is having a 200-follower giveaway! Click on the pic to enter and enjoy her polish swatches.
Glam Polish 1300-Follower Giveaway
In celebration of reaching 1300 followers, Glam Polish is giving away six colors from the China Glaze Summer Neons collection! Click on the pic to enter:
Nail Loopy's Blogoversary Giveaway
Nail Loopy is having a blogoversary giveaway!
Click on the picture to have a chance to win all those pretties! :)
Click on the picture to have a chance to win all those pretties! :)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)