Autumn Leaves

Starting with a base of Finger Paints Don't Make a Scene, I used several different colors to make fall leaves. China Glaze Adventure Red-Y, Salsa, and Solar Power were used, as well as just a bit of Sally Hansen Cardinal. I don't have a lot of orange cremes, it turns out, so I tried mixing Solar Power with the reds to make some oranges, but I didn't get any really orange ones. Just sort of orange-ish-shaded red. I used OPI Suzy Loves Cowboys to make the stems, though I dipped my brush in the different colors to keep the stems from being just a straight brown. It worked to varying degrees. It's not the best work I've ever done, but it still came out pretty!

What really made me laugh, though, was when a co-worker asked me, "How do you get those so perfect?!" I couldn't help it. I laughed out loud. Not only are these not perfect, as you all can see on the big photos, but these are half-hour nails, done in the morning because I was too lazy to do them the night before, but then didn't want to go to work with naked nails. Heh. Perfect. ::giggle::

Oooh Shiny!

First, you can blame the post title on the fact that my hubby and I had a Firefly marathon on Sunday, and then watched the 10th anniversary special for the short-lived and MUCH loved show. You can tell how much it was loved by everyone except the network honchos, because as they mentioned during the special - what other concept ever went from a *failed* TV show to a major motion picture? Fourteen episodes of Firefly, and a very successful movie, Serenity. I highly recommend them to anyone who has even a slight enjoyment of sci-fi, action, or westerns. Trust me. Of course, now that he's gone on to direct what they referred to as "the third biggest movie of all time", Avengers, maybe they'll trust Joss Whedon the next time he floats a story concept they don't think can work, like Buffy (seven awesome seasons and a few awards!) or Firefly.

Now, on to the actual shinies! As you can see, my friend V's hands are gracing our pages again this week. I started with two coats of Orly Buried Alive, topped it with one coat of Essie Shine of the Times, and then used China Glaze Kalahari Kiss and a detail brush to draw the design.

This beauty was inspired by Olmi, from Pieni Kynsiblogi, or A Tiny Nail Blog. Obviously I modified it to go on much shorter nails. :) We are all very sad to hear Olmi has developed an allergy to formaldehyde resin, and if she wants to continue doing her nails, will have to replace most of her stash, as they are not 5-free (or 3-free-plus, because the main three include formaldehyde, but not formaldehyde resin, so she'll need 5-free or 3-free-plus-FR, which some brands do.)

Click on the picture to go to her blog post on this mani:

Autumn dots a-falling

You may or may not have noticed, but I have no clue how to title things. This is not a good trait in a writer. It's a good thing I don't make a living at it! Aaanyway, the falling temperatures, and falling leaves, have gotten me in quite a fall mood, so as all artists tend to do, I painted my mood across my canvas!

The base color is two coats of Pure Ice Magic, followed by dots of China Glaze Riveting topped with slightly smaller dots of Zoya Karina. And of course, you may recognize the accent nail - I put one coat of Nerd Lacquer Gorramit! over the PI Magic, and then added the same dots the other nails had, but sideways instead of vertically on the nail. Gorramit!'s yellow base tint with the variety of gold, yellow, and orange glitters, made for the perfect fall glitter accent!

There's not a whole lot more I can say about this mani, so I'll just put a cut-tag in here and if you want the picture spam, feel free to click through! :)

Polish Days - MANicure

It's November's Polish Days, and the theme this month is MAN-icure. I decided to dedicate my MANi to the most important person in my life: my husband. When I first got the email describing this theme, I thought about nail art with guitars, computers, cooking...all the things he's awesome at. Maybe add in a truck and a gun for things he likes. However, I have a board meeting at work today, and while working at a University means that even my more outlandish nail art is not only allowed, but enjoyed, I do try to put on a bit more of a professional look for the monthly board meetings, since they actually are important.

So instead of doing art to represent all the cool things about my guy, I decided to ask him to choose what to put on my nails - either the design, the colors, or both - whatever he wanted. Within minutes, he actually had an exact design in mind that he wanted to see, and even ended up drawing it out for me so we were both sure I knew what he was looking for. I even swatched out four different colors of "green with a subtle shimmer" to see which one matched his mental image best.

I started with a base of three coats of Sinful Colors San Francisco, which is a lovely green jelly with a beautiful shimmer that builds from a pale green at one coat to a luxurious deep emerald at three. I then added black tips with the curved shape Chris asked for in NYC Black Lace Creme, and matted the black tips. The edge between the black and green was then lined with first Sinful Colors This Is It and then topped it with All About You.

Enjoy all the other amazing nail artists that are participating in this month's theme!

Week 45 - Tribal

I didn't have any posts last week, and I think that's a first in months. I did do my nails a few times - I tried to push myself to keep up with the Halloween challenge, and I did my version of "witches" by drawing wiccan symbols on one hand (I had a pentacle, a moon and sun, and a three-phase moon) and the colors of the elements on the other (earth, air, fire and water). But I never got around to taking pictures of it. And then for Halloween itself I painted my nails to match my kimono costume, but the pictures I did take came out horrible. There wasn't any art to the manicure, just a gorgeous purple with blue glitter on two of the nails of each hand, so when the pictures came out overwhelmingly BLUE and I couldn't get the color even passibly accurate, I decided they weren't worth posting.

Now I hope I've kicked the depressive phase I've been in for the last few weeks, and my nails and everything else will get interesting again, but at least for last night, I managed to get going. This week's them for A Year's Challenge is "tribal". So I looked up a bunch of Cherokee patterns (since I'm part Cherokee, myself) and drew up some designs. I also added a dreamcatcher - I have no idea if Cherokee used them or not, but *I* use them as a pagan and a shaman, so I added one anyway.

I started with a base of two coats of Fingerpaints Don't Make a Scene, except for on my thumbs, which has two coats of Nailtiques Shanghai. I used a detail brush for everything except the four dots on the thumb, for which I used a dotting tool. The colors: Milani Whitest White and China Glaze Liquid Leather for the basics (I need to get another bottle of LL, as it's over half-gone!) China Glaze Solar Power, Sally Hansen Blue Me Away!, and Nailtiques Shanghai for the yellow, blue, and reds, respectively.

And the highlight of my morning today - I came into my office to find a small package in red-tissue paper, tied with a pretty purple ribbon. This is what was inside it:

 Awwwwwwwwww! I have awesome co-workers! When I went to thank her, she tried to tell me that she was sure it wasn't a higher quality polish like I normally buy...at which point I stopped her and told her that Sinful Colors is the second-biggest-brand on my polish shelf. AND I didn't have Nail Junkie yet, so I'm very happy to have it! Again, she tried to wave away the gift, but I'm just tickled pink that a co-worker actually thought of me when she was out shopping, and picked something up for me. It was so sweet!

Lastly, here's a heads-up for you: I've reached 52 followers on this little blog of mine, which is just amazing to me, really, and I want to have a giveaway for you awesome people who think my attempts at pretties are worth your time. :) I'll need to figure out what polishes to give, and get them in hand, but sometime in the next few weeks I'll put up a Thank-You for Following giveaway for Thanksgiving.

Random Plaid Mani

You know, I should know better than to join a nail art challenge that requires two manicures a week, and then ends with three days in a row. I should have known my ADHD would rear up and make me lose interest in it. I did actually manage to do last Friday's challenge, "witches", albeit on *Saturday*...but then I never got around to taking pictures of it. I'll try to convince myself to do that tonight. If I do, you'll just have to ignore the tip wear. :)

I'm clearly not going to be able to finish the last three days of the challenge, though, because I haven't finished our Halloween costumes, so I'm going to be SEWING for the next two nights! And then Tuesday night I will have to do my manicure to go with the costume, so it will not fit with the challenge. Ah, well. I need to be more honest with myself before jumping into things, I guess.

In the meantime, here's a manicure I did some time last month, because I needed something on my nails besides Halloween for a committee meeting. I rarely do a manicure to match my clothes - since I only do my nails around twice a week, I usually choose my clothes to go well with my nails rather than the other way around. :) But I had just bought this dress the week before, and I was wearing it to a committee meeting, and I thought that I could do a manicure that went well with it. I suck at plaid, but I think this one came out well enough (although admittedly it was my second try!)

First, here's the dress:

I started with a base of Nailtiques Milan, then I did stripes of China Glaze Stone Cold, and thinner striped of Liquid Leather.

I finished it off with NYC Matte Me Crazy to give it that soft fuzzy look to go with the soft knit of the dress. I'm always annoyed at the difficulty in clean-up with any red polish, but I do think the manicure as a whole came out very nicely.

"This is Halloween" Day 6 & 7 - Bats & Gradient

I didn't manage to get my bats done on time for last Friday, so I decided to combine days six and seven - bats and gradient - into one manicure for today. Mind, the gradient ended up being very subtle, but it's there.

I started out with a base color of two coats of Sally Hansen Opal Chrome, and then using a dry brush, I brushed down from the tips of the nails with Black Pearl Chrome. I then used China Glaze Liquid Leather to and a tiiiiny detail brush to draw my attempt at bats on the three middle fingers of my left hand.

I then added to the gradient on my right hand with a gradient of glitters. From the cuticle up, I have Wet N Wild, a very old bottle that I have that has no name on it, and only a sticker on the top of the lid that says 407. Then from about mid-way up to the tips of the nails I added Wet N Wild Kaleidoscope. They're both multi-colored glitter, but the 407 is tiny particles, and Kaleidoscope has larger hex glitters. Like I said, a very subtle gradient, but it is there!

I don't know why the glitter is only showing as gritty in these pictures. I'll take some more at lunch time and see if I can't get some better views for you guys. EDIT: Well, here are two pictures that do show the color sparkles a little bit, but seriously, it looks so much smoother and pretty in person.

I also added a graduated layer of Kaleidoscope on the thumb and pinkie fingers of my bat hand.

SECOND EDIT: One last update! Brianna wanted everyone to see her bats. Regrettably, she didn't choose a color scheme that makes her bats easy to see, but they are there... :)

I've included the links for both days - Day 6, October 19 - Bats

And Day 7, October 22 - Gradient!