MSMD Chocolate & Caramel

I don't always have a Monkey See, Monkey Do, though most of my manicures can tip their hat to someone for giving me the idea, but this post was completely based on Spektor's Nails manicure which looked to me like someone drizzled chocolate and caramel on top of a piece of candy. I just had to have it on my own nails for a few days!

Mine came out more blobby than hers did, mostly due to my lack of patience, but I loved it all the same, and all my co-workers thought they were amazing. I started with a base of Finger Paints Don't Make a Scene (it's my only basic tan color - I really need to get a few more in that shade range) and used Barielle Aura Angora and Sinful Colors Coffee for the spun sugar lines.

And now for something completely different...or, you know, other people's Monkey See, Monkey Do's!

Monkey See, Monkey Do Monday!

I had this gorgeous picture pinned on my nail art board that I wanted to try, and the very day I sat down to recreate it on my nails, I found someone else had done the same thing. So on this Monkey See Monkey Do Monday, you get to see three variations of the same design! First, you get to see what I did, since it's my blog after all. ;)

I started with a base of Fingerpaints Putty In My Hands, then I added Sinful Colors Timbleberry. I totally lost which color I used for the stripey outlines by the time I took the pictures, but the inset jewel color is Zoya Blaze.

And now here's the manicure I based it on:

And the other copy of it -

Isn't it amazing the differences one can get from the same design just with three different color sets?

Let's see who else decided to do a Monkey See Monkey Do Mani today!

Interlocking Dots

I have really enjoyed participating in the last two months of Polish Days. One of the things I always enjoy about joining in a challenge is when they include the batch of links to everybody else's entry. This month the theme, of course, was Something New, in which we were urged to use something new to us, whether that was a new polish, a new color, or a new technique. Some participants went with new polish, but it seemed like most of us went with new technique - I think we all have techniques out there that we've admired but haven't worked up the gumption to try, and having a challenge to do something new is just the thing to make us jump on something we've always wanted to do but hadn't yet pushed ourselves over the willpower threshold!

Anyway, while browsing through everyone else's presentation, I was inspired by Adventures in Lalaland's post, which was on interlocking dots, which is another technique I've always planned to do, but just hadn't gotten around to doing!

I started with two coats of Finger Paints Don't Make A Scene for a base color, then painted a diagonal half of my nails with China Glaze Mahogany Magic, and finished it off with the interlocking dots! I apologize for the tip wear (and one chip :( before I was able to take pictures of it. While I used my bathroom (with its three light bulbs in different places) as a white room when I started this nail art journey, I got far too attached to the color of taking my pictures outside during the day. However, this past month has been entirely too dreary for that to work. I have, however, realized that the color in my office is much better than the color in my house (which I find odd, really, since I have mostly flourescent bulbs in my house, the same as here at work!) so when I can't do an outside shot, I tend to take the pictures on my lunch hour at work, either outside or in my office. And in this case, I had done this mani over the weekend, so it was longer than I like before I took pictures.

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::

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.

Dotted French Tip - Week #2 fill-in

Good Monday, nail art enthusiasts! I will freely admit I'm being a baaad challenge member and totally skipping this week's theme. Why? I don't care for cupcakes. Seriously. I have absolutely no love for the cutesy that is cupcakes on nails. I can appreciate kawaii, but I am not a cute person. If you are, then by all means, head over to Jenna Froggy's Year's Challenge page and check out everybody else's cupcakes, but here on my hobby blog, you're getting anything that drops into Ro's weird little mind. Just not cupcakes. ;)

Instead, I'm going to make up one of the weeks I didn't do, because I came into this challenge a few weeks late. So I present to you, week #2: french tip! (Yay! I hardly ever do french tips, but I figure if I'm going to do it, might as well use it for a fill-in!)

I started with a base of two coats of Finger Paints Don't Make a Scene, then I added french tips in Orly Buried Alive. I really love this color - the rich red and gold shimmers are just beautiful. It really does bring to mind a freshly turned top soil (though you'll never see this lovely color of dirt in my front yard!)

I used China Glaze I'm Not Lion from the On Safari collection to line the separation between the base and tip colors, which allowed me to cover over those not-quite-perfect spots! Then I used a dotting tool to put dots of Don't Make a Scene on the brown tips, and I used China Glaze Prey Tell for the dots on the tan base. I tried just using Buried Alive, but the added contrast of a third color really helped the dots to pop out. Onto the DMaS dots on the tip, I added slightly smaller dots of Prey Tell, and then finally even smaller dots of I'm Not Lion. The Prey Tell dots on the base just got a smaller dot of I'm Not Lion on them.

I've gotten some surprisingly enthusiastic comments on these from my co-workers, and one of the male professors happened to come by while I was showing them, and he asked if I did them myself or went somewhere to get them done! I can't think of a better compliment than people thinking that a professional did my nail art. Well, I did have one better compliment, when a salon manager asked if I was certified (or licensed, or whatever it's called), because she'd been looking for someone to do nail art at her salon! Anyone who knows me in person would have been rolling on the floor laughing at the question. I am not, not, NOT a people person. I would have a nervous breakdown if I had to work in a service environment constantly, let alone having to touch strangers constantly. ::shudder:: No, I'll keep this at hobby level, thanks, and stick to my own nails or my very close friends.