Wild Stones

The last two weeks my manicures have just not turned out the way I wanted them to, unfortunately. Thankfully, aside from that annoyingly placed break you see on my middle finger and a little tip-pull, this one turned out pretty well. I love, love, love Nubar duochromes!

I used Sally Hanson "Triple Strong" as a base tonight (see below), Nubar's "Wildlife", a green & pink duochrome for my color, large rhinestones from Born Pretty Store for the artwork, and Seche Vite top coat to seal it all up. The rhinestones were complimentary, if I remember correctly (it's been awhile). Everything else was on my dime.

I started with the Triple Strong to try to stabilize that broken nail until it can grow out to where I can comfortably cut it. When you have nails as long as mine, the "quick" under the nail grows out longer than the finger, so I can't just cut the break off at the top of my finger (not without taking a lot of skin too). Triple Strong normally works really well (it's got epoxy in it!)...but tonight before I took photos, something heavy slipped out of my hands and yanked the break apart again. Stupid thing...my own fault for not being more careful.

After the TS, I applied two coats of Wildlife, which you can kind of see some of the color differences in the above non-flash photo. Gorgeous, beautiful polish, IMO. One of my new favorites, and the formula is awesome, as usual.

Just a simple design this week - three stones on each nail, alternating pink and black. I just brushed on a coat of Seche, seated the stones in the tacky polish, and then sealed with another coat of Seche over the top.

Would you believe I didn't realize I'd lost a stone already until I looked at this photo tonight? Must not have gotten that one pushed down all the way...bummer!

Obviously, I've gotten a bit lazy - not wrapping polish over the tips, etc. It's because I've been starting my manicures really late (like 1am). Next week, I'm starting earlier, no matter what, so I have time to do a better job. That's kind of the point, right? ;-)

Until then, happy polishing!

Starry Purple Beach

Sorry for disappearing again there. The past few weeks have been *crazy*! Thankfully things are kind of slowing down a little bit. This week, I felt dark and purple-y, so I pulled out Nubar's "Purple Beach" duochrome, which is just an awesome color. It's dark and broody, but with an amazing green/gold tone in the right light. One of my new favorites.

I started with two coats "Purple Beach" over a base coat of Seche Vite:

Above with a flash, below without so you can sort of see the color variation (sorry it's so blurry!):

Then I simply took these great star stickers, and put them on to just accent the color a little.

Two coats of Seche Vite top coat, and some clean-up results in an unfortunately blurry photo, but you get the idea:

When you have a color this great on it's own, sometimes less is more when it comes to nail art, I think. I just wish I were a better photographer...though I think our camera might need replacing too. ;-)

Until next week, Happy Polishing!