Spring Pink, Frugal Dad and the Great Camera Search

Okay...so blogger's new posting/editing layout sucks, but you probably already knew that, right? It kind of makes me want to move this blog to my other platform...but moving a blog is a ton of work, so I'll just deal with this, I suppose...

Anyways...hi. If you're still hanging around, thank you - I appreciate your continued support. :-)

I still don't have a new camera...which sucks, because there are several manicures I would have liked to show you recently. I am in the market, and I'd like a digital camera that takes decent video too, as I've had a *ton* of requests for video nail tutorials around here, and I'd like to see about doing some more of that. So, if you have a digital camera (*not* a phone) that you love, and that takes fairly decent video, please leave me a comment with the brand so I can check it out. I would love to get posting on this blog again...but a nail art blog is nothing without photos!

In other news, last month Nail Art Tuesday was listed on Frugal Dad as a Top Nail Polish Site...which is awesome! Thank you, Frugal Dad! I'm honored. :-)

And finally - these pictures suck (from my tablet...sorry - it takes good photos, but it's awkward getting *nail* photos with it), but I'm wearing pink this week...a tri-color gradient that didn't go exactly as planned, but I'm happy enough with 'em, since they sparkle nicely in the sunlight.You should be able to click on the photos for a slightly larger image.

The colors I used are China Glaze "Awakening" for the base, Nubar's "Iris Dust" for the longer top color, and Finger Paints "Hue Left a Message?" for the glitter.

That's all I have for today. I'm researching cameras this week, so hopefully I'll be back to regular posting soon.

Until next time, Happy Polishing!

Sparkly Green

This week's photos are a bit blurry - sorry! The Christmas tree is pretty, but it sucks more light out of my space and while I should have just moved...I was too lazy.

I'm all about the glitter this month...this is actually last week's manicure, and I've got something similar going on this week. It's a nice way to sparkle without spending a lot of time - handy since both of these last two manicures happened between 1am and 3am. Busy busy!

For this one, I started with a base coat of the Sally Hanson Triple Strong formula, because that middle nail is still not quite long enough to cut off. Once that was epoxied together, I put on two coats of my favorite white, Finger Paints "Well-Cultured Pearl".

Then I started at the tip, and brushed on a thin layer of Sinful's "Call You Later", a lovely green & gold glitter I got on sale at the drugstore awhile ago. 

Then one more layer of the glitter, just not quite as far down on the nail for a nice gradient.

Then a couple coats of Seche Vite to top it off, and clean up in the shower the next morning. Easy peasy.

You'll have to excuse my super-dry skin...I can't seem to get enough lotion this time of year. Dry, cold air will do that...

Next week, gift wrap. :-) Until then, happy polishing!

My First Haul

Well, this was my first and probably last haul! It isn't my last because I had a bad experience, just because I'm cheap! I heard about Kleancolor and went to their website and found about one million things that I *needed* so I bought them all. I didn't do any swatches because I kind of find swatches boring, but if you're curious about ANY of these products, feel free to ask me to do a swatch of something and I'll happily post it!!!

This is everything I got! You'll notice in the background the Hair Polisher, which ended up kind of sucking. It was very thick and a bit greasy. I got it for my boyfriend because he likes a silky product in his hair, but it was definitely a bust. 

Here from left to right we have: Cuticle Remover, Calcium, and Madly Matte

The Cuticle Remover doesn't seem to do very much, I'm honestly not sure what the difference between good cuticles and bad cuticles is. I only know what the difference between average cuticles and INSANELY GOOD cuticles looks like. The Calcium works nicely, I like to use calcium as a base coat, and this one doesn't allow staining any more than any other base coat, so it works nicely for my purposes. Madly Matte is wonderful. I have been wanting a matte topcoat for some time now because I LOVE how matte nails look (so much so that sometimes I don't top coat my acrylic paints so that they keep their matte-ness). Madly Matte does what you would think it would do, but I've never used any other matte topcoats, so I can't compare it to other things. 

And here is the reason I went to Kleancolor in the first place: Chunky Holo Black, Chunky Holo Bluebell, and Chunky Holo Fuschia

Oh man, oh man. I love these so much. Chunky holo black is like my favorite thing ever. I like the picture that I took here because it gives you a good idea of what these colors look like if you don't use a base coat. The "black" is almost like a mustard-y brown, the bluebell is a light-ish blue with hints of red, and the fuschia is vibrant with hints of blue. Over a solid color base coat, these all look essentially the same. The one difference is that the black has multiple sizes of holographic hexagons where as the bluebell and fuschia only have one size. This makes the black almost look like a flakey.

An important thing to know about these is that they stink, literally not figuratively (figuratively they rock). When you open up the polishes there is a pungent smell that can easily over take a room. This didn't bother me too much, but I could see how some people might not like that. But for the price, about $2 each, can you really complain?

Left to right: Born to the Purple and Blue-Eyed Girl

I really like both of these. They are both full of two sizes of hexagon glitter and have dark jelly bases. The colors look a lot like how they do in the bottles. The only problem that I had with these two polishes was that the polish dries really really slow. For me, that was a hassle because I generally don't have a huge amount of time to paint my nails so having to sit around without moving my fingers was really annoying. On the plus side though, the hexagons easily came out of the bottle and applied thickly to the nails, so there was no lack of glitter!

Left to right: Holiday Jingle, Golden Nightmare, Holo Orange

Holiday Jingle is totally un-holiday. In the bottle it appears to be a dark green glitter, making it perfectly Christmas-y, however on the nail it is really bright green. It is neon enough that I wouldn't call it a holiday green. What I do love about it though is that the glitter is SUPER dense, so your nails just look like glitter, not at all like polish. Golden Nightmare is a black with gold sparkles. It applied nicely and looks almost like a night sky, I like using it as a background for galaxy nails! Holo Orange is gorgeous, it is what it says it is, a holographic orange polish. It isn't as dense as some holos are, so it works really nicely over top of another polish. It can definitely also work alone, and if you want to wear it by itself it looks very much like it does in this picture and only takes a few coats to become opaque. 

I also got this set of tiny tiny beads for nail accents, they are hard to apply, but I love how they look. I also go a package that looks exactly like this of holographic glitter, but it was insanely hard to photograph, so there are no pictures.


Anyways, I hope this was interesting, and like I said, if you want to know more about any of the products, feel free to ask!

Halloween Meltdown

As you may have noticed, I'm having trouble keeping up with October posts this year. We're having a big Halloween bash here at the house in 11 days, getting new carpet in 6 days, and trying to get everything ready on time. Needless to say, my head hasn't exactly been on nail pictures. 
So I'll repost this manicure from last year for your viewing pleasure this week, and next week I'll post my split personality manicure to go with my costume. Enjoy these purple nails - I sure did! :-) 

******

 I decided to go purple, orange and silver for this week's Halloween nail colors. I was a little apprehensive about whether the China Glaze "Spellbound" glitter would go with the Urban Decay "Meltdown" royal purple. After some reassurance from hubby that it would work just fine, I started with two coats of Meltdown over base coat. I can't say this polish was my fave to work with. It's thicker than I'm used to, and harder to control. I just adore this color though - isn't it gorgeous? Then I added one coat of Spellbound from the cuticle just half way up the nail for some glitter. I have horrible light at night, but wait for the "finished" photos. Spellbound is...spellbinding! I was going to use silver bouillon beads for the letters, but decided that they'd "get lost" in the silver glitter. So I used the white Migi pen instead to write "Eek!" on one hand, and "Boo!" on the other. A little top coat, some clean-up and a little outdoor lighting - voila! Another festive (and very easy) Halloween manicure! I've already gotten a compliment at work for these...Halloween nails seem popular this year! More Halloween next week...

Pink Screening

I had a semi-crisis with this week's manicure, my fault, I think due to storing my water decals in the bathroom. I'm also kind of bummed that this polish was nearly impossible to photograph properly, because in reality, it's just gorgeous and light and perfect for summer. You can sort of get the idea here though.

This week's polish is "Silver Screened", generously provided to me by The Painted Nail and The Nail Files. It's a gorgeous sheer pink with silver micro-glitter in it that gives it a fabulous wet look all the time. I started with three coats over 1 coat of Seche Vite base..as you can sort of see, it's still sheer even after three coats: 

Then I took the water decals I'd already cut apart, and put water on the back of the one I wanted for my thumb. 

Let it sit for ten seconds or so, then it's supposed to slide right off. This one didn't, so I put a couple more drops of water on the back, and waited again. When I tried to slide it off, the decal tore. 

I think these are ruined because I stored them in our bathroom. Every morning there's a lot of steam and humidity, and I can see where these might have hydrated, then fused to the paper. It's too bad, because I really like these decals, but lesson learned. 

So I looked around my nail tray and found some flower stickers that matched my polish: 

I stuck a few flowers on three fingers of each hand, and sealed the whole thing with two coats of top coat.

Then cleaned up this morning in the shower, and voila!

I may try to get more photos of these in the daytime if I can remember...the polish really is quite remarkable, and if I do get more pictures, I'll post them on my facebook page.


Next week...hmm... I haven't decided just yet. I have a few new Avon polishes, and one more Painted Nail polish, so we'll see. Until then, happy polishing!

Tanzy Citrus & Nail Files

This week's manicure is a bright summer design - I'm hoping if we celebrate the first day of summer properly, the nice weather will stick around awhile. I even have a video for you, although it's a bit blurry right where it counts (good grief - third time is a charm?).  But first, lemme show you the polishes that I received yesterday for review from The Painted Nail via the publicist for Nail Files, a new TV series that starts tonight. They were kind enough to send me a video of the show, and I watched it last night. I thought it was great - it's about a salon owner in Hollywood. Super dramatic, of course, but most reality TV is. In any case, I'll be watching online since it's on the TV Guide channel and I don't have cable. Anyone going to watch with me?

These are the polishes they sent - and the photo does not do these justice. Nubar is the maker, and the colors are just fabulous and sparkly. I'll have a manicure with these for next week.

So...back to the citrus. I started with one coat of Seche Vite base coat, and one coat of Finger Paints "Well-cultured Pearl" to provide an opaque base. Then I layered two coats of Zoya's "Tanzy", which I am completely in love with. It's so sparkly and shimmery - even when it's dry, it looks wet due to all the sparkle. Nail bling!

I set the clay canes in a thickish-coat of Seche Vite top coat, making sure to press the edges down as well as I could. Clay can be kind of rebellious, and tends to curl at the edges sometimes. The nice thing is that even if it sticks up a bit off the nail, the edges are blunt enough on a round cane that they don't get stuck on things often.

Here's the video - apologies for the blur!

And the finished look once more, all cleaned up.

Next week, I've got my sights on that "Malibu Dreams" - the hot pink polish above from The Painted Nail.

Until then, Happy Polishing!

Catchin' Up

Apologies for disappearing in December - the holidays sort of got away from me. So today I have a couple finished manicures from Christmas and the first week in January to show you, and then next week I'll have a new tutorial to post.

For Christmas this year, I used these cute decals from Born Pretty. Speaking of which, Born Pretty has offered Nail Art Tuesday shoppers 10% off your order when you use code: SQUOVAL15 at checkout.

The fun part about the Christmas mani (aside from those lovely water decals) was that my silver polish was way too thick. It was hard to work with, but it also made a 3-D, almost "fuzzy" line at the tips.

Last week I got some fun new Finger Paints polishes that I can't recall the names of just now (don't worry, you'll see them again). I decided to do a gradient with China Glaze "Tinsel" between the white and purple. I love how it turned out, very "winter whimsical", I think.

So that's what I've been up to polish-wise - next week, China Glaze "Dorthy Who?" and full nail stickers.

Until then - happy polishing!

Sparkly Ornaments

This week, I needed something to help me get in the mood for Christmas, and I needed a quick design. So I got out these huge rhinestones that the Born Pretty store sent for review. I think they look very much like shiny glass ornaments, don't you?

I started with one of my favorite Christmas glitters, China Glaze "Emerald Sparkle". Two coats over CG base coat makes a nice "tree" layer.

Then I added a thick diagonal stripe in China Glaze "Tinsel", another of my favorite CG polishes. Just one, somewhat thick coat worked fine for setting the stones.

I added three stones to each nail, using red and yellow...

And switched the colors on my index fingers for just a little variety.

Two coats China Glaze quick dry top coat, some clean up, and voila! Sparkly ornaments telling me it's time to get moving on the holiday stuff.

**Edited to add - Born Pretty Store is offering a 10% discount until December 31st, 2010 - use coupon code OPENTENOFF. I may just do that myself, actually. :-)

I'm kind of itching to try a peppermint swirl water marble thing - perhaps I'll do that next week. Until then, happy polishing!

Black Splats

 

My apologies for missing last week - I did a candy corn manicure I thought was an abject failure, though I got a ton of compliments on it. This week I was going to do orange "splats" on my black nails, but decided I liked this gold glitter instead. Unfortunately, it's insanely hard to photograph - which is too bad since I love how it turned out. 

I used stencils ordered from Nail Art Delights - these fun paint/blood splatter marks. 

Since I was originally going to use orange, I started by painting the undersides of my nails with Pure Ice orange for contrast. 

Then I did the tops with two coats China Glaze "Liquid Leather" over one coat China Glaze base coat. I love LL - the best shiny black out there, in my opinion. 

This is when I started experimenting. I had Sinful Colors "All About Me" on my manicure tray - it's a transparent gold glitter. I wanted to see what it looked like over the black, so I brushed a coat over my pinky nails. 

I wish it would photograph better - it looks almost brocade-like. So I decided to do my splats in that, and started with a coat of fast-dry top coat, and then secured a stencil over my thumbnail. 

Filled it with the gold glitter...

And pulled it off. A word of warning on these particular stencils. Due to the wide open spot in the center, it's hard to get these off without warping the design. Go slow, and don't just pull from one corner, pull evenly along a whole side. 

I finished the rest and sealed the design with two coats China Glaze top coat. I used one of the Avon nail art corrector pens for clean-up...the only problem I have with these is they run out too quickly. I need to play with the refillable style again. Here's a yellow photo that shows the design just a bit better: 

And one in regular light: 

Next week, I'm doing a glow-in-the-dark webs design for our annual Halloween party. Until then, happy polishing!