Pink Petals

I was trying to choose (quite literally) between light and dark nails this week. So I let hubby choose, and this pretty "Golden Rose" color from Avon was the winner. Another polish from their fall collection, you can sort of see from the photos that it has gold mica in it to give it that "golden" shimmer. Very pretty polish. I've been wanting to play with these little gold metal petals too, so even though it's not very fall-like, I've got a flowery manicure going on this week.

It's occurred to me that I don't actually show my nails "in the buff" much (because really, if you've seen them once, you've seen them). So I thought I'd post a photo of my naked nails today, so you can see what they look like just before I start polishing them up again. To get to this point, I removed last week's polish, washed & scrubbed, trimmed my pinky nails (they were hitting wrong keys when I typed), filed the edges and buffed the tops (file and buffing done with a crystal nail file). And voila, boring nails roughed up and ready for base coat.
I used Avon's base/top coat, but really need to order some better quality of each. I've been a bit lazy with the ordering lately. One coat of base, then two coats of "Golden Rose".
Avon has a thing for quick drying polish. They have a whole line, actually, but this pro stuff dries nearly as fast. Good for doing a rush polish job, not so good for nail art, especially with these little petal things. I really had a hard time getting these set quickly enough to stick into the top coat.

I started by laying out some petals in a basic flower shape.
Then I added a few extras on the side of the flower for little embellished stems. Would have been much easier with a different brand of top coat - I'd recommend China Glaze, Zoya or OPI. Something that doesn't dry too quickly.
I repeated it on all my nails, then sealed with two coats of top coat over the tops.
Clean 'em up, and voila! Pink and petally. You'll notice my index finger and thumb on my left had are a little goopy in the polish...I had to fix mistakes with layers because the tool I use to pick up stones, etc kept slipping off the petals. Frustrating.
And a shot outside in natural light.
I think I'll be going back to fall browns next week. Until then, happy polishing!

Simple Gold Squares

This week I wanted something with fall colors, and the combination of gold and burgandy always seems "fallish" to me. I recently bought the new "golden" colors that Avon put out for fall/winter (yes, they finally put out some new polish colors!), all of which have golden mica in them to make them shine. This one is Golden Wine, a lovely dark red wine color that has all that nice shiny gold mica and some tiny red glitter that really makes it pop.

I got these great metal gold squares from Dollar Nail Art awhile back, and immediately thought "argyle!". I wanted something simple and classy this time though, so decided to just hint at the pattern, rather than cover a couple nails with it (that's probably coming eventually).

I started with a base of Golden Wine - two coats were opaque, but I used three just to even it out a bit. Love this color, it's dark, but not so dark it could be mistaken for black.

Then I slathered on a coat of top coat, and stuck the squares down along the smile line. I used three squares on my thumbs, two on my index, middle & ring fingers, and one on my pinky. I think I could have bent them to follow the natural curve of my nail, but should have done it before I got started. So this time, they're just straight.
A couple more coats of top coat to secure them - the squares are very flat, so the profile is very low. Clean up the edges, and I had a simple, classy (I think) manicure for the week.
I took most of these photos with flash, to show the glitter. The small photo up in the corner of the blog is what it looks like with no flash.

I'm looking forward to using more of these glittery Avon colors...next week, I need to get the glitter off my toes and do a pedicure too.

The Eyes Have It

'Twas a very busy week last week, and while I have a photo of my party manicure, I'll post that later this week. For now, here's the manicure I'm sporting this week - the last Halloween nail art of the season for me.

The colors I chose this week were traditional Halloween colors with a little bling - China Glaze "Liquid Leather" and "Spellbound", and Pure Ice in "Hot Tamale" (I have no idea why orange polish would be named something that sounds red, but it's Walmart polish, so that probably explains it). I was going to use some clay canes as you can see in the photo, but they just didn't look quite right over the dark polish (I got them cut nice and thin, but the polish dulled the colors then). So I decided on a simpler approach, and got out my tiny little googly eyes instead.
First, base coats of Liquid Leather and Hot Tamale, alternating for the most part. I love these colors - so bold and warm.
Then a coat of Spellbound - over the black polish on one hand, and over the orange on the other hand.
I was originally just going to have two fingers, one on each hand with the glitter coat, but decided to do three each instead.
Then my googly eyes on the non-spellbound fingers! I love these eyes...they may be cheesy, but they make me smile when I look down and see the little "eyes" wiggling.
A few thick coats of top coat (too thick, as it turns out...I used the Sephora top coat, and it bubbled on me, dang it anyway), and voila!
My nails are watching you...

Next week, something tamer, and fall-themed. Some leaves, maybe?

Haitus

Sorry all - this week has gotten away from me. Our big Halloween party is tomorrow night, and I've been scrambling all week to get everything just right. I'll be back next week with more Halloween nail art though...Happy Polishing!