Angora Affair

 

I'm not quite into Valentine's colors yet, so I figured I'd ease my way in with my favorite dark pink. I wasn't quite ready for hearts yet either, but this little heart-leaf stamp pattern caught my eye, and I quite like how it looks stamped on Essie's "Angora Cardi" with Essie's "Secret Affair".

My stamping technique still leaves a lot to be desired, and I really need to remember to wrap my tips (dang it), but I'm loving this manicure. It's calm and subtle.

Next week, I suppose it's time to get my red, white & pink on, eh?

Until then, happy polishing!

Purple Bows

Keeping up with the light-colors theme for my super-short nails...I like how this simple design turned out. And I love how easy it is to make precise designs with these stencils! I bought them from Nail Delights and plan on ordering more soon.

I started with two coats of Avon's "Luxe Lavender" polish over a layer of China Glaze base coat. I like this purple...the perfect pastel, I think.

I put one layer of China Glaze quick-dry top coat over to seal and dry everything quickly, and then started at my thumbnail. Remember when using these stencils to take most of the glue *off* by sticking them to the pads of your fingers a few times...it doesn't take much glue to keep them on the nail.

Then just stick some polish on the stencil - I used Sinful Colors "Daddy's Girl" for the bows...

And pull the stencil off before the polish sets. Voila! Sparkly purple bow.

I finished the rest one at a time - it goes really fast with virtually no work.

And then I finished it off with a little purple rhinestone in the center of each bow, and two coats top coat to seal.

You might notice my nails are cleaned up in this last photo - I've finally discovered a polish remover pen that works extremely well for me. Avon's Nail Corrector Pen is quick and easy with less wear & tear on my cuticles than my old shower method, and I'm ordering two more tonight. Something you may want to try if you're looking for a fast & easy way to clean up after a manicure. And no, I don't sell Avon (used to, but haven't for several years) or get anything from the company for this recommendation, I just really like the product. I'm seriously considering trying their cuticle oil pen too...

If you know me at all, you know I *love* Halloween. I even have a Halloween scrapbook blog. In any case, I'm declaring October "Halloween Month" here at Nail Art Tuesday...check back for the first Halloween manicure for this year next week.

Until then, happy polishing!

Disco Dust

Last week I decided (after much debate) that I was in the mood for purple. As you can see above, I rounded my tips back to my usual oval shape, and then started with a base of Seche Vite base coat, followed by *four* (yes, 4) coats of a miniature "Sally Girl" polish that seems to have lost it's name label. It's a beautifully shiny blue-purple color, but it's very sheer, so it took that many coats to make it nearly opaque. 

Then I coated it with one coat of another miniature Sally Girl called "Disco" - a sheer glitter that is super-sparkly. Unfortunately, none of my photos do it justice, but the one below without a flash sort of gives an idea. 

Then I embedded small iridescent plastic star shapes into the top coat - the glitter over the purple reminded me of star dust, so I figured stars would round it out nicely. Photo below again without a flash.

I sealed with another coat of Seche Vite, and cleaned up the sides. Unfortunately, this polish pulled away from the tips almost immediately, but I can't complain too loudly since it was super-cheap. It's pretty streaky too - I doubt I'll use it again. It was fun for the week though.

Last week I also got in a big order of new nail art supplies from Nail Art Delights! Adell was kind enough to include some freebies, including nail foil which I'm excited to play with. Here's a shot of my new goodies all spread out...fun stuff to look forward to!

I'm hoping to find or replace our camera tripod this week, so I can start posting some tutorial videos. Watch for those in a couple of weeks.

Meanwhile, inquiring minds want to know - what's on your tips this week?

Happy polishing...

Sparkly Trees

I had this great idea for stylized white trees on a red backdrop this week. At first, I was thinking of them on glittery red "Ruby Pumps" from China Glaze. But I'm tired of taking glitter polish off, and wanted a break (since I'll inevitably have glitter on again for New Years). So I decided on Zoya's "Alix" instead, a dark blue red that does crazy things when presented with a flash. Photos with a flash below just look garish - the ones with a yellowish cast signaling natural light show the color very close to it's true state.

I started with two coats of Alix on my nails.
Then I did the white "swish" trees with a nail art pen. Yeah - that did not turn out so well. Plan B = rhinestone trees. I started with one stone at the "top" of each tree.
Then it was just a matter of adding rows - I used three rows of stones for the triangle tree shape:
And then two stones below that for the "trunk".
Repeat on all fingers, setting the stones into a coat of top coat. I didn't get them all straight, but that's what happens when you're doing nail art at 1:30am. I'm wishing I'd snowed the tips with white glitter, but I think they turned out well, regardless. I ran out of green stones, so had to do some white (aluminum?) trees and red for my little finger.
Two more coats of top coat (which I didn't get even, unfortunately), and then clean up. Voila! Sparkly tree nails!
As I mentioned above, this is the "true color" of Alix - the bright, orange red above is the result of the flash.

What's on your tips for Christmas? Next week, a New Year's mani (my normal new years colors are blue and silver).

Happy Polishing!

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.

Shiny Pennies

So you must know, once I saw the new Zoya colors for fall, I just *had* to order several of them. This week's manicure features the new Zoya "Penny", which is one of the coolest copper colors I've ever laid eyes on. I took this photo outside, and it's really pretty accurate to the true color of the polish.

Of course, not being one to just leave well enough alone, I had to add some iridescent glittery bits for extra bling. I tried to make them look like they were floating off the tips of my nails, but something didn't work quite right in that process. They do give a nice sparkle in the right light though.

I used another new Zoya color on my toes this week...watch for that post on Thursday. I'm really not sure how I'm going to manage getting ahold of all the new fall colors I want this season...bottle by bottle, I guess.

What's on your "must have" list for new colors this fall? Anything I should add to mine?

Rainy Gray

We had a few really good rain storms come through last weekend, inspiring this week's manicure. It's very simple, as you can see - just China Glaze "Avalanche" for the base, and a silver Stripe Rite polish. I think it turned out quite well though - it's actually very elegant looking in person, though it was difficult to capture the color in photos. The one above was taken without a flash, the one below with.

I tried out the new polish rejuvenator (Renew drops) from Zoya on my thickened StripeRite...and I have to say, that stuff is amazing! Two drops, and the polish was flowing as good as new. I have several polishes that will be "usable" again due to that, which is very cool. Dare I hope I'll actually finish an entire bottle of nail polish eventually?
So...what's on your nails this week?

Shells in the Lagoon

Tuesday, Wednesday...who can keep track? My hubby did give me a hard time when I was taking pictures today though. "Isn't the name of your blog Nail Art Tuesday?" Yes dear.

Anyways, this week I decided to try out some bits of seashell I had sitting in the drawer. I have a few different colors, and on my left hand, I just did one color per nail (above) and on my right, I experimented with mixing colors. I didn't really have any rhyme or reason, but I really kind of like the way they turned out. Bright enough to be "bling-y", but in an understated sort of way, if you know what I mean.
The base color is one of my favorite Avon colors, "Lagoon". It's just a perfect shade of brilliant blue with a bit of mother-of-pearl type shimmer. It's bright without being neon, which I appreciate. Unfortunately, I do have a bit of tip-pull going on, but it's not too bad considering I forgot to "wrap" the polish over my tips, and did this manicure last Saturday night.

The most surprising thing about the shell bits is that they're not sharp. They're very smooth, and when you feel the top of my nail, it's just a light texture over the surface, rather than abrupt (like rhinestones). They don't get caught on things like rhinestones either - no pulling threads with my nail art this week. So if you've been thinking about playing with these, go ahead. I think you'll be pleased with the results.

Next week...hmm. We're going to a Peter Frampton concert on Sunday night, so something "concert-worthy".

Very Happy Nails

I was really planning on doing something incredibly bright this week, but when I finally got around to doing my nails late last night, I wasn't really feeling bright or creative. Sometimes, that just happens, you know?

I settled for trying out my new-several-months-ago bottle of NARS "Orgasm" polish, which does not remind me of a "happy ending", but rather of ripe cantaloupe. Huh. Pretty color, but not "orgasmic", I don't think...

Anyways. I decided to use these smiley face stickers I found in my nail drawer - who knows how long they've been there, since I rarely use stickers. I think they bring the nails up to a "flirty" level, at least.

Next week something green, because my hubby's birthday is the 31st and his fave color is green.

Bling Jeans

It's rainy and dreary this week, so I thought I'd do something blue, but with bling for an optimistic touch. I don't think it turned out too bad, really, and they're cheerful to look at.

I used "Skinny Jeans", a Sephora by OPI color for the base, which I just love. The photo above is with a flash, and that's pretty much what it looks like in the sun. Below is without a flash, and if I hold my fingers up to the monitor in the house, the color match is almost exact (even though the photo is blurry - sorry!). I just love polishes that are so different depending on the light!

The basis for the design is one I use every now and then - I call it my "nail necklace" design. For this one I centered the rhinestones first, then used Maybelline Mirror polish to dot the "chain" to the sides of each nail. I had all these different sized rhinestones, but not enough for multiples of the same size on each nail, but I like how they look in the graduated design.

A little bling for the week!

Dirty Sexy Money Dots

This week, I tried out Misa’s Dirty Sexy Money. Not only was it an insanely difficult color to photograph, but I’m not really sure it works with my skin tone, sadly enough. I have it on my toes this week too – pictures of those later in the week.

Originally, I was going to Konad this, and then I wimped out. I put these silver dots on my toes, and it looked cool, so I did my fingertips. I used a Nubar nail art pen – super simple, I love those things! I think white would have been better though - the white konad design I'd originally planned would have been excellent. DSM does match my countertop quite well though, don't you think?I used Zoya Anchor base coat, and since my Sephora order didn’t come until last night, I used my Nubar Diamont Top coat (thanks Lucy, for reminding me I had that!) – both worked much, much better than the Seche. Easier clean-up, less brittle, and no bad smell to deal with. A little tip pull, as you can see, but nothing too alarming. We'll see how it lasts through the week.

I have to say, that even though this color doesn’t look like I thought it would against my skin, I absolutely *love* Misa’s polish formula! It’s thicker (but not goopy), so it’s easier to control where it goes…I didn’t make nearly as much of a mess as I normally do. And this polish job is just two coats – and one would have still been perfectly opaque. I’m looking forward to a long and happy relationship with Misa polishes…

Later this week: toes and my new polish haul from Sephora.

Luck o’ the Nails

Happy St. Patty’s Day to you! I’m only a wee little bit Irish, but every little bit counts, right? This week, in honor of the day, I chose China Glaze “Emerald Sparkle”, which I dare say is a popular color at the moment.

Last year after St. Pat’s day, my mom brought over a few things she’d found on sale – some napkins, and these shamrock body stickers. I’ve been saving them all year long, and I must say, it was worth the wait! I’ve gotten several compliments just this morning, and even the guys in the office noticed today (something that never, ever happens). Gotta love nail bling…

I’m still not loving Seche Vite, and Sunday when I was doing these, the top coat literally made my eyes burn (hubby said it hurt his too, and he was sitting three feet away). I’m having that tip pull problem again too, and I’m starting to wonder if it isn’t the Seche. I do tend to avoid quick dry products because I really think that when they dry too quickly, they get brittle and shrink more…and I’m seeing definite evidence of that with the Seche. The base coat isn’t thrilling me either – it’s not smooth, and I have trouble smoothing the polish over it.

I’ll head out and find some OPI base/top coat locally this weekend, or order some Zoya today. That will make me happier.

Luck o’ the Irish to everyone today!

Brand New Skates + Seche Vite

I couldn’t decide what color I was in the mood for this week, so it ended up being gray. Not just any gray though – OPI’s very glamorous “Brand New Skates”, which I absolutely adore. One to two coats are fairly sheer, but the third coat made this nice and opaque, and the multi-color micro glitter is very sparkly! I added a few purple heart stones for a little “flair”, and called it good.

You’ll have to excuse my messy “clean up” job, and my dry cuticles. The weather took a turn for the worse this weekend, and it feels like all the moisture has been sucked right out of my skin, which partially accounts for my poor cuticles. As for the clean-up – that’s Seche Vite’s fault!
When I ordered from Head to Toe Beauty a couple weeks ago, I needed new top coat. Seche was on sale, and since everyone online simply raves about how wonderful the base coat is, I decided to try both base and top coat. So far, I’m really not sure what all the fuss is about. They both stink – the top coat smells like epoxy, and considering I used three coats (one to set the stones in, two to seal them on), I felt like I was asphyxiating myself. I already have tip wear (seriously, with a base coat, three coats of polish and three coats of top coat), which doesn’t thrill me, and the top coat is positively impossible to get off skin (ie, cuticles) once it dries (which is very fast). I’m finding that the parts I can get off are very brittle, and I’m hoping that’s not what it does to my nail polish (chips, anyone?). So we’ll see, and I’ll use these for now (because I have them), but I’m going back to Zoya base/top coat once these bottles are done.

In any case, I’m in love with this polish color, and I think it will make a super backdrop for spider webs next Halloween too!

Later this week, pics of my haul from “Head to Toe”…

Extreme Shininess!

Thanks again to Brooke of "Getcha Nails Did" (link to the right) for the Maybelline Mirror Image Chrome polish set she sent me this month! I decided I had to try it out this week, and it definitely lives up to its name.
Because this is a nail “art” blog, of course I had to try imbedding some heart-shaped rhinestones in my super-shiny nails. But I wasn’t sure if a regular top coat would dull the finish or not. Hence, the empty spots you see on a few of my nails, where the rhinestones have already fallen off. I’ll try some regular top coat on these later, and if it doesn’t dull the finish, I’ll replace the stones. I suspect that a stamped design would be really cool over these, but again, have to test the top coat first. Top coat would really be handy for this one, since I’ve got some tip wear going on after only two days.In any case, talk about “bling” for your nails! This is a two-step system, a clear base coat that goes on cloudy and dries to a very shiny finish, followed by 2-3 coats of the silver, which goes on alarmingly streaky, but dries to a nice, smooth, super-shiny mirror. These babies do actually reflect shapes and shadows, and give my nails a lot of “dimension”. The “yellow” based photo above is without a flash inside, and the brighter photo below is with a flash. You can see that they’re shiny no matter where they are – even in the dark, they pick up any little light in the room to reflect.
This is a great “party wear” polish, and I intend to try doing a French-type manicure with it one of these days, using this polish on the tips. Super-groovy, and it dries pretty fast, so not too much wait time between coats.

Next week – more moodies!