Happy 4th!

Woo! I'm off to see Brave! Enjoy your holiday, if you've got one!

;

Colors used: Color Club - Cold Metal, Regatta Red; Orly Shine, Luxe; white franken.

And now for something about nail polish...

Here's what I did for Memorial Day:

Polishes: Orly Royal Navy, Revlon Fire Fox, a white quasi-jelly franken, LA Girl Animate & Jostle, and the center of the poppies is Borghese Stellare Notte.

Phew!

Well, here I go again, we'll see if I can manage to not psych myself out of posting and establish a routine!

Hey, look, a kitten!

Tiktok (my older kitty) as a Kleenex-killing baby!

A really pretty red

Nope, I'm not dead yet, just easily side-tracked by life! There's so much interesting stuff out there!

This is NYC Madison Ave, stamped with Color Club Perfect Mol-ten (silly name, pretty polish!) using Bundle Monster plate 221. I picked up a couple of the Color Club foils from the recent collection, they're definitely good stuff - I like it when a polish is good for a full manicure and also stamping!

I was surprised by how much I enjoyed wearing Madison Ave. It's a bit sheer, even with 3 coats there was a bit of VNL, but it's a really pretty red with just a bit of sparkle to it. I may have to go outside my comfort zone and try out reds more often!

Awesome!!

Ok, so this is totally not nail-related, and I need to actually post some of my pics, but this is totally awesome and must be watched!!!

http://www.kuriositas.com/2011/11/moving-day.html

Oh, and my brother's wedding was full of crazy and fun, and I totally forgot both of my cameras, so I have no pics! *^.^*

... goin' to the chapel and they're ... gonna get ma-a-arried!

And I get to wear a purple dress! My little (I say little, I mean really gigantic!) brother is getting married in 10 days, and I'm a bridesmaid, along with my other sisters-in-law! Since purple is my favorite color, I have tons of purple polishes, so I figured it would be a cinch to match up the dress and a polish. But textiles and polishes are harder to match up than I expected - the way the color is expressed is quite different - lots of things looked like they'd go in the bottle, but then were too pink or blue on the nail. So what's a girl to do but skittles?

(Genny, if you're looking, let me know if there's anything you like!)

 Day 1 skittles - the only one of these that made the cut was the thumb. Oh, and both Sinful Let's Talk and Wet n Wild Buffy the Violet Slayer bleed like crazy! I used them for stamping on my ring finger, and I know I didn't smudge them, they bled into the topcoat and the polish under it after I thought everything was dry! I'm so going to have blueberry nails by Halloween... ^_^

 

Here's a look at my thumb against a swatch of the dress fabric - I couldn't correct what my camera saw, but at least all of the colors are wrong together? Just picture the fabric as royal purple, and go from there!

  

Day 3: Redid several fingers. My index & middle fingers are variations on the thumb design, the ring finger is a royal blue that I threw some CND copper pearl and amethyst sparkle over. The pinky is an attempt at more traditional wedding-y colors. I'll eventually make a list of polishes, but I used so many different things I have to sort them all out first. And yes, I went around all week like this. Fortunately, people already know I'm a bit weird. And the auditor at work just thought it was amusing...

 

 Here's my right hand - the pinky was actually stamped with white over a layer of topcoat over Buffy(&ct), and the camera makes the stamping far more visible than it actually was. Pretty color, just very very bleedy. The ring finger is a neon purple (Funky Fingers Riot) that looked better with the fabric swatch than I expected it to. I think that's my other favorite look.

I didn't like how the index finger turned out, so it got crackled, because I could. I think I'm also liking the combination of white and silver as a manicure. So now I just have to decide! (Of course, I really like the manicure I have on now, and it kind of goes with the dress too...)

Wow, so time kind of got away from me...

I've been trying to get myself into the habit of posting regularly - it's really hard! I have nothing but admiration for the folks who post regularly, often, and well! I've got a polish post in the works, and here's kitties until I get it done!

 This is Tiktok, my older kitty, enjoying the sunlit patch on the living room floor. He's big and floofy and a giant scaredy-cat!

This is his 'little brother' Mr. Lee - he's a little pest and can't resist poking at Tiks until he gets sat on for his troublesome ways!

Drumroll, please!

So, truth be told, I am a bit on the cheap side… While it sounds nicer to call it ‘frugal,’ I know the truth. I generally like pennies to at least squeak before they leave me, and feel all full of guilt at splurges. But I have recently made some observations as regards cheap – sometimes you get what you pay for. So I have stopped buying cheap shoes that make my feet hurt and then sit in my closet unworn. And sometimes brand names are better than generics for real, not just because the box is prettier. And if there’s a nail polish that’s too gorgeous for words, and I’ve looked for dupes and there are none, and I just love it to bits, then sometimes it’s ok to buy it and feel happy. (You just don’t do the Smeagol in public… preciousss, my preciousss)

And this one gorgeous polish is totally worth it! Meet Missha HGR01! Sooo pretty – I saw this months ago on Neglelakkmani (who has much better pics of this, btw!) and waffled a whole bunch before I caved and ordered it from evil-bay. I’m really glad I did, this is such a nice duochrome polish, and I don’t have anything in my collection that’s even close. 2 coats, (weird brush, but look - shiny polish!) and it took me 3 days to decide on nail art, because I didn't want to cover it up. The stripes are Orly Halley's Comet, the dots are Revlon Copper Penny. On to the polish!

 

Sunshine, and look - <3-shaped bottle! Very shiny and almost glittery in bright lights, the duochrome comes out more in diffuse lighting.

 The blue shift in the polish is awesome - in brighter lights, it's aqua, and I saw cobalt blue at other angles. Most of the color-accurate pics were blurry, I think maybe my auto-focus couldn't figure it out in diffuse lighting conditions. The one above is the best, color-wise.

I tried catching the shades of cobalt blue that I could see at different angles, but I couldn't quite do it. Oh well, I'll have to wear it again and give it another try! Le sigh!! :-p

Shiny!! :-D  <poing poing>

Alligator purse?

I have jumped on the scaly nails bandwagon - it's fun!

This manicure sort of evolved a bit at a time, and has all kinds of layers in it - I started with Ulta's Alter Ego, a nice dark sort of silvered teal. I stamped the net pattern from BM209 with Copper Chrome, and layered Milani Hi-Tech over that. You can see the copper and teal peeking through here and there, I think... On top of that I stamped the scales pattern from BM224 with Pixel Blu-Ray Baby, which is a semi-transparent teal blue. I was very pleased at still being able to see the holo glitter through the stamping! It was very distracting in sunlight!

And then while I was taking pics, a parcel came! I had to try it out on just one nail before I did anything else!!

This is my new baby, Missha HGR01. Isn't she pretty? And coincidentally, the color doesn't clash with my other nails at all! Yay!

Lilac foil goodness, yum!

I'm a total sucker for Zoya promos - I'm a bit too cheap to pay full price, but any BOGO sale they have, I'm all over it. So I bought 2 from the Mirrors collex, and Rea. This is Rea - isn't she pretty?

The accent nail is Diamond Cosmetics' Matte Mulberry stamped with BM209 & Rea. It isn't matte because I'm kind of meh about most matte polishes, I just like them better shiny! I was very pleased with how well Rea stamps, the small lines in the pattern show up quite well. Because somehow all that foil wasn't shiny enough, halfway through the week more stamping was perpetrated.

The thumb is stamped with China Glaze Fly, which didn't want to show up in the pictures at all (insert standard grumble re cameras & purple) and the other fingers are stamped with CND's Copper Chrome, which is awesomesauce for stamping! This pattern kind of makes me think of sweaters, somehow - I think it's neat!