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!

I had guests!

Wow, time flies when you're on vacation! Two of my nieces & my nephew came to stay last weekend, and the girls and I played with polish, naturally! Here are Charlene's nails:

She painted all her nails with Wet n Wild Rain Check, which was pretty sheer, it took several coats for her to get it opaque, but it's quite a pretty color. Then I got out the dotting tools and a ton of polishes, and flowers were born! I didn't get pics of her toesies, but she had fun doodling on them with one of my purple nail art pens.

And here are Ciara's colorful paws:

The orange hand is Zoya Tanzy over Orly Old School Orange, decorated with assorted nail art pens & stripers. The purple hand is 2 coats of Milani Purple Gleam, also striped to within an inch of its life.

After we finished up their nails, Charlene did mine!

The grey with blue flash on my left hand is Zoya Akyra, and the right hand is Sally Hansen Teal Steel. They're both fairly sheer - the nail line was less apparent in real life, but the flash on the camera really brought it out. Of course, it also brings out how shiny and glowy these polishes are. I'll probably layer them when I wear them again.

Charlene took to dotting like a duck to water, I'm really loving the double-petal flowers she did on my thumbs! Here's a couple more pics:

Ellipsis

This was fairly simple, as nail art goes. A pretty, sparkly polish and dots. Since Jesse's Girl - Confetti is so sheer, I used a coat of Color Club's Pucci-licious as a base. The dots are Petites - Daze, and Orly - Space Cadet. Daze stood out a bit more in person than these pics capture...

 There was a fair amount of color-shifting going on, though I think my eyes were seeing more of it than my camera could register.

This one's blurry, but caught more of the colors:

I tried color-correcting some of the pictures, since my camera likes to add blue to purples, but it made my hands look just too weird - here's a corrected one with just the polishes.

(and yes, that's my lilac sweater being used as a background!)

Really cool nailart!!

I found this on Neatorama - animated nail art!

Tickled ...pink?

I don't often wear pink, it's rare for me to find a pink I like that looks good on me. So I was pleasantly surprised by this one. I got it out of Wet 'n Wild's summer nail pail. It's got one of those silly TV show names - How I Met Your Magenta - but I'll forgive the silly name for the pretty color. 3 coats, gold shimmer that shows in the bottle but not much on the nail. The accent nails are Caitlin, stamping is China Glaze Sci-Fi and Emotion, using Bundle Monster plate 206.

 

I really like Bundle Monster's new set, but even though the full nail designs are bigger, I still have to double-stamp my thumbs. This design was a bit hard to line up, but I'll get better at it.

Here's one at an oblique angle, to show how it changes as it's shifted around. This one was definitely fun to look at, though not as distracting as a good duochrome! ^_^

Danni

I like my Zoyas... they always surprise me by being just a bit more than I expect from looking at the bottle. It's nice to put on a polish, and instead of trying to achieve 'bottle color' you find you have something even nicer! So yay, Zoya!

My camera seems to like to add blue to things, Danni is a bit pinker than this, but trying to color-correct for minor color shifts seems silly when everyone looking at these has different monitor settings anyway! For the stamping, I used Bundle Monster # 224 with China Glaze Sci Fi, and the centers of the flowers are Zoya Robin & Kotori, a nameless iridescent green Funky Fingers, and OPI Take the Stage. I was quite happy with this manicure!

Independence Day!

Hey, 2 posts in the same day! Well, there was sunshine, and I thought posting this the week after I wore it might be a bit silly, so I hustled & took pics, and am posting quick before going out!

So here's my first 4th of July manicure, also my first successful tape mani! I used Nfu Oh 61 (squee!), NYC Madison Ave (very sheer, 4 coats & still VNL, but a pretty red), China Glaze Frostbite, and OPI DS Fantasy. Stamping was with Nfu Oh 61 & Bundle Monster plates 05, 14, & 21. My camera freaked out a bit at all of the holo, I could only get indirect shots - all of the direct ones caused flare lines or everything washed out and it wouldn't focus. Here's a kind of blurry one that shows the holo a bit better:

And one more, with props!

 

Happy 4th!

Neon skittles & crackle!

  

This was my first time with a crackle polish, it was pretty hard to control, but I think it turned out ok, and it was really fun to look at! There's a ton of polish on my nails - between putting on a layer of white to help the neon pop to the extra layer of top coat so the crackle polish wouldn't get hung up on the semi-matte finish of the neons I used, there's between 6 & 9 coats of polish on each nail (did I mention the part where neons are really thin?) But I think it was worth it, and it all dried very quickly. Yay quick-dry topcoat!

I can't decide if I like the blue crackle best over red/pink/orange colors, or yellow & green. I think it depends on how it's lit at any given moment. I really liked the contrast in this finger (sorry about the blurry, my lil camera can only zoom so much) and the blue/aqua shift in the crackle polish shows up really well:

Here's the big giant list of polish:

Pure Ice Crackle – Strike a Pose

Sally Hansen Crackle – Vintage Violet (pinkies)

thumbs – Pure Ice Flirt Alert (hot pink, not really neon)

index – Orly Melon Magic

middle – Sinful Neon Melon

ring – Color Club What a Shock!

pinkie – Zoya Phoebe, Color Club Pure Energy  (these 2 are practically the same color, Phoebe is matte and a 1-2 coater, Pure Energy is a semi-gloss 3 coater. I forget which pinky had which, I was comparing & lost track.)

Cloisonne, anyone?

This is one I really had fun with - China Glaze Let's Groove (usual lovely formula) stamped with CND Copper Chrome and accented with Color Club Feel the Beat and a bluey green franken I made attempting to dupe a replacement for my bottle of Fiat, an ancient, beloved tealy polish from the 90's (this color is pretty, but not a successful dupe...) I also used Let's Groove to stamp the accent nails, and instead of filling the petals with Feel the Beat, I used Sinful Let Me Go, which is a terribly sheer pink/green duochrome. Lovely for nail art and layering, though!

I've been having a great deal of fun with accent nails, probably because I'll take any excuse to add yet another color to a manicure...

Virtual Violet

This is a really pretty purple polish, a bit pinker than shown... (Cue standard 'my camera hates purple' plaint...) A pink leaning purple with aqua shimmer. I hate VNL, and it looked on the sheer side, so I layered it over Diamond's Pelican Peak Purple, which is a nice pastel purple creme. I was sick when I did the stamping, so I don't actually remember which China Glaze dark purple I used for this, but it was probably First Class Ticket. I had thought about dotting some green or turquoise into the 'eyes' of the pattern, but got sicker and forgot. Spring colds are no fun!

My grocery store is evil...

So, went to the store today to pick up some stuff and stopped to look at the OPI rack, cos, you know, nail polish and all. Not that I often buy OPI, they're a bit out of my price comfort zone, so unless it's really something awesome I usually pass or wait for a dupe. Anyway, now they're selling China Glaze too... Fortunately for my wallet, nothing I've been totally wanting, but now I know it's there.

Must... actually... post...

So, here it is... the first post! I've been taking pictures for over a year, and in December actually started putting the blog together. And then the waffling started. I didn't like the name. My pics aren't as nice as others I've seen. OMG THEY'LL HATE MEEE!

But I really like nail polish, and I want to share. So here goes!

This is kind of a layered Konad. The fingers were painted with ChG Metallic Muse - 1 coat, I think, stamped with SH Extreme The Real Teal (M63), and then 2 coats of SH Spectrum on top of that. Plus base & topper, of course! Thumbs are The Real Teal stamped with Metallic Muse and then 2 coats of Spectrum. I find it difficult to get good pics of my thumbs for some reason, but in person, they were much bolder and contrastier, stamping-wise, than the fingers. I really like all these polishes, though I think I'm going to mostly reserve my China Glaze Khromes for stamping, they're a little bit more difficult, application-wise.

Here's another pic, I think the difference in contrast maybe shows up better in this one: