Agro and a decal fail

My eyes are heavy tonight, so I'll make this short and, well, not quite so sweet.
First up, I've been dying to try out Agro and thought it would be the perfect fall green.  I was NOT wrong!

*1 coat Gelous base
*2 coats China Glaze Agro
*2 coats OPI DS Classic (accent)
*1 coat Sally Hansen Dries Instantly top coat
*1 coat Out the Door

I love the way that the pictures above shows how complexly beautiful this olive green is!  Agro has a gorgeous golden glow to it and I am really digging it!  I couldn't really decide what to do with it to make it more interesting, so I used trusty Classic, an easy, smooth nude/golden holo.  Here comes the fail, part 1...

Poor Chuck.  He never catches a break, does he?  I added a Thanksgiving decal that I bought from RLR Creations last fall.  I used the decals on nekkid nails last time and some of the lines got a little rough.  These Peanuts designs (my other hand has Peppermint Patty, who matches Agro beautifully!) are more delicate that the others I've used, so I learned last night to carefully peel the decal from the paper with tweezers instead of sliding it so that the design doesn't rub away, and they transferred perfectly.  This, however, was NOT the proper background for the decal and it's really hard to see.  Totally not doing this adorable set justice!
My second fail of the night was a new top coat.  My Out the Door is getting thick and stringy as it nears the bottom of the bottle, and the store I usually purchase it from (because it is cheaper there than anywhere else I've found) also happens to be one I can't bring myself to enter (since I quit working there almost 5 months ago and still don't feel free of the way it crushed my spirit).  SO, I thought I'd try a new one, and Sally Hansen tends to be pretty good.  Pro?  It dries SUPER fast.  Con?  It's not great.  Well, it's okay, but super thin.  It's not as glossy as I like and doesn't give that awesome, glassy feeling that I like.  While really not noticeable to anyone else, I also feel like the polish doesn't look as good under it, not quite as deep and dynamic.  That's why I gobbed it on my left hand for pictures. 
So, long story still pretty long, I just ordered an insanely huge bottle on Amazon Prime and tomorrow will be able to just about bathe in Out the Door!

31DC: Inspired by the supernatural

I have been so excited about today's post!  I saw this "supernatural" challenge and was really worried about what on earth I could do.  Then inspiration struck!  I was so bummed that it was late in the challenge, but it's kind of perfect because it's a Halloween mani!  I'm also really pleased with how it turned out (which is rare when I attempt nail art).  I have one awesome untried today.  Here it is:

"It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown!"

Growing up just north of Charles Schultz's hometown, the Peanuts gang was a huge part of my childhood.  My family loves them and no holiday is complete without a Charlie Brown special.  In honor of the mystical Great Pumpkin, here we go!

"I don't understand it. I went trick-or-treating and all I got was a bag full of rocks."  Poor Charlie Brown!  I already recreated his iconic shirt for my yellow post, so this time I recreated his ghost costume (ignore the red around my cuticle from my flag nails--that was NOT coming off!).  Chuck has a little trouble in the scissor department, but don't we all sometimes?  I used 2 coats of Julep Kate and Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Black Out for the eye holes.  In real life they look a little cleaner, but I kind of like how they are a bit messy, like the original comics were.

 

"On Halloween night, the Great Pumpkin rises from his pumpkin patch and flies through the air with his bag of toys to all the children."  Linus, with all of his hope and innocence, waits patiently for the Great Pumpkin to visit his pumpkin patch all night.  No matter what anyone says, his faith endures.  For his shirt, I used 2 coats of OPI Danke-shiny (gorgeous--a post on that later!) and Black Out. 

"There he is! There he is! It's the Great Pumpkin! He's rising out of the pumpkin patch!"  Okay, okay, it's not the real Great Pumpkin, but a really sparkly pumpkin.  Linus took such pride in his patch.  I used 2 coats of China Glaze Riveting, Black Out for the accents, and Zoya Yara for the grass and stem.

 

"Each year, the Great Pumpkin rises out of the pumpkin patch that he thinks is the most sincere. He's gotta pick this one. He's got to. I don't see how a pumpkin patch can be more sincere than this one. You can look around and there's not a sign of hypocrisy. Nothing but sincerity as far as the eye can see."  AHHH!  I could NOT wait to get this polish and it just came!  I tried a couple of times to get Sincerest Pumpkin Patch in Sonoma Nail Art's Etsy sales, and I missed out.  I was going to have my mom stop by a boutique that sells them, but I finally scored online!  She makes such gorgeous polishes, most of them tied to our home area, and I just can't get enough!  This polish is a-mazing!  It is thin, as far as the indie glitters I've tried, which makes it really easy to work with.  The green tinted base is full of green glitters in different shapes and sizes, silver glitter that looks green, and orange hexes to look like pumpkins.  I love this!  This is just one coat over 2 coats of Zoya Yara. 

"I had to listen to you, you blockhead. What a fool I was. Trick or treats come only once a year, and I missed it by sitting in a pumpkin patch with a blockhead."  Now, I take issue with Sally in this film.  She is deeply infatuated with Linus, her sweet Baboo, and agrees to watch for the Great Pumpkin with him.  She is head over heels with Linus and follows him, and then turns on him!  Sally, we all learn the harsh lesson not to use our heads instead of our hearts, that they will waste our time, but show a little compassion!  She is usually not this brutal... For her dress, I used 2 coats of Zoya Skylar and Black Out for the polka dots.

So there is my tribute to the Great Pumpkin and the most sincere pumpkin patch around!  I love these nails and am really sad to see them go.  What are you asking the Great Pumpkin for this Halloween?  If it's this gorgeous polish, you can let him know that her Etsy shop will open tomorrow (10/30) at 5pm Pacific!

31DC: Yellow

I learned in college that three of something signifies a pattern.  This is a good sign because I've made it to day 3, so the pattern is setting in for posting each day for the challenge!  There were no untrieds today, but I did branch into nail art a bit further, so that sorta counts, right? 

I was pretty bummed as I tried to think of something to do with yellow.  It's kind of tough, especially since we work so hard to keep our nails NOT yellow!  Then I remember something that I had pinned long ago and wanted to try!

*1 coat Yellow-Out base
*1 coat Color Club Almost Famous
*2 coats Sinful Colors Let's Meet
*Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Black out
*1 coat Seche Vite

I decided to try Charlie Brown's iconic shirt!  I started with Almost Famous, which is a surprisingly opaque yellow, bright and warm.  I probably should have done two coats to eliminate streaks in it (and I actually might have...I kind of forgot), because yellow tends to be a bit unforgiving.  Then I used two coats of Let's Meet, which is a really close match.  This one is very sheer, but loaded with shimmer.  The two work really well together, which Let's Meet camouflaging many of Almost Famous' streaks.  I then used a small paint brush and Black Out to free hand the zig-zag. 
I really love the cartoon look of the black in my inspiration, but I was pleasantly pleased with how this came out.  For me, this was a pretty good attempt at nail artwork!

Today is also my grandma's birthday.  She is such a wonderful woman and has been a huge part of my life.  Charles Schultz is from Santa Rosa, about an hour from my hometown.  Every year my grandma used to buy my family tickets to Snoopy On Ice, the holiday ice show at Schultz's rink that he owned, for his daughter who skated.  It is such a special, salient part of my childhood and of Christmas.  Grandma knew how much we loved these special days, and she is just as much a part of those memories as Snoopy.  It's appropriate that this is my mani today, and it wasn't until after I did it that I thought about how perfect it is!