Crumpet's 31DC: Rainbow

I'll keep it short and sweet tonight since it's later than I had planned.  I've been dying to try a mani like this one by Bregje at Oooh, Shinies! and decided to do a variation on it for my rainbow mani.

*1 coat Gelous base
*3 coats NYC Skyline Blue
*Zoya America
*Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Sun Kissed
*Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Mellow Yellow
*Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Green With Envy
*Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Blue Me Away!
*China Glaze Gothic Lolita
*1 coat Out the Door

I picked up Skyline Blue at Target on clearance (under $1!) and thought it would make a nice sky for my rainbow.  It's a slightly shimmery pale blue.  I had some dragging patches, so I went with 3 coats for evenness, but you could do 2 careful thick ones too.
I dotted on my colors, overlapping between nails a bit.  My only regret is that my base is darker than I thought, so Green With Envy doesn't have enough contrast to really pop.  Other than that, I'm liking this one!

Halloween left-overs

I know, I know, you're thinking about Thanksgiving left-overs and I'm sounding a little out of it.  Well, I am a little out of it.  Between interning, class, and work, my time has dwindled.  With it, my li'l blog has been neglected.  Actually, my nails have too.  I haven't done too many interesting looks and often simply polish one simple color to keep them covered and neat.
But, here are 2 Halloween looks that I did enjoy, but did not get up.

 *1 coat Sally Hansen Hard as Nails Hardener

*2 coats Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Green With Envy

*Zoya Storm

*Zoya Aurora 

*1 coat Out the Door

Polka dots--easy!  I wanted witchy colors, and loved the holo sparkle contrast of the Zoyas on the cream finish of Green With Envy.

 

*1 coat Sally Hansen Hard as Nails Hardener

*3 coats China Glaze Some Like it Haute

*Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Black Out

*Cover Girl Boundless Color Candy Corn

*3 coats Spoiled Vitamin C

*3 coats China Glaze I Herd That

*1 coat Out the Door

I tried to somewhat recreate a Christmas mani that I loved from last year, pattern-wise.  This didn't turn out as I really envisioned, but I love the glittery polishes, so I can't really complain.  As you an see, the orange Vitamin C is incredibly sheer (I really only did 3 coats of the others because I did one coat for each every time I added one), so if you love that orange shimmer, consider a base coat.

So, here's my out of season Halloween looks!

Techno Summer

I have been dying to do a neon green and blue mani for a while now.  I don't have any truly "neon" shades, and was a little bummed going through my collection trying to match the mani I was imagining.  I figured that I would go with these two because they were the closest I had, and I was bracing myself for disappointment, but they turned out to be a fun combo!

*1 coat Sally Hansen Hard as Nails Hardener
*2 coats Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Blew Me Away
*2 coats Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Green With Envy
*1 coat China Glaze Techno
*1 coat Out the Door

I was not sure which color I wanted as an accent, and almost switched it up on my other hand, but left Green With Envy as the accent.  The two creams were brighter than I had thought, so they were closer to what I was looking for, but not quite the colors I dreamed of.  Adding Techno, silver holo glitter in micro pieces and medium hexes, brightened them up too.  I don't normally feel constrained by seasons and their color palettes, but I really can't resist the brights in the summer! 
Do you know of a good neon green and light blue for me?  Let me know!

Chameleon Stampede Anniversary

I have some posts that I am working on writing up and choosing photos for, and I have been taking some much-needed rest this past week.  I know that this is no where near as advanced as a lot of the entries that she has so far, but I just had to do something for Mandy's anniversary countdown contest over at Chameleon Stampede!  Mandy is such a sweet woman and an amazing nail artist (I would LOVE to have her stamping skills).  Her blog is adorable (check out her Tutorial chameleon) and just gets better all the time.  She is so encouraging and wonderful to talk with and I really want to support her as she celebrates all of her amazing work this year!

*1 coat Sally Hansen Hard As Nails Hardener
*2 coats Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Green With Envy
*Color Club Holiday Splendor
*Aengland St. George
*1 coat Out the Door

I love dots and haven't worn them in a while.  I also like to try to get in some holiday designs, so I used greens for St. Patrick's day.  I started with 2 coats of Green With Envy, a light yellow-green cream that covers pretty well, but really needs 2 for full opacity.  Then, with 2 different sized dotting tools, I dotted on St. George and Holiday Splendor on my tips. 
St. George is gorgeous and a dream to use, like all Aengland polishes seem to be. I waited a long time for this one because shipping has become an issue from England, but when there are promos it is totally worth the wait.  This is a dark blue-green polish packed with micro holo shimmer.  You can see the color in the bottle better than on my nails in this picture.  I used this first because it is such a smooth polish.
Holiday Splendor is one of my favorites and an amazing polish.  It is a bit gritty because it is a light blue-green jelly packed with holo glitter.  I love how squishy and sparkly it is and will find any excuse to wear it!

So, here's some sparkly green to get you in the spring mood.  I love dot manis and, while I wish I had made these a bit more like a gradient with fewer dots at the bottom, I love how they look and am happy to have some sparkle on my hands.  Make sure that you head over and give Mandy some congrats, check out the other ladies who contributed and, if you are so inclined, give me a vote!

Dotty holidays!

Today I wanted to recreate two looks I found this year.  One was pinned by my momma and the other I spotted when browsing through the blogs I follow, by the one and only Melissa of Pinked Polish.  I got new dotting tools with my Amazon order and, because they are my most effective nail art, dove in.  My mom didn't really like the blue background of the candy canes she found, so I tried to find something else for a base.  I was going to go back to The Ten Man or Golden-I when I remembered my new (and kind of damaged :( ) bottle of Champagne Kisses from China Glaze.  Perfection!

*1 coat Hard As Nails Hardener
*2 coats China Glaze Champagne Kisses
*OPI Danke-shiny Red
*Sinful Colors Skip the Gift Wrap
*Sinful Colors Snow Me White
*Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Green With Envy
*2 coats Hoof Lacquer
*1 coat Out the Door

 

I wanted to try the candy canes my mom found, but also the adorable tree Melissa did, so I used it as an accent.  I had intended to place it on my ring finger (my accent of choice) but was not very...alert.  After I dotted red on, I decided to accent my thumb instead!  I used two different sized dotting tools and Skip the Gift Wrap and Green With Envy, in that order.  I added a little red topper, like she did, and really like these little trees!

 

I used Danke-Shiny Red and Snow Me White for my candy canes.  Now, I was grading papers and working in very poor light (because I have not been motivated enough to change a blown out bulb...) so a couple are a little...unique.  But I love the idea of dotted candy canes!  Overall they are super cute and a great take on the design that I never would have thought of--my mind automatically goes to stripes.  Brilliant!

And the star of the show: Champagne Kisses!  Look at that shimmer and those little holo pieces!  Ahh!  This golden beauty leans rosy, very warm and sweet.  I almost left this alone and it was a tough choice to add art on top.  The ONLY downside to this glitter is that it dries really gritty.  I used 2 thick coats of Hoof Lacquer, one before and one after the dots, and then Out the Door to dry, and they are still a little bumpy.  The top coats make the gorgeous color even better, though.  This dries so fast that I probably should have done 3 coats, but really I can't complain because it is such an awesome color.  It's really interesting how the light can make it look more golden or rosy.  If you didn't grab this one, I highly recommend it!
So clearly I've gotten a little obsessed with dots.  Have you seen any cool holiday dot manis I need to try when I get home? Any other amazing uses for Champagne Kisses?

31DC: Water marble

Dun dun DUN!  It is the dreaded water marble challenge!  Coincidentally, today is my four-month anniversary of starting this blog and I just hit 450 views!  I know that for many bloggers that is small potatoes, but I'm pretty surprised that I kept going this long and that anyone cares to see what I'm up to!  Thank you (yes YOU, right now reading this) for stopping by!
So onto the water marble horror.  Because galaxy nails were so amazing, I had the cocky idea that this would be much easier than I thought too.  I can hear you laughing now.
I watched tutorials and thought I was prepared.  This is what happened.

 

*1 coat Sally Hansen Hard As Nails Hardener
*1 coat Zoya Ginessa on thumb as base
*Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Green With Envy (2 coats on all but thumb)
*Color Club Revvolution
*Color Club Wild At Heart
*1 coat Seche Vite

This is what was sorta usable out of all of my fingers.  One thumb.  Even that is a little funky.  I was going to skip this challenge, or swap it with tomorrow's, but I went for it.  It was pretty disastrous.  I wanted to use some Halloweeny colors, and thought that the super-opaque holos would be good.

I tried dripping the colors in different orders.  I tried dragging the polish differently.  The one positive was that my taping made for almost no clean up for my whole hand.  I kind of wish that I had photographed all the botched nails.  I want to be honest about polish adventures here, and I think that it helps when you are starting out to know that others have made messes too.  I want to know that I'm not the only one who makes a sloppy mess!  But, I also let my pride take over and kept a little dignity...

So I used the same polish and did a funky French with the marble as my accent.  I used 2 coats of Green With Envy and taped off the ends for Wild At Heart.  I actually like this combo for Halloween and may need to do it again before the month's over.

 

 

It's kind of hard to see the charcoal holo of Revvolution in the water marble.  The purple of Wild At Heart is more dominant.  I think next time I might just use creams, because Green With Envy tended to stay put and was a strong color.  My polish just dried so fast on the water that it was already a film when I finished dropping colors.  I couldn't really drag it and it all pulled down with my finger.

What have you found works with water marbles?  Are there some polishes that you find work better than others?  How do you keep it from drying before you're ready?  I think I'd like to try again, but I'd love some advice to help improve my technique!

31DC: Galaxy Nails

I LOVE today's challenge! I am SO excited to keep working at the galaxy mani! This is such an easy way to do nail art because it is imprecise. I didn't muck it up too bad for my first attempt, which make me think you really can't botch this one. The effect is so amazing and looks so complex, but this went really quickly for me. I looked at a lot of tutorials and photos to get color and technique ideas because this looked so intimidating. I mainly used Adventures in Acetone's colors ideas (especially Nubar 2010) and Polish and Pearls' technique.

*1 coat Sally Hansen Hard As Nails Hardener
*2 coats Fantasy Makers Nail in the Coffin
*Aengland Tristam
*China Glaze Elephant Walk
*Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Green With Envy
*Color Club Wild At Heart
*Nubar 2010
*1 coat Wet n Wild Kaleidoscope
*1 coat Seche Vite

Nail in the Coffin was my only untried for this mani. It is rather thin, so I used 2 coats which built well. I strayed from my beloved Black Out cream because this one has some micro shimmer that I thought would add dimension. I used a small wedge-shaped makeup sponge that I ripped up for each color to add the layers. I started with Tristam because it is a gorgeous, holo-filled dark blue, which I almost used as my base. I realized afterwards that you really can't see this one, in photos or real life. Oh well!

After that, I sponged Elephant Walk around the edges of Tristam. I tried to focus on different areas of each nail, which I will probably work a bit more on in the future. After the gray, I used Green With Envy to further define the "arc" of my galaxy, if there really is one.

I used Wild At Heart because it is a gorgeous deep purple filled with holo glitter. This looked amazing! It was a little sheer in places, so I sponged layers until I was happy with how it showed up. After that, I sponged 2010 over the top, mainly though the purple areas. This flakey really doesn't show up well in the photos, but was a-mazing in real life! The red of the glitter really added a different aspect to this. I'm glad that I sponged it because it let me be more particular about where it went and it actually was pretty dense.

Over the top of everything I did one coat of Kaleidoscope. This glitter is so pretty and I don't use it nearly often enough! It is sparse enough to really let your base show through and has a good mix of micro and medium silver holo glitter. I know a lot of people use white or silver polish to dot on stars. The larger pieces of glitter in this really served that purpose for me. It made the look really come alive and reminded me so much of the night sky! I used a thick coat of Seche Vite not to really dry this, because the thin sponging dries really fast, but to amp up the shine. I also helps sort of blend everything together, giving a smooth finish to it all.

This was my very first attempt at a galaxy mani (I guess, in hindsight, I probably should have practiced before the challenge day!) and I love how it turned out! I know that there is plenty of room for improvement and technique tweaks, but I could not stop looking at my hands! I will fess up to the fact that I really haven't been able to do a mani each day with my work schedule. On Sundays I try to get my challenge posts for the week painted and photographed, and then post and write each night. This means I'm painting a lot of themes in a row and don't leave the polish on long. I also do the blogger-cheat and only paint my left hand. When I saw how this worked out, I couldn't resist painting my right hand too and wearing it until I changed for a pink mani. I cannot wait to do this again!
Have you played around with galaxy manis yet? Did you fall in love like I did? What colors did you find worked well? Any other cool tricks or techniques you discovered? I'd love to hear about them!

31DC: Half Moons

I'm actually pretty excited about this one!  Half moon manis aren't really my thing.  I don't really understand the appeal and have never felt compelled to do one before, which made me kind of dread this challenge (see also: tribal!).  Then, while quickly glancing at Pinterest (a.k.a. not realizing how many hours I had wasted) I found this adorable art and knew I would have to give it a try.  She painted the tips of her nails, so I almost didn't see it, but luckily my mind moved a little faster than my brush on this one!

*1 coat Sally Hansen Hard As Nails Hardener
*2 coats Finger Paints Tiffany Imposter
*Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Green With Envy
*Finger Paints Motley on tips
*Sinful Colors Snow Me white
*Color Club white striper
*Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Black Out
*1 coat Seche Vite

Kermit the Frog, here!  I'm kicking myself for not cleaning up my cuticles, because that would have made these even better, but I really like how they turned out!  The only glitch was my ring finger, which got a little smudged in the pupil, but I like the rest!
I used Tiffany Imposter as a background because it just seemed froggy!  I added a little Motley on top to glitz it up, but you can't really tell in the pictures. 

 

I used one coat of Green With Envy (the only untried) at the base of each nail and added an outline with my white striper.  Then, with the end of my paintbrush handle, added the eyes close and centered on the outline.  With my dotting tool, I added the pupil and used a small art brush to add the little lines on each side.  This is where the ring finger got a bit smudged.  I think that I will try these again sometime, and will just need to take more time with the little details. 

Overall, I liked how these little Kermies turned out!  Like I said, I always overlook the clean up that will make them look so much neater, and the eye is a little wonky, but I'm pretty proud of these little guys!  What are your thoughts on half moon manis?  Love 'em?  Leave 'em?  Found a creative way to use them?