Black and white and pink all over

As my first day of class gets closer (2 more days!) I'm seeing that my free time is getting more scarce.  I'm getting back into blogging and polishing and really enjoying it again, so I'm going to try to find a way to keep it up.  What have you, busy nail lady, found that works?  Scheduling posts?  Any good juggling tips?

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This look right here is why I know I HAVE to keep enjoying my polish time.  I mixed a couple of polishes on a whim a couple of weeks ago and never wanted to take it off!  I was looking for a quick color change and, of course, that also includes glitter. 

*1 coat Sally Hansen Hard As Nails Hardener
*2 (maybe 3...I don't remember) coats China Glaze Pink Plumeria
*1 coat Maybelline Polka Dots
*1 coat Out the Door

LOVE IT!  Pink Plumeria is a pretty neon-ish light pink.  It has a stunning shimmer to it that translates really well from the bottle to the nail--an excellent summer polish! 

There are a million black and white matte glitter polishes out there with tons of different price tags.  I've wanted a good one for a while (and a good black glitter on its own, but that's a different story) and love some of the indies out there, but don't have the money for them.  I'm not big on bar glitters, so that rules out a decent number.  Then, for three dollars, this showed up at Target!  The glitter is dense but easy to maneuver, just one dip across each nail.  I love the contrast between the glitter and polish on this one!  What's been your favorite way to use black and white glitters?

New 31DC: Black & White

So, a new year, a new challenge!  While it got a little overwhelming at times, I loved doing the 31 day challenge in October.  It really pushed me to try new things, some with great results and others with really great...lessons.  So, when I saw that The Crumpet had compiled a new challenge, I figured I'd give it a go!  It will be really nice to do this with people, too!  So, for day 1, we are doing black and white nails.  Here's to a new year filled with class:

 

 *1 coat Hard As Nails Hardener
*2 coats Sinful Colors Snow Me White
*Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Black Out

I decided to give little tuxedo nails a try--it felt appropriate for New Year's!  I used Snow Me White as my base and left it crisp as a cream finish (normally it feels a little too harsh alone).  I used the brush from Black Out to paint on the "V" for the coats and a small nail brush for the bow ties.  This time a tried a new technique that still isn't perfect, but was much cleaner than my last bow.  I painted the 2 straight ends of the tie and then an "x" between them to help make the triangles.  On my ring finger I added a black rhinestone for the know, but it's hard to see, so I skipped the rest of the nails.

I spent more time on clean up than I usually do and am going to try to be more patient in that respect.  However, I freehanded when I should have taped off clean lines because I couldn't wait for my base to dry, so there is still some room for improvement in the waiting department...

So here's to a new year, a new challenge, and new skills along the way!  Are you giving the challenge a go?  I can't wait to see what you come up with!

31DC: Recreate your favorite

I've made it to the end! I really did not think that I would make it much past the first week, but now I can say that I have completed the 31 Day Challenge! The final challenge is to recreate your favorite from the month. There are a ton that I loved and am excited to try again or work on. This was a bit tricky because today is Halloween, so I really wanted to choose one that was Halloween-themed. Then I couldn't decide. So, here's my Halloween skittle!

That's the lineup!  I changed up a few polishes from the original designs, but most are the same.

 

 

 

Day 12: Stripes.  My candy corn is a Color Club Almost Famous base, Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Sun Kissed and Julep Kate, topped with Out The Door Northern Lights.  It's getting late and I know that this will be coming off tomorrow night, so instead of waiting for the base to dry an use tape, I freehanded the stripes.

 

Day 2: Orange.  For my orange nail, I used Zoya Myrta instead for this nail, which is a bit darker than the previous 2.  It is still shimmery with a great "foil" finish.  This Surf collection is gorgeous and they need no more than 2 coats.  I used Black Cat Lacquer Static Age again over the top.

 

Day 23: Inspired by a movie.  I decided to give Mr. Skellington another try. I couldn't decide between him and spider webs from my black and white mani, but I'm going to see my aunt tomorrow, and I'd love for her to see him!  This is 2 coats of Julep Kate with Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Black Out for accents.

Day 29: Inspired by the supernatural.  It's not Halloween without the Great Pumpkin!  I wanted to do the pumpkin that I painted again, but because I was doing this on both hands, I worried I wouldn't be able to pain straight lines.  So, I had to settle for this polish that I love!  Bummer!  This is 2 coats of Zoya Yara under the awesome Sonoma Nail Art Sincerest Pumpkin Patch.

 

Day 11: Polka dots.  Before I began this challenge I really wanted these little spooky eyes to be my Halloween mani.  I used 2 coats of Fantasy Makers Rest In Pieces with Kate and Black Out for the eyes.  I love these little eyes!

So there it is!  This is my Halloween look and a decent round-up of different themes and techniques from this month.  Thank you so much for sticking with me through some of the rougher challenges and letting me get excited about the ones I felt successful about!  I'm a little sad that it's over because it forced me to try new things and to post all the time.  I do have a lot to revisit, though, and try with new insight.  Plus it's fall now, so it's a whole new color palette to play with (not that I really stick to "seasonal" colors).  Have you completed the challenge?  What are your favorite days to do?  What are you wearing for Halloween?  I'd love to hear!

On a side note, on 10/20 I mentioned that it was my 4 month anniversary of starting this blog and I was so excited to have reached 450 page views.  In the past 10 days I have reached over 700!  I am so amazed that there are people out there who are interested in what I am doing and I want to THANK YOU so much for stopping by!  Please feel free to leave me comments and start up a conversation--I can talk about nail polish for days!

31DC: Flowers

Two weeks in!
It's funny how inspiration strikes.  I have a decent enough touch with a dotting tool to do some basic flowers.  It's pretty much the only nail art I do try on a regular basis.  As I was trying to think of something creative to do with flowers, I had an idea I hoped would work out.  It's not perfect, but I kind of like it!  I think I only have 1 untried in my accents.

*1 coat Yello-Out base
*1 coat Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Black Out
*Sinful Colors Snow Me White
*Zoya Zusa, Color Club Almost Famous, Zoya Myrta, Zoya Carla and Zoya Kimber accents

I really should have thought of this a day earlier for animal prints!  I started thinking about flowers and then Flower came to mind!  I thought I'd see if I could pull off a skunk tail with some little flowers mixed in.  I started with just one coat of Black Out because I knew I was going to be painting over most of it.  I used the polish brush to make the white middle, with a small paint brush to add little accents.  I did the same with Black Out on top, just a little thinner.

This next one is a bit blurry on my thumb, but I wanted to show the little flowers I added.  I mainly used the Zoya Surf colors because they are so pretty and sparkly.  The actually showed up pretty well over the black and white base.

I was worried about polish drying and getting stringy, so I tried to move fast.  In retrospect, I would have taken a little more time to get the shapes a little crisper.  But skunks are furry, right?  So they're a little messy too!

Overall, I kind of like this one!  Some nails turned out better than others, but I think I got the skunk look across with some flowers in there too!

 

No matter how these are turning out, I'm glad that I'm trying new tings and pushing myself outside of my comfort zone.  It's about half-way through the challenge and even though there are a lot of really cool designs out there that I'd kill to pull off, I'm proud of myself for trying.  You can't get better if you don't practice, right?  What are you venturing into these days?

31DC: Black and White

Day 7: I'm one week in!  I am proud of myself for making time and getting this first week done!  Things have been busy and stressful, and thinking about new nail ideas has actually been pretty calming for me.  Let's hope it stays that way as the actual art gets underway this week! 

 

For black and white I really didn't know what I wanted to do.  As all of you know who took the black and white challenge, there really are so many possibilities!  I decided to try some more nail art, getting back into a Halloween mood.  I was tempted to leave the black pristine and shiny, but I can never help myself, so I added glitter :).  This has 2 untrieds:

*1 coat Yellow-Out base
*2 coats Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Black Out
*1 coat Revlon Stunning (thumb)
*1 coat China Glaze Techno
*Color Club white striping polish
*1 coat Seche Vite top coat

I thought about ghosts, which would have been Halloween-y.  I tried to think of other patterns and designs, but I went with a little cobweb.  The thin, long striping brush in the Color Club made the 3 long line really easy to do, but the shorter ones were a little tougher because of the brush.  I considered doing webs on all my nails, but I wasn't sure I wanted them to be that prominent.  I also wasn't sure I could do 5 that looked decent enough.  Really, though, I like the look of one web as an accent!

I bought both of these glitters in an online order a while back. I don't know how it escaped my attention how similar they are, but it was more work to return one than I wanted to do, so I now own both. I wanted to do a little comparison to see how they stacked up against each other.

Stunning has micro silver holo glitter pieces mixed in with larger silver hex holos.  The small glitters are much more dense in this one and I did not get nearly as many of the larger pieces out in this single coat.

 

Techno is also filled with small silver holo glitter and larger silver holo hex glitters.  The large pieces were much more prominent in this one and came out easily.  I really didn't need to push or dab glitter with either of these.  Techno is a more sparse glitter overall, which is good to know.  It lets the base show through a bit more than Stunning, though both are really cool!

31DC: Orange

We're on a roll: here's day two!  There are 3 untrieds today!

I know that there are a million Halloween ideas for orange polish.  I decided to try two new colors that are much closer than I realized when I bought them...this may be an embarrassing and costly trend.  When I painted a quick swatch on a piece of white paper, there are some distinct differences in color, but on the nail, well, you'll see!  I thought about an orange base for these because the are really sheer when you paint your first coat, but I did not really need one in the end. 

*1 coat Yellow-Out base
*3 coats Spoiled Vitamin C on all but thumb
*3 coats Wet n Wild 9.0.2.1.Orange on thumb
*1 coat Black Cat Lacquer Static age on ring finger
*1 coat Seche Vite

Both oranges built up really well.  I guess that you still might be able to see a slight nail line with 3 sheer coats, but 3 is not bad at all--even I can live with it!  These oranges are so gorgeous, packed with golden shimmer that is blinding in the sun!  I considered putting Static Age on each nail, but because I just have a mini and this was going to be short-lived, I conserved my precious resource! 
Static Age is a really cool glitter: black, white and silver holo in a clear base.  There are a couple of sizes of hex glitter for the black and white, bars, and square holos.  I couldn't get the holos to come out and play, but this is just one coat that I only had to coax a little onto the nail--not a ton of dabbing, but a bit.

You can see a tiny bit of the difference between the two in this photo, if you are looking for it.  9.0.2.1.Orange (thumb) is a bit pinker than Vitamin C, which is a very yellow orange.  As you layer, the differences are very hard to see and if you have one, you don't really need the other, though they're both less than two dollars and gorgeous!

I'm a little disappointed in myself for not using these sooner!  They are so pretty and the shimmer is amazing.  They will definitely be making a comeback this month!  Static age is also so cool that I am kicking myself for not grabbing a full-sized bottle instead. 
Have you tried these before?  Do you love them as much as I do?  They're like fire in a bottle!