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!

Good riddance, 2012!

I'm now "home" after a wonderful week at Home with my family.  I didn't do much polishing, and what I did do I didn't photograph.  Sorry!  But know that I did have a super-cute Christmas mani (China Glaze Champagne Kisses with Zoya Logan for holly leaves, red rhinestone berries, and a Christmas tree accent, kind of a mash up of many of my previous Christmas looks).  I wanted to do something fun and festive for New Year's Eve, even though I'm all by my lonesome, but was overwhelmed with possibilities.  So, I decided to do what my momma wanted: dark purple with silver glitter.  My momma's kind of the best.  She has been getting into nails lately too, and she said her students love it when she does.  This is what she gave me, all individually wrapped in a big box:

Out of control awesome, right?!  She went through my "want" tab and found a ton of them!  But now she also knows how much some of the things I waste my money on cost...hmmm.
So, I'm going with her New Year's Eve choices tonight.

*1 coat Hard as Nails Hardener
*2 coats OPI Vampsterdam
*China Glaze Fairy Dust
*China Glaze Techno
*1 coat Hoof Lacquer

I used Vampsterdam for the first time for this mani.  I only used 2 coats, and perhaps a 3rd would have made this darker, which was more of what I imagined.  It is a pretty polish, lighter on the nail than in the bottle, a deep raisin purple.  Like any OPI, the application is perfect and the coats build easily. 
I am still unpacking and catching up on some sleep, so I didn't dig out sponges for the glitter.  I just used the brush, concentrating the Fairy Dust fine holo glitter at the cuticle and stroking toward the tips.  I dabbed Techno on top, and then added just a little more thin Fairy Dust toward the tips.  I kind of wish I had sponged the glitter for better blending, but they are still super sparkly and festive!

2012 has been a crapfest of a year for me and my family.  I am more than ready for the clock to strike midnight!  2013: come at me!  I'll see you all on the other side with a brand new challenge (can I make it through another 31 days?) and hopefully a much brighter year.  Until then, be safe and I wish nothing but the best to you and yours as we welcome this new beginning!

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!