New 31DC: Inspired by a fabric

I was a little panicked trying to think of how I can make a mani around "fabric."  I am not very into fashion, so I don't see a lot of inspiring looks.  Then I remembered my duvet.  In my first 31 day challenge, I used my current duvet as my pattern inspiration.  This one is based on the one that I have stored right now that I love.  It's packed up right now, so I didn't pull it out to photograph.  Here's a link to it, though, that I found.

*1 coat Yello-Out
*1 coat China Glaze Mahogany Magic
*Zoya Zuza, Meg, Kimber, Carly and Myrta
*1 coat Out The Door

This look also let me use my 2 favorite collections from last year.  I keep coming back to colors from China Glaze Capitol Colors and the Zoya Surf collection.  A-mazing!  Because I knew I was going to be using a lot of dots, I just used ONE coat of Mahogany Magic.  I love any time I can get away with just one coat of a polish!

 

 

The Surf colors were actually really close to the colors of my duvet, a bit dusty or jewel-toned.  These are just gorgeous on the nail and, I think because of their shimmery/foil finish (just look at it out of focus there!), are great coverage.  IF I were a stamper, I think that these would probably be really great to use.  I was just about to remove this to do a little catch-up for yesterday (things are a little messy in my family right now, so I didn't get to a challenge) but I think that will have to wait until tomorrow so that I can wear these for a full day...you understand, right?  Some polish is just too pretty to let go of!

 

Classic Fozzie

In the spirit of fall (which you can feel every once in a while in San Diego) I have been really into my deep colors, especially browns and purples.  I was really excited to give Warm and Fozzie a try, but then I saw this combination over at Adventures in Beauty and knew I had to hold off until I picked up OPI DS Classic at Ulta (with a $5 off coupon!). 

Autumn love!

Of course, DS Classic applied liked a dream!  It really could have been 1 careful coat if my nails were shorter.  I used 2 coats to make sure that nail lines wouldn't show through, but there really wasn't much of a color difference between one and two coats.  A-mazing!

Ahhh!  Look at that sparkle!  I am a sucker for glitter, shimmer, sparkle and anything else that catches the light.  This micro silver holo is unbelievable!  There is a lot of hype (and a decent price tag) on these DS polishes, but I have yet to be disappointed in them.  Classic is a warm beige (it looks more golden here than it does in real life because of my flash) and it is so packed with holo that it almost looks like a linear holo in the sun instead of a scattered one.  The soft color is understated on the nail, especially indoors, and is one I would venture to say may even be work-appropriate. 

Warm and Fozzie is from the Muppets collection OPI put out last Christmas.  My mom got me most of the glitters last year (isn't she rad?) and this one was included.  I was surprised by it when I applied the polish.  It is almost a super-dense glitter.  The base is tinted brown, but very sheer and LOADED with metallic glitter.

The previous picture helps show the colors of glitter in this one.  It is predominantly a warm, coppery-brown, but there are plenty of red-pink ones and golden ones in there too.  The tiny particles give a metallic, foiled look on the nail, sparkling copper with flashes of red.  The color combo is so pretty on the nail, but very sheer.  I used 3 coats, but might do a 4th in the future.  The color is so rich that I didn't want to risk it not translating from the bottle!

Just look at the colors in that that sparkle!

 

 

So there they are!  The danger with gorgeous polishes like this is that I can't take my eyes off of my hands!  I look at them way too much when I'm walking around because they are so pretty in the sun!  Do you own either of these?  Have you found any creative ways to pair or use them?  I can't wait to try Classic again in the summer--it looks like a sandy beach and I think it will be gorgeous with a bright blue!



A little mocha

I wanted something cozy and fall-y, so I pulled out all of my browns and coppers. I decided to give pretty little Essie Mochacino a try. We sell Essie where I work and I saw this come through one day and had to track it down. 

This "greige"--a brown that tends toward gray--is packed with silver shimmer.  It sort of reminds me of hot cocoa as it cools, with that light layer forming on the top. 

The polish is really sheer.  I used 3 coats here and wish I had used a fourth.  You can still see my nail lines, especially on my index finger in the photos.  They were really thin coats that dried quickly, though, so adding one more won't be a big inconvenience in the future to enjoy that shimmer!

   

I wanted to add a little something so I layered 2 coats of Spoiled Jewelry Heist on my ring finger.  This glitter is gorgeous!  There are large hex pieces that are a rose gold color, with smaller iridescent pieces.  It's a really pretty glitter and covers nicely--not much placement needed at all!  It is a little funny on Mochacino, though.  They're slightly different tones, with Mochacino being much cooler than Jewelry Heist, but the rose gold almost looks like iridescent glitter against the brown background. 

Neither of these were quite what I was expecting, but they are both really pretty polishes!  What are you wearing to feel the fall season?  Have you found any cool combos for either of these two?

**On an un-related note, My Lucid Bubble was so sweet and mentioned me in her most recent Blog Love: Sharing is Caring post!  I am so humbled and honored--I love what you do and you are so kind to mention me!

31DC: Inspired by fashion

"Fashion" is hard for me because I'm not really into clothes.  I'm a t-shirt and jeans kind of girl.  It's rare to see in anything but flip flops.  I like to look at pretty outfits on Pinterest, but I really don't know much about fashion at all.  So, I had to get a little creative again...

*1 coat Sally Hansen Hard As Nails Hardener
*1 coat Sinful Colors Snow Me White
*1 coat Zoya Ginessa
*Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Purple Pizzazz
*Sinful Colors Purple Diamond
*Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Black Out

I decided to give argyle nails a go.  I had not used either of these two purples before, and I thought that they looked so pretty together in the bottle.  I really should have tested their opacity.  The colors are really pretty.  Purple Pizzazz is a deep purple with red shimmer throughout.  Purple Diamond is a light lavendar with shimmer too.

The two were very sheer.  I taped off the quarters and painted them, but then needed to try to dab color on again.  It made for a little messiness.  Purple diamond is also pretty hard to see.  I used Black Out to add stitches.  The design isn't bad, but the colors weren't wise.  So I tried a fall-inspired one with darker colors:

 

*China Glaze Harvest Moon
*China Glaze Riveting
*China Glaze Mahogany Magic

These colors were much more opaque and made for a clearer pattern.  I think I'll have to try this again very soon with colors more like these or some good creams.  Side note: isn't the shimmer in these colors a-mazing!  I love them!  This is what is really cool about this challenge.  I am doing so many styles and designs so quickly, but I'm learning a lot with each about colors and techniques.  I'm excited to have time to try some new things when this is all done and use what I have picked up!
Have you done argyle nails before?  What color combos did you use?  Any cute fall ideas?

In Memoriam

This has been a rough year for my extended family.  2012 has been filled with too much loss.  We need a good end. 
Last Thursday we lost my uncle.  That sounds so absurd to say, like we misplaced him or can't figure out where he's hiding.  This comes less than three months after we lost my other uncle.  My dad has lost his brother-in-law and brother in the span of a single season.  We can't afford any more of this.  We need time to regroup and heal.  We need to be joyful again.  I know that this will take time, which is what we need as a family.  No more of this. 
My uncles were good men.  They knew the value of hard work, and honest effort.  Mike, who we lost in May, worked in paving, created with his hands.  Chuck, who left us last week, delivered for UPS for more than 3 decades.  He had a perfect driving record, a nearly impossible feat.  They loved their families deeply and fiercely.  They enjoyed simple pleasures: family meals, an afternoon in the sun, a quiet home town.
This week I painted my nails in honor of Chuck.

*1 coat Sally Hansen Hard as Nails
*2 coats China Glaze Mahogany Magic
*1 coat Essie As Gold As It Gets
*1 coat Out the Door top coat
I realized after the fact that I also dipped into my Hunger Games polishes for Mike's memorial (Smoke and Ashes).  That seems so grim, but I think it's that these men were strong, inspirations, and the books are comforting.  It is appropriate, I think. 
I realized that Mahogany Magic is almost a perfect UPS brown!  If I had been careful, I could have pretty much gotten away with one reasonably thick coat, but I was patchy in places and opted for two.  The polish is not quite as yellow as it looks here, but there are plenty of swatches out there to look at if you haven't already. 
I don't know that I'm wild about the glitter.  I should have taken a note from my uncle and been comfortable in the simple, known enough is enough.  But I wanted something more for his memory, something big and demanding notice.  So, I added Essie's As Gold As It Gets over the top.  This is so much easier to apply and more uniform than other flaky glitters I own.  It looks much better and natural over Mahogany Magic in the sun.

This is a hard time.  I am torn between staying in grief and moving on, remembering and thinking of other things.  No one knows how to do this well.  For the moment, at least, I look at my hands and feel pride in the man that I call "uncle," the man that my family loves, the man that we were blessed to know.  It reminds me of what it is to live a good, respectable life, to be a person puts family above all and see nothing undignified in hard work.  It reminds me of the kind of person I can only hope to be.