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!

Sweet Holo-ween

I'm a little late, but I grew to love the nails I had for Halloween and really think that it's never the wrong time for some candy corn!

* 1 coat Gelous base
* 2 coats Sinful Colors Snow Me White
* Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Sun Kissed
* Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Butter-fly Stroke
* 1 coat INM Northern Lights
* 1 coat Out the Door

This looks is inspired by one I saw in a pin on Pinterest and tracked to Smashley Sparkles 2012 Halloween mani.  Hers has more of a fine, gradient look to it that I had planned to do, but once I realized my dots were too big, I improvised. 

I used Butter-fly Stroke, a good, opaque yellow for the tip.  I dotted over/below it with Sun Kissed and then went back to make a little more overlap between the colors.  I wasn't crazy about the look at first--I think because the base is white, instead of having white dots, so it felt uneven--so I added glitter, of course!  A thin coat of holo sparkles and a shiny topper and I called it a night!

As I looked at these on Halloween (and each day since) I came to like them more and more!  I had such a clear image in my head of what I was imitating that I didn't see how fun these turned out until I got a little distance.

Have you had a look grow on you over time that you came to love?  What made you come around to it?

Candy Corny?

This was the first Halloween mani I did this Halloween.  I am a sucker for Candy Corn.  I love it.  I was crushed to hear that it is the most hated Halloween treat (and I totally don't think that's true).  I wanted to do a Candy Corn mani without going overboard or taking too much time.  The result was...well, it was.

*1 coat Sally Hansen Hard as Nails Hardener
*2 coats Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Mellow Yellow
*Cover Girl Boundless Color Candy Corn
*Wet 'n' Wild French White Creme
*Zoya Myrta
*1 coat Out the Door Northern Lights
*1 coat Out the Door

Ignore the tip wear--it took me a couple of days to snap some photos and it's the lease noticeable here.  I wanted to use the candy corn accent with a French.  My oranges are rather thin, so I used Myrta for the tips over my natural nails.  This is a gorgeous, burnt orange with a sparkling foil finish.  Unfortunately, it kind of clashes with the candy corn.  I was disappointed in the color coordination here.  I liked my accent and I liked my French, but together they didn't quite work liked I had hoped.
Have you ever had that happen--colors just not quite working that you had high hopes for?

The summer sun's callin' my name!

If you've read through my posts, it's no secret that I am not entirely original or creative on my own.  I do know awesome manis when I see them, though, and love trying my hand (no pun intended, but it is a happy accident) at what others have done.  I am also as straightforward as I can be about where I find designs and try to link back to pages and posts.  I am kicking myself right now because last Saturday I saw this look on Facebook.  There are a ton of nail pages I follow and I went back in my feed as far as I could, as well as through my blogger feed and cannot find my source.  So, if this looks like your mani or you recognize the original lady's work, please let me know so I can edit and give her credit, because I LOVE this one!

*1 coat Sally Hansen Hard as Nails Hardener
*2 coats Sally Hansen Insta-dri Butter-fly Stroke
*Zoya Myrta
*1 coat Out the Door

Target had a bunch of Insta-dri on clearance and I am always looking for a good, opaque yellow to use as a base for my sheer ones.  I used two coats of Butter-fly Stroke and it is perfectly opaque.  The first coat was a bit streaky, but the cream finish evened itself out with the second.  I don't own a lot of creams--I'm too drawn to shimmers and glitters!  I do love, however, how they contrast with more sparkly polishes, so I'm rethinking my instincts.  Myrta is a gorgeous orange and every time I pull it out I wonder why I wear it so rarely.  I loved these two together!

I found my roll of striping tape finally and used it for my tips.  It is so much cleaner and easier than Scotch tape that I think I should make the very small investment in more rolls.  These colors just screamed "Summer!" to me, and I'm not a fan of the hot season, but they've made me so happy!  I got a ton of compliments at work yesterday.  When I do a mani, I love the amazement when a customer asks where it was done and I tell them my couch.  It makes me feel good when they ask if I'm wearing "those nail sticker sheets."  While I tend to focus on my mistakes, it's so flattering when someone thinks they were printed on wraps!  What's your favorite thing to hear when you work hard on your nails?  

31DC: Inspired by art

Like fashion, I am not really knowledgeable about art.  I'm a big believer of the cliche "I don't know art but I know what I like" and, really, "I know it when I see it."  Call me uncultured, that's okay.  I was nervous about this challenge until I remembered the bird and artist I fell in love with when I visited my friend in New Orleans last fall.  The delightful and talented Katie Leese is my inspiration today!  Please, please, please go check out her Etsy shop and take in all the adorable awesomeness!  I was fortunate enough to see her work and meet her as she sold her work at Jackson Square--her little bird is really the only souvenir I took home with me.  No untrieds today.

How cute is that?  "Love is the answer" with a crossword puzzle?  Brilliant!  I could not get enough of these little birds and it was SUCH a hard choice to just pick one! 

This was another polish-heavy art mani, so I'll run them down for each nail as I go.

 

I was worried that my bird would look nothing like a bird!  In this close up I can see that the eye needed a touch-up, but in real life you can't see that.  I was really happy with how he turned out!  I used 2 coats of Sinful Colors Unicorn for my background.  I outlined the bird with Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Black Out and a small paint brush.  The body is China Glaze Four Leaf Clover and the wing and beak are Zoya America.  I used the red and teal because those are the colors of my own little guy.

This is my little crossword puzzle nail.  I used 2 coats of Sinful Colors Snow Me White and Black Out for the squares.

 

This one is based on another painting that I have fallen in love with!  "I love olive you" is 2 coats of Zoya Yara with America and Black Out for the accent.  This turned out really well!

 

 

This, however, did not... I needed a fifth design, and should have done another little bird.  Instead, I tried to make her little signature/logo.  This was not wise.  We'll move on...

 

I had to get the long legs and little bird feet in!  This is 2 coats of China Glaze Gothic Lolita and Black Out.

So, I'm 85% happy with this.  That ring finger is a mess, so ignore that, and the res isn't too bad.  This macro setting is a bit less forgiving than the naked eye is, but overall I'm glad that I remembered these little bird and this super-cute artist for today!  Do you have any really cool artist finds on Etsy (aside from polish--it's a given that I'm already stalking dozens of those shops!)?  I'd love to find more ways to wast time on there!

31DC: Inspired by a book

I mentioned that I loved movies yesterday.  Well, I'm also a bookworm!  Luckily, books are a bit harder to translate into nails, so today was a bit less overwhelming, but I still feel a little like I'm betraying books by choosing just one!  I figured that I really couldn't help but do a Harry mani.  I know there are a ton of ways to take those books into art, but I went simple (because most of my art skills are spent this week!) and represented the houses with their colors.  I have one untried today.

"By Gryffindor, the bravest were prized far beyond the rest."  For Gryffindor's colors, I used 2 coats of Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Wined Up.  I love this deep, shimmery scarlet.  This is a gorgeous fall color!  I used Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Golden-I for the tip.

 

 

"For Hufflepuff, hard workers were most worthy of admission."  First off, let me rant that little ol' Hufflepuff gets a bad rap.  They are also loyal and hard workers, determined like their little badger mascot.  They are not the duds of Hogwarts.  Really!  I used 2 coats of Color Club Almost Famous for the yellow base and Sally Hansen Black Out for the tip. 

 

 

"For Ravenclaw, the cleverest would always be the best."  For the base of this nail, I used 2 coats of Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Co-Bolt Blue.  This is such a pretty, shimmery blue!  I used China Glaze Harvest Moon for the coppery tip.  I loved this color combo!  These two are so pretty on their own, but really amazing together.

 

"And power-hungry Slytherin loved those of great ambition."  For my base, I used 3 coats of Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Emerald City.  I used Spoiled Daddy's Credit Card for the silver tip--kind of apprpriate for an entitled house.  This would make for such a pretty Christmas combo--I'll have to remember it!

 

"And we must unite inside her or we'll crumble from within."  The Hogwarts' seal is a combination of the 4 houses, bound with an "H."  I added a little Fairy Dust, for magical measure, and used my Black Hologram striper to draw on the H.

Well, that's my book inspiration!  It feels so anti-climactic because I have so much love for so many books!  I feel like it should be something monumental, something spectacular.  I liked this design, but it's not one I'm dying to recreate.  Have you had that happen before?  Been excited for a mani and then realized that it just didn't live up to your expectations, even if it wasn't bad, per se? 

31DC: Stripes

I'm keeping the Halloween vibe going with my striped nails.  As I worked on this, I had a minor nail art crisis: I could NOT find any Scotch tape!  I looked everywhere I could think of and could not find anything but heavy-duty packaging tape!  Now I know where my masking tape, painter's tape, and 2 rolls of Scotch tape are, but then...well, it was a bit ugly.  I used some more of my old nail guides for French manicures, which have a bit of an adhesive issue, so the lines aren't super clean, but they served their purpose.  Today only has 1 untried.

 

*1 coat Yello-Out base
*2 coats Color Club Almost Famous
*Sinful Colors Snow Me White
*Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Sun Kissed
*1 coat Out the Door Northern Lights (silver)

 

The lines on my white tips are not as clean as I would like.  Maybe this is the one I will do again at the end, with good tape :)  I decided to make Almost Famous the base color because it was the one that needed more than one coat.    It's really saturated for a yellow, but I still wanted two coats to eliminate streaks.  Then, I taped off the tips and painted a pretty thick coat of Snow Me White on the tips.  Especially for the price, I love this white!  It's also really saturated and I've found it is opaque and covers most colors really well.  Lastly, I taped off my nail bed, with the tip free, and painted a stripe of Sun Kissed through the middle of my nails.  All 3 of these have a clean, smooth cream finish to them.

 

I saw Northern Lights online and had planned to order it because I love my Out the Door top coat.  Then, last weekend when I was browsing Sally's clearance, I saw that they had it in stock and decided to pick up a bottle.  There is micro silver holo glitter in the top coat.  It settles on the bottom of the bottle, so you shake it up before using it each time.  You can see that the glitter is really sparse, which sometimes is all I want.  It adds just a little extra to the mani, with the great finish of Out the Door!

Aside from the messy lines, which were slightly out of my control, I really love this one!  I'm not into spooky and scary Halloween, really, but I love sweet Halloween!  Candy corn has been one of my favorite candies as long as I can remember, and it screams "FALL!"  Are you rocking any sweets manicures this month?

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!

"I'm feeling very Olympic today!"

"How 'bout you?" (Major kudos if you can place those words with Sanka in the classic Cool Runnings!)

So, to start this off, I love the Olympics.  I didn't have cable for Beijing.  I work two jobs now, so my days are spent trying to survive retail until I can make my escape and my nights are spent hunched over my laptop working with writing classes for an online university.  Me time is hard to come by. 
Luckily, by a twist of fate, I have a new class that does not have papers due until the end of their second week.  This means my nights are free for two weeks--Olympic weeks!  While I should be getting to bed earlier and resting, I can't turn off the games. 
I did not do an Olympic-themed mani for the opening ceremonies because it was the night of my friend's wedding, and I decided to opt for something more sedate.  Now I can embrace the girl who swoons over the gymnasts' uniforms and hair plastered with glitter!  I took this as a great opportunity for a skittle:

The Olympic Rings.
There is an obscene amount of polish on my nails now:
*All nails: 1 coat Sally Hansen Hard as Nails, Petites 24k Gold on tips, 1 coat Out the Door fast-dry top coat and 1 coat Healthy Hoof Lacquer
*Pinkie:

There is an obscene amount of polish on my nails now:
*All nails: 1 coat Sally Hansen Hard as Nails, Petites 24k Gold on tips, 1 coat Out the Door fast-dry top coat and 1 coat Healthy Hoof Lacquer
*Pinkie: 3 coats China Glaze Dorothy Who?
*Ring finger: 2 coats Color Club Almost Famous, 1 coat Confetti They Call Me Mellow Yellow, 1 coat Savvy Touch of Glitter
*Middle finger: 1 coat Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Black Out, 2 coats Icing Twilight
*Index finger: 2 coats Color Club Holiday Splendor
*Thumb: 2 coats China Glase Ruby Pumps

I looked for the most glittery colors I could find because last week was rough and I need some sparkle in my life. I tried out 2 of my new Wizard of Oohs and Aahs polishes (I love the Wizard of Oz and needed this collection in my life!). Dorothy Who? is so pretty and such a different blue from anything I have right now. I could have stopped at 2 coats, but the 3rd added even more depth to the glitter and color. It is such a prety medium blue--not quite her dress color, but lovely anyway. Ruby Pumps is also quite beautiful and will do for a stand-in until I can get my hands on a new Color Club Ruby Slippers. It is close, but not quite the same. If I had not loved Color Club first, I'm sure I would be compeltely smitten with this!
I used Almost Famous as a base. This is a nice, bright yellow that covers better than most in two coats. I added Confetti They Call Me Mellow Yellow over the top for the soft shimmer that it brings. This is a really delightful yellow, but very thin. Even with the shimmer, though, it did not quite match the intensity of the glitter that the others brought, so I added Savvy Touch of Glitter to it. This is a clearance find of mine from Sally's Beauty Supply. It is a small, sparse, silver holo that adds sparkle without overshadowing the polish base. Love it!
I used Sally Hansen Black Out for a base to Twilight. The polish looked too sheer, so I had to build it up. I used two coats of this one over the Black Out. It is a black base with small silver glitter and really cool when you have full coverage.
I love Color Club and can usually find it at a decent price, so I favor the brand when I can. Holiday Splendor is what I do that. It. Is. Gorgeous! This bright green holo is squishy and amazing and I make any excuse I can to wear it! My words and photos do not do this justice. If you can get your hands on it: DO!
I thought about stopping there. The skittle was awesome and I was really pleased with the colors. But I have plenty of time on my hands this week, so I kept going. I was worried I would hate the tips and have to redo all of those layers, but I really liked the gold! 24k Gold is a warm gold glitter with good coverage and sparse red flecks throughout. Some thick topcoating was needed to even out all of these glitters, but I was surprised at how much I liked the tips! My lines and nails could be straighter, but I really like the outcome!

 

Are you rocking some patriotic colors? Loving the games? Missing Doug E. Doug?

Pinterest inspiration

As soon as I spotted this on Pinterest, I knew that I wanted it on my fingers!  I followed the link to All That Is Gorgeous and quickly decided that Jenn is a polisher after my own heart.  (No, seriously, go check out her awesome work!)  So, I looked through my stash to see if there was something that I could recreate the look with.  No go.  So, since the polishes are cheap and easy enough to track down, I nabbed both and decided to give it a try.

(I have such a hard time figuing out flash or no flash...neither was good)

 



*1 coat Sally Hansen Hard As Nails base

*3 coats Sinful Colors Unicorn

*1 coat Sally Girl gold glitter

*2 coats Seche Vite

I was determined to love this yellow.  I have others that are shimmery, golden polishes, but nothing that is this soft, baby chick yellow.  I read reviews that bemoaned its streaks, but I was determined...

I wanted so badly to love it.  One coat was thin.  Two coats streaked.  I went for a slightly thicker third.  It was full coverage, which is great, but it streaked, no matter how hard I tried.  It is due more to the creamy polish than the color, I think, but I was so frustrated.  So how do you fix that?  Slap the glitter on and some thick top coat and hope for the best!

The glitter did help even out the look a lot.  I was sorta satisfied with the look, though my photos do not do it justice like hers do.  It was a nice look, the light yellow and bright gold.  I actually got a number of compliments about this one, too, despite my streaks (that no one but me seemed to notice).  I even had one lady ask where she could find the stickers I used.  When I told her it was polish she was amazed and said the glitter was too uniform!  Well, if that doesn't make your day...

So, I think that this is one I would do again.  The yellow will be great for dotting because it is so creamy when most are sheer.  If I can put my perfectionist aside, the color is gorgeous and a little glitter can hide most any of the imperfections!