Nail Art A-Go-Go, Day 24: Abstract

Hello polish lovers!  Long time no post;p

Today's prompt was Abstact, and I used this as an excuse to do one of my favourite types of nail art, gradients.  I worn you, I decided to include a pic of what this gradient looked like before clean up!  So messy!  This was inspired by 2 of my favourite Abstract artists, Rothko(who did colour fields), and Bridget Riley(who did, I want to call it, optical illusion paintings).

I created a gradient using all OPI colours, Greenwich Village, Jade is the New Black and Ski Teal We Drop....here comes the mess...

I used a new type of makeup sponge for this, I usually use the really cheap Walmart ones but I bought these on clearance at Winners and they have a much finer texture and create a smoother gradient.  I use a Q-Tip and acetone to do the big clean and then finish with a small brush and more acetone.

Once this was coated in Seche Vite and completely dry I got out my MoYou London Sailor Collection 06 plate and Essie No Place Like Chrome to do some stamping.

I almost like it more before I did the stamping...I need to learn that sometimes less is more...only very occasionally, but this appears to be one of them.

That is all for today but I will be back tomorrow with the next prompt of Watercolour.

Until then, polish happy!

An InLinkz Link-up

Nail Art A-Go-Go, Day 7: Primary

Hello polish lovers!

I know I didn't post yesterday but I was just feeling like being lazy, so I edited the photos but didn't post.  So this is going to be short and sweet since I will be posting again soon.

Today's prompt was Primary, and that is exactly what I did.  I started by painting one third of my nails Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Lightening, the middle third Formula X Omni, and the final third Formula X Flashy.  They are all bright primary colours, and this reminds me of a child beach ball.

For my stamping I used Essie No Place Like Chrome and the crown image from the MM05 plate.

I didn't realize until I was editing the photos that I stamped this upside down but I kind of like it that way.  This mani reminds me of a Renaissance Fair with a jousting match.

That is all for now but I will be back with my Still Life mani soon.

Until then, polish happy!

Nail Art A-Go-Go, Day 3: Warm vs. Cool

Hello polish lovers!

Today I have my day 3 challenge mani, Warm vs. Cool.  I decided to go mostly with cool tones, which is more than half of my collection.  I did a base of 2 coats of Color Club's Baldwin Blues except for my warm, which is 2 coats of OPI's My Favourite Ornament(Oh My Glob! the gorgeous glitter!).

Once this was dry I coated with Nubar's Diamont Seal and Shine, Fast Drying Top Coat, which I have not heard any reviews on but is very fast drying...I will need to try it with stamping, I am a little hesitant because it is a thin formula so I don't know if it will drag stamping or not.  I will report back after I have attempted.  Perhaps I will do a comparison of a number of top coats, to check drying time and stamp dragging.  Anyway, I am getting off topic.

In keeping with my cool tones I decided to stamp with Color Club's Silver Lake, a metallic silver that works great for stamping, and the feather image from the Nailz Craze NC01 plate available here to see her Etsy store.

I completely fell in love with this design and have recreated this mani using SOPI Caffeine Fix and Essie's As Good as Gold for a warmer look.

That is all for today, but I will be back tomorrow with day 4, Monochromatic.

Until then, polish happy!

Nail Art A-Go-Go Challenge, Day 1: Achromatic

Hello polish lovers!

Today, as promised, I have my first mani for the Nail Art A-Go-Go Challenge I am participating in.  Today's prompt is Achromatic, which means grey-scale or lacking colour.  I started out with 1 coat of OPI's Black Onyx (yes I finally broke down and got a good black, this is really opaque and none streaky).

I was really pleased with my first use of this as a base for this art.  Once Black Onyx was dry I decided to use part of a plastic bag and some different grey's to create a variation of the Saran Wrap technique.

The colours I used were all Color Clubs, Lady Holiday, a light grey is part of the Harlem Lights collection, Shabby Drab, a mid-toned grey with a slight purple undertone, and Silver Lake, the bright silver(also an awesome stamping polish).

I love the dimension the silver gives these nails and ended up liking them so much I did my other hand and wore them for a few days.  When I do these again I think I will add some splotches of the black on top of the grey to give it even more dimension.

That is all for today, I will be back tomorrow with Day 2, Jewel Tones.

Until then, polish happy!

Vacation Haul...As Promised

Hello polish lovers!

Here is my vacation polish haul, as promised.  It is not near as large as I was expecting it to be but the polishes at TJMax and Marshalls in Ft. Lauderdale were incredibly picked over and I didn't find anything that I wanted, except a Sparitual mini 10 pack at Marshalls, unfortunately, the line up was so long I did not feel the wait justified the purchase.

I did go into Bed, Bath & Beyond and managed to find 2 polishes.  The first was Sinful Colors, Nail Junkie, a lovely teal jelly filled with small holographic hex glitters, that is opaque in 3 coats.

The second polish I picked up at Bed, Bath & Beyond was Color Club's Abyss, a a bright green-blue that works very well with Nail Junkie for an accent.  Abyss is very opaque, requiring only 1 coat, and I am happy to announce works great as a stamping polish (I currently have it on my accent finger).

The other 4 polishes that I picked up were all purchased in St. Thomas while on my cruise and they are from Del Sol, which is a shop that deals with items that change colour in the sun, with the polish being no exception.  Unfortunately the Canadian winter sun that shone today was not strong enough to show the colour shift so I can only show you the non-changed colours and tell you what they change to.  I think we will have to wait till summer for a full transformation.

Confetti, a violet base with holographic glitters, turns dark blue in bright sun.

VIP, silver/gold champagne base with holographic glitter, turns bright pink/red, depending on how many coats you use.  I had this on for half of the cruise and could not stop looking at how shiny my nails looked.  When I wear this again I may use a nude base colour because with 3 coats you still have visible nail line.

Heartbreaker, red jelly base with red and silver small glitter, turns purple in the sun.

Electrick!, the only non glitter that I picked up, is a shimmery ice blue that changes to an intense lime green in the sun. I don't know how opaque this is but I will definitely be wearing it on my toes a lot this summer.

That is the end of my haul, I know it is kind of small but I didn't want to buy something just because it was there, I did not want something that I already had by another brand, I wanted colours that added to my collection.

I did receive the 22 mini's from the Formula X for Sephora from my brother this Christmas, as I mentioned in an earlier post, I also received 3 SOPI's from my sister, Thyme for a Mani, a brown-y taupe creme that reminds me of a lighter version of You Don't Know Jacques(I saw it at Winners one day and am kicking myself that I did not pick it up).  I Think I Cayenne, a burnt orange shimmer, and BYOBOY, which is a dusty rose creme that I will definitely be using for retro roses this spring.

Anyway, that is all for this post.  I will be back soon.  I need to get back into a regular posting schedule.

Until next time, polish happy!

New Year's Eve Nails

Hello polish lovers!

So apparently this post was supposed to go up yesterday( slap my wrist! Bad Blogger!).  This was totally my own fault as I was trying to get everything together for my trip and to make matters worse I somehow managed to pinch a nerve in my back so all I wanted to do was lay down and apply heat.  Anyway, this will be my last post before I go away on my vacation!  So excited!  I will try to have a post ready for the 13th or 14th, even if it is just a haul, because we know I am not going to turn down the chance to get polish.

Today I have my New Years Eve mani for you, and I will also share The Grinch nails that I mentioned in my last post, because they are awesome and I put way too much effort into them to let them go to waste.

I started my NYE mani by trying 2 of the polishes I got in the Formula X for Sephora set I got from my brother for Christmas.  I chose White Matter and Dark Matter(which is which is pretty self explanatory).  Once this dried I stamped black over white and white over black using my Konad polishes and Pueen plate PUEEN24.

I was going for a black tie looking NYE mani, like you would wear to a fancy dress party...I think it was a bit of a miss.  For some reason the stamp did not transfer cleanly.  I probably didn't clean it off enough after each stamp, but here is the finished product.

On a side note, this was my first time using the Formula X polishes and I have to say, I was impressed with the formula, the white was opaque in 2 coats and the black was opaque in just one!  Unfortunately I am thinking this is one of the polish lines where you need to buy their base and top coat because I didn't even go 24 hours before this started chipping off 3 fingers!  Strangely, none of the chips so far has occurred on my dominant hand, so as a test I will leave it on and see if it starts chipping tomorrow.

Now onto a mani I am super proud of.

I love this!  the base for The Grinch is Barry M Key Lime while be silver base is Wet n' Wild Fantasy Makers, Once Upon a Time.  The rest of The Grinch is various Art Club stripers.  No acrylic paint was used.  I was quite impressed with myself.

This lasted without chipping for more than 4 days...I wonder if the CND top coat I used had anything to do with it...I smell a Top Coat test in the future!

Anyway, that is it for now...I will be back in 2 weeks...maybe with some Caribbean photo's to share.

Until then, polish happy!

33 DC Day 30: Same Pattern, Various Colours

Hello nail polish lovers!

Today I have one of the last posts for The Crumpet's 33 Day Challenge, one week left!  Its been nice to have outside ideas about what to do to try to get me out of my nail polish box, I will have to find more challenges to keep me going...although I will have a few reviews and more nail of the day coming soon.

Today's prompt was same pattern, different colours, which, to me, means stamping.  So I started by painting each of my nails a different colour.  My pinkie is OPI Alpine Snow, ring is Essie No Place Like Chrome, middle OPI Vant to Bite My Neck? and my index is Seche Risque.  These are all one coat except for Bite My Neck which was a little streaky so I did 2 coats.

Once this was coated in SV and dried I began my stamping, choosing to run the stamping in the opposite direction of the base colours, darkest stamping on pinkie, lightest on index(you get the picture).  You will notice that the stamping on my middle finger is a little wrinkled, that is what happens when everything is one coat except that finger and you don't let it dry quite long enough, but what are you going to do?

The pattern that I chose was Messy Mansion's In the Garden plate, an image of lattice and vines, which I totally fell in love with, like I do with all the MM plates that I own...she showed a prototype of a Book plate, which I cannot wait to come into production.  For these images I used the same polishes as for the base, except for the white stamping, which is Konad white, and also my favourite completed nail.

I found this was a great way to see how different polishes transfer the same image and how background colours can change how an image appears and the colour it appears to be, the stamping on my pinkie finger is a totally different colour from the base on my index finger, and yet they are the same polish...something to keep in mind.

That is all for today, I may post tomorrow or Sunday depending on how life goes...I have a Christmas Party Sunday night so it may have to be tomorrow.  I do have another of the Sally Hansen Triple Shine polishes I would like to review so maybe I will post that.

Until then, polish happy!

Hallow e'en Challenge Day 7: Skulls and Skeletons

Hello polish lovers!

Today I have my Skulls and Skeletons mani for the Hallow e'en Challenge I am involved in, only one more left people!

I started with my base of 2 coats of Gosh's Holographic Hero. This is a silver holographic polish(as usual my camera had fits and did not want to show the sparkle, but you can see a bit on the pinkie).

As always I topped with SV and let dry before I did my stamping.

I used Konad black stamping polish and my new Bundle Monster, create your own plate BM413 for all the stamping except for my middle finger which is from BMH07.

I am really loving how original the new Bundle Monster set is, which of course it should be considering how it was assembled.  I love the Skeleton.

For some reason I am really into black, grey and silver mani's right now so I really liked this one.

Tomorrow is another double up day, so until then, polish happy!

Falling for Nail Art Challenge: Bump in the Night

Hello polish lovers! Long time no see!

For this post I have my Bump in the Night mani.  I got a little stumped on this one, couldn't really get any inspiration so I pulled out my handy stamping plates and this is what I came up with.

I used various Bundle Monster plates, BM305 and BMH08 over a base of Wet n' Wild's Ebony Hates Chris and stamped with Essie's No Place Like Chrome.  The only part of this that I like are the bats, they are cool.

That is all for today but I will be back tomorrow with my next Hallow e'en Challenge.

Until then, polish happy!

Falling for Nail Art: Creepy Crawlers

Hello polish lovers!

Today I have my Creepy Crawlers mani from the Falling for Nail Art Challenge.  There are certain bugs the, forgive me, really bug me and give me the shivers.  I decided to portray a few of these in today's mani.

I started with 2 coats of Essie's Bordeaux, the same polish I used for the blood in my Blood mani but now you can see what it looks like over the whole nail.

In the photo you can see a slight VNL but this was not noticeable in real life.  Over this intense red cream I free handed a number of creepy crawly bugs.

Nothing creeps me out more than things that have more legs than are absolutely necessary to get around with(except for the wacky wavy inflatable flailing tube man, that thing is just wrong).  The one of these critters that gets me the most is the millipede, no one needs that many legs.  On my accent finger I used Essie's No Place Like Chrome, a favourite for stamping, using Bundle Monster's BMH07 plate.  I used Wet n' Wild Ebony Hates Chris and Nubar's Black striper for the freehand work.

In slight shade

This shot gives you a better idea of what the web looks like, I love how the chrome stands out against the crimson.

That's all for today but I will be back tomorrow with my next mani for the 33DC, Chinese.

Until then, polish happy!