Polish Ornaments

I had always heard of the make your own ornaments where you take clear glass ball ornaments and swirl the inside with paint, but I never thought to use nail polish instead of paint! Polish is so much prettier than paint, with the glitters, shimmers, holos, metallics and all the other types out there! It's so much fun, but I need to warn you, it does use alot of polish. Not as much as you might think, but maybe a bit less than a quarter of a full bottle? That is alot.

Start off with a clear glass bauble and a bottle of polish that you don't mind using alot of. I used China Glaze holographic "Infra Red". I usually would balk at using an expensive bottle, but I accidentally got 2 of these when they went on clearance. That and I really wanted to see if the holo would translate to the ornament.

A neat trick I found was to pull up on the wire bit on the cap. It will come up but then stop where there is a little bend in the wires. This keeps it from pulling all the way out and you can lift the cap off easy. If the wires pop out all the way don't fret. You can thread them back into the holes in the cap.

Pour your polish into the ornament. Don't be stingy. I usually pour nearly the whole bottle into it. You will swirl the polish inside to coat the whole ornament. If you are working with a older polish, maybe thin it with polish thinner before pouring it into the glass to make it easier to swirl. Then pour the polish back into the bottle. Polish is thick so you might be holding the bauble over the bottle for a while and it drips slowly back in.

When you get tired of holding it and you think most has dripped out turn it upside down and let it dry. You can try to balance it on a paper towel, but I live with cats and that was a mess waiting to happen. So I found this plastic container at work. I have no idea what was packed into it, but it was being thrown away so I grabbed it. I think you could use maybe an egg carton or ice cube tray to prop up the ornament while it dries. Something that can keep the drips from making a mess. You could use the packaging the ornaments came in, but I like to use them to store the finished ornament in. I left them overnight to dry.

In the morning you will see a puddle formed under the ornament.

Put the cap back on the ornament and you are done! You can see the holo effect in this photo. I love it!!

I had so much fun making these that I gave them all to my coworkers for Christmas. It was a hit!

The Glory of Proper Lighting

I work retail, so from Thanksgiving to Christmas I'm working non-stop. So while I feel guilty about it, this blog kinda goes into hibernation while I am busy. Sorry, I'll try to make it up in a Christmas Wrap Up post. Maybe. I'll put it in my queue.

But today I want to talk about the Magic of Proper Lighting. Many bloggers have talked about making sure you have good lighting, but I was fairly restricted in just what I could do. I didn't have a light box, and all the ones I made were disasters. So I just stuck with natural lighting (in winter you don't have many hours to get the manis done and photographed and it's just cold.) or dealt with the lighting in my room. I tried to fix the photos before posting them, but I never got real good with that.

Picture taken in my room with current lighting and no
fixing on computer.

That was until I got an Ott Light for Christmas! Well, to be really honest, I didn't so much "get it for Christmas" and more "found out Dad wasn't using his so I stole it from his office". Shush, don't tell. Here is a pic using that lamp.

The color is so much better, but that glare in the middle is bad. On nails it might not be so terrible, but on this nail polish pendant, it makes it so you can't see the design at all. A light box would fix that, but I've yet to make a light bow that works for me. So what I need is a light diffuser of some sort. So I took a sheer white shirt and tied it over the end of the lamp so the light shines thru the shirt. The light is softer, but still bright and white. I should take a moment and say this is dangerous and that you shouldn't do it. The shirt can get hot and catch fire. I did it because I ignore common sense. Anyway, here is my results of that:

The detail is so much better, but it changed the color a bit. It's kinda greenish and I don't care for it. I prolly won't do it for mani pics, but I had to get rid of the glare for my other nail polish projects. So while it's not amazing yet, it's better than the regular light in my room and crazy better than my photography skills a few years ago.

Photo taken Dec 2011. I thought I was hot stuff back then.

Red and Green Prep

I was gonna use this as the base for stamping with MoYou Festive 04, sweater patterns, but I got called into work and never finished it. Maybe I'll try and get back to it, but its fine as is for now. The green fingers are Sally Hansen "Emerald City" with China Glaze "Running in Circles" on top of it. The red fingers are Salon Perfect "Scarlet Enchantment" with Sinful Colors "Decadent" over it. They are so much more sparkly than this photo gives them credit for! I got nice complements even tho I never got around to stamping them.

Silver Snowflakes

Finally I'm getting a chance to upload some mani's I've done over the last couple weeks. I always underestimate just how busy I get this time of year. It seems perfect that I'm sitting in the middle of a snowstorm posting winter nail art! Here is Sally Hansen "Deep Blue Sea" a dusty blue with silvery blue glitter in it, stamped with Pure Ice "Silver Mercedes" using BundleMonster BM323. One of my more subtle stampings, the silver snowflakes just didn't stand out too much from the silvery blue glitter polish. But still very pretty.

3 inches of snow outside and it's still falling! Be safe out there guys <3

Lava Lamps

Oh my! It's December already! I really hadn't noticed. I guess I'm gonna have to start planning winter mani's soon. Till then, here is my Lava Lamp mani. Ever since I mentioned that this stamp reminded me of lava lamps or amoebas, I've been itching to do it in many colors. I started off with very neon colors, but they seemed too much. In summer its fine to rock neons, but this time of year it just seemed too garish. So I went over the neon with a shimmer polish to dull it out just a touch. I used a lot of colors so let me go thru them one at a time. Neon color is listed first, the the shimmer listed second.

Thumb: Sinful Colors "Pink" and "Glimmer"
Index: Warpaint Beauty "Acid Orange" and Pure Ice "Hot Tamale"
Middle: Sinful Colors "Neon Melon" and Pure Ice "Excuse Me"
Ring: Warpaint Beauty "Bad Apple" and Sinful Colors "HD Nails"
Pinky: China Glaze "Blue Sparrow" and Sinful Colors "Love Nails"

And just incase you have no idea what I'm talking about when I mention Lava Lamps: (photos courtesy of Google Images. None of these pictures are mine)

Stamp over the nails with my go-to black stamping polish Wet n Wild "Black Creme" using MoYou Pro Plate Collection 06. I'll try to come up with some winter nails soon, but the last time I tried to force myself to do a seasonal mani, I ended up with a huge creative block. I'll see what I can do tho :)

Dandelions

These last few weeks have been freezing cold, but today it is almost nice. 50 and 60 degree days have put me in the mood for summer and autumn nails, not the winter ones I've started to plan. Here is a stamp of dandelion seed heads blowing their bits of fluff away. A gradient of Sally Hansen "Lightening" and Sinful Colors " Sweet Nothing" gave the hint of a green color where they met. I love when my gradients do that! Stamped with Wet n Wild "Black Creme" using MoYou Pro Plate 06. I bought 7 plates this order, but Pro 06 is what I seem to be grabbing every time.