Almost a 31 Day Challenge: Day One~Red

I really did intend to do Chalkboard Nails challenge again this year. I even started on the first 2 challenge manicures (Day One: Red and Day Two: Orange) but I just fell into a slump. Maybe I will still do it, but for now here is what my Day One: Red was gonna look like. I've been doing Crumpet's SIMPLES challenge for a few weeks leading up to this and had dots on the brain. This is (I think) Essie "5th Avenue" and Sally Hansen "Red-io Active". I was kinda trying a dot gradient, but I think the dots were slightly too large. I did like it and even posed with one of my newest Dragon Eggs. I love how it looks like the glitter on the dragon egg :D

Halloween Spiderwebs 2014

This isn't the best mani I've done, but it's been 2 months since I've posted anything on this blog. This was my Halloween mani. A fit of depression has kept me from doing much nail art, but I'm starting to get interested in it again. This is Hot Topic's no name purple, Essie "5th Avenue", Sinful Colors "Clementine" and Orly "Black Vinyl". I stamped with Cosmetic Arts "TGIF" and MoYou Pro XL 05. I used a different sponge for the gradient than the usual cosmetic wedge and I'm really happy with the smoothness of the transition. It came with a Halloween make up set and I'm gonna try and find more like it. Maybe I'll do a comparison post on different sponges for gradients. I was running late for work so it's not my best cleanup. My topcoat is getting thick as well. Time go thin it and get more before I run out :D

Quick Galaxy

So a new season of Doctor Who is upon us! I really wanted to do something, but inspiration was a bit lacking at the moment, so I settled on my go-to mani for SciFi shows. A Galaxy Manicure! I started off by painting my nails with Wet n Wild "Black Creme". I got 4 no name metallic polishes from a dollar store that I was itching to try. I sponged the metallic purple in random places. On top of that went the metallic blue, then green, and then copper. The copper really didn't look right in the nebula, so I sponged over it with Sally Hansen "Red-io Active" a metallic red. I wanted the TARDIS to stand out on the nail, but I think using the stark white Cosmetic Arts "Picture Day" was a mistake. It just was too bright. The stamp is from MyOnlineShop MJ XII. I topcoated the whole thing with Out The Door "Northern Lights" a diffuse holo glitter fast dry topcoat.

Ingress ~ Enlightened

I've mentioned it before on my other blog, but I'm a big girl. I don't mean grown up, I mean I got more than a little meat on my bones. As such I've been keen this year to loose some (or alot) of weight. I took up jogging which, on its own is fine, but I just discovered a video game that ties very nicely into my wanting to get up and work out. It's called Ingress and it is a world wide, GPS based, capture the flag type game. You capture points (called portals) for your team. The catch is these portals are actual sculptures, interesting buildings, or works of art in your town. You have to physically go to these locations. This game gave me the excuse I was looking for to go for a long walk or jog. You can procrastinate when you're just listening to music and walking, but when you get a notification that the portal you captured yesterday is under attack today? You grab your shoes and try and get it back now! Its way more fun and addictive than you would think it would.

Anyway, there are 2 teams and I play for the green team (my fav color) called the Enlightened. The blue team is the Resistance. The idea behind the game is a new energy is leaking into our world called Exotic Matter (XM for short). The Enlightened want to study it and see if it can be harnessed for good. The Resistance believe no good will come of it and it was sent to control human minds. The theory is XM has been leaking for a long time and has shaped mankind's will for generations. It even has affected our minds and made us shape our art in a manner that will allow it to leak thru faster (hence portals are usually art sculptures. We unknowingly made them into patterns that will allow XM to come thru).

To do these nails, first I painted them all black using Orly "Black Vinyl". Then using a striper brush I painted white lines and free handed the enlightened symbol using Cosmetic Arts "Picture Day". I used the water color technique to make the foggy field areas (when you connect 3 portals in a triangle it makes a field between them and gives you lots of experience points.)

Then I painted over all of it with Sinful Colors "Irish Green" a bright green jelly. I hoped you wouldn't see the green over the black, but it did show up somewhat. Next time I'll have to be more careful with the jelly.

Some XM just floats around, that's the white dots I added after the green jelly. I am adoring this mani even tho very few people will understand it. If you get a chance, check out the game. And join the Enlightened! :)

Check out this great commercial for it! *Note: I am not paid for this. I wish I was, Google has deep pockets. I just really enjoy the game and like to talk about it.*

*Technical Difficulties* apparently I can't access YouTube on the mall's WiFi. I'll try and add the vid later.

Draven

I was gonna do Doctor Who nails for the beginning of the new season, but this past week I lost one of my beloved cats. So he gets nails this week instead. Orly "Mirror, Mirror", Cosmetic Arts "Picture Day", Sally Hansen "Presto Pewter". The stamps are BundleMonster BM412 and MoYou Mother Nature Collection 02. I painted my nails the light grey, stamped the white wings (removed the body of the bird before stamping the wings) and then stamped the grey cat over them (removing the 2 paw prints from the stamp first as well).

Draven helping me take pictures from my Nabi post.

RIP Draven

Dragon Eggs

These magnificent little gems have been popping up in all my nail polish groups these last few days. Dragon Eggs! I adore them! The tutorial I have been following is by Accio Lacquer.  The only real difference is she says she used about 200 thumbtacks, but my count is closer to 600, but I think that is mostly because I got a bigger egg by accident. That's right, you heard me, thumbtacks. The basic idea is you paint the heads of the thumbtacks with nail polish and push them into a Styrofoam egg. Very easy, but time consuming. And polish consuming I found out.

Materials:

• Styrofoam Egg
• Thumbtacks (The large the egg, the more tacks you will need)
• Nearly full bottles of polish and topcoat (for my example I used Sinful Colors "Enchanted" Wet n Wild "Buffy the Violet Slayer" and Fresh Paint "Candy Crush")
• Cardboard, corkboard, or foamboard. Something to hold the tacks while you paint them.

No way to get around it, this is the long boring part. Push your thumbtacks into something to hold them in place. First time I did this I used a pizza box. This time I just using a couple sheets of cardboard. Don't push them all the way down or you might get em stuck to the cardboard when you paint. Try to leave some space around each one so they don't get stuck to each other either.

300 tacks....

And 600 tacks. Long and boring, but it helps so much when you paint em.

I started off with Sinful Colors "Enchanted" a deep almost eggplant purple. One coat of that followed by the slightly shimmery color Wet n Wild "Buffy the Violet Slayer". By the time you finish painting the last tack, the first is dry and ready for next coat. I topped it all off with a coat of Fresh Paint "Candy Crush" and lovely flakie. You can topcoat as well, for the green egg I did, but I ran out so purple egg isn't topcoated yet. I think I'll get some spray sealant for it.  For an egg this size you will almost used a full bottle of polish each coat. Like 2/3 of a bottle. That's why I suggest you start with nearly full bottles and cheap ones. First egg I did, my green one, I had no idea just how much polish this eats and used my beloved China Glaze "Running in Circles". It's not empty yet, but it was a wrench to part with that much of it.

This part goes much faster than the stages before it. Time to stick em on the egg! Now the eggs has a narrow and a fat end. You want the fat end to start with.

In the center of the fat end push your first tack in. Doesn't have to be exact, just eye ball it.

Your gonna want to spiral out from that tack. Each tack you put in needs to overlap the last tack you put in. It also helps if it overlaps the row below it too. These aren't glued in (tho you can if you want to) and the tack you put in holds all the tacks before it in place. That sounds confusing. I made a short video of what I mean but blogger is being a pain and not loading it right. I'll keep working on that.

Just keep going spiraling outward and upward.

Get the idea?

Keep going!

And your done! My camera has a tough time with blue-leaning purples, but it is way more purple in real life. I love how the flakie adds just a subtle magic to it.

And my first egg, Sally Hansen "Emerald City and China Glaze "Running in Circles". And I used gold thumbtacks instead of the silver I used in my purple one. Now time to make some sort of padded chest to store them in. I'll be experimenting with smaller eggs later this week. I still want to make a red holographic one and a white pearly one.

Funk-Breaking Holos

Ok, so I didn't post alot the last few months. I just couldn't help it. I had no motivation, no inspiration, no nothing. I sat and stared at my polishes then just got up and played MineCraft. I just couldn't get into it. Stuck in a funk, I asked my nail polish friends what I could do to get out of it. The majority of the advice? Stop trying to force it, grab one color for your nails, don't bother with art, and go do something else. So ignoring nail art all together I grabbed my fav holo (if I'm gonna just wear one polish it will be a fabulous one) Layla "Silver Mercury" and "Flash Black" for an accent. I prepped the nails with black undies but I think in the future I'll prep "Silver Mercury" with silver instead. Then played video games, or read books, or watched TV. It took a week or so, but I think I might have broken the funk for now. The fact that my nails are the longest I've ever gotten them to be has helped a lot too (tho now that I've said that I'm sure they will break soon :P ) I'm back to art and not feeling so lethargic. Sometimes you just need to take a break. Even if its from something you love.

Neon Rainbow Graident

Summer time to me means neon polish! No idea but this time each year I start itching to bust out the eye watering shades. I wanted to do a vertical gradient rainbow across my nails but everything kept going wrong with this mani. The white undercoat China Glaze "Snow"got patchy bald spots no matter how careful I was in application. The gradient refused to be smooth and everytime i tried to fix it it just kept pulling polish off my nail making the bald spots glaringly obvious. Despite the fact that it didn't turn out as planned, it was still fun to do. Let's see if I can remember what polishes I used...

From Pink to Purple:
Sinful Colors "Pink"
Warpaint Beauty "Acid Orange"
China Glaze "Celtic Sun"
Warpaint Beauty "Slime"
Sinful Colors "Endless Blue"
And the purple I simply don't remember what it was. I don't have my polishes with me right now but I'll try and look that up for you guys later.

Since the gradient just didn't turn out as I imagined I coated the whole thing with China Glaze "Fairy Dust" to try and hide the flaws. I should have used China Glaze "Icecap", it's much better at hiding flaws than "Fairy Dust" is. I wore this for a few days then tried to stamp over it, but it didn't turn out and I just removed it altogether.

Negative Space Bridal Nails

Stamped with Cosmetic Arts "Picture Day"

This manicure came about as an accident. I was doing my mom's nails using 2 images from MoYou Pro XL 06 plate and I accidentally picked up the wrong image for the finger I was working on. Lucky I realized my mistake before I stamped her finger, but I still had it on the stamper and as a joke just stamped it on my own naked nail. I finished her nails and was gonna take it off mine when I looked at it. It really was very pretty and so simple. I've never done a "Negative Space" mani before. Having naked nail peek thru my art never really interested me before. But this time it worked. I did the rest of my nails and added a few half pearl rhinestones to accent the ring finger and called it a day. I think I would also consider this my first bridal nail art. Think it's good for a wedding? Never done Bridal before too. So simple, but for me? Groundbreaking.

Mickey Mouse Party!

We had a Mickey Mouse party at the store I work at this weekend. We wore disney shirts and mouse ears and of course I had to do my nails to match my shirt. I forgot to take a picture of it, but it has the work "Mickey" in rainbow glitter. I also just got a new striping brush so I decided to give it a bit of a work out. The rainbow is (from red to purple) Essie "5th Avenue", Sally Hansen "Lighting", "In Record Lime", "Blue Me Away", and China Glaze ... I forgot the name. Something Lilac. Hang on, I'll see if I can look it up. Ugh, I don't remember and I'm not at home right now. I'll update this when I get home and can look at my bottles.

Anyway I topped it off with China Glaze "Icecap" to match the glitter on the shirt. The ring and thumb got "5th Avenue" dotted with China Glaze "Snow" to mimic Minnie's dress. Then because it still looked a bit plain, I added dotted Mickey heads in Cosmetic Arts "TGIF". I'm really kinda digging the way this turned out. I think I might have a picture I sent to a friend on my cell phone of the shirt an ears I was wearing. I'll see if I can find it...

 (to be updated in a couple hours...)

4th of July 2014 Skittle

I don't know why I was so excited for 4th of July this year. Usually I just try to catch glimpses of the fireworks going off thru the trees outside my window without ever leaving my own room. This year was different for some reason. My city stopped putting on fireworks displays a few years ago because of cost but for some reason did it this year. Only this time they charged you to get into the park to watch it. Guess they have to pay for the displays somehow. So I spent the night on a bridge just outside the park and still got a great view of the fireworks. Sorry, I'm broke.

I was excited to do 4th nails and decided to do skittles. Well, not actually decided. The fact is I COULDN'T decide what technique I wanted to do...so I did them all. I had a vague idea that maybe I would pick the nail that turned out best and redo the rest to match. That didn't happen so skittles it was! I used the same 3 polishes on all the nails, just the technique changed. Essie "5th Avenue", China Glaze "Snow", and Sinful Colors "Endless Blue".

I'll go the the nails one at a time tho.

Left hand

Thumb: Over "Endless Blue" I simply used Salon Perfect "Speck-tacular"

Index: Messy Mansion stamping plate MM15 and little rhinestones I got at a dollar store.

Middle: Blue and White striping tape I got at WalMart by Salon Perfect

Ring: Watermarble. I really should have painted the nail white first to make the color stronger and hide the bald spots but I was excited and didn't think it thru too well.

Pinkie: Small nail decal by Salon Perfect

Right Hand

Thumb: Salon Perfect "Starred and Striped" and "Grand Finale" over "Endless Blue"

Index: Another Salon Perfect Decal

Middle: Another Watermarble. This time with a white under coat

Ring: I loved the Index on my left hand so much I wanted to do it again on my right. 

Pinkie: This was the first time I had ever used loose glitter before. This is "Endless Blue" that I topcoated with a slow drying topcoat and then brushed some loose glitter over the bottom half of the nail. I added a star rhinestone that I got from a dollar store years ago and topcoated the whole thing.

I wore this polish for longer than I usually do and something odd started to happen. The topcoat started to eat the color off of the metallic striping tape. This is after the first topcoat and you can see between the white stripes that its turning silver. I re-topcoated it again a few days later to keep the edges of the tape from lifting up and the blue almost completely turned a silver brownish color. Very odd and something I need to keep in mind when I use this tape again.

Birthday Mani

My birthday mani for this year. I didn't have much time to do it this year so it was just a quick plastic wrap on index, middle, and pinkie. I did a graidient on ring and thumb of the same colors (China Glaze "Snow" and "Escaping Reality" and Cosmetic Arts "TGIF") with a Bundle Monster stamp BM307 in Pure Ice "Silver Mercedes"

SIMPLES Week 5 Updated

There is a reason you shouldn't work ahead of the class. There were very specific rules we needed to follow for week 5, but since I worked ahead I didn't know them. So here is the week 5 mani I did that followed the rules properly. China Glaze "Snow" with "Celtic Sun (Neon)" over it and dotted with LA Girls black dotting polish. It looks greenish in the picture but its actually a neon yellow.

SIMPLES ~ Basic Dots

So yeah, I'm just gonna skip over the month of May. No real reason, I just got busy and time just slipped away. It happens. But back to business. I've joined another new FaceBook group, this time one started for the sole purpose of introducing people to nail art. It's called SIMPLES- Nails Art from Muggle to Mastery. It was started by Debbie Crumpet of The Crumpet. It's a wonderful way to get new people interested in nail art by starting very basically and working your way up to more complex designs. The first month was dedicated to just getting people used to the idea of having more than one color on their nails, but I did this manicure with week 5 in mind. Dots!

I started off with a coat of Wet n Wild "Black Creme". I've been having some problems with my undies showing around the edge of my nails so I purposely didn't paint this coat right up to the edge.

I then did 2 coats of Orly "Haily's Comet" The fact that the undies didn't go all the way to the edge is nearly invisible in real life, but for some reason this picture shows it clearly on my thumb.

I then used my new dotting tools I just picked up at Wal-Mart to make big and small dots on just one side of the nail. I used an old discontinued Sally Hansen color called "Black Pearl Chrome". Sally Hansen has just released new chrome colors and I'm dying to pick a couple up and see if they match up to the old discontinued chrome colors.

And there you go! A very basic dot manicure that I really love. I think I'll go back and do the first 4 weeks as well. I'd like to follow along, I'm sure there are techniques I've never done before. Here is the plan for SIMPLES:

Let's Just Paint

Week 1 - Plain Accent Nail

Week 2 - Plain Skittle

Week 3 - Ombre

Week 4 - Saran Wrap

Basic Dotting

Week 5 - Dotting Tools - Basic Dots

Week 6 - Dotting Tools - Mixed Dots

Week 7 - Dotting Tools - Multi-Coloured Dots

Week 8 - Dotting Tools - Dots Within Dots

Back To Bases

Week 9 - Splodging

Week 10 - Watercolour

Week 11 - Gradient !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Putting It Together

Week 12 - A Splodged Base or Saran Wrap Base With Dots

Week 13 - A Skittle with Dots

Week 14 - A Gradient with Dots

Dotting Tools Do More Than Dots

Week 15 - Ruffle

Week 16 - Leopard

Week 17 - Camoflage

Week 18 - Flowers

China Glaze Water Marbling Kit.

I wasn't planning on doing another water marble post so soon after that last one, but at Sally's Beauty Supply yesterday I came across marbling kits that I was very excited to try! China Glaze polishes are 5.99 with a Sally's card and the kit is 13.99. In the kit is 4 polishes, a plastic cup and a small orange stick. So it was way cheaper to purchase the kit than to get the polishes individually. Twirlin' and Swirlin' (pictured above) comes with the polishes "That's Shore Bright" "Pink Plumeria" "Snow" and "Too Yacht To Handle". There is a second set that I didn't purchase called Spin Me Round. I already owned "Celtic Sun" and just got "Snow" in the other kit, so I just bought the 2 other colors "Turned up Turquoise" and "I'm With The Lifeguard" to finish that set. Nouveau Cheap just did a post on both kits as well.

First up the cup that comes with the set is considerably smaller than the cup I'm used to using. Now I thought right away that it was useless and I'd never end up using it, but it is actually pretty nice. I'd never used something so small, and with smaller cups you can get more intricate designs.

Like all marbles, first up you paint your nails white and tape up the finger. Add the polishes to the water, swirl em around, and dip in your finger. For better directions check out my water marbling post here.

See? With the smaller cup you can get more design to show up on the nail easier. Cleaning the surface of the water was easier as well.

And here is the finished product. I only did on finger to test it. After this success I decided to do a whole hand using the polishes that come in the other kit Spin Me Round. "Turned Up Turquoise" gave me fits, but otherwise all the polishes work very well for marbling. I am impressed!