Grey Forest

 

It's still dull and grey outside. I've been trying to do a perspective mani for a while. Mostly at Halloween with tombstones, but I just haven't gotten the hang of it yet. This one actually turned out ok. I started with an off white base, Sally Hansen's Coconut. Over that I stamped with Maniology's Front Page, Literary Classic and Straight Up Black. I considered adding a glitter over it but eventually decided against that. I did add a silhouette of Santa's sleigh and deer flying above, but it was too much and I'm glad I got a pic of it before I did that. The trees were stamped with Maniology's MXM078 and MXM108

Snowflake Pond

 

I love pond manis. The depth hinted at is fascinating to me. It's a fairly simple illusion to achieve using sheer polishes. Here I've used a sheer blue (I've recently moved and it is still in a box. I've forgotten the name of it but I think its a Sally Hansen) then stamped a couple snowflakes in Maniology's Bam!White. Then another coat of the sheer blue, another couple snowflakes. Keep repeating until you have the effect you are going for. The first snowflakes you stamp with be the faintest and the sheer blue builds up over it. The last snowflakes will be the brightest. I'm fairly certain I also layered Funky Fingers' Olaf, a matte white glitter and snowflake confetti in between the sheer blue too for more interest. 

Deep Blue Snowflakes

 

This is prolly one of the best gradients I've ever done! I was worried when I picked up Kraken, it just seemed too dark, but look at that! It turned out great! Kraken, Alice, and Blue Ribbon from Maniology make up the gradient. Bam! White is the stamped white from Maniology's plate MXM 116. I think I also used Sally Hansen's Disco Ball for a bit of sparkle. 

Sweet and Spooky Carnival

 

I tried my hand at a Sweet and Spooky mani today! It's October and I love this season. I've been posting a little (really very little) on TikTok and they had this neat filter thing that would change on picture into another. I wanted to do something that looks sweet and innocent but then would turn creepy. I also have to practice my reverse stamping (I'm still so rubbish at that). So I have the happy Fun Fair mani up top with balloon animals, candy and confetti. 

But then....

A Creepy Carnival with clowns, spiders and skulls!

I'll do my best to remember all the plates and polishes I used. 

Fun Fair: Maniology MXM 094 and MXM 095 

Sally Hansen base colors and Maniology Stamping colors.

FreakShow: Maniology M 312 and BM S244 (which I think has a new number but I'm not sure what it is)

The base colors of polish I think were Sinful Colors, Sally Hansen and Maniology. The stamping colors are all Maniology.

Pink Water Marble with Injured Finger. *WARNING* Graphic Photo After The Break!

Late in 2015 or early 2016 I got my finger caught in our car door. I really mangled and bruised my index finger to the point that we thought I might loose the nail. I didn't but it was a close thing. I went weeks without painting my nails letting the bad one heal up until it was driving me crazy and I painted all but the bad one. I say all this because after the jump break there is a picture of my hurt finger. It's not really that bad, most of the damage had healed by the time I did this, but it is a very large nasty bruise. I just want to warn you, if that makes you squeamish DO NOT CLICK THROUGH TO THE REST OF THE POST. All the important information is right here, there is only more pictures on the other side and one is of my hurt hand. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!

Oh, this is a water marble using 3 Sally Hansen colors that I can't remember the name to. A very pale pink, a bubble gum pink and a dark pink.

Halloween 2021 Black to White Spiderwebs

I'm loving this simple gradient. Sally Hansen's black fades into a cool Orly grey and into Pueen's stamping white. I wanted the spiderwebs (a MoYou stamping plate) to fade into the white at the tips so I used the same stamping white to stamp the webs. It kind of worked. You can still see the webs at the tips so they didn't fade completely away. This is all so a rare shot of my right (or Cindy) hand. The left one got some weird wrinkling and bubbling going on in the top coat. I think I globed it on too thick because I was worried about smearing the stamping and it just dried weird because of it. But in my defense I was running late for work.

Hand made and painted mask, hand made hat, hand done make up and polish...I am loving this!

In The Valley Of Kings

    Forgive the poor dry cuticles, I'm working on getting my nails back to picture perfect. Well, maybe like picture acceptable? Anyway, this was a challenge to use a plate I haven't yet played with. This is another BundleMonster (now Maniology) plate. BM-S250 which is now M063. A couple coats of Sally Hansen's "Coconut" from the Jelly Belly collection. I really like this polish because it is a "warm" white. Not really a cream or off white, but not super bleach brilliant white either. Stamped with Sinful Colors (I don't remember the name of it but it had "rock" in the title) and Maybelline's "Bold Gold" my fav gold stamping polish. I had a scarab beetle on one finger with a dot of blue for it's shell, but I disliked it so much I redid the whole finger. Sometimes less truly is more.

    This was a simple stamp, but I would like to try more with it in the future. I love the Egyptian feel to it and would like to incorporate more color to it.

Very proud of how straight the lines came out. No waviness at all!

Celtic Knotwork

I think this is from St. Patrick's Day 2015? or 2016? I don't think the color is my beloved China Glaze "Running In Circles". I'm pretty sure it's Wet n Wild's "Emerald City"? I'm pretty sure it's layered over another green, but I'm not sure. It could just be several coats of "Emerald City.  Stamped with a black, probably Cosmetic Arts "TGIF" and a gold that might be Maybelline's "Bold Gold". A lot of this is guess work. It's been a long time since I did these nails.

Dot Mandala

I love the look of dot mandalas. I just don't have the hang of doing them myself quite yet. While this isn't bad, it's not quite right yet. This mani was done a few years ago (I'm working on getting my old posts up) so I'm not entirely sure what colors I used. As a guess I'd say mostly Sally Hansen.

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

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.

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.

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...)

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

Dragonscales

I am so in love with these nails! The mottled look of the scales is stunning! On Messy Mansion's facebook page a fan posted dragonscale nails and I fell in love with them I just had to try them myself. I don't see a blog post from her but I will link to the facebook post here. I don't know what polishes Jae K used, but I painted my nails first with 2 coats of Sinful Colors "Clementine" I then sponged a little bit of Sally Hansen "Lighting" in patches. Where I didn't put "Lighting" is sponged just a teeny tiny amount of Essie "Fifth Avenue". Then I sponged all over it again with "Clementine" to blend all the edges. I went over the top of the red and yellow to make them not so bold. This way it all looked like shades of orange.

Satisfied with the base colors, I then stamped over it with MM21. Scales on all fingers, but a dragon for the accent nail. I used Cosmetic Arts "TGIF". To give you an idea of how big the stamps are, here is my nails before clean up:

More than satisfactory for my nail length.

Here is Jae's picture:

And mine again:

One of my better Monkey See, Monkey Do mani's if I do say so myself.

Koi Fish.

I almost named this post "Jelly Fish" for no other reason than it made me giggle. After my fail of a seahorse, I still wanted to try making an image go across all my nails. Other than a little mess up on the middle finger (it's a bit twisted) I really like it! I painted my nails white (when my bottles of white get low I pour them all into one bottle, so this is a mixture of Sally Hansen "White On", Wet n Wild "French White Creme" and Milani "White On The Spot") I then stamped with Cosmetic Arts "TGIF" using Messy Mansion plate MM29. I colored in the Koi using OPI "Y'all Come Back Ya Hear?" making sure to leave uncolored white patches. Then I filled in the water with a frankened blue jelly I made. I love this so much more than my seahorse from the other day!

And here is the Koi fish for comparison in-case you're not sure what a real one looks like.

Police Nails

My Uncle just celebrated 30 years with the police force and will be retiring soon. I just got Messy Mansion's plate MM28. Coincidence? I think not. The universe is obviously telling me I need to do a crime and punishment mani so here it is. I rushed the stamping a bit because I was running late for work, but over all I like how it turned out! Index, middle and pinkie are all painted an unnamed grey from Fingr's and stamped over with BundleMonster's BM414 using Wet n Wild "Black Creme". I then used MM28 again and Cosmetic Arts "Picture Day" to add some fun images. Oh, the DNA strands are from MM25. The ring and thumb are Sally Hansen "Lighting" stamped with MM28 again in "Black Creme". I really do like it. The grey fingers remind me of fingerprint dust. Many people don't know this, but I started taking classes thinking I wanted to get into forensic science. That was the vague plan anyway. Then one semester I took a microbiology class as just a prerequisite and fell in love with micro. So Forensics fell to the back-burner as Micro took front stage, but it still holds a soft spot in my heart.