I've got the blues

Julie G Dance in the Dark gives me the blues. Why? Because it's blue.

Now many of you may not think that's such a bad thing. Honestly I wouldn't think it a bad thing either except that I thought I was getting a purple polish when I bought it. Really, it appeared to be a blue-leaning purple in the store but when I started applying it all I got was blue. Blue blue BLUE.

I suppose it's not a bad blue but it wasn't what I was expecting at all :(

That isn't my camera turning it blue. It really is a deep, vibrant blue. This is two coats, taken in full sun.

Obviously I wasn't happy with with the color so I topped it with Essie Shine of the Times.

Sparkles are usually a sure-fire way to cheer up :)

What I Wore to my Friend's Wedding

A couple weeks ago a very good friend of mine from school got married and asked me to do her nails for the big day. I was still in school at the time and got to give her a mani/pedi (and get credit for it too, bwahahaha!) For her toes she chose Wet n Wild Blue Wants to be a Millionaire. On her fingers she went with a variation of a manicure she'd seen online. The original was a pale gold with a champagne-colored glitter gradient on the tips, her variation was a pale blue with a silver glitter gradient. We used Maybelline Wet Shine Diamond Gems in Sparkling Opal as the base color and Nicole by OPI Make U Smile for the gradient.

Of course I still had to get my own nails done once I got home! For a base I chose Pure Ice Jaguar and layered a coat of L'Oreal Silver Sparkle over it and a coat of a self-made flakie polish (Angel's Breath, made from TKB's flakies) over that. Of course it was cloudy and I was under time constraints so I wasn't able to get any photos of my base color alone but here's a photo of the polishes I used, and one of the finished mani:

I'm so happy for my friend. I hope her and her husband have a long and happy relationship together <3

Layering Fun

I can't believe I still haven't posted this one yet! This is one of the new Sally Hansen Diamond Strength polishes, Black Tie (two coats w/ top coat, full sun):

Then I topped this with one coat each of Sally Hansen Princess Cut, another new Diamond Strength polish, and Finger Paints Motley and another layer of top coat:

There is nothing I won't put flakies over XD

Treasure Box Nails

Here's a post I've been sitting on for a while. And guess what, it features yet another franken! I hope you aren't getting sick of the franken posts quite yet, I'm just starting to discover how much fun frankening can be with pigments, not just polishes. But this particular franken was made just from other polishes (nameless blue-grey, WnW red creme, CG Nailslicks Dark Denim). I call it Look East at Sunset.

Two coats and top coat, full sun

Apologies for the lack of clean up here but I was intending on stamping immediately after and didn't want to waste time and energy doing clean up twice. I chose Zoya Trixie for stamping and let me tell you, that is an EXCELLENT stamping polish! Since all I have for stamping plates is the MASH set I didn't have any true full-coverage designs so I chose to double stamp. I used Mash-02 for the upper part of the nail and Mash-08 for the rest.

I then layered two coats of Finger Paints Twisted over the top:

Wow! Look at that sparkle! I absolutely loved this combination. My only regret is that I couldn't have kept this on longer!

Nail-Venturous Polishes - Rustic Remains & Man-maid Dreams

A couple posts ago you might have seen me mention two special polishes: Rustic Remains and Man-maid Dreams, made by the talented writer of the I'm Feeling Nail-Venturous blog, Amy. I had the happy opportunity to do a swap with her, two of my frankens for two of hers. I can't think of a better swap that that! Later this weekend I'll be doing a post on the two polishes I sent her but this post is about the two that I received from her.

First I decided to kill two birds with one stone and, since Rustic Remains is more of a layering polish, I used Essie Tea and Crumpets as my base color. The photos below are as follows: T&C by itself; with one coat of RR; with two coats of RR. All photos taken in direct sun.

This lovely copper flakie went on like a dream. Smooth, even, and all the flakies lay flat on the nail. There is an absolutely stunning green and gold sparkle to this that photos just can't do justice to. I certainly recommend clicking these photos to see the bigger size!

Then I decided to add a bit more pop with some stamping using Rimmel London Burgundy Flirt. Well whadda ya know, turns out that BF is a jelly! And a jelly was much better than a creme for what I had planed anyway.

I wish I could have done as much justice with my photos for Man-maid Dreams, unfortunately we got three days of clouds while I was wearing it and the sun only came out after I had gotten a couple chips in my mani. Despite the chips I just had to get a photo of this polish in the sun.

See what I mean? This gorgeous shimmery turquoise polish has a lovely treasure of golden flakies which, just like Rustic Remains, lay flat on the nail when applied. I was a little nervous with the first coat as it seemed a bit sheer but the second coat assuaged my fears with full opacity. Honestly, I would normally have done some nail art but I just couldn't think of a single polish in my stash that would complement this beauty.

So there you have it. Two gorgeous flakie polishes made by one very talented lady. If you want to learn more about her franken polishes I definitely suggest you go visit her blog. Heck, visit anyway, I'm sure she'd be happy to have you visit!

Adventures in Stamping: Julep Selena

I apologize in advance for my swatch photo. Having two kids that are not yet school age tends to put some dings in my manicures and unfortunately that can often happen before I get a chance to take photos. Then when I'm planning to layer over a color I sometimes don't bother to fix the dings since, unless they're quite major, the layering polish tends to cover any imperfections. That said, here is Julep Selena, two coats. I got it in my penny box along with Boris & Nicole.

Next I layered it with two coats of Finger Painted Flashy:

 Shade

Sun

Then I stamped over it with Zoya Angelique and Mash-23 and added a coat of Essie As Gold as it Gets:

My stamping is definitely getting better. Still a little crooked, but better. And yes, I'll admit it, I redid a couple of these multiple times. I read a little tip somewhere saying to put down a top coat before stamping so that you could use a bit of polish remover to remove the stamping without damaging the rest of the mani and it really works.

When you can't find the sun . . .

. . . Paint sunshine on your nails! Well, that was the idea anyway. So I got out my bottle of China Glaze Sun Worshiper . . . and three coats later I still had VNL! D: Either this polish is not representative of most neons or I must be spoiled by Zoya's neons which cover to opacity in just two coats. Still, I love the color itself.

So, rather that just continue to layer coats on until it reached opacity I decided to layer something else on top. I chose Sinful Colors Serena & Chloe. Here's two coats over Sun Worshiper:

I loved the contrast of this with my sugar dish from my tea set!

And since I'm still experimenting with all the flakies I got I decided to layer Finger Paints Asylum on top:

Not content with that I decided to try some nail art but I had no idea what to do. This was before my stamper arrived so I couldn't use my plates at this point. I should have known better and just let it be. But no, I couldn't do the smart thing. So I grabbed Zoya Harmonie and managed to totally flub everything.

I know, most of you will probably actually like it, but it just wasn't what I was picturing in my mind. I really should learn to have a concrete plan before going ahead with these things.

Oh, by the by, I have started up a Facebook page for my blog! I haven't figured out how to get a button for it in my sidebar yet though so until then here's the link: Painted Pixies on Facebook. Hope to see you over there!

Belated Holiday Nail Art

I was just now looking through my unposted photo stash and realized that I never posted my Christmas or New Year manis! Shame on me! So I'm posting them now. Better late than never . . . right?

First up is a mani I did for a friend at school. I used Milani Ruby Jewels and Pure Ice Peach Sorbet:

Next is the mani I did the week before Christmas. The base is Zoya Sooki with a coat of Milani Ruby Jewels. The stripes are China Glaze It's Alive and Sinful Colors This is It and the "snowflakes" are NYC French Tip White. I think the glitter on top is Wet n Wild Hallucinate.

And last but not least, my New Year mani. The base color is Borghese Stellare Notte with one coat of Finger Paints Motley, Wet n Wild Blue Wants to be a Millionaire sponged on the tips, and a second layer of Motley on top.

Winterberry and Flakies

Ok, so last week I posted about the new Sally Hansen Diamond Strength polish bottles. At the end I posted a pic of the SH flakie I picked up along with Sinful Colors Winterberry. I had lots of fun playing with the combo last week, especially since I picked up two of the new Essie Luxeffects colors: Shine of the Times and As Gold as it Gets! My flakie collection is now up to four if you count the Revlon Scented Orange Fizz polish I got this summer.

My new flakies!

Sinful Colors Winterberry; two coats

Winterberry with one coat of SH Glass Slipper

Plus one coat of Essie Shine of the Times, artificial light

In shade

Full sun

Blurred to see the sparkle better

And of course I couldn't leave it at that so I put black tips on with Sinful Colors Black on Black:

Then covered the whole thing with another coat of Shine of the Times:

I'm really looking forward to experimenting more with my new flakies :D

What I found at Rite Aid

Hey look! A post during the week! I was just too excited about this to wait until Saturday though. I apologize for the cell phone pics but I don't exactly carry my Nikon D40 into Rite Aid. And what was I doing in Rite Aid tonight? What do you think a polish addict does? Shops for polish of course! I had $4 of  +Up rewards to use before Saturday though so I totally had a valid excuse . . . . >.>

Anyway! I'm sure you want to see what I found, right? RIGHT? Good, 'cause I was gonna tell you anyway :P

So, the first thing that popped out at me was a full display of the Sally Hansen Gems collection. Sorry, didn't get a pic of it but there were so many of them that looked like complete dupes for other polishes that I'd seen and I've seen them swatched in enough blogs that I didn't really think a pic was needed.

The next thing was a display of the new Sally Hansen Salon Effects strips:

I must say that I absolutely ADORE Love Letters! I also found the Effects strips Christmas collection:

Aaaaaaaaaaaand, would you believe it? I found VALENTINES strips out already!

Just a weeeeee bit early for that don't you think? Anyway, the find that I absolutely fell in love with was a display of the new Sally Hansen Diamond Strength polishes/bottles. I'd heard in one of my Facebook groups that they had released new bottles but I had heard nothing about new polishes!

I kinda like the new bottles. But I REALLY like the new colors. Why? BECAUSE THERE ARE FLAKIES!  That's right, FLAKIES! The display here doesn't have all the new colors but it does have two of the three flakie polishes (I know there are three because there was also a brochure with the display showing all the new colors.

Of course, I knew EXACTLY what I was using my $4 +Up rewards for! I grabbed a bottle of Glass Slipper (large white flakies) and a bottle of Sinful Colors Winterberry to go with it. I can hardly wait to try out that combo this weekend! Now I just need to hunt down Princess Cut (flakies in pale pink base) and Black Tie (black duochrome).

Glass Slipper and Winterberry

What about you? Have you found these new Sally Hansen polishes? If you've posted swatches I'd love to see them!