Indie Brand Manicure Contest Entry

Nails by Kayla Shevonne is holding a nail art contest and I, like a ninny, have waited until the very last minute to post my entry even though I finished and photographed it weeks ago. The theme of this contest is Indie brand polishes. Everything, or nearly everything, used has to be a polish made by an independent nail polish brand.

In order from pinkie to thumb I used: Chromatological Constructs (CC) Kashmiri Namkeen Chai, CC Chough, Nail Venturous Lacquers Granite, CC Kashmiri Namkeen Chai, CC Chough.

On the pinkie and index nails I did a gradient using CC Bai Hao (Oriental Beauty). On the middle nails I gradiented with CC Chough.

I then did a glitter gradient on the pinkie and index nails with Sonoma Nail Art Clockwork. I used CC Bai Hao to create the lace patterns and the design on the middle nail as well.

With a toothpick I placed individual glitters from Sonoma Clockwork onto the lace patterns.

Chromatological Constructs is a line I have been working on myself over the last six months. Chough is a polish from the Corvus collection. Bai Hao and Kashmiri Namkeen Chai are from the Camelia Sinensis collection. These polishes are not for sale yet but one of my goals this summer is to get the materials I need in bulk to be able to produce these for sale.

Nurse! I need a Doctor!

I had a LOT of fun with this manicure. I also got to test the school-glue-as-peel-off-basecoat method since I knew I was going to be using glitter. Huzzah for planning!

I used one coat of glue on my nails and let it dry completely before applying my regular base coat and two coats of Essie Skirting the Issue. Which, I might mention is THE perfect blood red jelly for Halloween manicures. I am so glad I bought this!

Then I used Orly Right Amount of Evil and topped with another coat of Skirting the Issue and top-coated with OTD top coat.

I waited about twelve hours before moving on to the next part of the manicure just to make sure everything was dry and set. With a toothpick and a cuticle pusher I then went to work peeling of the polish on my ring finger nails. I know, I know, I could have made everything simpler if I'd just skipped over those nails in the first place but I hadn't thought about the next little touch until I was already started. And besides, it gave me an excuse to test the glue-as-base-coat without ruining the entire mani.

 No nail damage!

All peeled off!

Peeling it off did take nearly as long as if I had just stuck my finger in acetone to soak the stuff off but it certainly resulted in less nail damage! Perhaps it would have been easier if I'd used two coats of glue.

After cleaning off the residual polish with remover I used my regular base coat and Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure Green Tea on my newly-bare nails. I decided to try out another glue tip and covered the area of my finger around my nails with glue in preparation for a bit of splatter. I did mention that Skirting the Issue is THE perfect blood red, right?

Prepped for splatter

Messy messy messy

 Left hand

Right hand

So now that my family officially thinks I'm strange . . . Oh who am I kidding, they already knew it! LOL! And yes, that is a syringe pen. I picked it up for a dollar at the Spirit Halloween store. I kind of smudged the red splatter on my left hand with the top coat but I think I like it better that way honestly. It makes it look more real.

Caught in the Spiderwebs

Ok, it's about time I kick my butt back into gear when it comes to updating this blog. I've been sitting around since my work season ended enjoying the feeling of not having to do a darn thing other than take care of my kids. I have also been enjoying being able to finally do nail art without worrying about having it completely wrecked the next day. Whoohooo! So I've been busy with that and now I need to post what I've been playing around with.

First up I decided to celebrate my freedom by using a neon I bought in the middle of the summer but couldn't wear to work. Orly Hot Shot is a coral neon. It's about halfway between magenta and orange. I used two coats of Hot Shot and one of OTD top coat for the following photos:

I then used one of my frankens, a dark brown with holo glitter called Stage Whisper, to do a funky french and then sketched spiderwebs with white acrylic ink:

 Right hand.

Left hand.

I love how these spiderwebs turned out and I give major kudos to the lovely writer of Nailing This who came up with this technique <3 I've played around with the inks a bit since I discovered this video and will try to post those experiments later, after Halloween. Before then I still have three more Halloween looks to post about so stay tuned!

Fashion's Night Out Nails

How many of you attended Fashion's Night Out? Did you know that the event isn't only located in NYC? That's right! There are 16+ countries with cities and towns that hold FNO events all over the world! And I'm lucky enough to live in one of those towns! Ok, so it wasn't anything near the extravaganza of NYC but it was still fun and who doesn't love an excuse to dress up?

And of course I had to do something special with my nails! Luckily I had gotten my BOGO promo order from Zoya the week before so I had some new pretties to play around with. I chose Zoya Dakota as a base color. I love how glossy this polish is even without topcoat!

Taken indoors, no flash. 2 coats of polish, no topcoat.

Taken outdoors, 2 coats of polish with topcoat.

Then I used Essie As Good as Gold for a funky french tip:

Taken indoors with flash

And stamped with the same using Cheeky Jumbo Plate H:

 Taken indoors with flash.

Taken in full sun

I kind of wish I had stopped there but I had really wanted to use Zoya Katherine also since, you know NYFW 2012 collection, it was FNO, yada yada yada. Oh well, here's what my nails looked like layered with one coat of Katherine:

Still pretty, but not as blingy as before. So when you make a boo boo what do you do? Add glitter! I used Sonoma Polish Clockwork on the tips to bring that bling feel back:

Ahhhhh! Much better! 

And what is FNO without some swag? There were no freebies in town but I did find a store with butter London polishes and 20% off everything in the store!

 From Evergreen Pottery

 Tramp Stamp and Dodgy Barnett from Macey's

Facinator, scarf and a back-up tin of Smith's Rosebud Salve from The Village Emporium

So how about you? Did any of you have fun during FNO? Tell me all about it!

Rock Hard

Today I am going to show you my favorite polish for the year 2012. Yes, I know the year isn't anywhere near over yet. But even if the entire Jade holographic collection showed up in my mail box tomorrow this would STILL be my favorite polish of the year. What polish could possibly be that awesome? Answer: Nail-Venturous Lacquers Granite!

This is a white jelly base with white and copper hex glitters and micro black glitters. It applies like butter and I hardly had to do any special glitter placement to get the larger hexes distributed. I put this on and immediately fell in love.

Actually, I fell in love all over again. See, there's a bit of a story about this polish and me.

It started on Facebook.

Amy and I were talking and she showed me and a few other people a photo of one of her newest creations, a white jelly with copper and white hex glitters and micro-fine teal glitter. I said, and I quote, "OMGosh, you need to do this with black glitter instead of the teal! It would look exactly like granite!" She thought it was such a great idea she immediately made and swatched it and showed me the photo. 

Love. At. First. Sight.

Of course I had to get a bottle! 

And then I HAD to wear it when it got to me! 

And then I had another brilliant idea: matte top coat! If my nails resembled a polished counter-top with a glossy top coat then they would look like a water-rounded stone with the matte coat.

Oh. My. Gosh. Fantastic! 

And then: nail art!

I'm a bit of a nut for steampunk and I saw someone else do free handed cogs in a manicure so I said to myself, "if she can do it so can I!" And so I did. And I LOVE IT! <3

And of course after seeing these photos all I want to do is use Granite again! 

Franken Sweets

Ok, this has taken a bit longer to post than I had planned, sorry about that!

So, in my last post you got to see two of my newest frankens stamped over white. In this post you get to see both of them as full manis! First up I have Rooibos (See my Franken List for the polishes I used to create it). I meant this to be a bit more of a burnt orange than it turned out but I think I like it just the way it is. I know my clients the day I wore it loved it. One of them even basically said that she'd buy it off me if I had my bottle with me!

Anyway, without further ado, I give you Rooibos (two coats plus top coat):

There's an obvious copper/gold shimmer but if you click the photo to see it larger there are also glimmers of pink and green.


Next up is Sugar & Spice, a lovely frosted gold with subtle copper shimmer (two coats plus top coat):

I absolutely love how this one came out, although I might consider adding more of the burning leave reflects from TKB to it for more copper tones. As you saw in my previous post is is an excellent stamping polish.

And then I decided to add an accent nail so I used Rooibos on my ring fingers:

And just in time! My bottle of Clockwork from Sonoma Nail Art's sale arrived so I added a coat of that on the accent nail as well and another layer of top coat:

What a perfect combo <3

It's been 1 year already!

I can hardly believe it's been one year since I started my little blog here. I admit, when I first started I hadn't meant for this to turn into polish, polish and more polish. I'd meant to post more about my gardening and jam-making but then I started cosmetology school and had hardly any time for anything else, I was lucky to be able to squeeze blog posts in on the weekends and at least I could take photos of my nails at school. So everything else got bumped out of the picture last year, perhaps it'll make a debut this year instead.

But for now I have a nice little giveaway to celebrate the occasion! Yeah, I thought you'd like that ;) The current prizes available are: Sinful Colors Cinderella, Milani Neon Awesome Orange, Rimmel London 60 Seconds Magnetise, Maybelline Express Finish Coral Glaze, Wet n Wild For-Bitten Love, Sally Girl 812112, and Sally Girl 812054.

I will also include a bottle of my newest Pixie Paints franken: Dragonfly. I loved this so much I made two bottles, one to keep for myself and one just for the winner of this giveaway.

All together that's six full-sized bottles of polish and two minis! All of this is going to one lucky winner! Will it be you? Why don't you enter and find out!

Rules: Open to residents of the US 18 years and older. Any information provided by the entrant will only be used to contact them in the case that they are the winner. This giveaway ends 12:01am EST June 1st. Winner will be contacted by email after the giveaway ends and must reply within 48 hours or a new winner will be drawn.


a Rafflecopter giveaway

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

Graduation Nails

Whooohoooooooo! I did it! I made it through cosmetology school! And what better way to celebrate than with some awesome nails? And what is more awesome than a super bright and sparkly ORANGE polish? And if you didn't see that one coming you should stop right here and go read the rest of my blog LOL!

So what awesome orange polish did I choose? Well, I wanted to check something off my untried list as well so I grabbed Color Club Sparkle and Soar from the new Take Wing Collection. I love this polish, it's bright and sparkly and best of all it's orange <3 The picture below was taken with two coats of polish and one of OTD top coat.

Of course I had to put this on earlier in the week knowing I'd have no time later for a full manicure change before my graduation day so I had planned out my layering in advance. The next day I added a coat of Nail-Venturous Lacquers Humble Bee and another of OTD. I absolutely love this combo:

For the actual day of my graduation I decided to add just a touch more shimmer and layered another Nail-Venturous polish on top, my beloved Rustic Remains:

Beeeeee-eautiful, if I do say so myself!

Berry Sweet

Wow, life sure got busy for a bit there! BUT, I am back and ready for some more posting! I have also realized something that makes me very excited: the OPI Nail Envy I have been using has really been working! What used to be nubbins on my index and middle fingers have now finally grown past my fingertips and beyond! I now promise to do my best to keep all my nails to the same length unless a) I break a nail - I refuse to sacrifice hard won length for an accident, and b) with the exception of my pinky nail which I have always preferred to keep longer than my other nails anyway.

So, now that we have that established on to something a bit more fun for the rest of you: nail art! A couple weeks ago BerryPolished had a nail art contest over on her facebook page with a theme of, what else, berries. I had a couple ideas that ended up not working out due to malfunctioning stamping plates but I really like the idea I ended up going with (that I totally cam up with on the fly the day before the end of the contest).

I started with two coats of L'Oreal How Romantic:

I then stamped over that with Zoya Kate using Cheeky plate CH3. And yes, the unfinished look is deliberate . . . mostly.

Then I used L'Oreal Haute Couture Red and Cheeky plate CH13 to add strawberries, and Zoya Yara with CH26 to add a bit of contrast while keeping with the country garden look.

And that is what I was GOING to submit to the contest until the second day of wearing the design. You should know me well enough by now, if you've been following along for a bit, that I can't leave anything alone. Almost any design can be improved upon and this was no exception. Well I went and added a coat of Wet n Wild Hallucinate over top of it all and loved it so much that I just had to submit that version instead.

Isn't it just so cute! I absolutely love how this turned out and I also love that my nails are now long enough to really show off cute designs like this <3

Frankens: Good enough to swap

So in my last post I mentioned two frankens that I made and swapped for two polishes from Amy over at I'm Feeling Nail-Venturous. Well here I am to tell you all about them!

First up is Make a Scene, a bright orange with copper and holo glitter. To make this polish I used Sinful Colors Pinky Glitter, All About You, Serena and Chloe, Pure Ice Hot Tamale, and Supernail glitter in Sunset & Silver Rush. This is actually the first bright orange that I've made. I had been trying to think of a color that was different from all other frankens I had done and realized that orange was not on my list yet. Considering my love for the color I just had to rectify that oversight!

This is two coats of Make a Scene with one coat of OTD top coat.

I just happened to be wearing this when I finally bought OPI A Roll in the Hague and just had to use it. So I did a diagonal tip with Rill in the Hague with a line of Pure Ice Jaguar to delineate the two orange polishes.

And if you think it can't get any better than that wait until you see the next polish! Prestidigitation is a gorgeous (if I do say so myself) purple jelly polish absolutely PACKED with iridescent and holo glitter. I lost count of the number of facebook notifications I got just after posting some of the following photos in one of the Facebook groups I'm in. The following photos show three coats of Prestidigitation and two coats of OTD top coat. Yeah, it's a bit of a hungry glitter and a pain to get off but oh so worth it!

Taken with flash

Close-up 

Full sun

Full sun

You better be clicking those photos to get the full effect because if you don't you are really missing out! To get such a glitter-packed polish I used Sinful Colors Pinky Glitter, SH HD Laser, WnW Blue Wants to be a Millionaire, and China Glaze Flying Dragon (finally, a good use for Flying Dragon!).

Luckily the ingredients for both of these polishes are still readily available so I was able to make a second set to send to Amy and keep the originals for myself ;)