Sunday, May 26, 2013

It's Memorial Day Weekend!

To commemorate the occasion, I went full on into the theme this week with a patriotic, picnicy, and bbq type vibe. I have really been enjoying my Winstonia plates and used the stars and stripe pattern for my ring finger. Most of the nails were based in Whirlwind White, with a blue gradient under the S&S pattern. The pointer fingers are teenie burgers which I got the idea for from the very talented lady at Nerd Nails! The picnic blankets were achieved using a mash stamping plate with a hot pink polish, and blocking in the solid squares with red polish. These took a bit of time, but I'm happy with the outcome:


oh, and I also used some loose iridescent star glitters in the free spaces of the gradient nail stamp. They were the perfect size! I was so pleased. :-)

The other mani I've done this weekend is my dragon mani! I was inspired by my new obsession of watching Game of Thrones. (There are dragons!) I had picked up a few new polishes and thought that the pretty color from lovecharlottexo was the perfect scaly dragon egg dupe. If there were such a thing. 

The scales on the dark purple nails are done with Winstonia plate 101. I liked the random variation in the pattern. I used it again on the dragon eye, but turned it sideways to show more of the larger scales. The ring fingers are flames, because what dragon would be complete without a little fire. I freehanded the eye on both thumbs, though you can still def tell which is my dominant hand. :-/  The left hand was clear topcoat, and the right hand was holo topcoat. In retrospect, should have been a bit lighter handed with the holo, it drown out my stamps on some nails. 

So, let the summer begin! Hope everyone has a great weekend and thank a service member if you get a chance. :-D

R.


Thursday, May 9, 2013

It's almost time for GATSBY!

I am beyond excited to see this movie. And the best part, I get to go by myself! I know usually people don't think of that as a good thing, but when you have two small kids and a husband who hates chick flicks, believe me, it's a good thing!

I've been amassing more polishes again, and I need to update here what I've been up! First up is my other Gatsby inspired nail design which I was super happy with the outcome for. I started with a base of Julep's Zora. I really like this color, even though I thought it was a bit boring in the bottle. It really reminds me of pearls.


Just lovely. I think it's a beautiful shade for wearing with light formal stuff. So feminine. She needed a bit more help to be a Gatsby nail though. We must live, dahling! We MUST. I decided to go with other things I find very feminine. Pearls, beads, diamonds (rhinestones), you know....the good stuff!


She's too expensive for me. But I love her anyway. ;-) It was a lot of fun to put so much embellishment on my nails, but I must admit I envy those who wear this much nail jewelry all the time. It kind of drove me crazy. I was constantly touching it. OCD is not my friend sometimes. Someone else told me they'd be pretty wedding nails. Not my taste, but I could see that it would work. 

I'm going to cluster the next few photos for sake of catching up and trying to stick with my theme. I haven't been able to post as much as I had hoped due to my husband graduating and commissioning next week. I have been absolutely exhausted most days with all the cleaning and errand running. In fact, most of my nail art has been done at somewhere between 1 and 2 a.m. most days. Also, darn those errands, because it gives me excuse to check out polishes wherever I am, and usually buy one. Or two...or five. Hmmm.

So, here is a little montage of the other stuff I've been playing around with: 


First one is a new line by Sally Hansen in texture with Sugarcoat, and depth with Fuzzycoat.
The next one is my newest mani, done with Julep's Millie. A beautiful blue/indigo shade and mash plate #39.
The third is a water decal mani. I picked up the wording decals at Walmart of all places!
Fourth is my new Holo Topcoat I got from indie polish maker Liquid Glam Lacquers. Her polishes are so unique and lovely! 
And last is my first attempt at one stroke flowers. It was definitely a lot harder to do than I thought originally, but something I will try to do again. :-)

So that catches us up on my nail saga. I have to go now, and clean pop tart off a one year old. I know you envy me. I can feel it. ;-) Bu-bye!