A blog about a girl, her nail polish, and some delicious noms.
Archive for October, 2011
31 Day Challenge: Day 22 (Inspired By A Song)
181 year ago
Good Morning!
Or should I say, Happy Halloween! 
Today is day 22 of the 31 Day Challenge, and we’re supposed to create a manicure inspired by a song. I may be reaching a little bit but I decided to base this mani around one of my absolute favorite songs, What’s A Girl To Do by Bat For Lashes. Bat For Lashes is one of my top five favorite bands and I love the music video for this song. The song is about slowly falling out of love with someone, and trying to figure out how/when to break the news to the other person. The video is dark, murky, haunting and very much about setting a foreboding mood. I decided to attempt a mood ring manicure for it since I feel like the song is mainly about the girl and her ever-changing mood about a tough situation. Only trouble is that I don’t own any of the CND Effects polishes used to create the look (examples [HERE] and [HERE], so I had to improvise…
Day 22: Inspired By A Song
I started off doing a coat of Black Creme by Wet n Wild. I then added a thin stripe of the following polishes: Blue Moon by Wet n Wild, Pure Ice Heartbreaker, Pure Ice Seafoam, Ulta’s Jaded, Sally Hansen’s Lavender Marquis and an unnamed green iridescent polish. I followed this up by adding two thin layers of Wild And Willing by Color Club (to mimic the CND Effects Copper Shimmer polish), which you can see in the following pictures.
I think I was… Somewhat successful in my mad scientist attempt at recreating the mood ring mani. The I think that if I had been able to dilute/tone down the opacity in Wild And Willing (or used only one coat instead of two) the colors beneath it would have shown more. The multi-chromatic nature of Wild And Willing throws off the copper color with flashes of green, and at some angles it looks more like Orly’s Space Cadet than it does the original mood ring mani. 
Here’s a close-up shot, you can still see the colors underneath, just not as much as I wanted them to show through. Ah well. 
And here’s a pic of the 39434.5 polishes used. 
I hope you liked today’s manicure! I’m not 100% happy with it but it could have been a lot worse I suppose. Even though it didn’t turn out exactly how I wanted it to I still think the look/effect fits the song quite well. I do think I would like to recreate this look in the future once I’m able to get my hands on the CND Effects polishes that were used for the original look. ^_^
31 Day Challenge: Day 21 (Inspired By A Color)
141 year ago
Allo!
We’re at day 21 of the 31 Day Challenge, this is the final stretch people! Today is supposed to be ‘Inspired By A Color‘. Right… ಠ_ಠ
Anyone else find this one as vague as I do? I mean… Haven’t the last 20 posts been about colors? I figured this day was left up to user interpretation, so I decided to do something fun with my favorite color. GREEN! Well, varying degrees of jade and mint green to be exact. I decided to attempt my first Ombre Nails manicure! Normally for an ombre mani you’re supposed to use the same polish blended with white to varying degrees, with the resulting look being a gradient from thumb to pinky of darkest to lightest (or light to dark). I changed it up a bit and used five polishes I had that were varying shades of jade/mint green. It’s not a perfect example of ombre nails but I like it anyway.
Don’t forget to head over to Cris and Sam’s blogs to see what color they were inspired by today.
Day 21: Inspired By A Color (Jade/Mint Ombre Nails)
From thumb to pinky I used the following shades: Orly – Green With Envy, Essie – Turquoise & Caicos, Milani – Dress Maker, Barry M - Mint Green, and Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear - Mint Sorbet. The Dress Maker polish kinda sticks out like a sore thumb compared to the rest of the colors, but NO CARE because it’s pretty. 
Not to mention it’s a almost dead-on dupe of Chanel’s infamous Jade polish! :-D
Dress Maker also has a lovely subtle shimmer, here’s a closer look (enlarge this sucker, you won’t regret it). I personally cannot get enough of these jade and mint green shades. I think it looks wonderful with my skin tone. I’m sure that once I eventually get my Helmer I’ll have to devote at least half a drawer to my continuing collection of greens.
And here’s a wonderful grainy antiqued shot of the polishes I used for this ombre manicure. ^_^
I want to thank you all again for coming to my blog every day to check out the challenge, it means a lot to me and I’m so happy to be sharing my love of polish and these new experiences with you all. ♥
31 Day Challenge: Day 20 (Water Marbling)
231 year ago
Good Morning Everyone!!
Today is the day 19, Water Marbling day, and the last day of the pattern themed nails. I’ll admit that I was absolutely TERRIFIED of water marbling. I have heard so many horror stories about the process and how difficult it is to get proper results. So I procrastinated as late as I could before I finally attempted this look. And…. Thank goodness for youtube tutorials because I LOVE IT!! I found it to be a lot easier than I thought it was going be and I’m really pleased with my results.
Don’t forget to head over to Cris and Sam’s blogs to see their water marbling nails!
Day 20: Water Marbling
I was actually pretty surprised at how easy these were for me. Now I feel silly for dreading the process so much! Each nail looks different from the next, it reminds me of tye-dye patterns.
I used four different polishes, and I forgot to take pictures of the bottles. I started out with two coats of Sally Hansen Xtreme White Out. Then I used Sally Hansen Xtreme Crushed, Sally Hansen Xtreme Deep Purple, China Glaze Rodeo Fanatic and Essie Turquoise & Caicos for the marbling.
Here’s your macro of the day! I really like the mixture of creme and shimmer polishes.
I hope you all liked these as much as I did! Now that I know how to do water marbling I definitely plan on doing this more in the future.
**EDIT**
Here’s the tutorial that I used. I want to note that I did NOT use brand new polish, I don’t feel like that’s necessary at all. And I’m not sure what she means by “high quality” because all the colors I used worked perfectly fine, regardless of whether I got them from the drugstore or a salon.
31 Day Challenge: Day 19 (Galaxy Nails)
321 year ago
Morning Everyone!
We’re at day 19 of the 31 Day Challenge and I’m really excited to show these nails to you all today! I’ve always wanted to try Galaxy Nails. I think I did a bang up job so I’ll just let the pictures speak for themselves.
Day 19: Galaxy Nails
These were SO much fun to do! I couldn’t believe how easy and spontaneous this look was to create! You pretty much just pick any “space type” colors and go to town with a make-up sponge. Don’t worry though, I took 939430940.5 pictures during the process of creating these sto expect a galaxy nail tutorial in the next few days!
So… I used a lot of colors to create this look. I won’t list them all here, I’ll save that mess for the tutorial, hah! I think I may have gotten a little carried away with the stars, but ah well. My genius boyfriend mentioned that I should have made the stars glow in the dark. WHY did I not think of that?! I have glow-in-the-dark polish! I’ll have to try that next time I do the galaxy nail look.
It would have been a total disservice today if I hadn’t included a macro shot of this look. Enlarge all of these pictures. Bask in them. It’s okay, I’m drooling too.
Now head over to Cris and Sam’s blogs to see their galaxy nails, I’m sure they’re fantastic!!
31 Day Challenge: Day 18 (Half Moons)
181 year ago
Morning Everyone!
We’re moving right along into day 18 of the 31 Day Challenge, Half Moons! I’ve always wanted to try creating the half moon look because I think it looks so chic and sophisticated! I wanted to try to re-create the Dita Von Teese half moon manicure look, but I wanted to use a more vampy/dark red than what she normally sports. I opted for layering China Glaze’s Branding Iron (a shimmering brown based red) over one coat of Orly’s Au Champagne, a gorgeous shimmering white polish from their 2011 Holiday Soirée collection (review to come).
Don’t forget to take a peek at Cris and Sam’s blogs today to see their half moon manis!
Day 18: Half Moons
I’m really quite pleased with the way these came out! Using the page reinforcement rings really made creating the half moon look SO incredibly easy. And I’m really loving the contrast between the wonderful winter white of Au Champagne and the glowing deep rich red of Branding Iron. ♥
I also filed my nails down just a mm or two, I realized how long they were getting after my glitter nails from yesterday! And for everyone wanting to know where I purchased Golden Seahorse, you can find it [HERE] but it’s currently out of stock again.
Macro shot here, the shimmer in both polishes is heavenly.
Thanks for checking out my day 18 nails! I can’t believe how easy it is to create this look! I think I’ll be playing with half moons a lot more in the future.
31 Day Challenge: Day 17 (Glitter)
251 year ago
Hey Everyone!
Today we’re hitting day 17 of the 31 Day Challenge, and it’s all about Glitter! Initially I was going to have a “Glittergate Extravaganza” twin post with Cris and we were both going to show you the new Walgreens exclusive Ice Baby collection by Wet n Wild. And then I realized I was sleepy, had to work at 10pm and did not really have enough time to swatch 8 polishes and edit photos. Sooooo, those will have to wait for another day.
Instead I’ll be showing you another long time lemming of mine, Golden Seahorse by LA Splash. This polish eluded me for quite some time until I was able to get my mitts on a bottle. And I’m glad I did because it’s a beauty.
Don’t forget to take a peek at Cris and Sam’s blogs today to see their glitter-mania for the day!
Day 17: Glitter (Golden Seahorse – LA Splash)
Golden Seahorse is a beautiful seafoam green polish filled with multi-sized golden glitter flecks. I really, REALLY, love this color. It reminds me of a beach house in a catalog, does that make sense? I used Mint Green by Barry M as my base, but next time I think I’ll just use 2-3 coats of Golden Seahorse by itself because it seems to be rather opaque.
You’re gonna want to enlarge this last macro shot so you can take this all in.
Thanks you everyone for your continued support and encouragement you have shown me so far throughout this challenge. It’s been amazing sharing all these new experience with you all! Tomorrow is Half Moon manicure day, see ya then!
31 Day Challenge: Day 16 (Tribal Print)
231 year ago
Hey Hey Hey!
Today is Tribal Print day in our ongoing 31 Day Challenge, and I’ll admit that today’s theme intimidated the hell out of me. My free-hand nail art skills are still a work in progress and I didn’t have any stamping plates that would I could get away with calling ‘tribal art’. So I started scouring the internets for images and possible tutorials on how to create tribal nails. And that’s when I found it, the Aztec design by WAH Nails. I know there are several variations of the aztec nails, but I figured that I could recreate them fairly easily. I took a deep breath, grabbed my polish and went to work.
Don’t forget to take a peek at Cris and Sam’s blogs today to see their tribal manis for the day! ^_^
Day 16: Tribal Print
I’m still waiting to get my set of brushes from that I ordered from the Born Pretty store (3-4 weeks!! ) so I had to use a small acrylic brush and I couldn’t get my lines as thin and straight as I wanted them to be.
Overall I’m pleased with my first attempt at aztec nails! Yeah it’s a little wobbly but dammit it was my first try ever! I used Maybelline Banana Bamba as my base color (2 coats). I then used Wet n Wild Black Creme & French White Creme for the accents, as well as A England’s Galahad (seriously, love this color!).
Your daily macro. ♥ I really want to try this look again when I get my fancy brushes. ^_^
Thanks for checking out today’s manicure challenge! Tomorrow is Glitter nails!
31 Day Challenge: Day 15 (Delicate Print)
211 year ago
Hey Everyone!
And we’re back again for day 15 of the 31 Day Challenge! Today’s task is Delicate Print, and I had a heck of a time trying to figure out what to do with this one. My hand drawn nail art abilities are still hit or miss and I really don’t have that many stamping plates to play with just yet. So I decided to wing it with my trusty m57 plate. There are two intricate patterns on the plate that I believe are intended for french tips. I used the two together to make a mehndi-esque design.
Once you’re done here, head over to Cris and Sam’s blogs today to see their delicate print manicures.
Day 15: Delicate Print
I started out with two coats of Wagon Trail by China Glaze. Wagon Trail is my absolute favorite nail polish by China Glaze. It’s a vampy, rich, blackened olive green filled with golden shimmer. Amazing, right?! I then used A-England’s Holy Grail (a beautifully regal gold polish I have yet to review) for my stamping plate. I’m actually pretty pleased that it came out looking better than I expected, and both of my roommates really enjoyed the finished look. They said it reminded them of a henna tattoo.
I personally don’t think that I could have picked a better pair of complimentary colors for this manicure today. Holy Grail looks absolutely stunning layered over Wagon Trail. I messed up the patterned a bit on one or two nails, but it almost looks like I did it on purpose and you really can’t tell unless you’re looking super close.
And speaking of close-up views, here’s your daily dose of macros. Bon Appétit!
That’s all I’ve got for today, tomorrow is the dreaded Tribal Nail Art challenge. My konad stamps won’t be able to save me this time.
31 Day Challenge: Day 14 (Flowers)
171 year ago
Morning Everyone!
We’re at the start of a new week and we’re quickly approaching the halfway point for the 31 Day Challenge. Today is all about Flowers, and since there’s no way I can draw that freehand I decided to use my handy-dandy notebook m57 plate.
I started out with two coats of Nite Owl by Orly, a beautiful nude taupe filled with silver micro-shimmer. I then took the floral print on my m57 stamp and layered Barry M’s Spring Green (bright grass green creme) and A-England’s Galahad (teal creme). I love the way this turned out!
Don’t forget to check out Cris and Sam’s blogs today for their take on flowers!
Day 14: Flowers
I think this look is so gorgeous! The softness of Nite Owl is a wonderful backdrop for the brightness of Galahad and Spring Green. I messed up the stamp on my middle finger a teeny bit and tried to free paint a green flower in its place. Yeah…. No Bueno.
In this macro shot you can see the soft merge of colors between Galahad and Spring Green. You can also check out the buttload of silver glitter in Nite Owl. This whole manicure is super feminine and I love it! It reminds me of being on a beach.
That’s it for today’s manicure. Come back tomorrow for Day 15, which will be delicate print day!
31 Day Challenge: Day 13 (Animal Print)
131 year ago
Hey Guys!
Today is day 13 of the 31 Day Challenge (Animal Print). This is going to be a quickie post because I am running low on time today. I kept it simple, I used the m57 tiger pattern to layer Konad Special Polish in White over 3 thin coats of Pool Party by Essence. I LOVE Pool Party, it’s a beautiful cheery blue filled with glass flecks. And y’all know I love glass flecks.
Day 13: Animal Print
This was a bit of a rush job and I smudged my pinky and pointed finger a bit, but overall I think this stamping worked out pretty well. I always come back to this tiger print stamp, it’s so versatile!
Pool Party on its own. I had a lemming for this polish for a long time and I’m glad I was finally able to get my hands on this gorgeous blue. It really does look like a reflective pool of water.
That’s it for today, sorry this post is so short on words! Now head over to Cris and Sam’s blogs today for their Animal Print manis for today! ^_^
