31 Day Challenge, Day 4 (Green Nails)

I'm kind of sticking with the abstract theme (until I can come up with better ideas, that is.)  Pretty basic today, just polka dots and stripes.  Still playing around with the set of nail art brushes I bought to figure out which ones work best for smaller details and such.

And here we go!

I started with 2 coats of Revlon Snow Bunny (LOVE this stuff!), then added stripes and dots with Sinful Colors Happy Ending, Nicole by OPI Nicole's Nickel, and Sinful Colors Innocent.  Topped it off with 2 coats of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly.

31 Day Challenge, Day 3 (Yellow Nails)

Finally caught up!  Day 3, here we go.

I've been wanting to try a sandwich mani for awhile, so this worked out pretty well.  Started out with 1 coat of OPI Need Sunglasses? and then added 1 coat of China Glaze Electrify.  Polished it off with another coat of Need Sunglasses? and here we are!  (See what I did there?  POLISHED it off?  I crack myself up.)

Hopefully I'll be getting a new lens for my camera soon so I'll have some better closeups.

31 Day Challenge, Day 2 (Orange Nails)

Catching up on the challenge - here's day 2!

I started with 2 coats of Sinful Colors Cloud 9 (odd name for an orange polish, no?), then stamped the design using Essie Blanc.  Not the best stamping job, but this was kind of a challenging stamp.  The gold accent is SpaRitual Conduit - love this color!

I'm pretty happy with this one....just wishing the stamp had come out better.  :/

I'm baaaaack!

My apologies to those of you who read my blog - I have been AWOL for far too long.  This means this will be a long post.....I must catch up!  Here we go:

The company I work for (RE/MAX Results) had a booth at the Minnesota State Fair this year.  I decided to go and help out a bit before I stuffed my face full of fried food.  :)  I figured this would be a nice occasion to try something a bit more....complex.  Best way I can think to describe it.  I wanted to try to recreate the RE/MAX Results logo.  This involved 5 different polishes and quite a bit of work.  First, I painted all of my nails with 2 coats of Essie Blanc.  Then I decided that I would need to mix my own light blue - I did this using Essie Blanc and Sinful Colors Aquamarine.  I used this to add a gradient to all my nails.  THEN I got out the reinforcer stickers (you know, the ones that look like donuts that you use to reinforce paper that has been 3-hole-punched?) and placed them on each nail, then painted the tips white to create the "swoosh."  Using a small brush (I just got a new set of nail art brushes and I LOVE them!) I added some Revlon Snow Bunny to the tips - this was the closest I could get to the grey-ish part of the swoosh.  Final touch: I used my small brush again to paint 2 Rs on my thumb.  One red for RE/MAX, one blue for Results.



I follow a few different nail blogs and I've been seeing a lot of them doing 31-day challenges.  I've decided to give it a shot as well - this will be especially difficult for me because I just moved in to a new apartment and most of my belongings are still in boxes, but hey.  I think I can make this work.  I found this particular one on Chalkboard Nails.



Since I don't have internet in my new place yet (thanks for that, CenturyLink....how long does it take to just switch my service over to the new place, which is only 4 blocks away?), I wasn't able to post on the first day of the challenge.  But I'm hoping that's okay.  Here are my red nails for day 1!

Not the greatest photo, I know...but it's the best I can do for now.  The effect on this is pretty subtle - I thought it would be a bit more obvious, but that's life for you.  Here you see 2 coats of OPI Mrs. O'Leary's BBQ, then some SpaRitual Epicurean on the tips.  I'm still playing around with gradients...I think I'm getting a little bit better at them. 

Stay tuned for day 2 - I should be posting my orange and yellow nails later on today.  :)

THE COLOR RUN 2012!

On Sunday, I ran in the happiest 5k on the planet - The Color Run!  This is a 5k for non-serious folks mostly; at each kilometer mark, you get splattered in colored powder.  :) Proceeds go to a different charity in each city, and proceeds for the Minnesota run went to the Open Your Heart foundation, which is pretty cool! 

So.  In the spirit of this race, I decided to try out a splatter mani.  :)  I started with 2 coats of Essie Blanc, then prepared my workspace.  Once my entire coffeetable was covered in grocery bags and I had my paper plate, drinking straws, and splattering colors of choice within arms reach, the fun began!!  The process for this mani is pretty simple: put a blob of polish on the paper plate, dip the straw in it (I turned the straw to the side a bit and kind of scooped some polish in to the straw to make it work), then blow a sharp blast of air through the straw, which is pointed at your finger.  Repeat with each of your splatter colors - I'm too lazy to grab the bottles and look at the exact color names, but I went with blue, pink, yellow, green, and purple.

To minimize the amount of cleanup you'll need to do, you can cover the skin around your fingers in scotch tape, but I did this on the first hand and decided it was too much work.  The splattered polish on my skin came off easily enough with a q-tip and some polish remover.

Bonus: me (and my friend Michelle) after the race!

Happy 4th of July!

I am both incredibly happy and incredibly disappointed with this manicure.  Strange, I know.

(Reminds me of "Mood Rings" by Relient K - "She said to me that it's so happy it's depressing / and all I said was 'Someone, get that girl a mood ring.'"  It doesn't take much for a random song to pop in to my head....then I always have to listen to it.  Starting up the Two Lefts Don't Make a Right....But Three Do album now......)

I spent a fair amount of time on this last night, but I was rather impatient when waiting for each layer to dry, which means I have nicks, I have bits of blue polish that peeled up with the tape, and I have flooded my cuticles with topcoat.  All around, not my best work.  I also ran out of regular Scotch tape partway through and started using clear packing tape.  NOT ideal - the packing tape was much more sticky and pulled up the blue and some of the silver when I peeled it off.

BUT.  I do love the concept and I love the color combination (Sinful Colors Aquamarine, Sally Hansen Insta-Dry Silver Sweep, and Sinful Colors Ruby Ruby.)  The somewhat transparent red over the silver has a pretty cool effect.

(This, of course, reminds me of another song...."Ruby" by the Kaiser Chiefs.  Hope I have that one on my Zune or it's going to drive me nuts all night.)

Hope you all have a safe and happy 4th of July!

Crooked stripes....

Unfortunately, this mani makes it very clear that I need some striping brushes. I do absolutely love the colors though. I don't have all of them in front of me, but I know that the base coat is Essie Licorice, the purple stripes are China Glaze Gothic Lolita, the yellow is a super awesome neon glow-in-the-dark polish from Forever 21 (a gift from my mom), and the blue is Sinful Colors Aquamarine.

Enjoy, and have a great weekend!!!