gold gradient

 This was a bit of a throw-together paint job.  I wasn't sure where I was going but I like where I ended up.  The base color is not red but a fuchsia glitter (OPI - You Only Live Twice).  The gold glitter is not loose glitter but polish.  This was an easy job.  Glitter polish is pretty forgiving.

I did give a little change up on a couple of nails.  My middle finger on my right hand (above) is just solid gold glitter.  From previous experience with the gold glitter polish, I slapped a quick base solid metallic gold paint job down first.

my first crackle

A friend sent me some great polishes for the holidays.  One of which was my very first crackle/shatter polish.

 I need some more practice with this type of top coat.  I layered it over a polish (ring finger) that is is too sparkly and dark.  I also didn't wait until the base was 100% dry.  It was dry to the touch but if I had pushed with my other nails, it would have left a dent.

teal & metal dots

As much fun as holiday paint jobs are, it is nice to have a break from red & green.  I am so happy I survived my first multi-day challenge.  It was great not having the pressure to do a different paint job every day but once a week (twice in the last week).

Since it is still winter and I am feeling the darker nails I wanted to try out a polish I got a while back but have not used yet (MAC).  It is a great deep teal.  As much fun as this color is, it is hard finding colors that work with it.  I knew I didn't want a bunch of glitter, so I went with different metal paint dots.  Metal vs metallic?  Metallic vs pearl?  Those different looks for polishes get very blurry.  Metal polishes for me are the paints that look like metal (gold, silver, bronze, etc).  I thought those would work well with the deep teal and would still have a bit of festive feel.

holiday challenge - we wish you a merry christmas

Last day of the holiday challenge is going out with a bang, 'We Wish You a Merry Christmas'.  Another theme that makes me start singing in my mind:

We wish you a Merry Christmas;

We wish you a Merry Christmas;

We wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Good tidings we bring to you and your kin;

Good tidings for Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Oh, bring us a figgy pudding;

Oh, bring us a figgy pudding;

Oh, bring us a figgy pudding and a cup of good cheer

We won't go until we get some;

We won't go until we get some;

We won't go until we get some, so bring some out here

We wish you a Merry Christmas;

We wish you a Merry Christmas;

We wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

I bet you are singing it in your head now.  Sorry.  Well, I really don't know how to do figgy pudding nails, or even a cup of good cheer.  I just went with the general Christmas theme for this paint job.  Not even the whole Christmas theme, my favorite parts of Christmas.

Candy canes:

Twinkle lights:

holiday challenge - santa clause is coming to town

Day four of the holiday challenge is 'Santa Claus is Coming to Town'.  The first place my mind went is to the song of the same title.  Particularly a few lines:

He's making a list,
Checking it twice;
Gonna find out who's naughty or nice.

Santa Claus is coming to town

These lines inspired my left hand:

And then some other lines:

With little tin horns and little toy drums

Rooty toot toots and rummy tum tums

Santa Claus is coming to town

These lines inspired my right hand:

holiday challenge: deck the halls

The third holiday challenge day is 'Deck the Halls'.  It is pretty hard for me to say 'deck the halls' without also saying 'with bells of holly'.  I don't even know what the means.  What is a bell of holly?  Is it the holly term for a cluster of the holly berries?  So bells of holly were going to be my main theme of this paint job.

 When this time of year rolls around and the holiday parties start, there is always mistletoe.  I might avoid it at all costs.  It is sort of like an awkward adult version of spin the bottle in which spiked egg nog comes into play. 

simple

Sometimes a simple paint job is all the is required.  Well, adding a little flower sticker is still keeping it simple for me.  The 'skittlette' paint job lasted till yesterday when I had to shovel snow off and away from the wood pile.  Then, brush and de-ice my car.  I don't think there is a single nail polish out there that can survive super cold weather, snow, wood stacking, etc.  I went with a simple paint job because it is suposted to snow for the next five days so it will be more shoveling, wood stacking, car prepping, etc.

MAC - Girl Trouble

What is the hardiest nail polish you use?  What is your opinion of nail stickers?

'skittlette' contest

chitchatnails.com posted a new contest a couple of days ago.  This contest was simple yet so much fun and it fit perfectly between holiday challenge days.  This contest is a 'skittlette' paint job.  What is 'skittlette' you ask?  It is a paint job consisting of two or three accent nails on each hand.

 This is something I usually do when I do non theme paint jobs so I thought it would be fun to come up with a 'skittlette' paint job that was a little more elegant.

holiday challenge: let it snow, let it snow, let it snow

Second day of the holiday challenge is one of my favorite - Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow.  I immediately knew the general direction I wanted to go with the paint job as soon as the challenge was released.

For me, snow is white, pearl, and light blue.  I did have a moment or two were the idea of yellow snow crossed my mind.  But then Ron Bergandy reminded me to 'You stay classy".

Each and every nail is different.  It took a lot of planning.  Maybe it did just because I am a bit of a dork.

comments

I cannot comment on other blogs. ERRRR.  Blogger.com won't let me stay logged in to comment on other blogger.com blogs.  Other blogs that accept a google+ log-in won't let me log-in.  I have tried it all but my comments never show up or go through.  I can't even comment on my own blog posts or reply to comments on my blog.

Can anyone help me?  There are so many great paint jobs out there (especially with BLING day) that I would love to give comment props too but can't. 

december challenge: bling

So, I signed up for a monthly challenge and this is my first month with this challenge.  I was super excited when I found out the theme - BLING!!

When I think of bling I think of stones.  Not stone like you find in a field, but gem stones (diamonds, rubies, sapphires, etc).  And when I think of that sort of bling I think of Tiffany's.  I am lucky enough to live close to a city with a Tiffany's store.  It is rare that I walk past without going in and looking.  I do own some Tiffany's jewlery but it is all from the upstairs department (aka where there are few stones and the ones that are there are about the size of a grain of salt). 

I wanted to do a ring paint job.  To many rhinestones on all the nails I think would loose the look for me.  So I came up with two different 'rings'.

holiday challenge: rocking around the christmas tree

My first nail art challenge!!  It is a Holiday challenge, being December and all.  The first day is 'Rocking Around the Christmas Tree'.  Well, I sort of went all out and took this title very literally.  One hand is a tree -

The other hand has all the wonderful presents -

blue

 This was a super simple paint job for a reason.  As soon as I got home from the Thanksgiving road trip, I headed back out to spend a couple of days out of town visiting family and friends.  My cousin/aunt has a 7th grade daughter (my cousin I guess) and she is into nail art.  She just has some of the simple kits from Urban Outfitters, etc.  She saw my nails at Thanksgiving and I told her I would show her some other simple nail art things.  I think I might have scared her a bit with so many options (rhinestones, studs, stickers, stamps, dotting, etc).  She picked up stamping really quickly.  Then I showed her how to accent the stamp polish job with some rhinestones.  It was a lot of fun and I think I have got her hooked.  But while waiting for her polish to dry before stamping, I painted my nails.

french dots

Someone bought this Estee Lauder polish and didn't like it so they gave it to me.  It is so pretty in the bottle but such an odd color when on my nails.  It is sort of apricot brown pearl.  It might look great under a gold glitter polish or as a base under a stamp job.

crimson & gold

Before I even start, I need to say that this polish job was not photographed until after a round of golf.  It is not pretty but I am not really careful with my nails when playing golf.  That being said, on to the paint job...

 

It is basically the same paint job as before but with different base color and the gold studs.  I was also limited by what I packed for Thanksgiving out of town.  Overall, it wasn't that bad considering it was done the night before Thanksgiving in a hotel room, using the in-room-info binder as a table.  It was a bit nurve racking because I was freaked out about spilling the polish or polish remover.  Mind you, I haven't spilled at home, but it would be 100 times worse at a swanky hotel.  I can't even imagin that room charge.  How would you even remove nail polish from carpet?

silver studs

In the Born Pretty order I got a month or so ago, I got some larger silver studs.  They have scared me because they always seemed so big.  I tested a couple out to see how they work on my nails.  Well, they are pretty flat and thin, so they even work on my tiny pinky.

halo stripe

First before getting to this mornings paint job - MAC's Everything That Glitters was amazing.  It did not chip at all.  Since I paint my nails so often, I am not nice to them unless they are for a specific reason.  This paint job was rock solid.  And it wasn't that hard to remove.  Guess there is something to nice polishes.  Okay, on to the new paint job.  Sorry for the awful clean up and dried cuticles, I have not slept in two days and my hand-eye coordination is a bit wonky.  So, they are just going to be a little messy until they come off, which I am guessing will be later today.

everything that glitters

This was a whimsical polish job.  I wanted to use a new polish and play off of the glitter in the polish.  My left and right hand are the same since it was such an easy application.  I haven't used shaped rhinestones before, even though I have two wheels of them. **I promise that there are no bald spots on my nails or with this polish, it is the outside light reflecting off the nails**

stars

I knew I could last long with just a one color polish job.  Stamping it would have to be since rhinestones and/or studs wouldn't work with GoldenEye.  GoldenEye is just so vibrant, glittery and matalic, it would be hard to find a rhinestone that would work (oh no, I now have a new mission).

The stamping polish would have to be something rich and deep as well to hold up against the gold.  I also wanted something within the same sparkle family (I don't think that term would work or be understood anywhere outside of the nail art world).  My new China Glaze color would be perfect.  I currently have it on my toes, a perfect pedi fall color.

goldeneye

Well, like many other movie goers this past weekend, I saw 'Skyfall'.  I loved it.  I see very few movies in the theater because tickets are so expensive, other people that act like they at home on their own private couch, it just isn't worth it for movies that don't utilize the big surround sound.  Don't get me wrong, I love going to the movies.  Especially big action types, like 'Skyfall'.  I also know about the OPI Skyfall collection.  I am guessing there weren't many other people in the massive theater paying attention to all the actors nails.  The main Bond Girl (the poster girl for the OPI collection) had amazing nails.  They were long, the deep red from the collection with what looked like a golden stud in the middle.  After thinking about it, I am guessing it was a dot of GoldenEye.

I only have one color from this OPI collection, GoldenEye.  I was really excited about this color, it looks magnificent in the bottle, rich and deep golden, borderline bronze.  After seeing the movie, I was determined to do a paint job with GoldenEye.  I decided not to do a base color, just layer up the GoldenEye and do a deep red/purple stamp on top.  After 1 coat of GoldenEye, I started to get worried.  Here is after two coats:

When directly in the sunlight, it is very nice and gold.  However, when the light hits it at a side angle...

glitter glitter glitter

So after such a subtle paint job on Friday, I went for something totally in the other direction.  The feather job is still on the burner, I just felt like doing a simple paint job this afternoon.  Simple meaning no tools (stamps, plates, dotting tools, etc) needed, just polish.  I am going to go in reverse here and show you the final product first.

 left

right

matte & gloss

The blue ocean/swirl paint job lasted till the pumpkin pie was done and 1 episode of Park & Recreation.  I wasn't feeling the blue nails anymore.  I knew I wanted to use the same stamping plate and use a matte finish somehow.  Looking through my polishes, OPI Lincoln Park After Dark was calling to me.  I have not used it in a long time, I would say over two years.  All nails got two coats of the color.  All fingers except the middle got two coats of matte finish top coat, with the middle finger getting normal top coat.

right - gloss

left - matte

middle - gloss

rest - matte

subtle stamping

I really wanted to do a paint job yesterday because I found a bag of fushia feathers in my house the night before.  I wanted to do a peacock/feather paint job, I saw it a while ago and have been wanting to do one since.  But life happened.  I went on an awesome hike to a very remote beach.  I found whale bones on the beach.  Holy smokes batman, whales are HUGE.  I know they are big, I have seen the skeletons but have never seen one up close.  Both jaw bones and a rib bone were there with a couple other pieces of bone and baleen (their 'teeth').  Each jaw bone was about 12 feet long.  I took some of the bone pieces and baleen to bring to the local science center.  It was a vast more extensive hike & exploration than I was planning on.  When I got home I was exhausted and the weather was crap.  I just didn't have the energy to paint my nails.  The good news is I might be able to go with the local science center to collect the jaw bones.

nautical nails

I finally got my nautical stamps!!!  Even though I picked up some great new polishes, I knew I had to do something with the nautical theme.  Plus, I wanted to use the new metal studs.  Nautical theme it would be.  Overall, I think this paint job could be better but I was just having fun.  I loved how the middle finger (the stamped ones) turned out.  I also love the look of the studs.  I need to work more on them being straight in line.  I do love the white, silver and blue.  This blue is a bit more mellow than the blue I was going to use (it was closer to m&m blue).

store & mail

The whole-sale store was great.  The prices were crazy.  They had all the major brands (OPI, Essie, China Glaze, etc) plus some other gel ones.  Not only having every color OPI makes and all the different collections for the past two years, they have all the other products OPI makes.  OPI makes a lot of different things for nails, feet, spas.  I didn't get that much since I already have a lot, but I am happy with what I did get.

OPI - Golden Eye (I have been coveting this color since it was announced but was hesitant to pay full retail for it, but now I have it and I can't wait to use it)
China Glaze - Sugar Plums, Techno, Glittering Garland
products - cuticle remover cream, cuticle oils, scrubs, brushes, decals, etc

naked nails

It has been over a week since I have been home.  My last polish job lasted only a couple of days.  Nail polish does not fair well when you are hanging out with two very very active young nephews.  Decorating the front yard with spiders, ghosts, webs, etc makes polish run far far away.  They really did like the eyes and the candy corn.  Also, my toes are glow-in-the-dark and they thought that was really funny.

halloween party

Okay, I will admit, I did another paint job yesterday.  One hand was candy corn and the other was glow-in-the-dark.  It was okay but I just didn't like it.  The pink glow was just too pink.  The candy corn looked a bit much on one whole hand.  I didn't even take a picture before peeling/wiping it off.  I did want to keep a subtle Halloween theme but something that would be fun.  Then I stopped in Urban Outfitters this morning.  They had some awesome glitter nail polishes.  I got four different ones and wanted to use at least one of them in this paint job.  I also wanted a little candy corn and one other accent.  I also picked up a holo polish at Sephora last week that I wanted to use.  So that is how this polish job came to be.  And to make it more fun the accent nails are different on each hand.

package

My order from Born Pretty (http://www.bornprettystore.com/) finally arrived!!  It is exciting since it was sitting in the USPS processing center in LA for almost two weeks.  And I am guessing it was not scanned at any other post office because I didn't get any other updates.

Here's what I got -
* rhinestone/stud containters/spindle wheels (2)
* pink metal rhinestones, 2mm
* round gold studs, 2mm
* square gold studs, 2mm
* round silver studs, 1mm & 4mm
* square silver studs, 2mm
* GLOW-N-THE-DARK polish!!! - 2 different colors

* or fireworks

 (left)

 (right)

I Got tired of the dark nails and orange nails just sort of irk me.  I needed to go with a lighter overall paint job and since I am still at home sick but with a little more energy, I went for a stamp job.  I almost did the base in a white pearl but thought it would take too much away from the hex glitter accents.  So basic white it was.

black & orange

Despite the fact that I am stuck at home with a wicked bad cold, I have not been that inspired to do a paint job.  I had to remove the last nail job on Thursday night because I had to make cookies (snickerdoodles, sugar cookie brooms/oak leaves/flowers) so I have been naked for three days.  My nails have liked the break but I felt like I need to paint them.  However, I could not think of anything to paint.  I know I did not want to do stamping, too much work**.

color blocking

I went back to a previous paint job again today.  It is simple to achieve with just a little tape.  However, I had the same problem as last time - the masking tape was picking up some of the base color when I went to peel it off.  Next time I will try painters tape and hopefully wait even longer for the base color to dry.

purple dots

I needed a little break from Halloween themed nails so I went back to a previous paint job.  I am happy with the purple choices except for the light purple dots.  It is really hard to see them both in the photo and real life.  I also made a little accent nails with some rhinestones and beads.  It is very subtle but shines in the light.  It was a quick paint job that is just the right break in paint jobs before going back to Halloween theme.

OPI - A Grape Fit (the base), Care to Danse
Sinful Colors - Amethyst, Mesmerize, Black on Black

Trick or Treat

I am having fun with Halloween.  I created another Halloween themed paint job.  This job was sketched out even more than the last, especially with all the different colors and layers.  The theme/idea for this paint job was 'Trick or Treat'  One hand is all trick and the other treat.

stamping plate holder

I don't have that many stamping plates (26) but it was getting a little hard to just keep them in a pile in a zip lock bag.  Plus, I was worried they would get scratched.  I got some baseball card sheets and a small three pronged folder.  It might have been nice to have them all in their own little pockets but the baseball sheet was just not strong enough.  Plus, I once picked up the folder upside down and a vast majority of the plates fell out.  Not good.  I searched all over my house for another solution.  I had a business card folder that only had a few cards in it.  The plates were about 4 mm to big to fit. ERRR.  To the store it was.  I brought a plate with me to try the fit out at the store.

Guess what I found?  A perfect holder for the stamping plates.  It can hold up to 60 plates (my credit card just yelled a little) and the opening is towards the spine of the folder so it is really hard for the plates to accidentally fall out.  It is also small so it can fit into my tool box.  Each page holds 6 cards, three front, three back.  It also has a great removable spine label, so if you have a lot of plates and want different folders for things, this would be a great way to organize. 

Here is the information for the folder:
Itoya, Art Porfolio, Business Card Mini Photo Album.  I got mine at Container Store and it was less than $10.

How do you organize your stamping plates?  How many plates do you have?  What are your favorites?

Witch's Kitchen

This polish job is a little crazy.  I heard about a nail art contest through a couple other blogs.  I decided to come up with an idea and enter.  Here is the contest - http://www.bundlemonster.com/frightnight.  I don't think I will win at all, I just want to get some feedback for the paint job.

Why is it called 'Witch's Kitchen'?  I'm a chef and wanted to incorporate a bubbling witch's cauldron.  I also wanted to try sponging.  Over the past couple of days I flushed out my idea and sketched and planed each individual nail.  Sounds a bit odd, but it really helped in the painting.

ufo in space

I made a nail polish!  Well, I added stuff to clear polish to create a color.  I bought a bunch of glitter a while ago at the craft store.  Some of it bleeds (aka the color leaks from the polish and flows around the clear top coat).  I went through all my glitters and put the bleeding glitters aside.  But then I thought of jelly polishes.  To me a jelly polish is one that has some color but is also somewhat transparent.  I took a half empty bottle of clear polish and added some of the bleeding glitters (hex, fine, rough and the long skinny kind, is that called confetti?).  I mixed and mixed and the final color is this great grape purple with A LOT of glitter.  Some of the glitter has lost the purple/blue color and is just now silver.  But with the jelly effect of the polish it still works.  I layered this polish (I have named it Grape Jelly) over a deep purple.  It had this space/night sky quality to it so I added some silver stars from a plate.  But then, when flipping through my plates to find the mini stars I found a UFO!!  So I added the UFO to the thumb.

The next day I was wondering what some of my other glitter jelly polishes look like so I added a coat to my nails...

One simple blue jelly glitter to the left and this awesome green/blue glitter to the right.  To be honest, I only bought the green/blue glitter for marking my kitchen tools.  I have a bright sparkly pink to mark my knives.  Why mark your tools like this?  It makes it very very clear what tools/knives are yours so people are less likely to steal them.

I'm not a fan of the way the blue jelly polish turned out with all the other stuff under.  I do however love the green/blue glitter.  I think it would look awesome on top of just a black polish.

Sinful Colors - Mesmerize, Green Ocean, Nail Junkie
mine - Grape Jelly
Plate - Cheeky CH4

Has anyone made their own polish before?  Do you use jelly polishes?