Kleancolor Frappachino goes WILD

I did a whole bunch of photos of this pretty, subtle but shimmery copper brown Kleancolor. And my darling eldest son deleted them. So, I put it back in the ‘to photo’ pile – until today. And here is Frappachino – a colour I will forever associate with my blogger friend Del from Domestic Minxes (check out their blog! They’re good, those minxy girls).

This was three coats, no top coat. It is sheer, but has great formula and builds fine. Possibly some VNL at three coats, but hey. This is me, right? Top coats are going to happen, right? Oh yeah.

Next up was one coat of Julep Melissa (thanks again, Megan!). I love this polish for it’s ability to transform any other polish – in this case it stayed a subtle colour, but had that green pop.

Julep Melissa over Kleancolor Frappachino

Then one coat of OPI Turquoise Shatter, and top coat (Orly Sec’n'Dry) – because, remember Ami’s Rule One of Shatter/Crackle: Use Top Coat.

And that was it for a little bit – I did some dishes, and it wasn’t dry, and the polish got all munched. I smooshed it all back into place and decided to add MORE to cover the wrinkles. (Wrinkles are LOVELY on people. I think it needs to be said until we all believe it and stop throwing our money at suited smarmy marketing people).

Smoooshed nail polish!

I wanted to add visual interest and colour shift, while disguising the wrinkles, and not covering the shatter and underlying polishes. I did take photos of each step, but the lighting was so bad I can’t use them.

But the layers were:

• L.A. Girl Glitter Addict in Nostalgic – one coat
• And then a coat of Kleancolor Chunky Holo Purple – which added that gorgeous purple colour shifting sparkles to the whole nail. It pretty much set it on fire. Impressed I was.
• And then last, but not least, was a layer of Australis Speck-tacular flakie polish – why? Because I could. Also, adding the flakies will mean that this mani should look good in every light. And it does, yay!

Topped off with another coat of Orly Sec’n'Dry. I’m really happy with this! Its pretty thick, yeah, but then it’s 9 layers of polish. So fair enough. Its not that garish -  and although I do have a soft spot for garish,  I like that even with 9 coats of polish it’s not.

 And a whole-hand shot…

Afternote: I had lots of compliments on this polish ,which was strange as I dont expect people to notice. I think it was the textured / crackle look, people still seem fascinated with that. Me, I still dont really like it, so that was my biggest challenge here – find a way I can wear it!

Thanks to anyone who made it through this post, and have a great day

Quick Caravan Update – Ceiling and Cupboard Progress. Ish.

I’ve done some more! Ok, only a bit, but seeing as Daniél asked so nicely for me to get a wriggle on and do some more, it really did help me do just that.

The weekend just past saw me start to paint the ceiling, and do some work on the interior of the cupboard.

Cupboard – this was what it looked like after I had removed the pump and misc things that didn’t work, but before painting it cream (which I think I may do something else with soon).

This is how it looked with the paint…

 

and now I’ve added some shelves. My children added the scribble on the door. If only they hadn’t lost and/or eaten my eraser I would have got that off the door already. (You can click on any of these photos to make them bigger, if you so desire!)

 

Look, there’s mess in it already!

 

 

The ceiling was unpainted wood, with lovely ripples in it.

shows some of the ceiling…

Those ripples remain; there’s nothing up in the ceiling to attach the wood to in order to straighten it out, so I’ll love it wibbles and all. I put two rough coats of white paint over it first to seal the chipboard… and quite liked the effect, but I can’t keep it white, as it won’t work at all with the wallpaper I bought!

So then I’ve added two coats of a INCREDIBLY glossy deep green paint. YUCK.

Well, I can always paint it white again, right?!! Argh!

Right about now I’m hoping that my ideas for the ceiling work, because I don’t like this at all. And no, none of these are finished, but I’m making some progress and thought I’d show ya   This is a fun project, but very tricky for me because we have no money for it, basically. The paint I’m using is either a 30ml test pot, or a $3 garage sale find – hence high gloss green. It’s possibly more fun this way though, all my concepts are having to evolve to deal with what I can get my hands on, which is quite good for my brain, if not my sanity

I’ve also got some ideas about what to do with the Mickey Mouse head shaped hole in the ceiling, and hopefully I can do something about that as soon as the paint is done.

Fingers and toes crossed I’ll be able to do some more work this weekend. And start on papering the walls…exciting

Red Crelly Comparisons – swatches

Turns out I have 4 red creme/jelly nail polishes (crellies, I like to smoosh words together). That’s heaps, I think, and definitely enough for a comparison!

So… here they are.

From right to left:

• Little finger/pinky = OPI So Hot It Berns (2 coats no top coat)
• Ring finger = L.A. Colors Cranberry Red (2 coats no top coat)
• Middle finger = Miki No.8 (3 coats with top coat, would have the exact same finish and depth of colour as the others without it though)
• Pointer/index finger = Depend 036 (2 coats no top coat)

The LA Colors stands out by miles as being much darker and heading towards burgandy-ville compared to the others, that much is obvious. OPI (little finger) is a very classic red, but I would call this one ‘blue based’ compared to the rest, as it has that depth and cool tone that the other two don’t.

Of the other two, I would say the Depend polish is a true red, crayon or primary red. The Miki definitely has a bit more of an orange tone to it.

So, no dupes, and I like them ALLLL! I realise that the Miki and the Depend look very similar in these photos, so I took a bottle shot to show that difference between them a bit clearer.

Miki at the top, Depend on the bottom. heh heh heh

Have a great day!

Ami

Miki No.8 – My New Favourite Rorange Polish – Swatches

I found it! I found it! *dances around the room*

If someone had told me last year that I would be spending a chunk of time looking for the ‘perfect’ red/orange nail polish, I’d have patted them gently on the head while helping them into a straight jacket. Well, not really, I don’t have a straight jacket. But you get the picture. Red? Orange? Me? REALLY? Why, yes. And thanks to an impulse buy from Postie Plus in Palmerston North, this Miki polish (about $4 for 7ml) has taken the title for me.

In the shade – please ignore the lack of cleanup on stumpy middle nail, I’m really lazy sometimes.

This is another creme with slight jelly tendancies – the super shine and slight sheerness, but not so sheer it drives me crazy. This is three coats and top coat of Orly Sec’n'Dry. It dried moderately quickly, and the formula was as close to perfect as it gets, really. Easy, shiny, super pretty. It’s definitely a strongly orange toned red – not coral; red, but orange spectrum red.

Shade… shiny in the shade!

This is a great winter colour. It helps make the blahs go away.

Sunlight – yay! Bright!

Whole hand photo…

I’m super happy I bought this, and will try out some more Miki polishes in the future I believe

Removing Pen Art From Walls.

My children. They are artistes. My youngest child, especially, is a artiste with pen, and pencil, and paper, and walls.

I love most of the things in that sentence, can you pick the one I’m not crazy about? Betcha can. Mr Husband and I spent quite some time and $ repainting our living areas over summer. If only we had spent MORE time, we’d have finished. As it was, this particular wall has three coats of paint, and needed another to even it all up and cover the beige underneath. And then my youngest son drew ALL over it with pen. Biro pen. Ink.

 

I couldn’t scrub it off, no matter how I tried, so I just ignored it, until the lovely lady at the Resene shop in Feilding suggested hairspray.

Hairspray? I have some of that! A 10 year old bottle that I use maybe once a year. Heaps left, no worries.

Here is  a before photo of the patch of wall I was testing the hairspray  on:

The effect of the hairspray (after one spray, you have to move quite fast to mop up!)

And the aftermath.

So, yes, hairspray definitely works.  I’d spray it on, the rub it off with a clean cloth. But the ink ran, and you need a LOT of hairspray. It doesn’t damage the paint on the wall though, which is good. But I’m impatient, so I thought, well, what else could work? How about… nail polish remover!!

Test spot…

The nail polish remover…

Aftermath…

Gone!

 

OOOH now, that works, and it works quicker with less effort. I used cotton balls as the removal agent, I put some remover on the cotton balls then wiped it, gently and quickly, over the pen marks. And the pen marks came off immediately.

Some of the pen was embedded in the wall with the force of the artistic expression, so I scrubbed a bit harder on those. And the wall paint came off.

the yellow is the paint underneath the cream paint we put on this summer…

In some places the paint came off, and the pen remained. That was a bit annoying.

Whoooops.

However, it was significantly quicker and easier than hairspray, so I just kept going.

And the after!

I can paint over this, and it shouldn’t be visible. I know from experience that I’ve put 5 layers of paint over pen scribble before, and the scribble is still quite visible. I thought I was going to have to sand this whole wall back to Gib board and start again, so I’m happy with this alternative. It didn’t use much polish remover either!

Does anyone else have any tips for getting evil substances off or out of things (carpet, walls, curtains?)

Essie Sew Psyched – Swatches

This is Essie Sew Psyched, and my first experience with Essie. I bought this one at a big cosmetics sale for $8 – normally I wouldn’t buy Essie polishes because they are owned by L’Oreal who test on animals, but: a) the parent/child company and animal testing area is a bit of a grey one – PETA encourages us to spend money at the non-testing child company to prove a point to the parent company that testing is unecessary. See, I think that’s a touch naive, but…  then there’s: b) it was a really pretty colour. (shame.)

Sew Psyched has a really pretty silver microshimmer to it – which I can’t see AT ALL on my nail, but I think it does add a bit of depth to the colour.

These swatches are two coats, no top coat. This polish had a thinner formula than I was expecting, with the odd rampaging blob of polish – watch out for those. It self leveled well, and was nice and opaque in two coats. Good wear time, minimal tip wear the next day.  I’d describe the colour as a lovely blue based khaki green, and it was fairly flattering on me.

Sorry about the cuticles! Big day of swatching

Whole hand photo… it’s not a weak colour, but it is quite subtle.

Then for fun I used top coats of  Darling Diva Polish – Dreamy, Australis  – Speck-tacular, and Cover Band - Sticks and Stones over the Sew Psyched (little finger Speck-tacular, ring finger Sticks and Stones, middle and index fingers Dreamy). I really preferred Dreamy as the finish. The holographic top coats’ silver tone turned it into a very grey sage green, and Sew Psyched really amped up the holographic sparkle of Dreamy. ( I like it so much so that I’m wearing it as a pedicure…) Sticks and Stone looked nice, and would be great for a camoflage effect, and Speck-tacular just didn’t really impress me over this colour.

Shade photo

Shade – the flakies look so nice in the shade

Whole hand photo with the top coats.

Look how nice that holographic looks in the sunlight! And how invisible the flakies are…

After this first experience I’m pretty happy with Essie – it did dry fast, and removal was easy – it didn’t stain either. Unless its at a mega sale I won’t be racing out to buy more (apart from Smooth Sailing, maybe. I WANT that polish.)

I don’t think the big cheese parent companies give two figs about where they get their money from, as long as they get it. The concept of buying from the non testing child company would only work if we didn’t buy anything at all from the main company, and if they stopped selling in China (or China changed that animal testing pre-requisite).  I don’t know if that’s going to happen. But I do love this polish, yessir.

OPI Color So Hot It Berns – Swatch

This is an OPI mini from the Swiss Collection Mini Set – my sister V (yay! Sister V is getting into nail polishes! WHOOOOP! Come on, Sister C, it’s yoouuurrr turn!) bought the set and realised she won’t wear red, so she gifted this cute little bottle to me.  Twisted my rubber arm to take it. hehe

OPI Color So Hot It Berns

This is.. well, I’d call it a standard red creme polish. Nice shiny finish, self levels, easy to apply and this is two coats – no top coat. Only used a smidgeon out of the bottle for a full manicure too, so even the teensy bottle will last awhile.

Super cute teeny bottle!

Pretty colour! More to the primary/slightly blue toned red spectrum - not orange/pink/coral toned. Cool red. (oxymoronical, I know, but there you are).

So I put Dreamy (the holographic top coat from Darling Diva Polish – check them out on Etsy) and Australis Speck-tacular (the flakie top coat) on top, too see what that looked like. Now the nails with Dream on top are pink. Indoors, they are REALLY pink. Dreamy has a silver tone to it, because of all the different holographic particles, so be aware that it will affect the colour of the polish. Out in the sunlight it was a pretty red holographic, still pinker than before, but inside – very pink. Quite a cool effect, but I’m not sure how in love with it I was.

little finger and middle finger has Australis Speck-tacular, ring and index fingers have Dreamy – please forgive the too-much-swatching cuticles!

Shade – I love it how the Speck-tacular (terrible name!) flakies show up better in the shade – the opposite of most cool top coats. Adds interest in the lower light, which is a nice change. The flakies are also multi-coloured, so you’ve got the pops of orange or blue or green – the red obviously doesn’t show up as well against a red base, but the shimmer still shows.

Whole hand photo…

Invisible flakies in the sun, pretty holo sparkle! I might layer them up next time, see if I can get a all-light-level effect

And there you have it! OPI So Hot It Berns from the Swiss Collection, with spinkles on top. Thanks, Sister V!

Trying to cut down on my coffee … again.

To at least no more than 3 cups a day.

Do-able? Hope so!

Coral Colours Magnetic Nail: Brass Pole

This is Coral Colours Magnetic Nail in Brass Pole - bought from a Unichem Pharmacy in Feilding for $8.99. Pretty goldish green colour with large gold shimmer. The magnet is set into a removable band, which is a giant PITA. The best way it worked for me is to leave it done up with the little butterfly flaps and use that to hold the magnet over the polish. Really close to the polish.

I found  this very hard to get to work properly the first time around, the instructions say use one thick coat, but that often didn’t work, and one coat wasn’t enough to cover. I tried the one coat, then one THICK coat, and it seemed every second nail needed a third coat before the magnet would grab. I even tried to put a bigger magnet behind that one to increase the pull, but that didn’t work. This time around it worked better, little finger nail and ring fingernails had one thick coat; middle and pointer have two.

Shade…

However, it was all worth it in the end, the magnet gave a really pretty effect and had quite a few nice comments on this manicure. I didnt put on top coat and this was ROUGH. Glitter rough.

sun…

Timing – I held the magnet over my little fingernail for 15 seconds, and its not defined enough yet. The others I tried 20 seconds, and that seemed to work well. On my first attempt the magnet pulled the polish right off my nail after 30 seconds, but I couldn’t get it to happen again this time.

Then in town I bought a Australis multi-coloured flakie top coat (yay!) called Speck-tacular and I put that on. Gave a subtle flakie flash when the light hits it, and smoothed out most of the gritty feeling. However, the gloss also made the nail polish look quite flat, so now I feel like I have tiny grilled paninis on my fingers I’ll try it with a clear top coat, and see if it retains the corrogated effect.

Brass pole with flakie top coat

Brass Pole dried quickly -as did the Australis top coat, which I bought from Farmers for $14.

 

Australis Speck-tacular

 

These polishes also lasted really well, with no tip wear at all the next day. I love the colour of Brass Pole, and how close the diagonal stripes are together are from the magnet: they do help elongate my stumpy nails. I wish the magnet was stronger, so it could do more than just the center of my nails, but overall I am  very happy with this polish.

Home-made Holographic Glitter Top Coat

Its winter. No, sorry, it’s WINTER. In other parts of the world this would beconsidered balmy I’m sure, but.. I’m pretty soft with the cold temperatures. It’s been getting below minus 2 degrees Celsius at night, and thats pretty cold for so early in the year. So, I wanted something blingy on my nails to give me a smile. Not as good as an electric blanket for warmth, but better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick.

This was just a quick and nasty franken – the base polish was CR 50, a clear with silver and silver holo glitter, and some large silver stars. Do you remember a while back when I posted how Megan from Two Lacquered Girls sent me some polishes for butterflies, and included some holographic glitters? No? More fish oil tablets for you, then. But here’s the link if you’re curious. Basically I threw a heap of all those glitters into this polish, and shook it like you shouldn’t shake a polaroid picture.

[If you're curious, you are supposed to lie a polaroid picture down on a flat surface until it has developed the image and dried. Otherwise you get a blurred mess. Yes, I remember polaroids - my aunt had one in the early 80's. They were awesome. Technology is better than carbon dating at aging someone, right?!]

 

I layered one coat of this over one coat of China Glaze Liquid Leather. Liquid Leather isn’t opaque in one coat, but with a thick top coat you can’t see that. The added glitter made this a surprisingly thick polish, but the glitter is so nice it was quite smooth despite that. This is mostly silver, but with the added blues, greenish yellow with a sprinkle of pink -  like a disco on my nails. I have two coats of Orly Sec’n'Dry top coat on, and it dried fast and smooth. Really impressed with that top coat, actually!

And a whole hand -wearing glove – photo. My hands are red. That’s because I’m cold.

Hand knitted fingerless gloves, from the Ashhurst Market. I love markets

 

And the whole hand with flash, and no gloves because it’s evening now and I’m much warmer – this shows the colours off pretty well, I think (click to enlarge photo if you want to see a bit more detail).

I’m really happy with this franken, and stoked I have the glitters – thanks Megan! I think I’ll put aside one of the green/blues and the green/yellow to try and create a holo, glittery, Floam-esque polish. It may not work. But it may…