Day 18: Half Moons

Day 18 of the 31 Day Nail Polish Challenge – Half Moons.

I thought I’d be clever and make the half moons look like actual moons. And then realised I had no circular stickers as guides, and no white polish!

Half moon moons…

Polishes used for the mooon: CR 115 silver, China Glaze Sea Spray and Julep Melissa (dotted with plastic wrap onto the silver), accented witha frankened glittery white. The ‘space’ is Kleancolor Metallic Black.

I wasn’t happy with this: the colours weren’t right and the tape didn’t work too well, but I was surprised at how much I liked the overall effect.

I’ll try this again later, with proper stickers and prep work!

Have a great day 🙂

Ami

Day 11: Polka Dots

Good morning on this morning of Day 11 of the 31 Day Nail Challenge: Polka dots! (my my my polka dots my my polka dots…)

This was two coats of Color Club Rev’d Up, dotted with Julep Melissa. I used two sizes of dotting tool, then put a smaller dot of Rev’d Up on the larger Melissa dots. Finished up with a coat of Kleancolor Top Coat, and called it done!

Plus, it looks like it could be alien eyes. That’s always fun – though not necessarily on one’s fingernails. Bar brawl at the Mos Eisely Cantina?

I like the way the blue shimmer in Rev’d Up interacts with the iridescence of Melissa – very pretty 🙂

Have a great day!

Ami

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 🙂

Julep Melissa over Black Polish – add striping tape! :)

As soon as I saw this polish, I knew I wanted to layer it over black. I knew it would pick up the green shimmer, but I was very surprised at just how explosively colourful this was!

First off, I painted two coats of China Glaze Liquid Leather, and top coat. Then I randomly placed striping tape across that (when it was dry!), and added one coat of Julep Melissa over the tape, then peeled the tape off. I left my middle finger as the accent nail, and added two pieces of tape across the top – inspired by the lovely Marta of Chit Chat Nails – ok, pretty much just straight out fangirl copy, but nowhere near as neatly done 😀  – check out her striping nail art here! And this was my result..

Melissa over Liquid Leather

 

I enjoyed this! I love how teal Melissa went when layered over black. What I didn’t love was how nasty it was to apply – it flooded, pooled AND pulled, and I found it impossible to get an even layer. Luckily it’s really pretty, and it dried fast, or it may have gone for a sail across the room: it was just that annoying.

The other thing I had problems with was the tape! The holo green tape on my accent fingers eroded away to nothing within 3 hours (even with top coat), and split down the middle while using it. Sad, because its HOLOGRAPHIC, which is seriously cool. Hopefully  it will be salvageable. The other annoyance was the tape I was using to create the stripes – I had overhanging bits so I could whip it off easily after I painted it. But… those dangly bits dingled in the wet nail polish of the other hand. Ah well. Art is pain, right? 😀

And here’s a whole hand photo: because of the running/pooling/dingling issues, this mani looked HEAPS better at a distance *beams*

So, what do  you think? This teal colour strongly reminds me of the iridescence on my black Orpington chickens feathers. See?

Betty – one of my black orpington chickens 🙂

I’ve been wanting to find something that colour for ages, so I’m very happy about this! Thanks for the polish, Megan, I really appreciate it (even though I whinge lots hehehe)

Julep Anne + Nail Art

I showed off my latest nail mail from Megan yesterday, and this was the first polish I tried from that group.

Before I start, let me explain a quirk of mine. When I get nail polish I look at them, then arrange them from ‘not-as-exciting-probably’ to ‘highly-exciting-indeed’, then try them in that order. I learnt to do it with food, save my favourites for last, and it turns out I do it with everything now! Sad, huh. None of these polishes were ‘not exciting’  (is there a polish that is not exciting?!), but Anne with her mid purple creme seemed a safe bet, rather than wildly exciting. So, here it is!

I was excited to try these Julep polishes, I’ve read a lot about them. The formula on this was good, dry time was pretty good, I’d guess it has a tiny bit of neon in it somewhere: it’s not neon, but it dries fast and matte-ish. I’m having slight camera focusing issues, I apologise. This photo was two coats, no top coat.

Then, because I have Sticks and Stones, and I also recently bought striping tape (yay!), I upgraded the polish with these things.

This is diagonal striped tape, Sticks and Stones (by Cover Band) on the top half, and the accent nail had two Pearlies and a Blingy. They didn’t stick very well, which was good because the crookedness of the line was driving me crazy. It was a fun look for a little bit, though! This had top coat over it 🙂

And the whole hand photo..

 

I like the set up, with the tape and half  Sticks and Stones. The striping tape peeled off after a few hours (even with top coat! Wah!) but it still looked good, even without it. The ring is a Warm Fuzzy ring I made on one of our craft nights. I have earrings too 😀

Have a great day!

Ami 🙂

Awesomest Nail Mail from Megan :D

And an apology – sorry folks, my computer hasn’t been very well, and I haven’t been able to do more then read my comments via email. But it’s going now, so blog time!

Remember those butterflies I was making for the talented Megan from Two Lacquered Girls? The post was here, and their blog is here (awesome polishes and swatches, plus polish information, well worth a read!). We swapped butterflies for polishes, and this is what she sent!

Oooh! Look!

And the individual items:

First and definitely the most exciting to me, is a franken polish she made in, oh, about 5 seconds flat while we were chatting on Facebook. And WOW.I am looking forward to putting this on – and being me I’ll try everything else first, so I can leave the best till last. 🙂

Look at that beautiful blue, with all that gorgeous glitter!

This is Butter London Teddy Girl, and I’ve heard so much about this brand (and really can’t afford to buy them here) that I’m very excited to try this one, too. 3 free and not tested on animals, very very cool.

Julep Polishes…

And two Julep polishes, Anne and Melissa. Love!

But wait, there’s more!

AND a whole heap of different coloured holographic glitters, oooh I’m going to have fun with these! Just wait! I can’t hehe

All tucked up in a Julep bag, with a sample of Pedi Creme. 😀

You should have seen my happy dance as I was opening all this, it was a sight to behold 😀

Thanks, Megan, these are beyond awesome and I’m looking forward to trying them all out. I have Anne on at the moment, I’ll post those swatches very soon!