Misc Nails 2012 - Part 2

Good day, Kitschies.  I'm back for another installment of random manis from 2012 that I found when trying to clean up my desktop.  Good times.

You can find Part 1 HERE. 

And now for Part 2.

Starting off strong with Zoya!  This is Jem and Aurora.  I am so glad that holos are making a comeback because each one is more beautiful than the last.

Pretty glitter gradient using a black creme base (don't remember which one, exactly) and Walking on Broken Glass from the Ulta mini collection Glazed and Confused.  I liked this collection so much that I picked one up for a polish exchange thing I do every month. 

I am embarrassed to admit that I have no idea what this color is.  I want to say it's a China Glaze but damned if I know.  How horrible is that?  *sigh*  I can tell you that I didn't think there was enough little tiny purple glitter so I added a coat of Milani One Coat Glitter in Twinkle.

Maybeline Downtown Brown.  I want to like this color, but I don't.  It's so pretty in the bottle but just does not deliver for me.  It's a red-based brown with a teal flash.  The formula was HORRIBLE and I just couldn't get it to cover completely.  I searched for a month for this color (it was LE) and I am disappointed I found it.

NerdLacquer Event Horizon.  Hello, gorgeous!!  I've heard rumblings of NerdLacquer coming back but nothing concrete.  I hope she comes back - she had the BEST nerd-tastic polishes.  This one finished a little bumpy but an extra coat of topcoat cleared that up, no prob!

This was a second Halloween mani.  I started with a base of OPI Here Today...Aragon Tomorrow, a green so dark, it's almost black, and sponged on Zoya Ivanka for a glitter gradient.  I love glitter gradients (if you couldn't tell).  I wore something very similar to this for Halloween 2011. 

I have a very love-hate relationship with matte polishes.  It seems the only way I can handle them is if there's chunky glitter on top...like this.  The green is actually a matte polish: Zoya Veruschka.  The glitter is one of my faves: China Glaze Party Hearty.  Great combo for Christmas!

Don't worry...there might be more...I have more cleaning to do!  Hope you liked them.

Once in a Blue Moon

Good morning, my lovelies!  It's Thursday (and sorta my Friday) and I'm glad this week is drawing to a close.  Nate doesn't have school tomorrow (in service already?!) so he and I are going to spend some quality time together.  I don't know what we're going to do yet, but we'll do *something*.  I kinda wish he knew how to skate so I could get some practice in, but if I were to take him with me right now it would be rather counterproductive.  Anyway...we'll do something...maybe bake a cake...

I finally got my stuffs together and prepped some pics for you.  Well, for me, but I digress.  Let's get to the pics, shall we?

I started with WnW Blue Moon as a base (2 coats, 3 in some areas).  I picked this one up at Walgreens in July when they were on sale for 99-cents.  This is outdoors in filtered sun.

This really is a pretty navy blue with just a hint of shimmer.  And for 99-cents, even like this, you really can't go wrong!  This is outdoors in shade.

But I didn't leave it there.  I really wanted to do a jelly sandwich, but I couldn't find my one jelly polish, so I did something a little different.

I put a coat (or 2) of Milani Gems over the top of Blue Moon and then finished it off with a coat of ChG Matte Magic.  Now, usually I don't care for matte finish.  At all.  But, every once in a while, I find something that works and I like it.  Like this one.  Indoors with flash.

Outdoors, filtered sun.  There's another thing I *want* to love but usually don't once it's all said and done: glitter bombs.  Partly because it just looks like a mess on my nails and partly because I hate the removal.  But, the matte finish really kinda subdues the bling of the glitter and that's what makes me like it. 

I'm sure you won't see this kind of mani on my blog very often, so look while you can.  LOL

I'm gonna get back to work.  I hope it's not too hot wherever you are today and I hope work goes smoothly.  See you soon!

I Want To Love Her

Good day, Kitschies!  It's Thursday.  Finally.  Why does the week following a 3-day weekend always feel like it lasts longer than a usual week?  It's been busy here at the clinic but luckily, I've had enough time to keep up on all my blog reading.  I've been cheating and getting most of my posts done the night before.  When do you read your blogs?  When do you prepare them?

I have a cute mani for you today.  I did this way back when ChG released their first run of crackle polishes. 

I started with a base of Zoya Savita, a gorgeous royal purple matte.  But I have a problem with this...it's matte.  I *want* to love matte polishes, I really do, but I just...don't.  I love this color with a top coat, it's a beautiful shimmery purple.  But I know that's not the way it's supposed to be.  So, to help this mani, I decided to draw a design on the matte finish with a shiny top coat.  While I liked how this looked, I just couldn't get with the whole matte finish.  I think I wore this for a day then I picked up some ChG crackle polishes and fixed this ho-hum mani.

This is ChG Broken Hearted over Zoya Savita.  I liked the way the pink contrasted with the dark purple underneath. 

And I like how the patterns of the cracks depends on how thick (or light) you apply the polish.

For some reason, the thumb on my right hand got a diagonal crack - cool because it was so different from all the other fingers.  I remember wearing this for quite a few days and I got lots of compliments on it, too.

Thanks to the bestie for letting me "borrow" this, though I don't know that she even knows that I used it before I gave it to her.  Shhhh!

Matte About You?

Yeah, if Matte means MAD.  LOL

Hello, my dear Kitschies!  I hope this evening finds you well.  It's Tuesday, and that means Parenthood is on tonight!  WOOT!  But...the hubs is getting ready to leave out of town for two nights tomorrow, so I'm sure we won't be sitting down to watch TV tonight.  *sigh*  Mason had a better day today.  He only had a very low-grade fever and was in much better spirits.  I think last night was the worst of it.  He's still not 100%, but he's getting there.  As for me, I didn't have much of a headache this afternoon and I think it's because I got an adjustment by one of the chiropractors I work with.  We'll see how I feel in the morning.  For now, though, I'll take a chance and say that I'm also on the mend.

A couple weeks ago, after I received some awesome polish from a giveaway through Glamorous Geek Chic, I could not wait to do something with at least ONE of the polishes.  While the hubs and I watched The Hurt Locker (good movie, BTW), I decided to play around with a matte polish and one of the pretty ChG Vintage Vixen colors.

This is Maybeline Express Finish in Matte Sapphire and ChG Jitterbug.  I picked up Matte Sapphire months ago at the Dollar Tree, and it's a good thing I only paid a buck for it because it is the suck.  It doesn't dry matte, it dries semi-matte and the application is gloppy and just yuck.  Luckily, I had ChG Matte Magic top coat, so I slapped a coat of that on top of "Matte" Sapphire.  I also added it on top of Jitterbug because it's a pretty glossy gunmetal silver foil.  When I was finished, I showed the hubs and he basically said "that's it?" and I decided to experiment with some fauxnad.

Thing is, you can't really see the image.  I used Jitterbug (silver) on top of the "Matte" Sapphire and visa versa.  I used the vine-y image from BM21.  It was kinda pretty IRL, but in pictures, it was really hard to pick up.  I was so disappointed with this mani, I took it off by the following afternoon. 

I don't really get the whole matte thing.  Unless it's for something specific (case in point), I really don't see why somebody would rather have a matte finish over a pretty, catch-your-eye glossy finish.  The same can be said of Orly's Plastix collection (as shown by The Manicured Manitee here).  Is there something about matte polishes that I'm just not seeing?  Wait.  I can think of one exception: Hot Mess by Man Glaze.  That is a gorgeous matte, but definitely the exception.

I promise to have a better, far superior mani to share with you next time.  Promise!

So...the hubs is out tomorrow night and Thursday night, so cross your fingers that 1) Mason feels better because I don't want to deal with a sick kid and a 4-year-old who has WAY too much energy and 2) that they cooperate enough to go to bed at their regular time.  Sweet dreams, Kitschies!

Challenge Accepted - Part 5

It's the weekend!!! I hope it's cool where you are, because it's not here in Albuquerque. I'm hiding out in the house with all the shades drawn and the cooler on high and it's still super hot in the house. All I want to do is lay on the couch and veg, but two little kids make that a little more than impossible.

Today I bring you Polish Hoarder Disorder's weekly challenge. This week, it's Fashion Inspiration: Betsey Johnson. She gave us a link to Betsey's collection and we had to pick a dress we could replicate the pattern or style of one of the dresses. Hmmm...for me, this was going to be a little more difficult that the others because I don't have a Konad. After going through page after page, dress after dress, I finally decided on a dress. I *almost* didn't want to do this challenge because I loved the mani I had on at the time. But once I got into this one, I really liked it. The dress and the resulting nail design really remind me of the 80's. So do most of Bestey Johnson's designs. LOL

I started with Loreal Waters Edge as the base on all my nails. It's a pretty minty blue creme that applied really easily. I had initially tried this over white because I felt the blue wasn't quite light enough, but with all the decoration on top, I think it really was the perfect blue.

To make the splashes of color, I used a fan brush and randomly brushed on acrylic paint in Canary Yellow, Licorice and Valentine Pink. Since the dress is made of jersey material (ie: t-shirt material), I opted to use ChG Matte Magic to dull the finish. I had just gotten that in the mail from 8ty8beauty.com earlier in the week, so of course I had to play with my new toy!

And here's the finished product. I was really happy with this one. It's actually a design that looked just as good on my nails as it did in my head (that doesn't happen often).

This is my submission collage. After seeing all the great entries, it made me realize that I need to take a little more time with the collage because there are some great ones this time around. Like every week, I'll be anxiously anticipating PHD's next polish challenge - they're so much fun!!

As always, thanks for stopping by! Enjoy the rest of your weekend.