Neon Splatter

I've only tried the splatter look a couple of times, because I'm not that great at blowing the polish out of the straw to get optimal placement and because cleanup is such a pain. But, this is what the 11th challenge calls for, so I decided to go for neon splatters, utilizing several polishes that have seen very little use or none at all.

 I wanted a white base that really contrasted with the neons, so I opted for Sinful Colors Snow Me White. My neons: pink—unnamed Sally Girl, orange—China Glaze Japanese Koi, yellow—Sinful Colors Neon Melon (what?!?!), green—Sinful Colors Irish Green, blue—Sinful Colors Aquamarine (not really neon, but so close and all I had), and violet—Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Vibrant Violet.

As can be seen from my cuticles, I gave up after giving cleanup a good try. I really loved this look, although the look might be a bit young for me!

Frankening Fever

I've probably got upwards of 200 polishes now, which is a drop in the bucket compared to many of the well-known nail bloggers. And although I drool over every new permutation of every color in the spectrum, I know that there is neither room in my house nor time in my schedule to do justice to oodles of polishes.

What I've really been drawn to the last few months has been...INDIES! There are so many brilliant women out there creating unique and drop-your-jaw beautiful glitter bombs, bright holos, and jelly-sammies-in-a-bottle, but I just can't afford most of them.

I finally squirreled away enough allowance to get some suspension base, empty bottles, and a few solvent-resistant glitters from TKB Trading. Ever since, I've been frankening faster than I can use what I make! I don't have swatches/manis for these two polishes yet, but I was so excited about them!

The first was inspired by a mani I saw (cannot find it again anywhere—if it was yours, kudos!) with an orange/fuchsia/violet gradient stamped with silver paisley. Then I felt a compulsion to make a companion polish in cool colors to complement the warmth of the first. So, here they are: So Sari and I'm Sari, 2!

These are both jelly sandwich polishes, but the jellies are iridescent/duochromes. I'm in love with my own handiwork, I must say. (Insert sheepish grin.)

Geometric Nails

I was looking forward to Day 10: Geometric, because I tend to gravitate toward more organic shapes and don't utilize all the great techniques for creating geometric patterns on nails. I contemplated some form of tape mani, but since that's actually the next challenge and I haven't had much experience with tape manis, I went with some simple stamping. I've known since I brought OPI Ski Teal We Drop home from Hilton Head that I wanted to use it for this day's challenge, paired with silver squares/rectangles.

This past summer, my oldest showed avid interest in my nail art hobby just long enough to convince me to start her a small collection of polishes, whereupon she gave up quickly and I inherited her teeny stash. This was my first time using Wet 'n' Wild FastDry Silvivor from that stash; I could tell from the bottle it was more glittery than my solidly chrome Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Silver Sweep. When I stamped with it, the result came across as more grainy looking than Silver Sweep; not necessarily a bad thing, just different.

The deep teal of STWD was difficult to capture with my camera, but I think these shots pretty accurately show it. I really like it paired with the jumbled rectangles and squares of BM-320. I must have ginormous thumbnail beds, though, because you can see below that the full nail images don't quite reach the edges of my thumbnails. Still and all, I'm in love with stamping and the not-quite-complete thumb stamping is only really obvious when I slap a macro shot on here!

St. Patrick's Day Nails

Yeah, yeah, everybody else showed off their St. Paddy's looks before the 17th. My manis always get posted days and days after they're on my fingers. There you have it.

Day 9 called for a saran wrap mani. I've had about a 50% success rate with this technique, apparently due to the fact that what is in my head doesn't always translate well into real life. As was the case with this one, of course...

I started with Petites Lime Freeze as my base color. I can't decide what I think of this polish. Far from being lime, the color is such a delicate, shimmery celery green, but it's too sheer for my taste. It wasn't going to matter much here, though. I covered it with a layer of a homemade franken (Verdigris) and then "saran wrapped" it off. So far, so good: good contrast, same color family.

Here is where my RL mani began to deviate from my imagined one. I really wanted to attempt some freehand shamrocks, and I really wanted to stick with the challenge, and I really thought Kleancolor Metallic green would show up against the mottled background. Uh, so much for reality. Let's just say it didn't; let's just say it looked like a leprechaun had pooped on the grass.

 Time to salvage this mani! I ended up doing another layer of saran-wrapping with the Kleancolor, which pretty much hid Verdigris, but I didn't care anymore. I decided to top it with a coat of Sinful Colors Call You Later, a great green and gold glitter topper. Final result:

My fingers look ridiculously red here. Not true to life, not even the way they looked on the computer I used to edit. Whatever.

Close-up of right thumb to see the saran wrapping and glitter a bit better.

In the sun. Man, oh man, is that Kleancolor Metallic Green bright!

I left the look alone for 24 hours, then jacked it up with some black flames from Mash-48, chosen by my elf of an almost-seven-year-old. Pic is blurry because I couldn't be bothered to wait until morning to get an outdoor shot. (If nothing else, I stand a chance of getting some award for Laziest Nail Blogger with the Crappiest Photos!)

Duochromes, Flakies, and Holos...Oh My!

Day 8 of the Slow Challenge was Duochrome, Flakie, or Holo. I managed to get an unused franken, a duochrome, and a flakie all in! Adding a holo topcoat was a thought, but there is such a thing as too much bling!

I started with basecoat and two coats of Vintage Rose, a franken I made from goodness only knows what. I added one coat of Sinful Colors You Just Wait, which changes from sheerest peach to gold to pale green depending on the angle/lighting. Then a coat of China Glaze Luxe and Lush flakie and three coats of topcoat. Even then I had a few flakies that kept wanting to snag at the sides of my nails.

 These were so difficult to capture! I noticed the duochrome changed the color of Vintage Rose from a very deep rose to more of a dark terra cotta. The pic above is the peachy tone, below is the gold.

I ended up having to move indoors (and most of the time I can't be bothered with trying to photograph my nails in indoor light) to catch the shift to green.

I did end up adding a holo topcoat the day before I took these, but since I'm fairy useless at those amazing photos of holos that other people get, it wasn't worth it to get a pic. I really enjoyed these!

My first Zoya!

I had done a mani for Day 7 before I left for Hilton Head, but in the hoopla of getting six people out the door, I forgot to get pics. It was pretty spiffy, I thought! In honor of the beach trip, I chose a gradient with L'Oreal Walk on the Beach and Sinful Colors Mint Apple with a coat of Pure Ice Busted over the top. It looked like the ocean washing up to the shore, with the beautiful lavender sparkles of Busted like the sun glinting off the sea and sand. Alas, no documentation, and I just didn't feel like repeating it when I came home from the beach. Why? Because the bestest husband ever let me pick out my first two Zoyas and an OPI at Ulta on the island. Woohoo! I got Zoya's Robyn and Jem and OPI Ski Teal We Drop.

So, for Day 7's Gradient, Ombre, or Skittle, I ended up with this skittle featuring Jem. The accent and stamping are with Color Show Bold Gold—have I mentioned this polish is, in my opinion, only good for stamping?! Check out the streaking and bubbling on my ring fingers.

Please also note the wonky stars on my right index. This was my third DOOVER of that finger; I could not get that darn image to stamp on that finger for all the tea in China! And my right pinky image isn't centered, but by that point, I didn't give a flip.

This shot is solely for the purpose of showing off the gorgeous pinky-golden flecks in Jem!

It's late, hubs is waiting on me to watch a movie with him, homemade mocha ice cream is calling from the kitchen, and I can't be bothered to list all the stamp plates. Cheers!

My one documented beach mani!

I brought about ten polishes (enough for three manis I had planned) to Hilton Head Island, all untrieds, some of which I frankened. I totally meant to take pics of all my looks, but it's amazing how busy a vacation with hubby and four kids can get! I kept forgetting to take pics when my polish was fresh, and in case you didn't know, picking through a beach full of shells does some serious damage to a manicure pretty stinkin' fast! Sigh...

So, here's the ONE look I managed to get a pic of at the beach:

My ring finger accent is Sally Hansen Lustre Shine Copperhead, a previously untried polish. The base for all the others is a frankened peachy nude I call Never Ever Naked, because I always have polish on! Topping Never Ever Naked is Beggy-Bottomed Bad Boy! WHAT?! My silly son called one of the dogs that, and inspiration was born; I mixed into TKB's Glamour Base black and copper tiny glitters along with small and medium black hexes to represent the colors of my sweet beggy-bottomed bad boy Australian Cattle Dog and his sister (both of whose colors are also mottled with white, not included in my polish ). The copper teenies don't show up as well as I thought they would, so I think my Copperhead accent doesn't fit the look as well as I'd hoped for. Oh well.

Favorite Color Family

My favorite color is blue, and to me that includes all shades of teal and aqua as well. So for Day 6, I chose to use a franken I named Haring Off, a taupe jelly with deep, vibrant aqua glitter and accent my trigger finger and thumb with Wet 'n' Wild Bijou Blue, which looks to be just about a perfect match for the glitter in Haring Off!

Lilac Skittlette

Day 5 is purple. I had a delicious, el cheapo (dollar store!) Donna Michelle unnamed creme waiting to be used and I wanted to try a skittlette mani. I stamped with Wet 'n' Wild Wild Card on index and middle with...I have no idea now what that image is! I used a thinned-down striping brush and Wild Card (doesn't show up much in this pic), Wet 'n' Wild Megalast Disturbia and Sinful Colors Snow Me White on my ring finger, a violet Born Pretty Store jewel on my pinky, and a dot-and-drag hibiscus and dots accent in Snow Me White on my thumb. I really like how this came out!

Ballet Pink Nails

I actually did these back in February! I had a week of insane busyness getting ready for a week at Hilton Head (the beach in winter is the BEST!), then a week of vacation, then I have been desperately trying to get things back in order around the house since we got home five days ago! Someone please explain to me how four changes of clothes for six people equals six loads of laundry at the beach AND a behemoth-sized mound of laundry still to do when we got home. Anyway, that's why I haven't posted in a while, so on to the nails...

Day 4 of the Crumpet's Slow Challenge (even s-l-o-w-e-r here) calls for pink. I'm not much for pink, but it's better than gold! I know a lot of reviewers call Orly Decades of Dysfunction creamy off-white or some such, but my bottle leans very much toward pink. A pale, porcelain pink, but pink nonetheless. It reminds me of ballet slippers, tights, and leotards.

I wanted to also use a glitter that I hadn't used in a while, so I chose Pure Ice Spit Fire, a beautiful mix of tiny pale metallic pink and holo glitters. After that coat I was really feeling the ballet costume vibe, so I took a chance and stamped a crosshatch pattern from BM-315 using a frankened light pink metallic polish I cheesily named Pink Porsche.  It showed up better than I thought it would, completing the idea in my head of a sheer, glittery ballet tutu over tights. Yay!