Galaxy in a Bottle

After about 5 months, I finally used my Kleancolor Chunky Holo Black as it was intended...as a topper for black polish! Such a spectacular effect for so little effort! Here it is over Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Black Out. It seems almost like a galaxy effect in a bottle!

I think I've only used this amazing glitter topper one other time, here on top of purple. You can't even really tell that it's the same polish!

Anywho, this one was a lot of bang for my buck,  in terms of both cost and effort. And I couldn't stop sharing at that shift from green through yellow and orange to red!

Cheery Daisy Mani

I saw Kelly's nails here at Set In Lacquer, and attempted my own version. My nails being much shorter, the flowers take up much more space. I really liked how hers just peeked at you from the tips and base of her nails, but this isn't too bad:

I used a franken I made from an L.A. Colors Color Craze polish; I'd jacked the color up a notch with a dribble of my China Glaze Japanese Koi and called the new color Cosmic Carrots.  I used a dotter to make the daisies with Sinful Colors Snow Me White and Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Lightening (rolls eyes at stupid spelling of polish name...). Very cheerful mani!

Last, But Not Least––A Brushstroke Gradient

The last challenge for the Crumpet's New 31 Day/Slow Nail Art Challenge was "Recreate someone else's mani from earlier in the challenge." The Merge or Melt was the challenge I had the hardest time choosing a look for, so I Googled others' looks for that one and finally settled on a brushstroke gradient. I saw one somewhere done in blues and white with many little strokes from a small nail art detail brush, but I can't for the life of me find it now, so I went with a fan brush ala Superficially Colorful's beautiful rainbow nails. I stuck to a monochromatic theme for my nails, and did it vertically. I think this was better for my shorter nails as well as easier with my deep nail folds. It was still a bit of a booger to work with!

I started with two coats of Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Lacey Lilac, then a couple of fan brush strokes of SH Insta-Dri Vigorous Violet, and finally a couple of Wet 'n' Wild MegaLast Disturbia. As you can see, my topcoat smeared the Vigorous Violet on my pinky. Oh well. This wasn't the most difficult nail art technique by far, but neither was it effortless for my lazy self! I think if I try it again, I'll go with the little strokes and a detail brush.

My Favorite Nail Art Technique

My chosen technique for the Crumpet's New 31 Day/Slow Nail Art Challenge is stamping. I'm not the swiftest at freehand, tape manis make me nervous (always waiting for half a nail's worth of polish to pull off with the tape...), glitter/jelly/crelly sandwiches by themselves are great when I don't have time for art...but stamping is easy, looks professional if done right, and with just two sets of stamp plates (Bundle Monster 2012 and Mash 26-50), I will never run out of color/design combinations!

For my stamping, I had a few goals: 1) Use pink––I have a lot of pink polishes, but hardly ever use them. 2) Use an untried––this polish is a franken I made called So Sari, a shimmery hot pink with loads of orange, hot pink, and gold glitters. 3) Use a polish I'd never stamped with before––I totally thought Sinful Colors Endless Blue was pigmented enough to hold its own as a stamping polish. I was sort of right; it shows up very well, but is slightly sheer so the base color here tinted it purple. Which was OK, as I was trying to decide between blue or purple stamping! 4) Use a stamp image I'd never tried before––I always think these bold geometrics are not my style, and end up loving the looks on my fingers! This is BM-305, by the way.

I was really happy with how these turned out!

New 31 Day Nail Art Challenge Photo Spam Post

So, our iMac died a painful death, and after two weeks, mi esposo finally got everything onto the MacBook Pro. I can't fathom devoting enough time all at once to getting caught up on posting the manis I've done for the challenge. So, here's what's been going on in Jenna-land for the past two weeks!

Merge or Melt: dripping ice cream cones!

Inspired by Fabric: This fabric was so loud! My nails were much more gaudy in RL, too. 

Inspired by Nature: crummy camera phone pic b/c I forgot to get a good one

Inspired by a Game: My 7-y-o requested Angry Birds. This was my first attempt at homemade polish decals. Not too bad!

Inspired by Your Childhood: I'm sorry, twee ickle girlies, but you were only a "child of the 80s" if you can actually remember the 80s!!  Spending the 2nd half of that decade learning to walk and talk does NOT count.  Here's a tribute to the popular neons, especially the electric-bright bobbie socks with lace on the edges!  (Can't believe I'm old enough to be seeing that trend come back...)

Inspired by Your Country: going down the toilet...

Inspired by You:  Got this idea from a piece of origami paper, a mottled greige and white background with stylized waves in mushroom brown. FYI, Sinful Colors Nirvana stamps like a dream.  Tada! (There isn't really a chunk missing from my thumbnail. No idea what trick of the light caused that...)

Inspired by Your Favorite Color:  My oldest helped me decide on this jelly sandwich, Sinful Colors Hottie, 2 coats with SillyLily Tequila Sunset in between. Oh gosh, I could not stop looking at these! They remind me of my kids' toys floating around in the pool on a sunny day!

Inspired by a Blogger:  One of the blogs I most enjoy and admire is Let Them Have Polish! Cristina is funny, friendly, honest, and soooo talented.  I've especially loved some of her manis with stamping over jelly or crelly sandwiches. This doesn't measure up (my pattern is too busy to show my frankened crelly -sammy really well) but I tried!

Whew! I'm caught up now!