Eddie Munster nails?!?!

If there was ever a testament to the painful reality of my inadequate spacial relations skills, here it is:

WTH? Jenna, what is Eddie Munster's hair doing on your tips? Sigh... OK, so, in my head this would have had an effect similar to being under a black umbrella and seeing the rain falling just past it. Only, my inability to judge distance and size meant that the scallop-edged tape I cut with my decorative scissors and used for this funky French mani didn't translate to the realization that only about two scallops would fit on each nail, thus giving the illusion of hair slicked back from a creepily Dracula-esque widow's peak. (Whew! Major run-on there.)

Oh, but here's the kicker: there's even more humorous bungling hidden in the depths of this look! The base color was a franken I made before I learned that not ALL glitter is solvent-resistant. The original color of the polish was pale peachy-pink with turquoise, orange, pink, and gold hexes mixed in with iridescent micro glitter. Once it had finished mutating into a deadly muddy grey with glitters mere ghosts of their former selves, I just happened to name it "Bride of Frankenstein". Bwahahaha! What better polish mating could there be for a look that turned out to be so hilariously horrible?! Say it with me, people: "FAIL."

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!

My oldest untried (AKA stop while you're ahead!)

Day 18: Your Oldest Untried

Seeing as I've been working my way through untrieds and seldom-used polishes through this whole challenge, and I've been finding beautiful swatches on other blogs of new polishes I can't afford and then frankening something similar, I had to really think about what was my oldest untried. I'm pretty sure it's a franken I made before I discovered that Born Pretty store glequins are NOT solvent-resistant. The polish is a black jelly with holographic and red micro glitters and what were supposed to be red glequins. Alas, before I even had time to come up with a cute name, the glequins bled, lending a reddish cast to the jelly (not bad—interesting, in fact!) and bleaching the glequins down to a peach shade.  I had been thinking how devilishly beautiful black and red can appear, and since this was not quite so intense and/or disastrous as the bleed could have been, I named it "It Could Be Worse."

I was careful with application, as those larger glitters could have proved fatal to a nice clean-up. I was surprised by the depth of the polish, and quite pleased. Alas, that's where it all went wrong. I really thought Kleancolor Metallic Red would be strong enough to show up against ICBW, but no. The full nail lips image I stamped using BM-303 isn't even recognizable on my nails. I ended up with it looking sort of like a Saran Wrap mani. OK, I thought, maybe a diagonal tape mani with a thick coat of Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Red Carpet? Uh...no:

Definitely NOT enough contrast.

A close-up of all the glittery goodness beneath the sad screw-ups. 

I will definitely be using ICBW again, but with silver as a topper or just alone to show off the depth.

Watercolor Nails

I love participating in nail art challenges, albeit completely on my own. I get to try so many new techniques; day 15's challenge is watercolor nails!

Watercolor makes me think of...water, of course. And water, in this case, made me think of dragonflies:

Alas, I cannot remember AT ALL which polishes I used for the watercolor effect! I know both the green and blue were shimmer polishes, but that doesn't help much, since I have a TON of blues and greens! I know I used OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls for the base, a waste of one of my more expensive polish purchases; I could have just used Snow Me White. And the dragonflies were applied using Sally Hansen Hard as Nails Black Heart, Kleancolor Metallic Orange, and a dotting tool. I was happy about the discovery of using a dotting tool for the wing shapes; I just dotted, and without lifting the tool, dragged toward the body of the dragonfly!

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!)

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.

Fairies on my fingers...

Day 29's challenge was "Inspired by the Supernatural". I am NOT AT ALL into creepy supernatural stuff, so I was leaning towards doing something that reflects my faith in Christ. But I could not think of anything at my skill level that would classily depict that. I went with something cute and sort of silly: fairies. This mani wasn't all that fabulous, mostly because it didn't show up that well on the black background.

I started with a base of Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Black Out, the most miserable, thin, streaky black creme I've ever owned, so I had to use two coats. I topped it with a coat of Wet 'n' Wild Fast Dry Hannah Pinktana and pressed a few holo silver hexes from the dollar store into it. I stamped a flower in Kleancolor Metallic Purple and a butterfly (just half the image on my ring finger) in Kleancolor Metallic Fuchsia from whatever Salon Express plate (can't be bothered to go look). I painted a head, arms and legs in Nakey Nana (a homemade franken named for my littlest's beautiful skin), a dress in Color Club Worth the Risque, and hair with Kleancolor Metallic Yellow.

Pardon the carpal tunnel wrist brace. Couldn't be bothered to take it off!

Awkward angle of my ring finger, trying to show the edge of the flower and the side view fairy w/o too much glare!

Back view of a fairy reaching to touch a flower. This shot almost totally disguises the flower, but it does extend to the right side!

Not my best ever, for sure.

The Tribe of Ugly Sweater Wearers Descends into Anarchistic Social Suicide

There was no way in HADES I felt up to attempting freehand art for Day 16: Tribal Nails! I flipped through my stamp plates, and although this image from BM-315 makes me think of Christmas sweaters, I thought maybe in the right color combo it would look more tribal. First hitch: my desired combo was red and yellow, b/c I wanted to use Under 18 as my base color. But none of my yellows stamp vividly over dark colors. So I went with white, imagining the Tribe of Ugly Sweater Wearers.  Second hitch: I could not get this image to stamp cleanly for the life of me! I thought maybe some black dots would 1) make it look a little more tribal and 2) cover some of the ickiness. Meh. I was so irritated by the stamping that I figured I'd throw DIFFERENT Dimension Social Suicide on two nails as accents, thus avoiding more stamping. Which is when I realized that, while SS is wonderful, combined with this intricate stamp image, it just looks like my nails are a visual aid for the (imaginary) morality tale called...The Tribe of Ugly Sweater Wearers Descends into Anarchistic Social Suicide!!!

Puppies for Christmas!

Four years ago, my sweet hubby got the kids and I two blue merle Australian cattle dog pups for Christmas. Here are my babies today:

 my baby boy Pizwat (peas what?)

 my sweet girl Po (as in "po-faced") (grainy phone pic)

Such a good big brother! (another low-quality pic—thank you, Android)

For Day 13: Animal Print I decided to do an honorary mani for my pups! I coated three fingers with a red Sally Girl mini (812084) and two with Orly Decades of Dysfunction (3 coats before I got rid of all the bald spots). I used Sinful Colors San Francisco to freehand ribbon bows on my thumbs, and a coat of Different Dimension Social Suicide (my first indie polish EVAH!) on my ring and pinky fingers to represent Pizwat and Po's black and white mottled coloring. On my index and middle fingers I stamped with China Glaze Mahogany Magic and BM-306, carefully removing the hydrant in the middle of the design with cotton swab dipped in acetone. Into that blank space I stamped the pup-dog face from Mash-27 and Konad Special Black. Ever since I got Decades of Dysfunction, it's reminded me of the color of carpeting that people without kids have, and the brown bones and paw prints (there's my "animal print", btw) are the mess my pups leave behind them:

flash

outdoor (overcast)

 indoor, no flash

(You can actually see Pizwat's blurry front paws in the background at the top of this pic.)

polishes used (oops, forgot to turn San Francisco around the right way)

I have to say, I'm pretty stinkin' pleased with this one. Not that it would have taken much, after the "wrapping paper nails" fiasco.

Kitchen Table Nail Salon

All my girls wanted they're nails done last Friday. It took me an hour and a half to "do up" everybody; I jokingly told them I felt like I was working in a nail salon!

Olivia (14) chose CG Starboard stamped with Orly Buried Alive and Mash plate 44.

Isabella (10) was getting parakeets for her bday, hers are painted with Pure Ice Free Spirit and a franken I made from Sinful Colors Tokyo Pearl and Midnight Blue, stamped with budgies and bows in Konad Special Blue and a green I frankened from Konad Special Yellow and Blue with plates BM-315 and  BM-317.)

Kristiana (6) wanted blue and white skittles (Revlon Indigo Night and Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear White On) stamped with doughnuts and cupcakes from BM-308 using Konad Special White and Blue.

 I thought it was cute/funny that all my little women picked blues and greens! I, on the other hand, went way out of character for Day 7: Black and White Nails. I went minimalist! I can almost never bear to do anything this simple on my nails (or in the pages of my kids' scrapbooks—too many good pics to choose from!). 

I decided to use Sally Hansen Hard as Nails Black Heart for the base color because the thought of cleaning that much Konad Special Black off my fingertips was daunting. I used the gradient image from BM-301 and Konad Special White. This was one of the BM plates that I had trouble with, even with two replacements! It leaves a huge bare spot in the middle of the image unless I scrape with a metal scraper... I then sponged some Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear White On at the tips to even things out, cover bare spots, and make the tips even whiter. I love how it turned out, especially as everyone in the family had the same initial reaction I had: "It looks like snow falling!"

flash

inside, no flash

sunlight

Now, if South Carolina would just GETsome snow this winter!

Redwall!!!

My little man requested for his 12th birthday that I stick to just one color of polish with no embellishments, and that he get to pick the color. Boy, was I surprised when he picked hot pink, and then wanted holo top coat on it! I weaseled my way into at least doing an accent nail, so since his party theme was the Redwall books by Brian Jacques, I tried to make Martin's sword.

I used Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Twisted Pink, topped with a holo top coat from Pretty Polish I got off eBay. I drew the sword with silver and black Sharpies and added a red jewel from Born Pretty to the pommel (which is too short, but oh well).

natural light

flash

I told my bud that after his bday, all bets were off on the "one color only", and I decided to try freehand French tips with Sally Hansen Hard as Nails Black Heart. Not bad for my first try freehanding the tips, I think.  This shot was also taken with a flash, obviously, since it's a little washed out. I discovered that painting tips on top of a top coat gives me edge wear too darn quickly, so I don't think extending a mani's wear time with French tips is going to work for me.

Galaxy Nails, Take 2

The first shot of these on the blog, but actually the second time I've done galaxy nails.  Wish I'd thought to take pics the first time, so I could compare.  I think these are better, although the pics are blurry crap.  Oh well, at least it gives me an idea what the heckito I did.

Base: Pure Ice Electric! (stupidest name ever), sponged first with Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear White On, then China Glaze Fly and Japanese Koi and Sinful Colors Gorgeous. White dots and base of supernova in White On and supernova topped with Japanese Koi. Topped with a layer of Pure Ice Don't You Wish iridescent glitter. Base and top coat used, too, but whatever. Pic above in sunlight, below in indirect natural light.

Thumb pic: so blurry, but shows off the glitter a bit!

One of these days I'll get the hang of not flooding my cuticles when I paint...  The gross, wrinkly fingers are my badge of honor for being a mommy for 14 years (and being a year shy of 40—YIKES!), and no amount of amazing, homemade jojoba oil/shea butter body butter seems to cure it.  I find myself wishing I'd been born into a culture that reveres old age, wisdom, wrinkles, and all that.