Challenge - A Time Before History

Forgive my tardiness, I'm pretty 'tardy.

I decided to gather my inspiration from SCIENCE. Mainly because science is the coolest!  The first thing I thought of when I read the inspiration was the Big Bang. We all know what that means: Galaxy Nails time!!

In more of a dramatic lighting

In whatever lighting lets you see
my messy palm best.

I'm not 100% in love with them, but for a first attempt I'm really proud! The thumb design is supposed to be an illustration of the proton particle collision that allowed the detection of the Higgs boson particle.  That shit ain't easy to translate on nails.  That could be because the Higgs particle completely baffles me in a way I'm not ashamed to admit.

Polishes:
Rimmel Black Satin
Rimmel Rags to Riches
Revlon Strawberry Sizzle
Sinful Colors Let's Meet
Sinful Colors Love Nails
China Glaze Fairy Dust
Love & Beauty Earl Grey
Love & Beauty Lava Glitter
Ulta Purple Haze

I think I've got them all listed but I know I wasn't keeping track.

Swatch Spammy McSpam Spam

Here's a few designs I did over the last few days.

First:
My first attempt at water marbling.  Not the BEST. But, at least it didn't come out at a big blob of yuck.
Lots of polish used, and a REALLY long time to do it.  Not sure how some can do these so quickly. And, man! The MESS. Love the look, but not sure about the time involved. And MUCHO wasted polish.

Second:
I got my Julep Spring Box a while back.  I used Julep Jennifer topped with Julep Camille.  My accent finger is Julep Sienna.

    (In sunlight)

    (With flash)

Last, but not least!

I got a polish from LE Glitter Polish Ballerina Girl to support a great cause.  I layered it over Sinful Colors Cotton Candy.  I took this the next day.  There's a little tip wear after a day at work typing, but still pretty good shape!

Until next time!
Rachel

Challenge - Time in History

I felt that for this challenge I would do a time in ART history.  Arts and Crafts.  My inspiration was Frank Lloyd Wright's stained glass designs.  I was thinking of the French Revolution, and it would be all gory. I chose to save the gore for another day.

I got some of the nail polish pens from Forever 21. They are AWESOME!!!! This allowed me to get the black lines a lot easier than using a brush.

Here's What I used:
Sinful Colors Endless Blue
Hard Candy Crushed on Lava
Julep Rose
Finger Paints Figure of Art.

And, once again, the obligatory cat hair. They must have a say in things.

Rachel

Challenge - St. Pat-Tea's Day!

I have a confession: I am unfairly biased against green polish.

I think most true greens looks weird on me, for one. In addition, I'm haunted by the words of a stranger that said, "You have to watch out for the girls in green nail polish; they're crazy." So, my collection is bereft of the festive greens associated with St. Patrick's Day.

I went on a little shopping spree recently and picked up some Forever 21 polishes and nail art pens. I fell in love with their nail art pens immediately! They have such a fine tip (much easier to make straight lines!) and aren't unwieldy like Sally Hansen's Color Quick pens. F21's Earl Grey polish is totally squee worthy to boot!

So, inspired by my haul, I decided to take the cheap way out and make a St. Pat-Tea's Day mani.

Colors: Love & Beauty Earl Grey polish
            Love & Beauty White nail art pen
            Love & Beauty Silver nail art pen
            Ulta The Jungle Look

Holo-Tastic!

Finally got my much anticipated Spectraflair from Pixie Polish!!!
Let me tell you, it is SPECTACULAR!  I chose to show it's magnificence with a skittles mani. Since I got my Spring Box from Julep, I wanted to try some of the polishes in it too.
From Thumb to Pinky:  Julep Gloria, Julep Robin, Sinful Colors Cotton Candy, Rimmel Wild Orchid, and Pure Ice Wild Thing.

I think this one is great for spring!

Rachel

Challenge - St. Patty's Day

My St. Patrick's Day mani is different that my earlier one.  This time I didn't go with a freehand picture again.  I was out on my once a year trek to Wal-Mart to see if they had the Rock-Candy display everyone was posting about.  I was really curious what they looked like in person, and maybe they hype piqued it too.  I was kinda disappointed in the series.  I did pick up couple and will post the haul later (YES I got more than just those. I'm sick.)  This mani I used Pure Ice Wild Thing for the base, Hard Candy Jubilee over all but my ring finger.  I stamped a four leaf clover on my ring finger with a mix of Sinful Colors Exotic Green, Rimmel Black Satin, and Pure Ice Wild Thing.  The Rock Candy Jubilee had a TON of glitter in a green jelly like base (still working on the lingo).  The stamp came out missing a little bit, so I tried to touch it up.
The Rock Candy has light green and black small hex glitter, black micro-glitter, and copper bar glitter.  I thought it very fitting with the copper, like a leprechaun's beard. Or something. Topped it all off with HK Girl.

Those little black glitters escaped with a vengeance.  Looks like I may have gotten a cat hair in there too. Guess they wanted to contribute.

Hope everyone had a great and safe holiday.

Rachel

Challenge - Week 5 - Jem and the Holographic Polish



Normal Lighting



I had this whole awesome plan to do a manicure inspired by the cartoons I watched as a kid.  Each nail would have the face of a different Saturday Morning Cartoon Star.  I started out and Michelangelo looked rad but Jonny Quest  looked like he had an extra chromosome. I changed it up and ended up going to the gym on Thursday with a turtle shell accent nail and a half-cocked idea.  I just couldn't get excited about it! When I'm not excited, I procrastinate (which is why this is being posted at the last minute!).

If there is one thing I know about myself it is that I will absolutely get excited for something SPARKLY.  Jem and the Holograms was a perfect choice! I had just gotten a bottle of Color Club's Miss Bliss (every polish enthusiast needs a holo) and snickered to myself verily at the play on words. 

Instead of trying to do something SOLELY for the challenge, I tried to make the mani something I could wear for a while that was inspired by the subject matter.  Though it is probably not obvious, the designs on my fingers are supposed to look like her earrings.



In bright light, they're impossible to not stare at.



 Colors:
Color Club Miss Bliss
Revlon Strawberry Sizzle
Sinful Colors Lets Meet
Rimmel Black Satin

Challenge - Saturday Morning Cartoons Care Bears

I was really torn on which one to do for this challenge.  I wanted to do either Jem, Care Bears, Josie and The Pussy Cats, or Shirt Tales.  I finally chose Care Bears.  I used 10 different polishes to do this mani.
I started with OPI Hearts and Tarts to get a good nude base.  
Thumb: Cheer Bear with Klean Color Light Red, Finger Paints Micheltagelo, Sinful Colors Unicorn, Sinful Colors Irish Green, Nina Blue Blaze.
Index: Tender Heart Bear with Klean Color Light Red and Rimmel Posh Pink.
Middle: Good Luck Bear with Sinful Colors Exotic Green.
Ring: Grumpy Bear Nina Blue Blaze, Klean Color Light Red, and OPI Alpine Snow.
Pinky: Laugh A-Lot Bear (which turned out more like Carl's Jr/Hardees Bear HAHA!) Sinful Colors Unicorn, Finger Paints Micheltangelo.

I loved how it turned out, but for the life of me, I CANNOT do a star. Never have been able to. LOL!

Until next time. 

Rachel

Swatch - Urban Outfitters Lollipop

I LOVE this polish.  I think it is a jelly jam packed full of different glitter colors and shapes.  The first coat had amazing glitter payoff, but I wanted more of the pink base. The second coat was PERFECTION in glitter.  The pink is my favorite shade, kinda purple-y baby rose pink.  I dunno, it's just super pretty. Definitely will be using this often with my regular manis.  I got the UO Bright Lights at the same time, but it is on back order until mid-April. They also had Models Own, of which I got the pink Mirror Ball. Will be swatching that later this week, after I do my Challenge of Saturday Morning Cartoons.
Enjoy!

Magneato!

Recently, I had done some searching for the right magnetic polish and come to the conclusion that it wasn't the best investment for the novelty.  While they are super cute when done correctly, most reviews I'd read said they were difficult,  time consuming, and overpriced.  I figured I would wait until I caught it on some kind of super-sale.  

ThinkGeek started carrying the Color Club Magnetic Force line and Mr. Husband stumbled upon it while shopping for t-shirts.  Not knowing that I'd resigned myself to being magnetic polishless, he surprised me with Electro Midnight!

I'm just in love with this polish! The application clearly isn't perfect, but I had been expecting the worst of all magnetic polishes based on the reviews I had seen.  The magnetic effect of this is strong and the application was a breeze.  Plus, the magnet in the cap is PERFECT for preventing you from rubbing it all over your nails on accident. I really couldn't be happier with it!

I'm a little disappointed that I took pictures before clean-up as after clean-up I forgot until I'd already had some not-so-sexy chipping.  I'm not sure if that's the seche's fault or mine for being so careless!

I just Nail-Gasmed

Ok, this is my first successful stamping!  It couldn't have been on a better color, or a better result. I am beyond happy with the result!
I absolutely HAD to get a Tiffany blue polish. As the nerd I am, I researched many different ones and settled on Finger Paints Tiffany Impostor.   It went on great, and I topped it with HK Girl.  NO shrinkage!  I know that some people are not liking the HK Girl, and some swear by it. Right now, I love the results.
First are pics of Tiffany Impostor.  My clean up is getting so much better! Yay for not having polish ALL OVER MY FINGERS!

Next is my stamping  I used Mash plate 28.  SQUEEEEEEEEE!!!! :D

Until next time when I geek out about something else!

Rachel

Challenge Week 4 - GLITTAH



These notes were useless.



How cool were my deep-sea mermaidy glitter nails?

Almost some!

 I started with a half-assed plan and played with all of my mermaidiest polishes and glitters.  I scoured the internet for inspiration and landed on FISH SCALES.  How amazing would those be?!  Failing that, I could always go for a sassy jelly sandwich!

As it turns out I'm terrible at fish scales. No problem, right? I still have my back-up plan and that surely cannot fail. False.  The weird blobby sad middle finger you see is the most woeful mermaid jelly sandwich ever to have been born. I need to expand my collection of one jelly polish to more than one and soon. 

I really did love that thumb, though. It was a ridiculous amount of work to get the striping and loose glitter right.  I didn't even feel bad when the glitter got all over my pets and husband.  In fact, exactly zero cares were given.

To make up for the ho-hum I felt for the failure of my undersea adventure, I purchased some new polishes that didn't come in time for this challenge.  So, I went for a simple gunmetal grey (LA Colors BCC558) with some glittery goodness (Sally Hansen Gem Crush in Glitz Gal) and a pop of striping. 

Challenge Week 2 - The Four Seasons

Happy First Post to me!

I went pretty literal with this topic and was heavily influenced by a mani I saw on Pinterest but I still love it!

Everything was freehanded with a detail brush which I will absolutely be trying again. While time consuming, the end result feels really complete. Also, stick figure romance is high on my list of "adorable crap."

An early St. Patty's Day Mani

I decided that I was tired of Seche Vita shrinking up my masterpieces. Ha!  After asking around on a few boards, I found a lot of people have used HK Girl from Glisten and Glow.  There was a deal where you got the base coat Stuck on Blu and the top coat HK Girl, so I went for it.  The shipping was FAST! I got it within 3 days!
Of course, a test run was required.  I did a St. Patty's day theme (of which will not be for the challenge).  The HK Girl is performing as beautifully as I had hoped.  Thank you Jill at Glisten and Glow!
So, here it is! I used 14 polishes for this. My freehand still has some improvement needed, but it was fun to make the coins. I did some stamping too on my forefinger.

Julep Swatch - Meryl and Portia

I recently became a Julep Maven.  Still thinking about continuing it after reading how much the polish costs per ounce.  We shall see.
Anyhoo, I got my first box that had two polishes (Meryl and Barbara), cuticle oil, and sample hand cream.  They also gave a list of polishes to buy for $4 each.  I got two more polishes (Portia and Canada!) and a top coat.  Can't pass up glitter polish. No matter how hard I try... Although, I didn't try that hard.

The swatches from top to bottom are:

Meryl

Portia

Canada!

Barbara

The first I tried was Meryl.  It was really thin, and kinda runny. Surprisingly, it dried pretty quick, which allowed me to put on a second coat.  Only two coats were needed for full opacity... Weird. 

I then topped it with Portia.  I like gray, but it needed a little sparkle. Because EVERYTHING needs sparkle.

The Clockwise Nail Polish Giveaway

Every now and then I will post giveaways I have found across the interwebs.  Here's another one that you guys should check out from The Clockwise Nail Polish.  A whole lot of indie polishes in the giveaway.  Good Luck!!!

Challenge - Week 4 Glitter

So far, the glitter challenge is my fave. Because, well... I'm a girl and I love glitter.
The first one I did looked like I just found all my glitter polish and little glitter bits and slapped them on. Although I like it, it's not for this challenge. Tried my hand at doing a glitter skittles.
Here it is:

Meh.

Then, I tried a rainbow gradient of glitter.  Used about 10 different polishes for this one.  First, I put on a coat of non-glitter polish to create the rainbow gradient for a more saturated look. There isn't any clean up here. Figure that I wanted to do just one clean up.

(Yeah that's my carpet... Yes, I need to vacuum.)

















After that was nice and dry, I did the gradient again with glitter polish.  The only one I didn't have a full on glitter filled polish was the red.  Still think it came out nice.

It took a while, but I like how it came out. This was my first gradient of any type. Just noticed the little bald spot in the green on my middle nail.  Also, a little bit of... Something (?) hanging off my forefinger. Amazing what you see with a macro setting.  I am looking forward to our next challenge of Saturday Morning Cartoons. To choose just one, or even 5, will be hard.  I say 5 because there is no way I will be able to replicate on my right hand if it isn't just straight painting like this challenge.  We shall see, because then that gives me 10 I could use, and that is just crazy.

So, what do you think?  What has been your experiences with gradients, and working with unpredictable, exploding glitter?

Rachel