Swatch- Layla Polish

Lucky you!  Two posts in one day.
I got Layla Polish's Ceramic Effect "CE52- The Butterfly Effect".  It is a beautiful deep purple flakey.  I got it at Ulta in CLEARANCE! I love clearance. I mean I LURVE clearance.
It is so dreamy....
Uh... Sorry.
Back to the polish. It was so smooth to put on, not thick and goopy. It dried quickly, which made the additional coats easy to put on.  I did three coats because in the light you could see my nail line, which shows a little in the pics.

What do you think? I'm enamored by flakies, and love to just stare at them.

Rachel

Challenge Week 2- The Four Disco Seasons

FINALLY! Yay! It's my turn.
I went a little different than Teyie's amazing post.  I decided to do something inspired by Vivaldi's "Four Seasons" violin concerto.  I call it "The Four Disco Seasons." I got to break out my new camera and get better shots.  WAY better than the phone.

I started first with three coats of OPI's Hearts & Tarts to get an even nude background.  Then I used 5 different glitter colors. Mostly because I can... The other reason is to represent the four seasons on my main fingers in a single color, and my thumb to represent sheet music.
My Thumb I used Klean Color "Diamond Pink", pointer finger Sinful Colors "Faceted", middle finger Omega Labs 5 Star USA "No. 311", ring finger a mix of Sinful Colors "Paris" and Klean Color "24 Carat", and lastly pinky finger Nicole by OPI "A Gold Winter's Night".  Forgive the glitter explosion, I tried. :) (BTW, the pic is of my right hand. I forgot to take a pic of my left hand before I started the design.)

Then I painted black lines for the music staffs to undulate across my fingers in a continuous flow, and black musical notes.  The notes didn't show up well, so I decided to make them a light gray color by mixing a little Sinful Colors "Slate" with Orly's "A Decade of Dysfunction".

I like how it turned out, but next time will know to use either a stamp for the lines, or a a lot thinner brush.
I am so loving seeing my improvement through this whole journey.  I'm learning so much by other's blogs, tutorials, and trial and error.

Lemme know what you think!

Rachel

My Valentines Challenge!

Here's my attempt at our first challenge. It's also my first time freehand painting. Not too bad. Need to learn how to paint a violet better. Getting better at the painting and cleanup, but my cuticles I destroyed today. Oops.

What do you guys think? What was your mani for today? Was it an Anti-Valentines Day mani? Or just another day of fabulous nails? 

CHALLENGE!!!!!!!!!!!

A friend of mine, Teyie, and I are doing a 52 week challenge.
Too long you say? OH CONTRAIRE! It will be EPIC!  I Encourage anyone to join in and let me know what you did! I will post it here, or once I get the hang of all this blog stuff, we can link, or something.
Without further ado, I present the list of EPICNESS:

1	2/10/13	Valentine's Day
2	2/17/13	The Four Seasons
3	2/24/13	Super Hero(es)
4	3/3/13	Glitter
5	3/10/13	Saturday Morning Cartoons
6	3/17/13	St. Patrick's Day
7	3/24/13	A Time in History
8	3/31/13	Inspired by a Book
9	4/7/13	Striping
10	4/14/13	Alfred Hitchcock
11	4/21/13	China Pattern Girl
12	4/28/13	Artwork
13	5/5/13	Indiana Jones
14	5/12/13	Under the Sea
15	5/19/13	a Tutorial
16	5/26/13	Candy
17	6/2/13	Sushi
18	6/9/13	T's Favorite Monster /
		R's Birthday
19	6/16/13	Panoramic
20	6/23/13	an 80's Flick
21	6/30/13	4th of July
22	7/7/13	Miyazaki
23	7/14/13	B-Movie Horror Films
24	7/21/13	Inspired by a Song
25	7/28/13	Tea
26	8/4/13	the Supernatural
27	8/11/13	Squee!
28	8/18/13	Coupling
29	8/25/13	Nerdy Sci-Fi
30	9/1/13	a Natural Disaster
31	9/8/13	Spun Sugar
32	9/15/13	Creepy Crawlies
33	9/22/13	Tattoo Transfer
34	9/29/13	It's Raining Men
35	10/6/13	Inspired by an Animal
36	10/13/13	Inspired by a Plant
37	10/20/13	R's Favorite Monster /
		T's Birthday
38	10/27/13	Halloween
39	11/3/13	Marbling
40	11/10/13	Fruit
41	11/17/13	a Blogger
42	11/24/13	Thanksgiving
43	12/1/13	Fashion
44	12/8/13	Stamping
45	12/15/13	Favorite Musical
46	12/22/13	Christmas
47	12/29/13	NYE
48	1/5/14	Pirates
49	1/12/14	Inspired by a City
50	1/19/14	Magic
51	1/26/14	Disney
52	2/2/14	Star Wars

Here's Teyie's hand at Valentine's day theme nails. I think she rocked the casbah with them!

Apparently I have no talent because she got it all.
Until next week!!! 

Valentines Stamping

Tried my hand at stamping.  Not the BEST of all time, but not too bad for my first time.  I used Orly "Unlawful". It went on so even. It was pretty fully coated with the first coat, but knowing myself as I do, I did another one. Ya know.. Just in case... of something... 
I stamped with Sinful Colors "Snow Me White", then topped it with Seche Vita.  I did ok with the clean up, but it kinda stained my skin, so it should wear off and look a'iet.  I learned that I need to press the stamper a little harder than I did on my nail, as I was afraid on smooshing too hard. Oh, and learning how to line up the stamp straighter. But, I DID make sure the red was dried fairly thoroughly.  
Whatcha think????

Here's a Valentine's one for ya.  I used Ulta "Princess" with Nicole by OPI "Love Your Life".  I really had to fish around for the hearts.  And the formula is kinda thick. I had to doctor up the photo a little to get the hearts to stand out in the photo, but the color of the polish is still pretty close.  The Ulta polish goes on really smooth. I've had it for a while and forgot about it. Not sure about the OPI since there was a lot of casting, and no biting.

I just got my nail brushes in! So excited, so I had to use them immediately.  My first use was clean up.  I did a blue ombre on my left hand, green on my right hand.  Of course the blue came out better since I painted with my dominant hand, but it was fun to do.

On my right hand from thumb to pinky:
Sally Hansen Smooth Perfect "Air"
Zoya "Yummy"
Nina Ultra Pro "Blue Blaze"
Omega Labs USA 5 Star "No. 318"
China Glaze "Blue Iguana"

On my left hand from thumb to pinky:
Julie "Gelato in Venice"
Sinful Colors "Mint Apple"
Omega Labs USA 5 Star "No. 305"
Finger Paints "Merry Mistletoe"
Finger Paints "Go Van Gogh!"

I put a coat of Seche Vita on all my nails, two coats on both of my middle fingers since the glitter is kinda textured and I wanted it smoother. The Nina Ulta Pro turned out really matte, which I will have to remember for later.  They all had about 3-4 coats, which if I were better, would probably only be 2-3 coats... For some reason both of my thumbs have really bad cuticles. After I did the clean up, I really love the results. SO much nicer. Now, to get the technique down, because it took FOREVER!
Anyhoo, you can tell on my right thumb the polish is a bit thick, so lesson learned. Then later, obsessing over a thin spot I decided to put on another coat of Seche Vita, and it ended up wrinkling. ANOTHER lesson learned!
Until my next time where I lear another lesson because I obsessed over something dumb...