Working The Stripes Again

Eh.

A base of Zoya Raven, striped with Barielle Enduring, OPI Lucerne-tainly Look Marvelous, and OPI Glitzerland.

I added too many stripes, and Lucerne... didn't show up as well as I thought it would.  So what could have been cute quickly fizzled into not so cute.  But I worked it out for a day, and resolved to try it again later.

After Thanksgiving Means CHRISTMAS!

Might as well.  They push the pumpkins and make room for the fat man in November around these parts, and the problem is not new.  I have satellite radio, and one of my presets is Radio Classic (with Greg Bell).  I caught part of some show, maybe Burns & Allen, where they were griping about Christmas decor going up in November in the 1950s too.  So hush-up, 2012 - this is nothing new.

Green + Red = Instant Christmas Manicure, and if you multiply that by dots, you get a lot of...something.  So here is a quick guide to my favorite kind of down the side dot manicure.


First - decide on a basecoat.  For this particular set-up, I did two coats of Barielle Enduring, a really clean white creme

Like ridge-y fallen snow.

Next, use the largest dotting tool you want, and make three dots at the top, bottom, and right, of each nail.  Follow that with the next size dotting tool, in an alternate color, right next to those.  I chose China Glaze Ruby Pumps and Barielle Date Night

The virus is spreading.

Now go one size down, and fill in the spaces between the larger dots, and so on and so forth.  I wish I could say there is a surefire pattern, but there's not, and I think that's what makes it so pretty.  I got a little carried away with this one, and crammed too many in for my personal taste, but I still like it.  Go crazy or go conservative - it's your festive use of time.  I added in China Glaze Cranberry Splash and Zoya Ivanka

There's no hope for the patient.

They've succumb to the dots.

Christmas Challenge - Red & Green

I can't even lie - I, like the hoards of people in charge of retail decorating, love Christmas-time and start to decorate early.  I love the decor, the cocoa, the freezing temperatures and snow...all of it!  But I live in TX so I get a lot more of the decor and cocoa and a lot less of the freezing temperatures and snow.  Wah wah.

But what I can share in, while lamenting my lack for need of a parka, is this Christmas Nail Art Challenge!

I started today, so I took the easy way out and stamped a few looks to get ready to hunker down for some inspired creativity in the upcoming weeks.  Red and green called for the following lovely gift-wrap inspired stamping manicure.

A warning first, though.

The good news:  Black Friday means I got a new camera!  It has better resolution than my cell phone and isn't six years old!

The bad news: I'm not really sure how to work it, so the macro shots are going to be even more unforgiving than normal.  Management appreciates your patience while I adjust.

China Glaze Cranberry Splash and Barielle Date Night

With stamped images from Konad m65 and m79

I love the simplicity of a package tied beautifully, and these stamps really called out to me to represent that.  Cranberry Splash is part of China Glaze's new Holiday Joy 2012 collection and is THE quintessential Christmas red for me.  Barielle Date Night is flawless on its own, and I'm positive that I'll highlight it later, because it's this lovely pine green with shimmer, another quintessential Christmas color staple.  

See you with snowflakes later this week!

Barielle Blackened Bleu

A gorgeous deep navy shimmer in a blackened base, Barielle strikes gold again.  Your nails will look like gorgeous little sapphires in the sun, and subtly shimmering waves in the shade.  I'm a big fan of polishes with multiple faces, and Blackened Bleu is gorgeous.

Dark and lovely and...highly reflective.  Forgive the profile.

BAM!  Alien hands shows you the shimmer.

The formula has a tendency to run just the teeniest bit, so take your time on the first pass.  Do one thin coat, three times, seal it with something shiny, and stare at your flawless manicure for the next however long it takes you to fall in love with something new.

Halloween, The Final Slaughterin'

There's no coming back from this one.

Barielle Myrza's Meadow, Zoya Mimi, Zoya Arizona, and Essie Licorice

Those cuticles have been murdered.

It was the black nail polish, in the living room, with the pigment.

Myrza's Meadow is a great pukey-green with holographic glitter.  I mean puke-y in the nicest possible way, because I love it; I just don't know a better way to describe it.  It's super sheer though, and even on these little stripes of nail, I needed three coats to provide good color.

Arizona is a fantastic orange, and is good to go with one coat.  Nice, bright, citrus shimmer that levels well.

Mimi is a color cousin to Suri, but with bold tonal shimmer instead of the vague holo shimmer.  It's sheer with one coat, and good at two.

I did one thick-ish coat of Licorice on top of the tape, then peeled and added a coat of Seche Vite.

Despite the fact that this manicure was a freaking nightmare because I did designs on eight nails, so the taping took over an hour, I love tape manicures.  They give a really interesting cohesive look to what would otherwise be crazy colors jammed together.  I'm (clearly) still trying to get a look I'm happy with  using black, purple, green, and orange, and I just don't think it's going to happen.

I'm...okay...with this, but I haven't quite figure out how to get dark nail polish out of the bed of my nails.  As soon as it touches the skin, it's there until the next time I push my cuticles back and clean them out.  It's annoying, but it won't stop the tape love.

It's National Free Candy From Strangers Day!

Happy Halloween!   

I don't engage in costume selection and dress-up now that I'm an adult. It's not that I don't want to - I see a ton of great costumes every year that I know would be so fun to put together and go out in.  The problem is that my house is awesome, and it's full of all my stuff, and I can wear sweat pants and eat mini Twix there.  So the incentive to leave has to be incredible.

Instead of a costume that might jeopardize my candy bowl obliteration, I thought - why not a costume for the nails?  How about I subject them to freehanded designs and starting over a thousand times because I don't like what I "drew"?

Nails can't talk so I did it!

 I used a crapton of polishes.
Zoya Purity, Raven, Rekha, Cheryl, Harley, Song, Tracie, China Glaze Angel Wings,
China Glaze Lighthouse, A England Saint George &  Barielle Glammed Out Garnet

Ruby Red Slipper, Witch's Sock, Dorothy's Dress, Wicked With's Face/Hat, Yellow Brick Road
Emerald City, Tin Man, Scarecrow, Cowardly Lion, and the other Ruby Red Slipper.

Once I decided that I was going to do the Wizard of Oz, picking the things to be represented, and their associated colors was quasi-easy.  Deciding on the order and not messing up one wet nail while I tried to handle another was a gigantic pain in the ass.  I redid the dress nail five or six times, re-drew items for the witch a dozen times (I first tried to draw her warty nose.  awful idea.  just awful.), and I was irritated that the Tin Man's rivets smeared, but way too lazy to go fix it.

Now that I've sufficiently castigated myself for mistakes, how cute is this??  It's 100% not work appropriate, so I had to take it off that night, so excuse the crappy lighting.  My husband correctly identified every character, which left me confident that it made sense.  I think outside of my explaining it to anyone, it might just look like a mish-mash of stuff, but with the explanation, I'm pretty proud of my first foray into...ummm, interpretive nails?  Manicure fever?  I don't know. 

And for your viewing pleasure, some close-ups

    

Sorry Alicia Keys, But THIS Girl Is On Fire

I stripped off the Halloween manicure, after being positive that my topcoat wrecks everything, and set to thinking of a new design.

"I'll just give my nails a quick trim so I can file them down." turned into a short hack job.  As a viola player for well over a decade, long nails oog me out.  To celebrate feeling my finger pads touch they keyboard again, I opted for something simple and fall-like because it's supposed to get cold this weekend!

Barielle Pin Up with Zoya Chloe

I stared and stared and stared at these.  Like a moth to the...nevermind.

I got Pin Up as part of a Barielle Holi-Craze package I picked up a while back on clearance.  It's a little more red and a little less orange than it shows in this picture, but it is definitely not what I'd call a classic red.  It's also got a hint of gorgeous shimmer that makes it a winner all on its own.  But I am a sucker for flakes, and with all the sunshine in the forecast, wanted to exploit a little more color, so I reached for Zoya Chloe, which contains orange to yellow (and very occasionally green) flakes in a clear base.  

Voila!  A campfire on your hand!  I think tonight I'll mess with it a bit to give a new look, but I wanted to preserve this first in case I eff it up tonight and have to acetone the whole thing off.


*Update*

I was going to do this elaborate tape job, but it was time to sleep, so I opted for a black shatter instead.  My sister convinced me that it would look like embers under charred wood, and I have to agree with her.  

OPI Shatter in Black

You can almost smell the smoke.