Good gold, you blue me away!

As the title implies, this post will feature some blue and gold goodness that again, I did months ago when my nails were still "leggy & fabulous." ;)  Looking at these again, I must say I'm loving how it turned out, especially those hard to achieve perfect half-moons and clean cutes!  

So where, you might ask, did I get my idea for this mani?  Well my answer would be one of my many favorite TV shows.  Namely, Criminal Minds and specifically, Chief Erin Strauss's uncharacteristically casual outfit in the episode "Carbon Copy" from season 8.  As soon as I saw her multi-tiered gold necklace & dark blue shirt, the wheels started turning and China Glaze First Mate came to mind, as well as a new untried, Sally Hansen Resurrection, and I came up with several golds that I could have fun with and do a sort of skittles mani, all the while highlighting Erin's fancy yet casual necklace.

This is the inspiration:

And this is what I did with it:

Pinkie & thumb: 2 coats Resurrection, 1 coat OPI OY - Another Polish Joke! 

Ring: 2 coats ChG First Mate, lines in OY, and individual gold hexes from Essence Make it Golden

Middle & Index: 2 coats Resurrection, 1 coat butter LONDON West End Wonderland

What I used :)

 I also wanted to do this mani as a bit of an homage to one of my favorite TV characters/actresses. **Spoiler alert!
Chief Strauss was killed off in such a sad, awful manner at the end of part one of the two-part season 8 finale.  The above still was one of her last appearances in the series. :(  Her character only appeared from time to time as a bit of a "jerkface boss," but once you got to know her story, you could really start to see where she was coming from and empathize with her.  Jayne Atkinson has also played a similar role in another favorite TV series of mine, 24.  She's pretty fabulous there too as Karen Hayes.  Oh, and I recently discovered this tidbit (& subsequentely flashed back to about age 10): she played the foster mom (Claire?) on Free Willy. :)

This pic is making First Mate appear much brighter than it actually is.  Darn that powerful daylight bulb! lol  Both blue cremes had a fantastic almost one coat formula; in fact, now that I think about it, maybe I did use only one coat, not two.  I do however distinctly remember having to re-do my accent nail because for some reason I reached under the table, and as I was pulling my hand back up, I caught the edge & scraped a giant section of the semi-dry polish right off my nail. GAH.

I fell hard for the dusty periwinkle-ish blue that is Resurrection.  I first saw it in a Walgreens for like, $8 but was NOT willing to pay that much, so in a rare exercise of self-control, I put it back on the shelf (after taking a bottle shot to remember it by) and lo & behold, was rewarded by finding it on a blog sale a month or so later!  I love it with a topcoat of WEW, but it was beautiful on its own as well. :)

I really wanted to do a glamour shot with this Lia Sophia Journey ring, a la Melissa, but I could NOT figure out how she positions her hand to include her lovely rings! My contortion attempts were pretty funny though. lol

The accent nail was pretty simple, but would've been better if I'd had a striper brush with which to do the "chains."  I believe I used a stick pin, but it still didn't give me the precise lines I was hoping for. :-/  The gold hexes were taken off the brush & placed using a toothpick.  One seemed too small for all the tiers, so I used one at the top, then two, and a cluster of three or four on the 2nd chain from my cuticle.  I decided to leave the last one plain because there wasn't room for more hexes and not all of the chains in her necklace had the gold circles anyways.  Actually, I would've liked to intersperse more plain ones, but my nails just aren't (nor will ever be!) long enough for that because of my short nail beds.  I can't have a long enough free edge to compensate because I type all day long & usually chip off the sides of my nails.

I didn't take any pics with OY - Another Polish Joke! because all I have is a mini bottle, but West End Wonderland is some amazing gold and copper glitzy goodness!  A friend passed it on to me during a destash, and at first I wasn't too sure about it either, but now I know it's a keeper. :)  As is OY, a lovely ultrafine flaky golden/green shimmer in a clear base.  For more OYsomeness, check out Liesl's post - she has a hardcore crush on that one!

Thank you for stopping by, and the happiest of New Years to you and those you love. :) ♥