Challenge #9: Match OOTD

Most of you probably already know this, but at first sight, I had to ask myself a few times: "match [OOH-tid]? What the heck is an oohtid?"  Google to the rescue!  OOTD = outfit of the day.  Well, this fell on the 25th - yeah, yeah, I'm not very good at meeting these deadline days - which obviously was a Saturday.  I typically don't even make it out of my pajamas most Saturdays!  BUT yesterday was a rare exception because I had to go into work for 4 hours of training.  So if I had  to go to work, I was going as casual as possible: jeans and a warm, comfy sweatshirt.

Fig. 1:  My Under Armor sweatshirt :)

Ahhh the never-ending complaint of polish bloggers: NEONS DON'T PHOTOGRAPH CORRECTLY!  This is actually a light neon peach, not orange. -_-  The neon fuchsia thread is pretty close though.  

Ok, so before I show you the resulting mani, I will warn you that super macro is SO not kind to detailed work with tiny brushes. :(  And getting an evenly symmetrical UA symbol is well, I'm going to say impossible.  For this medium anyway.  

I used Pure Ice Kiss Me Here for the base color, then took my L.A. Colors white striper to "sketch" the logo, and outlined it first with Sinful Colors Dream On (my very first SC purchase a couple summers ago), then filled it in with a Wet Seal neon peach polish that does not have a name.  I used cheapo brushes from a cheapo megapack I got at Wal-Mart for $4.77, baby!  Some of them actually work pretty darn well, I must say.  But ANYthing looks awful at the mercies of super macro + XL photo size. :-/  So I'm sorry for the assault on your retinas!

Oh, and I finished it off with NYC Matte Me Crazy because blue jeans and sweatshirts are not shiny. ;)  In case you hadn't noticed.

Fig. 2: My horrid recreation of said sweatshirt

I suppose this could be considered "indecent exposure" and I should be jailed for my indiscretions.

Ufff.  This kinda makes me shudder!  And WHY does China Glaze First Mate photograph much lighter than what I'm seeing on my nails right now?!  Sooo frustrating.  But hey, I gave it an honest try, and I think that's what counts!!  Not backing down from the challenge.  Which leads me to explain why Challenge #8 is mysteriously missing... it's supposed to be "Studs" and I do not own any because I don't like them.  There, I said it.  I don't.  I think they just look weird, and I'm not a huge fan of stuff sticking off my nails.  Except for tiny rhinestones... they're cool as an accent.  So I WILL do something for this "Studs" challenge... I just need to get creative! :)

Challenge mani #4: Pastel blue

What a RANDOM inspiration, if I may say so myself!!  And I only own one pastel blue.  I'm actually rather embarrassed to show you this mani as although it was a very cool idea in theory (a dear friend of mine sketched nails with cute little wine glasses, martini glasses, and champagne flutes) but my execution was seriously lacking!

Those darn striper brushes are not as easy to use as they may seem... or maybe it's just me. :P   But on a positive, warm fuzzie note, the "darn" silver striper brush was a surprise gift from said dear friend.  When I asked her: "Why on earth did you do that?!" (buy a 3-pack of stripers she didn't need), she replied: "Because I love you!" AWWWW! ♥

Not so awww; this is my feeble attempt at some "light blue" nail art:

2 coats shown here, most people would've probably needed 3 to be happy

Uhh yeah, those are supposed  to be olives...with pimentos... and that's a skewer, not a knife in the glass... Uffff.  Not one of my best days!  Speaking of my LACKINg execution, I give you some fabulous humor:

Hopefully that helps make up for this pitiful post! LOL

And I believe many of you might not have been around waaay back at the beginning of my 'lil blog when I did this mani, also including NYC Skyline Blue, so I figured why not show it again?  Especially since it "goes" with martinis. :)

Aaand I believe I will take this opportunity to remind everyone that in 35 days, 8 hrs, and 30 mins, I and a group of friends will be on a plane to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico to stare at a view much like what is on muh nails here!!! Woot woot! :D  

G'nite all!  I pinkie promise I'll have something better for you tomorrow. ;)

Challenge mani #3: Pattern

Well well, as you can see I am clearly late on this one. :-/  Apparently even though this is the "Totally Doable I Have a Life Challenge," I must've had a little too much of a life for it! hehe
Again, I had a couple ideas for "pattern" inspired nails; my first was a white base with rainbow chevrons, but I forgot to look for a small enough brush and wasn't going to head back up town.  SO, I pulled out my trusty dotting tool set and with a mani I'd seen earlier in the week (and now cannot find even after scouring my history!) in mind, I set to work. :)

Found a scarf at Maurice's that echoed the Mexican/Spanish vibe & my dear friend took a couple shots for me with her Droid. :D  Gotta love it when friends "get" your blogger tendencies!

The base color is two coats of L'Oreal Orange You Jealous?, then using my largest dotting tool, I added a towering arch of dots in Cult Nails Tempest (which even after this tiny bit of usage, I firmly believe it to be the best opaque white creme!), then filled in the dotted area to the tip of my nails using the polish brush.  Let dry, and repeat with NYC Tudor City Teal, which might be the worst  teal creme in terms of opacity. :(  I love the dusty teal color, but wow was it sheer!  I'd definitely call it more of a crelly.  See?!

Orange You Jealous? is a bit of a misnomer because it's really NOT this orange!  It's much more of a pinky coral, and not this bold either. :-/

I love love love L'Oreal's cremes for their smoothness, shine, and opacity in two coats and am definitely eyeing up a rich dark teal in their new gel line.  Should've gotten it today, actually.  Also, the L'Oreal brush makes application a breeze; these lovely half-moons with no cleanup are thanks to their slight half-moon shape at the end of the bristles. LOVE!  It's so nice when they make it easy for us to have clean cutes!!

Although I could've done the same on my other hand, I wanted to play with an actual polka dot pattern on the whole nail simply because I'd never done it.  I know, right?!  Simple polka dots and I've never done them.  As Vizzini says: INCONCEIVABLE!

After doing the Tempest dots, I also remembered the "off-center double dots that kinda look like holes" effect and gave it a shot. :P


And for a little bonus, this is what my pattern manicure reminds me of:

These were both taken in Spain; this style of arch is called an "arco de medio punto polilobulado," and is very popular in the Mudéjar (essentially Arabic) architecture.  Little did the Arabic artisans know it would also be very popular with pidgeons!!! LOL  ;-)

Neon nailsies and a bit o' life!

Hello and Happy Saturday evening to you all!  Since I was off work on Friday and going out of town, I decided to do a "funky" mani with neons (love 'em but I feel weird wearing them to work) and attempt a technique I've never tried before but recently saw in a tutorial video on YouTube.  It did NOT turn out like I envisioned because I could not find a small enough brush. :(  But it was still kinda cool, and I enjoyed it for a couple days. :)

First of all, can I say that as much as I love the neon mint color of ChG's Highlight of My Summer, the formula is HORRENDOUS!  :O  It gets sooo streaky, and yet, giant ridges build up in other places and it's just a royal pain in the butt to get decent coverage.  I think this is three coats.  Dry time was decent at least.  The accent nails are a polish I've showed you before; Maybelline Pretty in Polka.  I love their jelly/black & white glitter polishes! Drops of Jade is also in my stash. ;) 

As you might have guessed, the technique is one-stroke brush flowers, but mine did not really turn out.  I stupidly got the white and the pink (NYC French White Tip & Sinful Colors 24/7) reversed for the first two.  I'm not even going to try to describe it, so if you want to see how the pros do it, watch this awesome video!

So, since I only have & only wanted  to show you one photo of that mess, on to "life!"

Last weekend my little brother and I made the long-ish (6 hr) trek to New Ulm, MN to visit our mom's sisters and their "kids."  We're actually all around the same age...my brother and I both have cousins there that are the same age as us, and one that is smack dab in between us. :)  It was a really nice weekend and it felt good to finally reconnect with them.  It'd been YEARS since my brother saw that side of the family, and about 2 years since I'd been to New Ulm for a visit.  Plus it was nice to have someone to share the boring drive with - other than when he was driving like a boy and ruining my gas mileage!

Clockwise from R:  Jane (my aunt), Hannah (her daughter), me, Morgan (my brother)

Here's us having a sushi FEAST at a pretty spectacular place in Mankato. :)  Thankfully, we all enjoy sushi and so I thought lunch in the big city was in order!  Hannah had heard of this new place from a couple friends and they happened to have a $15.99/person all you can eat sushi lunch special.  I don't know how the 4 of us managed to eat only 3 rounds of 3 rolls...plus the most amazing crab rangoons as an appetizer - they were seriously to DIE for - like Turkish delight or something! lol
Somehow the sushi was very filling and totally delicious.  Mmmm.  Darn, now I want sushi!  :P

It was Oktoberfest while we were there - New Ulm is a very  German town, complete with a Glockenspiel & it's home to Schell's Brewery, so Saturday afternoon we walked around downtown and happened to catch the petting zoo as they were packing up...

Now that's not something you see in MN every day!  He was really cool... as we walked up, he kept saying: "Hello," and "I love you."  At least I think  that's what he was saying!  There was also a kangaroo, some other kind of big bird, a llama, a dromedary camel, and a couple other things I can't recall.  Hannah's 2-yr-old daughter was there before us with her dad, and she called her mom & kept repeating: "camel!" :D  It was pretty cute.  She knows a lot of animals for being only 2!

Now, on to TODAY!

I almost wan't going to include this, but since my friend's costume & my shirt kinda go (color-wise) with the mani I showed you, I figured meh why not!  Plus, I'm pretty excited that I did my first-ever 5k run/walk today!!! :D  Let me tell you, if someone said to high-school me (who about died every time we had to do laps for gym class) that in 10 years I'd be running a 5k of my own free will, I would have literally rolled on the floor laughing.  But, wonder of wonder, miracle of miracles; here I am...

Here's me and my lovely friend, Janette, who convinced me to do this with her!  So up until 8 days ago, I'd never really run a day in my life, other than when absolutely necessary. :P hehe

I have no idea what our exact times were (the timing device they were using kept freezing because it was so cold) but I'm guesstimating it was around 45 minutes?  And we walked a lot of it.  But I'm pretty proud of us!  It was surprisingly not nearly as bad as I thought and all my mental freaking out and worrying about being the last ones to finish was for naught.  We'll probably do another one in Fargo in May. :D

Oh, this guy greeted me this morning when I was about to sit down by my mirror to get ready.  I'll spare you the big photo!  Needless to say I got ready in the bathroom instead.

ISH.  I HATE spiders!  When my roommate got home, I had her kill it. :P  I'll usually kill them, but I was already on edge with nerves about the run. 

Have you ever accomplished something you never thought you'd do?  If so, I'd love to hear about it!  Thanks for stopping by and I hope you enjoyed this post even though it wasn't all about polish. ;)

Knock Your Socks Off! A sock-inspired mani

Say whaaa . . . ?!  YES, you heard me correctly (or rather, you read that correctly ;-).  As a dear blogger buddy of mine has said, inspiration can come from ANYWHERE!  So when Liesl (yes, the Liesl of  Liesl Loves Pretty Things) posted a photo of her ailing knee, our mutual friend Essie (a la iHeartPrettyPolish) zeroed in on no, not the knee, but the SOCKS, and suggested we do a mani based off of them. :-)  And such is the life of a nail polish addict . . .& her friends!

I'll spare you the XL-sized photo of this one! ;-)

A flurry of comments ensued as we chimed in and agreed that would be a nifty way for our three blogs to connect, (I'd like to take this moment to mention that I'm incredibly honored to have anything to do with their blogs, as they're totally amazing & have earned their place in the big leagues!) and for us to have fun with something, shall we say, unique & a tad off-the-wall? :-)

And then I imagine our minds separately set to work attempting to puzzle through what we were going to do with a sock and a knee injury and . . . nail polish.  Well, this is what my cogitation kicked out:

First of all, can I just say how unbelievably GLAD I am that someone from PAA (Polish-aholics Anonymous, a fab Facebook group) mentioned their copious research on bulbs & came up with "daylight" compact fluorescent bulbs (Wal-Mart brand, no less!), because it looks like it's going to be stormy 'til the end of time here.  I was rather despondent until I remembered the lightbulbs I just bought!  For having no light box & simply putting one into our resident living room floor lamp, I am stunned at the color accuracy and ease with which I was able to get quite satisfactory photos!  Ok, that digression got to be a lot longer than I anticipated!  My apologies, but I was/am quite excited about this.  :-)  I can take awesome photos in the middle of the night!  Boom bayyyby!

This is what I used:

L to R: Sally Hansen 4-in-1 Complete Care (used as base), L'Oreal Eiffel For You, Zoya Neely, Zoya Yara, NYC French White Tip, NYC Skyline Blue, China Glaze Rich & Famous, Venique Ga-loshes Glow, NYC Matte Top Coat.  Oh, and the tiny craft paintbrush!  Couldn't have done it without him!

I really couldn't think of anything to do but replicate the look of the sock!  So after my ever-present base coat, I started with two coats of Zoya Neely on all my nails, then used the saran/cling wrap technique on thumb, pointer, & middle to sorta sponge on L'Oreal Eiffel For You - a beautiful, warm greige - to mimic the heather look of the sock.  I also went back over that with some sponged-on Neely to soften the boldness of the greige.

Originally, I was just going to do stripes on the standard accent nail, but since this is a mani in honor of Liesl's injury & her awesome sock, I thought: "why not do the pinkie as an 'accent' as well, like she does?"  :-)

I was able to use Yana, Skyline Blue, and of course, French White Tip right out of the bottle, but I had to get a bit creative for the other stripes.  So the pink & yellow-green were products of Rich & Famous + white and Ga-loshes Glow + white. The heather stripes didn't quite come out as good as they first appeared (esp. with the matte coat), but I don't think it was too shabby! :-)  Especially in light of this being my first attempt with freehand stripes.  It would probably be fine for someone with a steady hand, but that's not me!  And I suppose the medium latte with an extra shot earlier in the day didn't help much. ;-) ...well, it did...it kept my head from hitting the keyboard at work!

Originally, I had not given any thought to my topcoat, but as I was gathering my polishes, it dawned on me that DUH, socks are not shiny, so MATTE is the obvious choice!!! :-D  I was quite pleased to have thought of that, and I think the matte is the perfect icing on the sock, so to speak. :-)

Well, I think that's all I have for you.  Please be sure to head over & check out Essie's & Liesl's posts - they're as stellar as always! :-)  And remember: inspiration can be found anywhere - have fun with it!

Thanks for reading!!

My mismatched, matching, minty mani...Mmm Mmm Mmm!

After my trip to Chicago, I've been feeling rather uninspired and blaah about blogging...figure that one out: Chicago should've been chock-full of inspiration!  And really, it was, but I think the trip and the last couple weeks have just taken a lot out of me.  Anyhoo, after poring over some really awesome nail art posts this week, and pulling from some old favorites as inspiration, I came up with this:

Left hand!!  Oh YESSS! 

I decided it was time to "go big or go home," so to speak, and I think I accomplished "big."  :-D  It's by no means perfect like so many more experienced nail art bloggers, and of course the area around the cutes is not immaculate and perfectly rounded (I cannot for the life of me figure out how they manage that, even with detailed, intense cleanup!), but anyhoo, I feel rather proud of this mani. :-)

On to what I used and the process!

L-R: Essie Fill the Gap basecoat, Maybelline Green With Envy, Skinfood 22W (Korean polishes & their numbers...sheesh!), Essie Mojito Madness, NYC French White Tip, Rimmel Hot Black To Go, Zoya Vespa, and Sally Hansen 4-in-1 Complete Care

I started with Fill the Gap which is my new base and I really love it!  It's almost like OPI's Barre My Soul, but it dries to a satin finish.  I have considered wearing it on its own, actually. ;-)  Last night though, it was behaving strangely and driving me nuts...the humidity here was pretty atrocious (which I think gave all the polishes a bad attitude last night :-P ) and we had a ceiling fan on over the table, so that probably added to the issues.  I actually had to redo the base coat on  my left-hand thumb and pointer.

 ANYways, I proceeded to lay down Rimmel Hot Black To Go on my thumbs and pinkies and Maybelline Green With Envy on the rest.

Not too shabby!  This was with no cleanup. :-D  If I were channeling Essie, I would've probably happily stopped here. ;-)  . . . But I couldn't quit!  Must. press. on!

Having done dots before, I knew they were relatively quick 'n easy, so I started with Skinfood 22W (a blow-your-mind bright sky blue metallic foil!) & used a good 'ol yellow wooden pencil tip as my dotting tool, making a diagonal line across my pointer and ring fingers.  I then added rows in Mojito Madness and French White Tip.  Sorry, it went so fast I didn't have time to take pictures! :-P  . . . so I'll just have to show you another one of the finished product! Oh bother!

The middle finger was originally going to be stamped with a Bundle Monster design, but the Rimmel black and a Revlon shimmery black were not stamping well, and I stamped crooked, tried a different design, even gave black acrylic paint a try!  But I just wansn't feeling it, so my eye spied the newspaper on the table & thought ah HA! I've been hankering to try the newspaper transfer technique!  Only took a little rubbing alcohol, some rubbing, and voila!

Here's a YouTube video with a few different techniques:

Then on to the most challenging part of the mani: the hand-painted roses. :-/  The blog I originally saw them on (www.workplaypolish.com) said they were really easy to do as the lines that form the petals are supposed to be "organic" and not "perfect."  That is correct, but it was still a painstakingly long process as I wanted them to be easily recognizable as roses.  Working with a Zoya Pixie Dust was a tad difficult as it dries to its gritty, lumpy texture relatively quickly, especially in such small quantities (for all the dots & the roses, I'd just place a dab of the polish on a piece of cardboard).  I don't have an actual set of nail art brushes, but my roommate just bought a huge pack of pretty good quality craft brushes, so I used a brush with a rounded point, 1/8" wide x 1/2" long bristles.  The technique itself is fairly simple: start with a dot (either centered or off-center, whatever strikes your fancy) and make curved lines radiating out from the center.

I ended up loving my left pinkie ^ and right thumb the best. 

Right pinkie was awful!  I ended up going back with black to "erase" some of the misshapen Vespa blobs & then redefining them with more Vespa.  Painstaking process, let me tell ya!  No wonder it took me like, 3 hours start to finish!  Gotta give a shout-out to my other roommate for helping me keep my strength up during this nail art marathon by literally feeding me grapes when I couldn't touch anything. :-D

Speaking of finishing, I believe this post is coming to a close - to which you are probably drawing a sigh of relief!! 
I finished the minty fingers with the Sally Hansen 4-in-1 clear coat (given to me by my sister - she wasn't a fan).  But I really like it as it can be used as a base that is really nourishing & also claims to help fill ridges (thanks to bamboo extract), and then as a topcoat which although is not nearly as fast drying as Seche Vite and doesn't have that thick, glassiness to it, but it does add a nice shiny protective layer WITH NO TIP SHRINKAGE! :-D lol  There are tradeoffs to everything, I guess. ;-) 

Decided to try a pose I saw on another blog...kinda "meh" about it.

Well, I hope you ladies like this "mismatched" look as much as I do and maybe it'll inspire you to try something similar!  Thank you again for bearing with me through a long post . . . apparently I can't be succinct to save my life!

Nail art; Is it summer yet?

Nail art is something I find totally incredible.  I love looking at designs and ways to execute them & try to replicate them myself.  Even watching the manicurists put the tiny, dainty flowers on my friends' nails is just fascinating.  Hmmmm . . . I am unusually wordless today.  I really must be tired!  Haha

My roommate & I were flipping through her newest? Cosmopolitan magazine and found this:

And heeere's my take on it!  

Can you feel the sand between your toes and hear the waves crashing? :-)

I decided to add a mini star from my bottle of Jindie Nails "Fantastical"
I was going to attempt to freehand a star using a toothpick, but something
was telling me I'd end up ruining the design.
So I opened Fantastical and the little guy was right there waiting for me! ;-)

Sand Tropez (what else?!), French White Tip, Skyline Blue, and  Milani Twinkle

I hope you lovely ladies are inspired to try some nail art of your own . . . don't expect perfection (mine was nowhere near the magazine photo), but you might surprise yourself!  And besides, since we're surrounded by non-lacquerheads in our daily lives, they're guaranteed to be wow-ed no matter what. :-)