ABC Challenge: W is for Woven Nails

Hi there!  It's a late night here in Chicago and I should totally be in bed, but I just had to get my ABC Challenge post up.  Can you believe it's 'W' this week already??  Only 3 letters left, folks!  'W' was one of the letters I've had planned for awhile (wish I could say the same for 'X'!).  Back in school, I took a few weaving courses and found out that I really enjoyed it.  I even bought myself a tabletop loom after graduation.  I haven't used it in awhile so my skills are a bit rusty, but I hope you'll like what I've come up with for this week's Challenge.  I give you...Woven Nails!

I started with 2 coats of Sinful Colors in Unicorn.  Actually, this manicure started last night when I painted a ziploc bag with 2 large squares of China Glaze in Sunday Funday and Sinful Colors in Island Coral.  Those squares became, after they dried and were cut, the strips of polish I used to create the woven patterns on my accent nails here.  It's similar to what I did for my Viking manicure, only with less detail and more aggravation lol  I had planned to weave the pattern off the nail and then place the whole thing on while Unicorn was still tacky.  However, after a couple of tries, I found that placing the strips directly on my nails and weaving as I went worked better.

After admiring my work, my bf kindly pointed out, "They look prettier than I thought they would...but it took you 2 hours to do 2 nails!"  Oh, boys!  They just don't get it!

Please take the time to check out the other ladies' posts this week.  You can find them via the thumbnails below.  Thanks so much for reading!

ABC Challenge: T is for Tiers of Teeny Tiny Triangles

Hi there, folks.  I want to start my post tonight with thankfulness that my friends and family who live in Oklahoma are safe and sound.  I know there are a lot of people who cannot say that today.   It's unfathomable to me how those affected by the tornado must be feeling now and my heart goes out to them.  It felt wrong not to acknowledge the awfulness that's happened, I hope you understand.

On to my ABC Challenge post for the week.  Amazingly, we've come to 'T' in our traverse of the alphabet...I can't believe we're so close to the end!  Much like 'R', I struggled with what to create for this challenge.  There are ton of 'T's in the world, but nothing was speaking to me.  I finally decided to keep it simple and go with some cute triangles.

I started with 3 coats of Sinful Colors Tidal Wave, a barely-there light blue creme and one of SC's new Sail La Vie collection polishes.  I love the color here, but the formula was a bit streaky and draggy.  It did even out after 3 coats, but I was a bit disappointed.  It won't, however, stop me from blowing part of my paycheck on a few more polishes from Sail La Vie and their Pool Side Polishes collection as well.

After Tidal Wave, I used a pinking shears to cut into blue painters tape to create the triangles.  The top tier of triangles were created with Sinful Colors Poudre, a light peach creme.  The middle tier is Wet 'n' Wild Megalast in Club Havana, a light coral creme.  The last tier closest to my cuticles is NYC's Times Square Tangerine, which is, as the name suggests, a tangerine creme (it also allowed me to squeeze a few more 'T's in!).

I love how this turned out!  It reminds me of that fabric bunting that you all over Etsy these days.  The color combination works well and, overall, it turned out to be a bright, cheery summer mani and what's not to like about that?!

Please take a few minutes to check out the other participants in the ABC Challenge.  You can find their posts via the thumbnails below.  Thanks so much for reading!

Orange You Glad?

Howdy everyone!  I got my Maven Box from Julep the other day, so I have a couple of new polishes to show you.  If you've never heard of Julep, they're a monthly nail polish subscription service.  If you sign up for their Maven program, you can receive 3 polishes plus a free gift every month for $19.99.  It's a pretty good deal and you can choose to cancel your subscription or skip a month at any time.  Currently, they have a deal where you can get your first Maven Box for $0.01 (free shipping also) by using discount code COLOR2012 at checkout.  I promise it works, cuz I've done it. 

In any case, my MB this month included Mischa, a red-orange micro-shimmer; Georgia, a peachy-gold micro-shimmer; and, their surprise polish, a very fun red, silver and blue glitter called America-The Beautiful for the 4th of July.  I'm saving that one for tomorrow when I do my 4th manicure :)  Today, I used both Mischa and Georgia, just to see what they'd look like together and here's what I came up with.

I started with 2-3 coats of Mischa as a base.  She has a good amount of sparkle, does Mischa, though I'm not in love with red-orange on with my skin tone.  Georgia is a little more subtle in the sparkle department, so I decided to tape off some diagonals on my nails and top them off with some dots.  Overall, I like the color of Georgia better, but I'm not loving them together or with this design.  This manicure was kind of a fail for me.  And, you can see, I managed to break my middle finger nail back to the quick.  I had hoped to be able to save it, but it was un-salvageable after all.  It didn't hurt, but it made me sad because I'd finally gotten all my nails to the same length on my photo hand lol

Thanks for stopping by today and check back tomorrow for my 4th of July mani!