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!

Ikat Manicure

Howdy, everyone!  How's your weekend?  I'm having a decent one so far, despite the fact that I have to work every day.  One day I'll have a job that doesn't require weekends, and that will be a glorious day!  Ha!  I really can't complain too much though.  Even working two jobs, I have the time to do my nails...what more can a girl ask for?

Today's manicure is a technique I've been wanting to try for awhile now.  Ikat is a dyeing technique used in fabric weaving.  The threads are tied off and dyed in a specific pattern before being woven into a beautiful fabric.  I took a few weaving classes at SAIC and found that I really enjoyed the whole process.  I never got to try ikat and I'm kind of glad because I'm pretty sure I don't possess the patience required to create such a precise weave lol  However, ikat manicures are very easy!  Here's what mine looks like:

I started with a coat of Peachy Keen by China Glaze, a one-coat peach creme.  After that dried, I used a small paint brush and short strokes to create the diamond shaped pattern, making sure to leave the edges a little rough.  I used China Glaze in First Mate (a dark navy creme) and Nina Ultra Pro in Blue La La (a denim/turquoise/blue creme) for the darker parts and a white striping polish for the light bits.  I adore the way this turned out!  I can't wait to try the technique with some different colors.  You could use any contrasting colors with this technique, although it seems to work best if your background color stays fairly light colored.

A detail shot:

Such a great visual impact for such little effort...I love it when things work out like that!  What do you guys think?  Have you tried an ikat mani in the past?  Any color combo suggestions?

In other news, my very first giveaway is still open for entries and will be until the 22nd.  So hop on over the giveaway post and enter if you haven't already!  It's super easy to enter and you could win 3 full-sized Julep nail polishes!

Thanks so much for reading!

Faceted Glitter Gradient

Howdy everyone!  Tomorrow is Election Day here in the U.S. and you'd think I might do a themed manicure to celebrate that fact.  I didn't.  I hit Walgreen's the other day and grabbed 5 new polishes and not one of them was red, white or presidential blue, so I did something completely unrelated.  That being said, if you're registered, please go vote!  You've got no right to complain about who wins if you don't!

All of the polishes I picked up were glitters and most were somehow holiday related.  So let's get the party started!

....more after the jump....

Happy Accident

Howdy everyone!  We're halfway through the week, how's everyone feeling?  If you're like me, you can't wait for Friday.  I actually have the day off Friday and I'm thinking I might go get a massage.  I received a gift certificate to a local spa for my birthday from a friend and I'm thinkin' it might be time to cash it in.  

I wanted to put up some photos of my nails today.  This is a good example of how mistakes can often become happy accidents.  I was trying out a new stamping plate and instead of getting the whole design, I only got a partial.  At first I was frustrated, but then I decided I like the abstract feel of the partial stamp anyway so I stamped all my nails that way.  Here's how it came out:

I started with 2 coats of Peachy Keen by China Glaze (another from my weekend Ulta spree) and stamped over top with Luxe from Orly.  Luxe is my favorite gold of all time.  It reminds me of the look of gold leaf or foil and the effect is just marvelous.  I thought the color combo worked well here, too.  It reminds me of that marble with the gold veins running through it.  So you can see the original pattern of the stamp was a bunch of stars.  I'll give this pattern another try with a thicker polish and see if I can get a clearer outcome in the future, but as far as oopsies go, this turned out alright.

I'll be posting my first manicure for the Nail-aween Challenge tomorrow so be sure to stop by and check it out!  Thanks 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!