Happy Independence Day! Or The Inevitiable July 4th Manicure

Hi everyone!  May you all have a lovely 4th of July, if you live in the States....if not, have a lovely Thursday!

This is my stars and stripes manicure.  Red, white and blue is such a classic combination, isn't it?  :)
 

I've got a polish list coming, if you're interested!  Stay safe and have a great holiday, everyone! Thanks for reading :)

Polish List:
Sinful Colors~Snow Me White
Pure Ice~Freedom
Zoya~Liberty
China Glaze~Ride the Waves
NYC~Big Apple Red
Wet 'n' Wild~Stars & Stripes
Wet 'n' Wild Fergie~Hollywood Walk of Fame

28 of 31: Nails Inspired by a Flag

Howdy, everyone, hope your weekends are going well.  Mine is shaping up well, went to see Pitch Perfect this afternoon and was thoroughly entertained.  I highly suggest it if you're a Glee fan.  I thought I was going to be able to type this post up on my shiny new SmartPhone, but apparently the phone is smarter than me and I couldn't figure out how to Enter to start a new paragraph.  Quite frustrating.  Anyway, I'm already a day late on this post so we shall get down to business :)  

Today's challenge was to design a manicure inspired by a flag.  Being in love with me city as I still am after almost 5 years, I chose to use the Chicago flag for my inspiration.  

 There's quite a bit of symbolism involved in this flag, if you're interested in it, check out the wikipedia article here.  I thought it was a great design to reproduce in a manicure.  The colors and the simple shapes translate well in polish.  Here's what I came up with:

I started with one coat each of Wet 'n' Wild's Wild Shine in French White Creme and MAC's Vestral White.  For the blue stripes, I used China Glaze in For Audrey.  The stars are done with a red striping polish. I got to wear this out and about in the city today and I got a lot of compliments on it.  I applied my Seche Vite a little too soon though, so there are some spots in the white where it turned a little pink.  Other than that, I'm really happy with it.  Here's another look:

I'll be posting my supernatural challenge nails here in a bit, so check back to see them!  Thanks for reading!

12 of 31: Striped Nails

Howdy!  Just a quick post today for the Challenge, stripes!

You can see I've got some wear on these already, the polishes I used are from a set I bought at Marshall's called Simply Sweet.  I know nothing about the brand, but I've worn it a couple of times and always get a lot of chipping really quickly.  Oh well.

 I started with 2 coats of Mac Vestral White for undies and then painted each nail a different color.  After that dried, I taped off some stripes and painted over it with Wet 'n' Wild's Wild Shine in Black Creme.  Super simple but I got more compliments on this manicure today than I've gotten in awhile, so it must pack a visual punch!

It's on to animal prints for tomorrow's Challenge, thanks so much for reading!

8 of 31: Metallic Nails

Howdy, everyone!  Another Saturday gone and what a beautiful day here in Chicago!  This is perfect weather as far as I'm concerned...70 degrees, partly sunny and just a touch of nip in the air.  I've had a pretty great day.  My Wildcats won their game 52-13 and I got out of work early to go see Cirque at the Renegade Craft Fair.  Unfortunately, she was out of Tibetan Nights (seen here on Chalkboard Nails), but I was able to grab a few bottles of some other lovelies...but that's for another post.

This post is about metallic nails, which are today's theme for the 31 Day Challenge!  I had an extra challenge with these today.  Going through my stash, I noticed that I really have very few metallic polishes.  I don't really care for them.  They tend to have a streaky finish and the color is always so muted.  Metallic polishes just aren't my thing.  In addition to this, today being a game day, I had to have purple nails to support my team.  Not negotiable.  I finally managed to come up with something.  Take a look:

Super simple stripes of color.  The first stripe is Sally Hansen's Sheerly Daring in Silver Plum, a silvery lavender colored metallic polish.  The next stripe is Taffy from a brand called Naturistics which is a more saturated lavender metallic than Silver Plum.  For the Taffy stripe, I used tape to cover the first third of my nails and then just painted over top and removed the tape while the polish was still wet.  The last layer is Sally Hansen's Hard as Nails in Metalworks Frost, a bright deep purple frosty polish.  I ended up freehanding the last stripe because I was too impatient to wait for Taffy to dry completely so I could tape it lol 

I have had all of the polishes for at least 10 years, which is probably why you might notice some extra wear already on the tips of my nails.  Still, I think it worked out well and it's a simple but nice manicure.  

You don't want to miss tomorrow's mani...it's Rainbow Nails for Day 9!  Thanks for reading!

Kleancolor Bluebell

Howdy all!  Just a quick post this evening, cuz it's Friday and I know most people have better things to do that sit around and read nail blogs :)

I have another Kleancolor swatch for you today.  Post-swatching, I decided to add a little something extra on top.  Here it is:

 

This is 3 coats of Kleancolor  Chunky Holographic Bluebell over 2ish coats of China Glaze First Mate.  Bluebell is a small, green to orange holographic glitter in a clear blue tinged base.  I love the colors in this one!  I decided to go back over top of the glitter and add some stripes of First Mate to finish this manicure off.  I've got vertical, horizontal and diagonal stripes going here, lots of fun!

Once again, I'll try to snag some daylight shots of this so you can see the color better.  Thanks for stopping by and I hope you enjoyed the post!

Sparkley Red, White, & Blue

Howdy and Happy 4th of July to all the U.S. readers!  Independence Day is one of my favorite holidays...I mean, who doesn't love a government sanctioned day of blowing stuff up?  I got to celebrate the day by going to see Magic Mike this afternoon.  I liked the movie, I know it's getting some mixed reviews, but I found it entertaining.  Could have used a bit more Dancing Channing, but certainly a fair amount of eye candy involved.

 I also went to a White Sox game with my uncle and cousin who are in town...it was a fun time, but man! is it hot out there!  I moved from Kansas to Chicago partly so I wouldn't have to endure 100 degree summers any more.  How silly of me!

 Anyway, on to the manicure for the day!  Of course the 4th of July calls for something red, white, and blue with a good amount of sparkle thrown in.  I found this mani from Nailside and decided to do a version of it myself.  I think it turned out pretty well.

I started with 2 coats of Wet 'n' Wild's Fast Dry in Saved by the Blue; a bright royal blue shimmer.  For the striped nails, I used my 1/4 inch art tape and taped off lines then painted Revlon's Diamonds Are Forever which is a super shiny silver metallic polish.  

For the "fireworks" on my thumb and ring fingers, I tapped off sections and painted on a coat of Wet 'n' Wild's Wild Shine in Red Red, which definitely lives up to its name by being a true cherry red creme.  While that was still wet and before taking the tape off, I added a quick layer of Julep's America-the Beautiful, a red, blue and silver glitter with silver stars.  After that dried, I taped off another section and painted on Diamonds Are Forever.  I topped those nails off with some stars from a Cina Nail Art kit and from Wet 'n' Wild's Fast Dry Stars & Stripes.

My pinky finger got some of the stars from the Cina kit as well and then I finished all the nails off with a coat of Wet 'n' Wild's Wild Shine in Kaleidoscope, a small holographic glitter in a clear base.  Kaleidoscope is one of my favorites for a topcoat, it looks like a disco ball on your nails!  In fact, if I didn't know or didn't care how difficult glitter is to remove, I might try to do enough coats of it to cover my whole nail.  But I'm not sure I have the patience for clean up.

Sorry for the long-winded detail here.  I keep this blog mostly for a record of the manicures I've done, so I know how I did them, in case I feel the need to recreate some of them in the future.  I definitely appreciate everyone who comes to take a look and I hope you all enjoy reading my posts.  However, I totally understand if all you do is look at the pictures lol  In any case, thanks as always for stopping by!

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!

Grrrrrreat! Manicure

Howdy, everyone!  We're back around to another weekend already.  Is it just me or does it feel like this summer is passing by in a blur?  Or a blaze, more like, with as hot as it's been!  I love living in Chicago, but it does feel like the summers get shorter every year.

I have a fun manicure for you today.  Let's get to it!

   

I started here with two coats of Sinful Colors Let's Meet, a mustard yellow shimmer.  Over that, I sponged on some Nina Ultra Pro in Molten Gold which is a pretty orange-y pink to gold duochrome.  To finish the gradient, I applied just a bit of Sinful Colors Timbleberry to the very tips of my nails with a sponge.  Timbleberry is a deep coral pink creme which almost verges on neon.  After a coat of Seche Vite, I wore just the gradient for a day, but it just didn't seem like it was finished.  The gradient seemed like it was waiting for something, it just felt like a background.  So, I decided an animal print was in order and what better print to go with than tiger stripes for an orange/yellow gradient?  With my black nail art striper polish, I painted on some stripes.  I think it completes the manicure nicely, don't you?  It's definitely more eye-catching this way!

As always, thanks so much for stopping by!  I hope you enjoyed my post :)

Take Me out to the Ball Game

Hello, folks!  Tonight I have for you...perfect game day nails!

I'm so fricking proud of these and I can't wait to show them off at the stadium tomorrow.  Not that I'm particularly a White Sox fan, but I feel I should support the Chicago teams...especially through nail art!  I started with 2 coats of Wet 'n' Wild's Wild Shine in French White Creme and added one coat of MAC Vestral White.  Everything else is hand painting using striper brushes and various nail polishes.  These really turned out so much better than I was hoping.

Thanks for stopping by and have a good night!

Celestial

Hello and welcome!  I hope everyone had a great week.  Today marked the beginning of the NATO Summit craziness here in Chicago, well, not really the beginning as protests started a few days ago.  However, I think Saturday ought to be the really "exciting" day.  How I wish I didn't have to go to work!

Anyway, to take my mind off of the craziness, I went polish shopping today!  Wet n Wild has a new Stars & Stripes line which consists entirely of larger glitter polishes.  I bought 6 bottles at CVS :)  They retail for $1.99 and CVS had a buy one, get one 1/2 off sale so it was totally worth it!

I started this manicure yesterday with two coats of Sally Hansen's Nail Prisms in Lapis Amethyst.  I did a subtle gradient over that with Sally's HD Hi-Definition Nail Color in Laser.  Lapis Amethyst is a bit more subdued than the Turquoise Opal I used in my last post; the duochrome isn't as evident in this one.  Laser is a gorgeous glittery royal blue and purple shade that I got for half-price at Walgreen's on Wednesday.  I liked the effect of the polishes together but it was missing something.  And, today, I found it:
 

Introducing Wet n Wild's Fast Dry Nail Color in Stars & Stripes.  I literally gasped when I saw this on the shelf this morning.  I have quite a few glitters, but I did not own a star-shaped holographic mylar glitter with little stripes of holographic mylar glitter in the same bottle...now I do!  I really love this polish!!  Here's a closer view.

You can see the holographic effect on the stars on my pinky in this one.  This manicure is so sparkly, I can't wait to check it out in the abundant sunshine we of the Windy City are supposed to have tomorrow.  And speaking of Saturday, if you're in the area, come check out Pets @ Paulina at Roscoe, Lincoln and Paulina by the Brown Line stop.  The merchants of Paulina Station are sponsoring nine different pet adoption groups.  They'll be there with foster animals and applications for adoption.  Even if you have reached your pet quota, stop on by and say hi!  Thanks for reading!