ABC Challenge: H is for Holographic

Howdy, everyone!  It's Wednesday and that means it's time for another ABC Challenge post!  We're up to "H" now and I had an idea to do something fancier than what I did, but, quite frankly, I'm exhausted, physically, mentally, and emotionally.  It's been a long week and it's not looking to get shorter any time soon.  That said, a great mani always makes me feel better.  And this manicure is pretty darn fantastic.  Without any more gilding the lily, here ya go:

What you're looking at is the slightly dimmed glory of Fascination Street by Cirque.  I say "slightly dimmed" because there was absolutely no sun today for me to get outdoor photographs of this loveliness.  I should mention that the "H" in this manicure stands for holographic.  FS is a strong linear holographic polish with a dark purple base.  This beauty simply stuns you in the sunshine and I highly recommend snagging a bottle from their website as soon as you can!  FS will set you back around $15 but it's so totally worth it!  I've paired it here with a bright purple Color Club polish (no name as it came in a set I got at Marshall's) as a base.

I'm hoping the sun might peek out tomorrow so I can get a couple of photos of this in it's true glory, but, as I scored 4 Orlys and 2 China Glazes at Sally's today for under $30, I somehow doubt Fascination Street is going to stay on long enough for the sun to come out.  So many lovely polishes, so little time!

Speaking of Sally's, they have a great sale on Orly, 2 for $11 plus I had a 15% off coupon on any purchase over $20.  China Glaze polishes are also $1 off with a coupon (found in their in-store circular) through tomorrow.   I do love a little retail therapy! 

Please stop in and take a look at the other gals who are participating in the ABC Challenge.  You can check them out via the thumbnails below.  Thanks so much for reading!

ABC Challenge: D is for Dream On & Debris

Hi there, everyone!  It's time for another ABC Challenge manicure!  We're on to the letter "D". I think I missed the obvious "doticure" here when I was coming up with something to do.  I decided to combine 2 polishes that start with "D" instead.  Here's what I got:

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

29 of 31: Nails Inspired by the Supernatural

Hello again!  For my second post of the evening, I have for you nails inspired by the "supernatural".  I actually had a hard time with this one.  For starters, the only thing I could come up with for supernatural were ghosts or the T.V. show.  I didn't really feel like doing either of those.  Since I'm behind on my swatching and I just got new stamping plates, I wanted to combine those things today.  Here's what I came up with:

So, what you're looking at is one coat of Wet 'n' Wild's Wild Shine in French White Creme covered by 5(!) coats of Cirque's Kabocha.  Kabocha is a lovely bright orange jelly (hence the 5 coats til I was happy with coverage).  It's part of Cirque's All Hallow's Eve set which happens to be the prize I won from Chalkboard Nails' giveaway a couple of weeks ago.  On top of this, I tried my hand at stamping for the very first time.  Everyone says it's difficult the first time around and they are not lyin'!  As you can see, I still have a pretty spotty outcome.  This stamp is supposed to give me cute little skulls (supernatural), but mine are all missing the top parts of their craniums.  I chose to believe they all got attacked by zombies and this is how they got their brains out to nom upon...but I'm a bit morbid that way :)  I know the only way to get better at stamping is to practice, so be on the look out for more crappy stamping from me in the future lol  

The best part about Kabocha (other than the color, the formula and the fact that it doesn't reek cuz it's hand-mixed with essential oils) is that it...wait for it...wait for it...

GLOWS IN THE DARK!!!  So cool! You have to "charge" them in the light for a few minutes, but the glow is pretty strong.  I don't like that you can see how messy I was with the polish though.  I cleaned up around my cuticles, I swear!

All in all I had fun with this one.  Tomorrow's mani is inspired by a tutorial so swing by and check it out.  Thanks so much for reading!

26 of 31: Nails Inspired by a Pattern

Howdy, everyone!  This is my first attempt at a scheduled post so we'll see if I can pull it off...seems pretty simple, which usually means it isn't lol

We're on to Day 26 of the 31 Day Challenge; nails inspired by a pattern.  I originally wanted to do houndstooth because it's just so awesome, but even I'm not crazy enough to attempt that free-handed and I don't have stamping plates yet.  I have a few on order, but to be honest, I can't remember what patterns they have and I'm pretty sure I won't seen them til the end of the week anyway.

So, my initial ambitions thwarted, I decided to go with a harlequin pattern instead.  Here's how it turned out:

I started with a coat of Wet 'n' Wild's Wild Shine in French White Creme and then used blue painter's tape and pinking shears to create the diamond shapes.  I painted over the tape stencils with Cirque's Fascination Street (not that you can tell from this photo, but FS is a lovely, lovely purple holographic.  Seriously, rainbows everywhere in sunlight...not so much in my crappy house lighting).  You can see in a couple of places where I should have been a bit more careful with the stencils, but on the whole, it turned out pretty well.

I'm very excited about tomorrow's challenge wherein I shall be inspired by artwork!  Tune in to see what shapes up.  Thanks so much for reading!

17 of 31: Glitter Nails

Howdy, everyone!  Today's challenge brings us glitter!  Oh, that lovely, sparkly stuff :)  Here's my take on them:

I started with 2 coats of Revlon's Limited Edition Diamonds Are Forever.  After that dried, I added a couple of coats of Cirque's Debris from their Dark Horse collection.  Debris is a beautiful multi-sized and shaped black and silver glitter in a clear base with micro prismatic glitter as a sparkly finish.  On my accent nail, I used Wet 'n' Wild's Fantasty Makers Confetti in Glitz.  This is a loose glitter that Wet 'n' Wild is selling as part of their Halloween collection.  I still used Diamonds are Forever as a base color, but then dipped my nail in the pot of glitter while it was wet and shook off the excess.  Serious Wow! factor with this.  I may have to do a whole mani sometime with Glitz and I'm going to buy some glitter base polish to make a bottle of my very own.  I did have a really hard time photographing this.  Those prismatic glitters never want to show off their gorgeousness for the lens, do they?  Here's a blurry one that shows it best, although it still doesn't come close to the color flash of Glitz.

So, a pretty successful manicure even if the photos don't show it properly.  I also want to throw out a couple of 'Thank you"s before I sign off this evening.  Upon checking my mailbox today, I discovered two surprises.  First of all, my new Cirque polishes from Chalkboard Nail's giveaway arrived!  I cannot wait to try these out and I want to give one more big "thank you" to Sarah for her generous giveaway and great blog!  After ripping open the packaging from Cirque and oohing and ahhing over the contents, I dug through the rest of my mail and found a postcard from my friend, Joe, from his trip to Spain.  Not only did he send this card, he also got me a fantastic Dali book which will be my inspiration for the artwork challenge coming up.  Here's a shot of all the fun stuff I got in the mail today!
 

Thanks so much for reading and tune in tomorrow for a cute half-moon manicure!