Nail-aween Challenge 2: Matte Dotticure

Howdy, everyone!  Can I get a "hooray" for Friday?!  I had the day off today so I took myself down to my favorite brunch spot for some pecan apple pancakes and then to Target for some afternoon shopping.  And now I'm tuned into my favorite Friday night TV show...Ghost Adventures!  I may have mentioned that I love Halloween.  Well, I pretty much love anything spooky or supernatural.  GA is quality entertainment value, imho.  Zak, Nick and Aaron crack me up on a regular basis and I will admit I still can't watch the Bobby Mackey episode all the way through.  I'm so sad that I didn't know they were here in Chicago during the NATO summit.  It would have been worth facing the rioters to meet them in person :)

Ok, ok, on to the nails!  The second challenge for Nail-aween is a matte dotticure (I think it looks better spelled this way than "doticure", but I'm not sure which the correct way is?).   I remembered seeing a manicure awhile ago that used dots to a cute, spooky effect and so I decided to recreate it.  Take a peek:

I'm calling this the "I always feel like somebody's watchin' me" dotticure.  I started with 2 coats of MAC's Black Enough? which has a matte finish.  I used a larger dotting tool and Sinful Colors in Pull Over for the yellow irises then a small dotter and BE again for the pupils.  Aren't they cute??  Here's another look:

Unfortunately, I'll have to change these tonight as tomorrow is a K-State game and I can't jinx them with non-purple nails, but I wish I could wear them at work so I could get some folks' reactions.  I might have to redo this mani at a later date.

I will, of course, be posting the aforementioned K-State nails most likely tomorrow night.  I know I've done a couple of those already, but I love my Wildcats and tomorrow is a big game.  The Sunflower Showdown between K-State and KU is always a big deal.  KU isn't fantastic this year, but knowing the underdogs as we K-State fans do (because we usually are the underdogs), it would be stupid to underestimate them.  In any case, EMAW!

Thanks for reading!

25 of 31: Nails Inspired by Fashion

Howdy, everyone!  Gosh this 31 Day Challenge is just whizzin' right along, huh?  We're on Day 25 already, I can hardly believe it!  Today, we are inspired by fashion.  Now I have to admit, I don't know from fashion...I like what I like and that's what I like.  Whether anyone else cares for it doesn't interest me much.  That being said, I am an avid Project Runway viewer and I enjoy clothes overall.  Being in love with Pinterest as I am, I looked back through some of my fashion pins to see what jumped out at me.  Here's what I found:

These tights are from an etsy seller, Gal Stern, whose store can be found here.  I love pretty much everything she has listed even though I do hate to wear stockings myself.  For my manicure on the left, I started with 2 coats of MAC's Black Enough?, a  polish with a matte finish.  Then, using Orly's Luxe and my homemade dotting tool, I added some half moon dots and the pattern on my accent nail.  This is really simple, but I LOVE it!  Black and gold is such a great color combo and I think it's a great complement to the tights.  Whaddya think?

Thanks so much for reading and look out for tomorrow's post, inspired by pattern!

Glitter Sandwich

Hello and happy Friday!  I managed to get the day off today so I went to brunch this morning at m. henry and ate a humongous plate of peach and blueberry blisscakes! So yummy!  I also decided to run to the theater and catch Brave, the new Pixar movie.  It was totally adorable, much as I thought it would be.  I recommend it if you need something light hearted and fun.

Enough about me, let's talk about my nails!  I saw this manicure on The Nailasaurus recently and thought I'd try it out.  A few days ago, I was browsing the shelves at my local Marshall's and discovered some boxes of Jessica polish, 5 bottles for around $6, kind of a steal!  So I grabbed one that had a couple of nudes in it because my stash is woefully low on those.  I'm partial to the brighter the better as far as colors go, so I tend to skip the nudes as too...demure, maybe?  But they are really trendy right now so I figured I ought to nab a few.  Anyway, here's where I started.

 This is what people call a "glitter sandwich" manicure.  I started with 4 alternating coats of Jessica's Custom Nail Color in Skin Deep and Hype.  Skin Deep is a pinkish beige nude with a subtle pink shimmer and Hype is light beige nude.  After those first coats, I added a layer of Wet 'n' Wild's Light with Caution glitter mixed with some Milani Jewel FX in Gold.  Light with Caution has large pinkish, coppery hexagonal glitter with smaller blue and green glitters mixed in.  Jewel FX Gold is a large hexagonal gold glitter.  In hindsight, I wish I'd have gone a bit lighter on Gold, because the pink bits in Caution are so pretty and the gold sort of overshadows them.  Oh, well, live and learn! 

After all of that, I topped the glitter layer off with a coat of Skin Deep again and there you have your "sandwich".  It's a pretty nifty effect as it gives the glitter a matte-ish appearance.  I wore it like this for today and when I got home, I decided to try Nailasaurus's next step; a matte top coat.

I think the addition of the matte coat takes this mani to the next level.  I am unclear why matte glitter is so magical, but it is.  I mean, how can something be shiny and matte at the same time?  And yet, it is!  I must try this with some other, brighter colors and see what happens.  I used Essie's Matte About You here.

Many thanks to The Nailasaurus for her fantastic blog which I enjoy reading!  I hope I'm not stepping on any toes by recreating this look, but it was so pretty I just had to try it!

Thanks for reading and feel free to comment if you feel like it :)

Purple, Matte & Flakie, Oh My!

This is what happens when I have no clear idea of where my manicure of the day is headed.  Sometimes, like today, it works out well.  Other times...well, let's not cry over spilled nail polish, shall we?  As far as today's mani goes,  I knew I wanted to do a purple.  However, I can't just do a single color; the last time I tried that, my friend Shannon said "I don't understand.  Your nails are only one color?" in this sad, disappointed voice so I won't be going that route for awhile.  So, here is Stage One in tonight's manicure.

This is  Wet n Wild Wild Shine in Eggplant Frost.  Two coats covered fairly well, although you can see a spot on my pinky where it's a little thin.  I do love cracking open a brand new bottle of polish which is what happened with this one.  I really like this color.  It's a great purple, very deep with some flashes of fuchsia...very pretty!  Here's another view.

After admiring the color for a few minutes (and giving it some time to dry a bit), I decided that only one thing can make any manicure better:  FLAKIES!!

I grabbed my trusty bottle of Finger Paints Flashy and added it over top.  I actually did two coats of that because the only thing better than one coat of flakie on top of something, is two coats :)  I could have stopped here, you can see from the second view that this is quite lovely as is.

However, there is only one thing that can make flakies better.  Naked flakies are good but MATTE flakies are really where it's at!  Behold!

Essie's Matte About You is seriously like magic.  I remember the first time I used it, I literally gasped as I watched the wet polish change to a matte finish before my very eyes!  Just look at it...it's so pretty!  This bottle of Essie was worth every penny and I'll have to replenish my supply soon.

I really wish all my unplanned paints went this successfully.  The next time I have an awful one, maybe I'll snap a couple of shots to show you that not everything works the way you want it to the first, second or even third time.  That's the key to a great manicure, practice!  Well, and a decent amount of patience.  Which is not my strongest virtue by far so it's a wonder I've stuck with it as long as I have. 

Alright, that's it for tonight, folks!  I hope you enjoyed the pictures and I'll see you again soon!