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!