March Polish Days: Vintage!

Hullo there! Time for another episode of Polish Days! This month's theme is Vintage:

Maybe you’re one of those annoyingly lucky people who own some heavenly vintage polishes that you want to crack open (not literally) and make the rest of us jealous, or maybe you too have a soft spot for doilies. Perhaps you’re inspired by a particular decade or trend. As long as there’s some connection to the past it’ll fit right in with this months theme!

As soon as I saw this prompt, I knew just what I wanted to do...

ah, how romantic.

I know this idea isn't entirely original, but it came to mind as soon as I saw the text image on the latest set of Bundle Monster plates. I was disappointed (though not surprised) to see a few girls do nearly identical designs with it earlier in the year, and never made it myself. But I decided that, with apologies to them, it was just perfect for this theme and I was dying to wear this look! So after lots of mental debating, I went for it, and am really happy I did. :)

The base polish is everyone's favourite off-white polish, OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls. I then used yellow and brown polishes, some acetone, and a small brush to make a muddy, thin wash, which I dabbed around the edges to give it that old-paper look. Next, I stamped the love-text image from the aforementioned Bundle Monster plate BM-311 with Wet N' Wild Black Creme. I intentionally made this a bit messy and not-fully-transferred in some places, again to give the aged and weathered look. Then, I used Sally Hansen Insta-Dri #220 Flashy Fuchsia (fuchsia, duh) and Revlon #571 Posh (green) to stamp the rose from Mash plate #36 onto the thumbs and ring fingers, and sealed it in with Seche Vite to protect the stamping. Finally, a coat of Hard Candy Matte-ly In Love topcoat to further enhance the "paper" look.

Here's a photo before the last step, so you can see it shiny. Not much different, but...

Still nice, I think. It feels so classy.

I hope you enjoyed my take on the "vintage" theme. Keep reading below the jump to see the other ladies' (and maybe even a gentleman or two's) entries!

Valentine Nail Design #2: Hearts of Gold

Hola amigos :) Second and last Valentine look coming up! The last one was the cutesy, girly one. This is more refined and elegant, I think :)

:D

I had the idea in my head for a while, but was thinking, "no way this will come out looking as nice as it does in my imagination". But I surprised myself--I really love these!

I started with Orly Rock-It, a nice shimmery red-wine colour. In the bottle it appears to have gold shimmer, but that doesn't come through on the nail at all. However, that doesn't deter from how gawgeous it is. Here you can see it alone:

Makes me want a glass of Shiraz.

As I often do, I wore this alone for a day first. I then got the idea to try a matte topcoat over it, and wow, it was stunning! Hard Candy Matte-ly In Love is the one, and this is what it looked like at this point:

Doesn't it look like red velour or satin? I love the feel of matte-ified polish, too.

I decided it was a great base for some frilly valentine hearts. I figured the easiest way to do this was to use a dotting tool to make a white heart-shaped frilly outline out of dots, then fill in the centre. This was surprisingly easy to do--start with the bottom dot, then do two to the sides and above it (touching the first dot). Then do two more a bit above those two, this will be the top-middle of the heart, then you just draw around for the outside and fill it in. It's hard to explain, I guess, and I wish I'd gotten step-by-step pics here. But I did take a photo of this step finished--hopefully you can get an idea:

They look kind of like heart-shaped clouds at this stage.

Next, I pulled out my new favourite gold, OPI Goldeneye. So shiny and warm :D I had set out a small brush for this step, but ended up creating the hearts with the dotting tool instead. This took some time and patience, but I was surprised at how easy it was. You just use the dotting tool to make the hearts by dotting and pulling down to the middle once for each side, and then I touched up the base and any wonky edges with a toothpick, for a finer point. Surprisingly nice! (No topcoat, as that would have ruined the matte finish of the base colour.)

In lower lighting than the first pic. You can see that Rock-It looks more red and loses the purpley hint when it's dimmer. Goldeneye, on the other hand, knows no such concept as "dim" :D

And, bonus pic, because although I have used Goldeneye before, did any of you notice it has HOLOGRAPHIC SHIMMER? I just barely noticed it once, in certain lighting, and was like WOAH! I spent a lot of time trying to capture it on camera, and got it just once, in this blurry image:

Goldeneye, like you weren't beautiful enough. I see what you did there!

I've spent more time than I should probably admit trying to see the holo-ness in different lights. The bright shiny gold takes over most of the time.

Anyway, I hope you all liked this one. See you next time! xoxo

Teal Swirly Nails

Hiya me lovelies! I'm back with some nails that ended up more wintery and appropriate than I expected. I quite like them!

Subtle stamping, always great :)

Base colour is Sinful Colors Mint Apple, which is the perfect cyan I needed in my Pac-Man design for one of the ghosts... lol! I bought it after that, when I realised I didn't have anything like it, and THAT WAS UNACCEPTABLE. (own ALL the polishes!)

I then stamped the swirls from Mash plate #40 and Zoya Zuza. Zuza is a lovely metallic teal shade that stamped well and went perfectly with Mint Apple. Next, I added a coat of a fun new polish I got recently by Confetti, called Ice Ice Baby. It's a clear base with lots of iridescent, teal, and electric blue sparkles. They catch the light and reflect SUPER bright blue! Plus, I love the name :D

Finally, I added a coat of Hard Candy Matte-ly In Love matte topcoat over the index and middle fingers, just to see how it looked. It brought out the glitter in a different way as well as making the metallic stamping look nice.

Tip wear, oh god. IGNORE.

As I said, it seems all wintery and nice with the pretty blue glitter and fanciful swirls.

Hope you're all having a great week :) See you next time! xoxo

Challenge Day #26: Inspired by a PATTERN

Bonjour! I hope everyone is having a nice weekend.

Today's prompt was "inspired by a pattern", and this was a great opportunity to try something I've been meaning to do for a while anyway--argyle nails! Observe:

I tried to colour-correct this, but it looks hopelessly yellowish. But still! :)

This look was actually pretty easy to do. I started with two coats of Essie Bikini So Teeny, a pretty light periwinkle blue with very fine, subtle silvery-blue shimmer. This was a very popular and sought-after colour in the polish world, and I can see why! It's really feminine and delicate. <3

When that was completely dry, I used squares of tape to block off the shapes at the top and bottom, and painted the exposed sides with OPI Suzi Loves Cowboys, which is actually way more of a warm and chocolatey brown than it showed up in these pics. I then used my white Stripe Rite striper polish to freehand the criss-crossing white diamond pattern, and sealed it with one of my topcoats. I forgot which one. Probably good ol' trusty Seche Vite.

The side diamonds still look black. Especially with the flash here.

In sunlight!

I wore these for a couple of days, and then instead of taking them off, I decided I wanted to add something. So I grabbed my Nubar 2010, a cool flakey polish, and added a coat of those for some visual interest. And then, because I can never wear flakies without matte-ifying them, I finished it off with a coat of Hard Candy Matte-ly In Love. The final look is as follows...

These flakes are neat and colour-shifty! Sometimes they look reddish orange...

...sometimes blue...

...and sometimes yellow and green!

Well, that's it for today's post. It's been a pretty good weekend--all the football teams I like won, and a lot of teams I dislike lost. I had pizza, lots of drinks, the weather was pretty, and I had fun argyle nails. What more does a girl need? ;)

See you next time for artwork-inspired nails. Also keep a look out for my Halloween design post coming up soon... 'tis the season! xoxo

Challenge Day #15: DELICATE PRINT

Ooh la la, delicate print day. And day 15, which means we are pretty much halfway through the challenge list! I'm enjoying these, although I can't wait to do my own thing again after this is over. But I'm getting ahead of myself...

Pretty and delicate? Yes, I think this is acceptable. :D

I started with two coats of this nice shimmery pick by Petites, called #298 Rock n' Roll. It's a nice bubblegum-pink colour with pinkish-silver shimmer. I wore it alone for a day first:

With my leopard print jacket--rawr!

I then stamped with Sally Hansen Insta Dri in #230 Silver Sweep, and the flowing vines image from Mash plate #50. This polish is great for stamping! I tried lots of silvers, but this is by far the best. (Big thanks to Gina for extolling the virtues of this polish and convincing me to go buy it! Go check her out on YouTube--she's a master at stamping and comes up with some beautiful designs!)

After stamping, I added a coat of Seche Vite to protect the design. I could have sworn I got a photo of it at this stage, but I can't seem to find the shiny version. All I have is the photos from my last step, which was to add a coat of Hard Candy Matte-ly In Love, a great matte topcoat. I love matte-ifying metallic colours, and the soft look and feel really contributed to the "delicate" theme! I felt so pretty wearing these :)

Still shiny, even with the matte finish. Love! This was taken indoors with flash...

...and this was in the same place but with no flash. Amazing how different they look in ambient light versus direct!

Hope you all enjoyed this one as much as I did! See you next time for tribal print day. Until then, enjoy the rest of your weekend and good luck Monday morning! xoxo

Challenge Day #6: PURPLE nails

Ahahaha, I am managing to get a post in before I leave! Had to share the purple creation! I'll try to make this short and sweet.

Oops, look who forgot to clean up after the second step of polishing. I have to get better about that... But who cares. LOOK at that yummy purple. It looks like magical sparkly grapeness. I could eat it.

I love this look, it's so feminine, especially in person. :) I started with Revlon #325 Gumdrop (a scented polish! even after topcoating!), which is the lovely lavender shade. It's very sheer, though. To be honest, I lost track of how many coats it took for opacity. I was watching YouTube videos and slapping it on there until I couldn't see a visible nail line anymore. 4 coats? 5? O_o Oh well, worth it. They're thin coats, and it really is a lovely colour.


After that was dry, I stamped the design using Bundle Monster plate BM-314 (from the new set this year!) and Zoya Carly, which is that amazing warm plummy-purple metallic. It stamped so well! I'm pretty much in love with the entire Beach & Surf collection Zoya came out with this summer. All the colours are so vibrant and gorgeous and the formulas are spot on, as is usual for Zoya. Carly was no exception. Love, love, love.

In fact, I loved Carly so much that I decided I wanted a bit more of it showing, so I decided to paint about 1/3 of the nail on each side. After topcoating the stamp with Seche Vite to preserve it and letting that dry, I taped off the part I wanted to save and painted the stripe down the side. Yes, I used tape. No, I have no idea how my middle finger line got so wonky. I would have re-done it but I was running out of time... But I still wanted to add something, and I know how metallics really show a different side of their personality when you add matte topcoat, so I used Hard Candy Matte-ly In Love over just the light purple/stamped portion, leaving the solid metallic area shiny. I think it's super pretty!

Close-up of my thumb, showing that matte-ified metallic sparkle. PRETTY.

YAY okay now I have to run off and finish packing. I always forget something... ALWAYS. Here's hoping whatever I forget this time is either insignificant, or something the hotel provides in the room. Fingers crossed!

See you when I get back on the 28th :) xoxo