Color blocking with Barielle Slate of Affairs

Hi everyone!

Another quick mani to show you guys today. I experimented with color blocking and this has to be one of the easiest ways to get quick nail art done. I had painted my nails with Barielle Slate of Affairs a couple of days prior to this mani and wanted to make it more interesting. I had just purchased Orly Mirrorball that day and wanted to use it right away. Here is the result!

They go so well together, don't you think? I must use Mirrorball by itself one of these days. I really liked the color blocking and really should utilize it more often than I do. All it took was a single piece of tape!
Hope everyone has a great day and thanks for looking!

Icing Blow Pop and Sand in Sunset skittlette

Hi everyone!

A few weeks ago, I went to stay with my parents for a week. Ever since I got into polish, going to my parent's place has become the biggest tempation for nail polish buying, bar none. They live within minutes of...everything! All the pharmacies, Walmart, Marshalls, TJ Maxx, Ulta, Sally's, Meijers, Target...and Icing. I realized a while ago that Icing sometimes comes up with some really unique polishes that I can't get from drugstore brands. My parents' place is the only place with an Icing store nearby. Of course, I had to shop. Here I have two of my picks from my trip there. This is Blow Pop, a neon pastel pink, and Sand in Sunset, a textured gold polish. Top picture is in the sun and bottom picture is in the shade.

Although I don't usually care too much about formula if there are slight flaws and the color is nice, I had an incredibly hard time with Blow Pop. It was awful. Although the pictures don't show it, it was streaky beyond belief. Even with three coats, I could tell there were some thin patches. I needed large amounts of patience to work with this polish. Which meant that with a baby around, it took me three days to finally finish this mani to the point where I was somewhat happy with it. I couldn't just slap the polish on and go. Oh well, the color is unique to my collection so I will keep it for now. I would hate to even give away this polish, that's how bad I think it is.  The textured polish, however, was fine. It was really thick so it only took one coat to cover the nail. Also, it took a while to dry...but it's pretty so I'm willing to live with that. All in all, it was a frustrating mani but I liked the way it finally ended up looking.

Pink Stripes! L'Oreal Check me Out with Barry M Pink Silver Glitter

Good morning everyone! How are all the northern hemisphere folk enjoying the summer? For me, this is pretty much the best weather. When I'm at home, I leave the windows open and let the house adjust to the temperature outside. It's always just a bit cooler inside, which is great because we don't even have to turn the air on! 

The increasing warmth outside finally begged me to wear something bright on my nails. I picked L'Oreal Check me Out! The name is fitting because this bright pink really does beg for attention! For the accent, I chose Barry M Pink Silver Glitter and did some stripes with striping tape. The pictures where the pink really pops are all from my iPhone. That seems to be the only color correct camera I own!

I wore this on a sunny, sunny Sunday and I went outside in my PJ's with my morning coffee to take these pictures. I was not using any of my fun cups that day.

This was a picture taken inside with the light box and my regular camera. You can see how the picture quality is great but the color is all off. I also tried to freehand an accent nail here but I did not end up liking it as much. Hence, the stripes.

So, what do you all think? I'm slowly transitioning to brighter colors now. Still trying to figure out how to wear work appropriate neon!

This one got a rating of a mere 7/10 from my husband. I loved it way more than that!

Sinful Colors Island Coral with stripes

Hello lovely polish folk! If you have been following me for any length of time, you'll know that I have a love of Sinful Colors polishes. What I have shown on the blog does not even touch the surface of the collection I have and I need to think of ways to correct that. Today's post features a few of the Sinful Colors polishes I have in the red/orange/pink/purple range. I picked Island Coral as the base to really get into the mood for spring. It shows up more orange in my pictures than it is in real life.

The inspiration for this mani is two fold. I saw a couple of manis a while ago on Lucy's Stash here and here, who in turn got her inspiration from Makeupwithdrawal from her post here.

Here are the colors I used for the accent nail. There are just too many of them to type out and I'm sure most of your eyes will just glaze right over that paragraph so I put the names of the colors right on the bottle caps in the picture. The base of the accent nail is Orly Powder Puff. 

After leaving it like this for a couple of days, I wanted to add a little something so I layered a coat of NYC Flashlight. It's a pretty, fine shimmery gold color that is much too sheer to be worn on it's own. It warmed up the mani even more and gave it a lovely shimmer. This topper is nothing earth shattering but I can see it looking amazing over a lot of different colors.

I loved playing with my striping tape for this mani. After placing the tape strips down, I used a fine nail art brush to paint the colors in between the tape. As each color was filled, I pulled up on the tape strip that came before, just to keep it from dragging. Even trying to work fast and pulling up the tape as I went along, there was a little bit of pulling on the color since it dried so fast.

Overall, I was really happy with the way it came out. I don't think I would have the time or patience to do all my nails like this but it turned out well as the accent nail. 

CQ Deep Blue Sea Illusion Stripes

Hi Everyone!!  Happy Valentine's Day! I feel so much better today! I got over a nasty cold and overall, I think things are looking up. I have some big personal news coming up in a little while that I can't reveal yet but I'll entertain guesses!

In the meantime, I have a very un-Valentine mani for you. Not because I don't like the holiday or anything. My husband and I are just not making a very big deal of it this year. Which is fine with me because I am ready to go to sleep and we haven't even eaten dinner yet. Dinner that my husband made, though, so I guess that was rather sweet of him :-)

I think I saw something similar on Pinterest with different colors and I had always wanted to try the look myself. It's all done freehand with nothing more than the brush from the polish bottle itself. I started with the darkest color and then just painted the lighter colors in narrower and narrower bands ending with the lightest color, the white.

The colors I used are shown below. The darkest blue is CQ Deep Blue Sea. I love blues like this. So simple but with so much depth. The next two are Love & Beauty Blue and Aqua. The white is from Sinful Colors.

I love the look of the stripes because it gives such an illusion of reflecting a bright light from further away. 

This is Deep Blue Sea by itself:

Meet Me Under the Mistletoe Mani Update with my first nail art brushes!

Hello all! Before I post about my birthday mani in my next post, I wanted to show you a little update on my last mani. I didn't think I was going to post about it but it did look pretty cute so here it is. I finally got a set of nail art brushes from an Ebay seller here. I was so excited to receive them in the mail that I had to use them right away! I decided to go with the simplest thing ever and just paint some stripes on the tips of my nails. The stripes were created with Revlon Gold Coin. The other polishes again are Orly Meet Me Under the Mistletoe, China Glaze Riverter Rouge and NOPI Not a Gold Bigger on the ring finger.