a glammy mani party and a non notd

proud eight year old!

Early this week I was hired for a glammy mani birthday party! Izzy turned eight and loves wild nail polish - what better party idea?! There were seven girls, plus a mum, grandmum and sister-in-law. Sparkle paradise!

"twin" erika

It got very loud sometimes but it was great fun. All the girls had their nails done, no two alike! The first girl wanted my exact nails but otherwise they all wanted some form of glitter. The birthday girl went for wild yellow with crackle to look like a tiger.

After you got glam mani'd you got a badge to wear and the birthday girl gets a certificate, as she is now an official glammy! I brought about 30 polishes to choose from. Similar to Ripponburn, there were swatch sticks to choose from and I also had acrylics, dotting tools and sponges etc for art.

certificate

badges ready

stash ready

It was soo much fun, everyone had a ball - and the mum gave me a glass of wine!!!

I ended up wearing the blue pop mani for almost a week and decided yesterday to do some pastels for GOT day. The idea was to have a light peach base with pastel dots in a semi circle. I forgot how "bright" Zoya Wednesday is and then tried to over-dot with white. Ick. Don't like the mani AT ALL. And have to wear it for two days - hoping to change tonight. I did use a matte top coat and part of the mani look really good. But on a whole, yuck. So I am not including this in the challenge post and will just have to wait for another day to be a part of the gang. But here are a couple of pics as proof that I did try.

GOT: purple – monarch butterflies

Apologies, I am late in posting this. And double apologies – I didn't do a very good job of clean up before these photos. In the meantime my nails look a lot cleaner, but no pics of that! But this will not keep me from being absolutely enamored in this mani! Can't stop looking at my nails! Gradient purple monarch butterflies.

All the polishes are way over a year old. I started with two coats of OPI A Grape Fit. A nice creamy full tone purple. This was followed by a two coat gradient of a england Avalon. Avalon is a much underused colour on my end. It just seems so bright when I wear it alone. The wrong type of bright, I guess. I want to wear it, but then I don't like it on. Might have to do with my skin tone.

The tips were gradiented with one coat of Orly Fowl Play, a beautiful purple with opalescent flecks in it. So the tips have some orange and red coming through. Depending on the light, more or less. I fast dry top coated all of this before continuing. Probably waited about 15 minutes.

Then I drew/painted the lines and tips in black (any ol' black, combo of striper, polish and acrylic brush) and dotted white spots on the tips. I top coated with a thick coat of Poshé being careful just to hover the brush over the nail (no smears). After an hour or so another top coat of Out the Door.

right hand

I have a glammy mani client late this afternoon! Just a one-offer as she is visiting the area, but still - maybe some good word-of-mouth ?! I invested in 40 flyers but am uncertain as where to hang them out still. I dropped one off at the gym and hung one at the local supermarket. It has probably already vanished from there. The ladies who work there aren't very nice and take down things. Not really fair, but nothing I can do about it. It is free advertising but it seems the motorsport weekend flyers stay up forever.

Business-wise our renewal deadline has come and gone. We have not been able to sell the business so are now officially in countdown mode. We may get lucky and the landlord will find a new tenant who will buy the chattels off us. I doubt it, though. We feel the property owner doesn't really care much about us and our situation. Otherwise, we are loathe to even think about the work involved in clearing out. As Scarlet would say: we'll put that off till tomorrow!

GOT: skittle – Hawai'ian style

Have been a bit lax in the GOT challenge. Seems it always falls on the wrong day. But I love skittlettes and wanted to take part this week. Was not without heartbreak, though, as I had to get rid of my lovely a england rosey mani. Oh well, the hurdles in life!

For this ABCCB skittlette I used Nicole by OPI Alex by the Books (A), Zoya Aurora (CC) and a base of Zoya Trixie with hand painted flowers (BB). The great thing about this challenge is that the longer the year goes on, the more polish I have to choose from! All colours are two coats each. I started with Trixie so I could top coat before continuing.

Then I drew big petals and filled in with Alex and then Aurora. Trixie is a fab silver. It looks a lot like foil and reflects. It really pops in the shade. The teal of Alex works well off the silver, too. Another coat of Out the Door finished off the BB fingers. For some reason the flowers and colouring remind me of Hawai'i.

I took yesterday off as well as I had my first glammy mani customer! Very exciting! And while I was all ready to do some nail art or something she was happy with For Audrey with glitter. Oh well, why make things complicated! Just need to find some way of advertising. The local supo keeps taking down anything I put up on the board (am currently relishing in a down-in-the-dumps mood). So doubt if that is an option. Word of mouth is always good - need more mouths!

right hand

Check out the others below - looking forward to some groovy skittlettes! btw: made a cool necklace to match (read more here)!

GOT: valentine – pink hearts on red

Am a bit late to the party here. And for some reason the inLinz is not working anymore, or at least not today. So can't join the rest of the party, either. Did this yesterday, which was the 14th here. Definitely two of my oldest polishes!!

The base is just one coat of OPI Red-y for Anything (from the Legally Blonde collection). I got this polish ten years ago at a press junket for Legally Blonde 2. In fact, I got three: red, white and blue. But I only have the red left. The red reminds me very much of Zoya Elisa (or vice versa). Still works well. And only needed one coat for complete coverage! Then I free hand drew hearts on a string (like about five million others this year!) and filled those in with an equally old Chanel Marilyn. This is really only a good dotting or nail art polish now. Has gotten a bit thick (could use restore on it, though).

For some reason the mani is really difficult to photograph. After top coat, the red is so shiny and reflective! The difference between the hearts and the background is not that great, either, so everything blends a bit. Better in real life. The thought with the hearts is that they are all hanging, but a couple are falling off, and one is lying on the ground. Or is it laying. Never can get that right!

What a day so far today. By noon two cars had driven in to the carpark, turned around, and drove out! What is with people? Will never comprehend that. Then, though, at noon customers started coming for breakfast and coffees, and to make it the best: I sold jewelry!!!! So, know what I will do tonight - must start pendants and earrings. I'd say, check out the others but my linky thing isn't working.

GOT: green – trio of greens in chevron

Now this is an easier day! Green! To say I like green is an understatement, ergo I have been buying green polish since my restart at being glam. I couldn't bring myself to just doing a simple one green mani so chose three oldies and created a chevron. All of these polishes I bought the end of 2012.

I started with a coat of OPI Thanks a Windmillion. A colour I don't wear heaps but I remember finding it at my local pharmacy in the $5 box – they were getting rid of all their OPI stock (now only sell Revlon, jerks).

Then using one colour at a time, I started my chevron. I started with OPI Jade is the New Black, a great darker green with a tinge of yellow - so not bluey cold green, but warm saturated green. Next was Zoya Logan, a fab green holo with hints of gold shimmer. I did another row of the Jade-Logan before adding one stroke of Windmillion. I only wanted a thin line of that to end things up under a last coat of Jade. Can't believe how shiny the mani is with just one coat of top coat.

So not a true chevron, but a chevron with a twist. The three colours work well together. Unfortunadamente I will not be rocking this for long as Thursday is also Waitangi Day here in NZ - a national holiday, not really an independence day (hmmm... ask the Maoris about that one) but an important day for us Kiwis. And I am thinking up a special mani for that. Cheers all!

GOT: dots – multi-coloured spiral dots like a Mexican pavement

Right away I want to say that I have not been lazy or forgetful, forgetting to write or anything. The watermelon mani lasted so long! And that with working at the café doing dishes and everything. I think it was the Jealousy on the tips - that mesh glitter is like armour. I did top up a bit on one or two tips but otherwise, zero problems. It would have lasted longer..... but, that mani had to go as it is GOT challenge time.

Yeah, dots! I have re-fallen in love with dots. So versatile, so many things you can do. Maybe I have more control now (meaning, practice) and can do both hands easily. This idea came from wanting to do a multi-coloured mani but still have it a bit summery (without going pastel). I do like how it turned out - thinking a coat of matte top coat could change the look as well.....

I started with a base of piCture pOlish Malt Teaser. This is a really yummy chocolate colour - it really looks like melted milk chocolate. I don't really think it looks like Malteasers (the Swiss candy). They are not as creamy looking (if I remember correctly) - I would say it looks like Milka Noisette!! This is two coats and coverage was really good.

Then I started dotting using different sized tools. I started with the yellow "mid" swirvy line and worked from there. One colour at a time; so all the yellow dots, then the green dots and so on.... Just one dot coat. I probably should have used a more vibrant blue (like blagger - edit note: would have been better for the rules sake as well) but tried the CND (it was feeling a bit underused!). I waited a good long time before top coating. Didn't want any of my dots to smear - funny the things it seems to take forever to remember to do!!!

This mani totally reminds me of a tiled walkway at EuropaPark in Germany (can't find the photo of that). It was leading to troll land and made out of different coloured glass tiles. My nails also remind me of the paved/tiled patio at pottery village in the Spanish village at Balboa Park in San Diego. Spent many an hour there.

right hand

Polishes used (in order of application):
base colour: piCture pOlish Malt Teaser
yellow: Konad stamping yellow
green: OPI Greenwich Village
red: OPI My Paprika is hotter....
pink: China Glaze Neon & On & On
blue: CND Blue Rapture
(forgot to mention: bar CND and Neon & On... all the polishes are older. I just wasn't thinking there for a minute, but so wanted to use that pink! And Blagger would have been the better option on the blue as that is old as well.)

Above a pic of Spanish village and below all the other gals and their dots!