52wkCrumpet20: hearts and purple

This is week twenty of Crumpet's 52 week challenge! The "rules" are very flexible and you have all week to accomplish the mani. As always, must be done on your own nails, using the colours suggested (or parts thereof).
This week's prompt: hearts and purple (either each alone or combined). I chose both as it is Valentine week and I like purple. I also wanted to try out some of new Neiru techniques, though in normal polish vs gel.

This is an alternating accents mani. The four accents were done in the galaxy marbling technique. The remaining six nails were painted in the beautiful OPI A Grape Fit. Two coats on the purple.

For the accents I started with a white base. Then I added drops of Layla Purple Galaxy and A Grape Fit to the nail. I used acetone-free remover and a somewhat larger brush to dab the liquid on to the polish drops. You keep adding drops of the liquid and the polish colours until you are basically happy with the flow. I added some white as well. It all comes together with top coat – before it just looks like a big mess! For these I top coated with Poshé – I find that thicker yet still very quick drying.

One one accent nail I decided to do negative hearts. While I like my hearts I am really not happy with the white back(fore)ground. Find it too harsh. But I was going off a Japanese nail art lesson and was trying to follow that. There, though, the marbled background was softer and more pastel. I drew two hearts with a fine line brush – one going up and one down – and the bottom of hearts on the sides to fill in the gaps.

Then I painted all the spaces around the hearts in white using a finer brush. I had to go over a couple of times. This is where the design would be much easier with gel. On the side spaces I added some glitter (China Glaze Prism, a purple-silver mix) and over the white and in the whites of the galaxy nails some OPI Pirouette my Whistle (a fine dusty silver-white glitter). Good coat of Poshé finished it off.

It is nice to wear purple for a change. One of my fab colours but never seem to get it out much. So big thx to Crumpie for selecting purple!! This has been a week of marbling; from Sharpie marbling to acetone marbling to galaxy marbling. Is fun, and relatively easy and effective. Cheers girls!! Happy V-Day!

An InLinkz Link-up

52wkCrumpet2: 3-tone gradient with pink hearts

This is week two of Crumpet's 52 week challenge! This is a great one as the "rules" are very flexible and you have all week to accomplish the mani. As always, must be done on your own nails, using the colours suggested (or parts thereof).
This week's prompt: three-tone gradient and pink (either each alone or combined). I combined.

I was in a bit of a quandary on what colours to choose for my three tone gradient. I had just worn blue and the time before red and brown. And also green. And I didn't want to do the sunset or butterfly gradient, again. So I decided to try a Zoya Pixie Dust gradient. That was ..... dumb. It is really hard to gradient pixie dusts as they have a lot of glitter particles in them that stick to the sponge. I keep forgetting that.

Even though the base looks predominantly green, there is a three tone gradient in there! I did start with a gently applied base of green (Zoya Vespa). The gradient is then achieved with Vespa, Zoya Godiva and OPI Solitaire. Solitaire (the white one) overpowers as it is also the tip of my nail. And Godiva is a faint tone, almost the colour of my nail bed. One coat of Out the Door and then a coat of Poshé. Pixies eat top coat and you could definitely feel the girt after just Out the Door. Poshé is nice and thick (and glossy and quick dry as well).

right hand

For the hand drawn hearts I used China Glaze Neon & On & On - this is one of my fav pinks. I painted them in different sizes and amounts, added a black one here and there. This was top coated again with Poshé to give a real gloss and smooth out the entire mani.
In the end I think the nails look like an advertisement for a game of bridge! Perhaps too Queen of Heartsy. The gradient is there, but quite faint. But in the shadows the hearts pop in neon!
Cheers girls x – looking forward to seeing all the others!

An InLinkz Link-up

Fifth day nail art school

Today was a very productive day! Altogether I now have five finished sets on my super deluxe display board. I plan on whipping up something snazzier for the future but for now this is pretty cool. Five different looks. I am bound in background colours by the box behind the desk, mainly Revlons. And mainly beige shimmers or reds. In my mind I want periwinkle blue, but alas, not possible.

First I finished the hearts from yesterday. Was brain dead on that one so practiced dotting with my brush and added some glitter. The hearts are pretty cute and I added depth with red on the pink, but not the best combo.

For my next set my homework was diamond flowers and the dragonfly (or whatever we will call it). I started with a diagonal duo of a lilac nude and purple. While that dried I mixed my colours. I was going for a tone-in-tone purple look. I wanted a different look on the board away from the yellows and greens.

I painted the diamond flowers in dark then added lighter inner petals. The leaves are two toned in green with green bits in the middle. I added the dragonfly on two fingers. This looks better live as the lighting in the studio is poor. Dabbed some silver glitter on, too. On to my last set for the day. Severine was dead set on me doing strawberries. I suggested apples as well (Otago being the apple capital). So we agreed on that one.

I wanted a light bright blue background but nothing was there. Didn't want yet another light green or white or nude. So tried a metallic blue from Revlon. By the way, none of the polishes have names, only numbers! Then I drew the apples and accent nail strawberries in deep red, added accents in dark brown and yellow. I really like my leaves! And the blue is not too bad, though could be lighter. Again, this looks better live. So that was day five! No idea that is on tomorrow - we will see! Ciao x

Fourth day nail art school

Today was a shorter day, and it went by quickly. I arrived later in the afternoon to homework prepared for me to do. I was sans teacher today. But I had my job to do: she wanted two full sets of nails and for me to practice dragonflies, hearts, lines and diamond shapes. And French tips. Well, that was not accomplished! By the time I had cleaned my station and done my warm up and some practice thirty minutes had zipped by.

My first full set was to be cherries - a totally fab for me to do with Central Otago cherry season and all that jazz. I used a lime green two toned background (first coat a full tone lime, second coat a light green shimmer). I mixed a deep red and drew cherries. Then, mixing black and brown, drew stems. 

The leaves were drawn in two-tone greens. I added highlights to the cherries and leaves and added random dots. Lastly, I dabbed on gold glitter. They look better in person (!), I am very happy with them and think they will be a real eye-catcher at the market and in the studio. I had zero concept for time so after drawing some practice dragonflies and flowers started my second set choosing an Orly (double yuck) MINI bottle of what turned out to be too old (= thick) yellow shimmer. Took forever to dry enough to work.

Severine wanted hearts so I did hearts. I draw hearts all the time so this was super fun using my new brilliant thin brush. I mixed dark pink and purple for the baby hearts. Then, all of a sudden, the Mr was there to pick me up. So I stopped and will continue tomorrow with lines and dots and don't know yets. Bye girls!

China Glaze Agro in skittlette with hearts

What a total hectic of a time it has been! And it is still not over. There are so many things I want to write about; for those who follow and myself for future reads. Time just gets way from me from day to day. It has been over a week since my last post, and my FB pages are pretty bleak as well. But I know things will be looking up soon and I will be back on the social marketing bandwagon!

This was the mani I was rocking for my first craft faire on Easter weekend (blog to follow on that as well). I fact, I wore it a couple of days before and after. The base is two coats of China Glaze Agro. Love this green - perfect autumn shade. I decided to do an AABBC skittlette, leaving Agro alone on the AAs. I had made some wee bracelets with a heart and Agro as a background, so I recreated this on my nails.

The hearts were drawn asymmetrically and are in Ozotic 502 Sands. The duochrome shifts from gold to brick red to brown through copper. Very earthy. The pinky received a coat of CG Electrify - also from the Hunger Games collection. A very Katniss look – in fact, I made a ring for the craft faire (just for fun).

right hand

Since I last wrote I have had two garage sales at the café, with one more to go this Saturday. I never had so much business! But you would not believe the amount of work involved getting all the old (bought with café) cr*p down from the attic areas and put out on tables. It was massive! Our fault for not insisting she (landlady-preowner) clean out her junk before selling. But I was wide-eyed and anxious for my fantastic wine bistro plan! Dumb. There are still things to do, all very overwhelming at the moment. But we had good sales and some big ticket items are gone.

just part of a massive massive pile

Then in the midst of all this the film society had their members only night (and final night of the season). I got yellow flowers!! All a tad emotional and I got a bit teary eyed. So sad to see the venue go - seemed perfect for the film nights. Generally sad to see the venue go.

There is another mani to post, and with Anzac day tomorrow I am working on my mani for that. And Ripponburn today. Also, getting my paperwork together to apply for NZ citizenship hopefully Monday (yeah, big yeah!!). May have a mani client tomorrow (need to get my studio up and running - have secured web domains, need business cards....). I "rewarded" myself with a small polish buy. Just because, I felt like it. Some indies from overseas.

Bye girls! Thanks for being a part of my wild ride!

P&P H-equinox in gradient with accent nail

I saw this mani on Eeeek! Nail Polish! blog a couple of days ago and totally stole it!!!! I think she used plates but I don't stamp so tried a freehand drawing of the hearts. I think this whole mani of gradient with glitter and hearts and accent and - oh just so fab!!! Eeeek, I thought. Must have!! And I knew exactly the glitter I wanted to use so planned the whole mani around that.

The glitter I have wanted to wear forever it seems is Pretty & Polished H-equinox My Socks Off. I have had this for months but spring then summer came and the colour just appeared too "wrong season".  The base of this glitter is light nude-grey. Very faint, but not a clear polish. Then there are specks of turquoise and gold. Totally unique.

I started with one coat (accent nails two) of Cult Nails nude. I fast dry top coated the accent nail so I could work on that later (last). Then I sponge gradiented the turquoise about three times on to my tips. This was then topped with one coat of the P&P glitter. I knew the coloured base of the glitter would give the visible nude a bit more depth – that's why I only applied one coat of nude.

right hand

By this time, my accents had dried sufficiently to start the heart art. I drew overlapping different hearts and then coloured them in using the gradient polishes as well as a blue glitter and grey. I used Out the Door top coat on the whole thing.

I was out and about in town, picking up my nail studio flyers (invested $20 in flyers, no idea of where to put them!), going to the bank, etc. Basically showing off my nails! Quite a few women said they looked "a-may-zing" and I told them they could have this, too. This prompts their automatic look at their own nails and the typical sentence: oh, my nails look so bad and I'm going to crawl under a rock and die because polish always chips on me and radi radi ra. Oh, how to build clients - that will be a challenge. Had another lady today (fab pastel orange glitter sandwich) and someone wants to call for an appt next week. So, let's hope.

Polishes used main nails:
nude = Cult Nails Cruisin' Nude
turquoise = alessandro 1507
glitter = Pretty & Polished H-equinox My Socks Off

Additional polishes used accent nail hearts:
grey = Pahlish Sitting in a Tin Can
gold = OPI L.A.M.B.
blue glitter = LA Colors Aqua Crystals

Below my inspiration, gorgeous nails from Mrs Eeeek!!! Thank you!!