52wkCrumpet23: Ikat design

This is week 23 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: Ikat design and metallic (either each alone or combined). I chose Ikat and was going to combine with metallics but still have a Luxio base so just drew over everything!! I have done this design heaps before, I think even in this colour combo. Always effective and bright - can't miss it!

The base is China Glaze Happy Go Lucky (my fav yellow) and the red is Zoya Sooki (a great tomato red). Black is just black! This is a super rushed and totally inadequate post about this also rather rushed mani but I am super pressed for time this week and wanted to post now – or forever hold your peace!!!! So apologies to the Gods of Crump for my total lack of indepth reporting and photojournalism – and the smeared black bits as I was also impatient.

An InLinkz Link-up

52wkCrumpet17: three shades of green and/or yellow

This is week seventeen 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: fire, and three shades of green and/or yellow (either each alone or combined). I chose green and yellow combined, wanting to revisit a pond manicure that I did over a year ago. It is also a sunny alternative to the cranberry marbling I just took off. The gel mani was lasting quite well after a week but for the life of me I do not understand how all the Japanese nail afictionados handle all the rhinestones! A couple of mine chipped off after about three days and they were annoying. Always catching on my hair. Pretty, but annoying.

I started with a one coat base of EMS Recombination from Indigo Bananas. This is a shimmery green jelly, perfect for layering and sandwiches. Then I added some random vertical lines in OPI Green-wich Village. Similar tone, but darker. This was covered with one layer of EMS.

Then, using OPI Need Sunglasses?, I added yellow horizontal lines to the tips and some verticals randomly. This was covered in EMS.

Lastly, I added some wisps of horizontal Green-wich and then top coated.

I filed down my nails into more of a square for this one. Going after a horizontal look with the lines. I haven't worn square for a while so it is a nice change. This has been a busy week as I had a major wind disaster at last weekend's market and have needed to 1) rethink my whole layout to windproof better and 2) while I am at it, restyle a bit. So besides creating jewellery and painting a lot, I have been figuring out table placements, enjoying mani clients and writing film articles. Busy bee me! And... I still want to do my Japanese Nail Art lesson!!

Thanks for reading girls x

An InLinkz Link-up

52wkCrumpet7: wild animals and yellow

This is week seven 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: wild animals and yellow (either each alone or combined). I combined. Yellow is a colour I do not wear often enough and wanted to try some different freehand animals. I love giraffes! So I went for giraffes standing in the pampas of the African plain – even if some look like dinosaurs or emus. Fun fact that I learned on safari once: giraffes sleep mainly with their heads upright because if they lie them on the ground they do not have enough strength to pull them back up. How bizarre!

you can kind of see the base shimmer here

I started with a base of Butter London Cheeky Chops, my oldest yellow. What a mission! It is one thing to use the colour for nail art by dribbling drops of it on a palette, another to paint your nails. The colour was a bit thick and the bottle half full. I was too lazy halfway through to thin it down and just trudged on with two coats. To give a bit of a pop I topped this with a coat of NfuOh 029, an old untried (man, I am ticking all the boxes this week!) holographic jelly yellow. Basically clear, it is a holographic in a yellow liquid. I top coated before moving on.

right hand

Using black acrylic paint I drew giraffes in either profile or semi profile. Some look rather like aliens from The Jetsons but the Mr figured it out all on his alone! My right hand doesn't look half bad, either, so improvement. Even if, in hindsight, my right thumb looks more like a donkey!

I wisped on some grass stalks using different polishes and a longer brush: China Glaze Happy Go Lucky (another old yellow and a bit darker than BL), OPI Don't Talk Bach to Me (a greenish yellow) and an older Thai polish with no label or name that some may classify as orange, but I am calling amber. Keeping with the safari theme, I added I Herd That to the tips (China Glaze On Safari collection). Now to scroll through the other creations - bye girls x!

An InLinkz Link-up

Lemon Meringue Gelicious based floral nails

We are off this weekend to a family 80th and as suggested earlier, I have my nails done to match my outfit. I am wearing a black and white chevron striped dress and yellow shoes.

I started with a base of Lemon Meringue Gelicious. Personally I haven't worn gel in a while and I got all inspired by clients who were requesting gel manis. For me, gel manis are the best working mani as I use non-acetone remover on clients, do not harm my own art and don't have to refresh that often. On the flip side, though, I don't wear as much different nail art as I would like to. I applied three very thin coats of Lemon Meringue, a soft pastel yellow, and then cure top-coated.

Initially I was going to do feathered stripes in black and white but I tried that on one nail and didn't like it. Then I was thinking of doing hibiscus like flowers but went off that as well. Finally I decided on freefall petal flowers and bursts of white and black.

Using acrylic paints, I drew the basic flowers and bursts in black then filled in the petals with grey and also added some grey bursts. Then I highlighted the petals in white and yellow, adding some bursts here and there. When all that was done I added some black dots and top coated with Out the Door.

right hand

I am very happy with these and think they match my "ensemble" perfectly!! I am a bit anxious going in to the weekend as there are some members of the family I have yet to meet – in fact, I don't even know if they know I exist! But I think all will be good and I am looking forward to it! Bye girls! x

Starburst flowers on Essie Sable Collar

Hi girls! I had intended to do a last gel mani for the whole week but that did not want to do what I wanted. I need to tweak that polish and try again and then I will write about that experience. Do want to give the colour a second chance before I call up the relationship doctor! So, I decided to do an acrylic mani on a hardly used beautiful brown.

Now, I am also totally behind in posting this (waaaay too much jewellery to make this week - but I guess that's a good thing) and I had heaps of film marketing to do as well. I am right now on my fourth day with this and it still looks totally fab - NO chips! I just gave it a new top coat to be shiny for tomorrow and there are zero chippos. I wonder...... I decided to use my old tried and true China Glaze Strong Adhesive base coat this time. Over the past months I have been using Seche Clear, mainly because I bought a jumbo refill size. It never as felt as good as the CG. And here is the proof as this mani is still rockin'! That usually doesn't happen with SC.

I started with two coats of Essie Sable Collar, a warm rich chocolate brown with a shimmer. A velvety brown. I think this is a beautiful winter tone and it covers very well in two coats. Then I got out the acrylics and a small flat brush. I wanted to create overlapping starbursts.

First, I mixed yellow and white (and water) and applied all the yellow flowers. Such a simple design, just dip the end of the flat brush in the colour and then apply in a wheel spoke type pattern. I keep cleaning off the brush by wiping and squeezing it together with my fingers to keep the tip thin and tight. Then, using orange and white and water, I did the same with the next colour. And again with a very very peachy light. I added some white dots in the middle of the flower and wherever else I thought they should be!

right hand

Top coat really brought it all together and smoothed out the acrylics. I waited a bit before applying so that I wouldn't smear any of the paint. Acrylics dry fairly quickly, though. and if you hover over the nail with the top coat (vs really applying it with force) you usually don't touch the art.

So.... like I said, have been a busy bee. I thought of this new pendant design, called Cosmic Dandelion. I haven't put it on etsy or anything. Well, I just finished it and tomorrow is the market. Maybe I'll sell it. And if not, we are away soon on holiday so why bother with etsy for the time being. I really like it (duh...) and think it would be a great larger painting.

cosmic dandelion

I don't know how everyone artsy is out there but not everything I make I like super duper 100%. I like everything, but see room for improvement, or not even - just didn't jell. Then there are objects I really really like, it all came together and just pops. I usually price these higher so that I can stare at them longer. And if someone buys it, then at least I got a good price for it. Then there is all the bread-and-butter stuff that always sells and I keep making. My wee bracelets for instance. I don't even put those on etsy; just little hand drawn hearts in a delicate charm. Wish me luck for tomorrow - last market for a bit. Really going to miss it!

Laguna Beach landscape gradient in green, purple and yellow

One of my favourite pendants is my Laguna Beach necklace (see it here). Personally, I wear it almost exclusively and always gets heaps of compliments. I never tire of making it for new customers. So I decided to draw inspiration from that. This is the mani I was wearing (and still was till today) on Saturday at the Queenstown Art Market. Decided I needed something to draw attention to my stall and my jewellery and nail art.

I started with a coat of a-england Dragon - a beautiful olive green holo. Then I gradient applied a-england Avalon from just below the middle to the tips. I went over twice towards the tips to make it darker. Avalon is a vibrant purple with a bit of shimmer. The tips I first gradiented in OPI Don't talk Bach to Me (a mustard greeny yellow - pretty ick-looking in the bottle but I tell you, I use this a lot!). The tippy tips were sponged in OPI Need Sunglasses.

After letting this sit-dry for about 15 minutes I drew my hill lines in black. Just random dunes and slopes. I used an Ozotic duochrome (910) to highlight parts of the dunes. Then I brought it all together with top coat, twice.

The purple-yellow is a vibrant combo and looks really good together. All the colours flow  – but at the same time pop. A lot of people noticed it on Saturday, and that they matched my pendant. Proof that everything is hand drawn! I would like to do more of this type of nail art for clients, but that is still slow going. I think I will get there in the end, though!

right hand

Happy Hands Banana Stand matte

This afternoon is a Ripponburn day! Yeah! Thought I would have some yellow for awhile. After all it is summer.... still. Not really a shade I can wear in winter with my skin tone.

This is a pretty straightforward mani: three coats of Happy Hands Banana Stand topped with Out the Door then a matte Orly top coat. As you can see from the different pics, the yellow goes from light to darker depending on the lighting. The colour doesn't change, but the lighting effects the saturation.

The colour is intended to resemble bananas (love bananas!) with their brown and black spots. The yellow has a very slight green tinge (like unripe bananas) and there is some green glitter in there as well. Pretty groovy colour!

The matte top coat adds an element of jelliness to the polish. It does dry normal and top coat evens out the glitter. The matte top coat brings out a depth to the colour - really cool! I will probably keep this over the weekend. Like I said, Ripponburn this afternoon.
Workwise today is a bit of a non-event. Just so many thoughts going around my head. In fact, my stomach is feeling very upset this morning. Too many unanswered questions and decisions. Makes me feel very anxious. I don't like life when it gets this way.
Funwise haven't sold much on etsy lately. Though I do sell in my café (when customers come)! etsy school is also a bit of a non-event. My new partner hasn't filled out any of my forms yet, so am playing the game alone still. But it is fun and learning experience. Am applying for some jobs so have hope there as well. Lots of hope everywhere it seems!