My Ripponburn ladies 2:14

Yesterday was Ripponburn day. It seemed like a smaller crowd - many were away on adventures with their families (some newbies as well), a couple have moved on to another facility. Since there was way under a dozen ladies, I offered to do anything they wanted - even hand drawn flowers for Lilian!!

nellie with dotted flowers

Nellie started us off, she was perusing the colours with Ivy. Ivy is so cute! She is getting a tad smaller, but that makes her eyes seem bigger - big inquisitive eyes. Anyway, Nellie chose blue and let me add a couple of flowers on her accent. Nellie can't see very well, but I think she ended up noticing the flowers. The mani looked really good.

ivy

lilian

Ivy was next and had decided quite quickly! Pink with glitter. Lilian was more than happy to take me up on my offer (!!) and wanted something nobody else was going to have, based on gold. Good that I brought my acrylics. Seems I haven't done acrylics there for a while. But with 14 ladies waiting, and a rigid time schedule!, it is not always possible. Well, Lilian thought everything looked great! Whew.... :)

gladys

dorothy

Gladys was next and said I could do anything. I had brought a Hungry Asian with me so (after Lilian's flower request) thought I do acrylics on Gladys as well. I love this Hungry Asian but noticed I am not wearing it much so let it come off the shelf for the day. I knew Dorothy would want something metallic so packed enough for her to chose from. I noticed that Dorothy has her nails filed pointy. That was t-h-e fad back in the 40-50s, my Mom still wears her nails like that.

joan

jenny

Well, newbie two is Joan (another Joan). "Regular" Joan was there, too, but was taking a nana nap the whole time and I didn't want to disturb her. Newbie Joan is a tad confused, and forgetful. Keeps asking when it is her turn, and if I will do her nails, too. She wanted pink and glitter but then forgot wanting glitter. That is fine. She got something and seemed very happy. Jenny was knitting!!! She managed to stop to get her nails done but ...... I was very concerned she would start knitting again and smear everything. She has a habit of doing that!

norma

Probably my favourite experience yesterday was visiting wee Norma. All the ladies are dear to me, but wee Norma seems so fragile. Probably was a really ballbreaker in her day!!! Ha! Last time she was too tired to come out, same today. But I asked if I could visit her in her room and she said yes. So when I was done I walked down to her and did her nails. She has pink blankets. So wee and quiet. I felt a bit sad as her TV was blaring soccer - now, why would she have to watch that? Oh well, too difficult to try to understand. Just seemed sad. It was fiddly doing her nails as her hands wouldn't work much but she said she wanted glitter, too. So that is what she got. I gave her a kiss and said she looked great and hope to see her next time. I hope so. Am back in two weeks!

Mani breakdowns:
Nellie: two coats OPI No Room for the Blues, dotted flowers in Cult Nails Deal with It and CG Sunshine Pop
Ivy: two coats Orly Artificial Sweetener, one coat OPI You Glitter be Good To Me
Lilian: two coats Thai Golden Triangle, acrylic painted flowers
Gladys: two coats Hungry Asian Belle, acrylic painted flowers
Dorothy: two coats Color Club Model Behavior
Joan: two coats Orly Artificial Sweetener
Jenny: two coats China Glaze Sexy Silhouette, one coat CG Make a Spectacle
Norma: one coats Essie Raise Awareness, one coat China Glaze Make a Spectacle

Kia ora koutou: Waitangi Day silver fern and koru

Today is Waitangi Day in New Zealand (read up on here). Up north there are all sorts of celebrations, marae visits, hui, political speakers, bbqs etc. Down south, where I live, it is a day off and people are upset that they can't go shopping and go to the lake! I am not 100% happy with this mani but am posting regardless as I will be wearing it through to the weekend (Ripponburn tomorrow avo!). In a nutshell, I feel the background is too dark. Maybe. My problem lately.

I started with no base coat and two coats of Layla Coffee Love. This is one of my favourite holos. A beautiful brown shimmer. With these Laylas there is no need for a base coat. The polish works best directly on the nail. It dries a tad matte so a nice top coat makes the colour really shine - especially in the sun!!! I didn't top coat before drawing, just waited a bit.

The silver fern (go the All Blacks) and the koru are two very kiwi icons, and set deep in our culture. Working slowly, I freehand drew a silver fern on both ring fingers. Very fiddly. I dot filled the fronds with Zoya Storm, a black holo. For the green dots I started with my right hand and chose too large dots. So did better on my left with a smaller tool. I am happy with the koru on my thumb. Didn't really know what to do with the rest. A koru (or fern) on every finger would have been too much.

indoor lighting

All in all I love the base Layla colour and am very happy with my fern and koru (also the fern on my right hand, legend!). But somehow, it is all very uneventful, no really "wow" effect. And I am afraid the fern is too hard to see, so no one will really notice. Maybe I am just being too hard on myself.

right hand: great fern but dots too large

Good news: I got called for a job interview early March! Disappointing news: café still not sold and time is running out. Frustrating news: I have been working on a pendant for my daughter and am afraid I messed it up. It had been going so beautifully all these days. Have let it sit by the side while I think and re-think colour choices. Now I am afraid the background is too dark. Jury still out on that one.

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!

Summer stripes with You Oughta Know

Although my dots were still in pretty good shape, I felt like something new last night. I wanted to use one of my new Nostalgic Lacquer glitters, and then had an awning stripe idea - oh so Tuscan!

I started with two coats of Butter London Cheeky Chops - a good bright but a tad muted yellow. Then I used my white striper and drew three lines on each nail. Pretty simple. Worried about cuticles lines later for clean up!

Then I grabbed Nostalgic Lacquer's You Oughta Know - a black-white based multi-glitter with bright flecks of red-orange and yellow and tiny turquoise spots. Even though I had the bottle upside down, I had to fish around for the glitter. Not that big of a deal, but still worth mentioning. Probably two layers of glitter. One layer of top coat.

If I were a "normal" person I would have applied at least another layer of top coat. But I know I will not be wearing this for long (GOT day and Waitangi Day on the horizon). The large black hexs have an ever so slight taco effect. And some of the thin bar glitter sticks up (and you annoyingly pull it off!).

All in all the mani looks good - the awning style of the yellow and white stripes reminds me of Disneyland! In fact, the whole mani does. I feel a pendant coming on....... ha!

yes - you can buy!! :) here

full sun

right hand