TPC: Tweedy

So here comes my last Tri Polish challenge manicure with February colours brown, pink and gray. In this respect the mani is a bit funny - you'll see...

The inspiration for this came from the amazing blog The manicurator.
Please look up her version! My own looks like it's done by a two-year old, in comparison...

Base three coats China Glaze Digital Dawn (I got this in a goodie bag in a meeting).
I added those tweedy lines with Color Club Beyond and Wild & Mild Diamond Roosevelt Avenue mixed with Gosh Silver.

The accent fingers feature stamping with:
Gosh Silver + DRK-A (mini houdstooth) Beyond + BM316 (lines in the left ring finger)
beyond + BM322 (large houndstooth in the right ring finger)

The funny thing with this manicure is, that I'm not really sure which colour is which - regarding the challenge. Which is the grey? Which is the extra black or the silver? Is the base really brown or pink?
Keep guessing, while browsing the wonderful work of other participants!

An InLinkz Link-up

V - VIP

Look who's doing another ABC challenge post! Only five letters left...

Today I'm going with Orly VIP for the letter V.

I have to admit I had difficulties with this one - that is, I almost didn't find a V polish in my stash until I ran through the minis. And there it was, this sweet little bottle of glitter.

The base polishes I used here are Gosh Diva in pinky, middle and thumb and Color Club Miss Bliss in ring and index fingers.

Then I added a sponging of Orly VIP on pinky, index and thumb; striping tape stripes on pinky with VIP; and stamping from Pueen 05 with Kiko mirror 616 onto the middle finger.

I have been loving the textured polish trend lately, so I left the glitter stripes without a top coat. You can really see the texture in this pic - and I liked it! How about you? Do you prefer to feel the polish or are you a smooth operator?

P - Pink-A-Boo

The ABC Challenge is still going strong... Well, maybe not strong (it's been a while since my latest post), but going anyway.

 My P polish is a sweet one with a sweet name from Essie: Pink-A-Boo. A beautiful glass flecked baby pink polish, I knew I'd have to get from the moment I first saw it. How perfect would it be, if it just wasn't this sheer!! (and this pic is with underwear!!)

 This is a mani I wore to the Cosmobelleza beauty event under the gaze of hundreds of beauty enthusiasts – so it had to be perfect. And I was really quite happy with it.

My manicure is two coats of Essie Pink-A-Boo with underwear, which is two coats of Sally Hansen Complete Peachy Keen. I also did two accent fingers, left pinky and right pointer with two coats of Essie She's Picture Perfect.

Next I freehanded a camo using the polish brush and dotting tool for final touches, with NYX Girls Perfect Gray and Catrice Lucky in Lilac.

Left pinky was matified with BeYu Mat Top Coat, and I glued on a silver stud. Left pointer got some striping tape and a sponging of Milani Purple Gleam. Right pinky was coated with a generous dabbing of Yes Love D11, a 75 cent polish from a chinese bazaar. Right pointer got stamping with Gosh Silver and DRK-A -plate. And, at the end, all nails except the matified one got a good coat of Seche Vite.

And here are all the polishes. Phew!! I've never used this many tags in a single post before!

H - Hunt Me if You Can

My H polish in the ABC challenge is Essence Hunt Me if You Can. It's a great black shade with silver and multicolour shimmer. This is two easy coats.

For this cutesy-pie manicure I decided to combine two of the designs I've got on my Awesome Manicures board at Pinterest. Thank you Nailasaurus for the splatter idea and Kayono for the penguin!

To all fingers but the ring finger I did a splatter with Gosh Silver and Kleancolor Metallic Orange.

 The ring finger got a penguin design with the same colours. The penguin was really easy to make, please google for a tutorial and make your own!

On the thumb I made a tape manicure using Lacquistry Cosy Fire and OPI Pirouette My Whistle

And of course I had to matify with Essence Soft Touch topper.

By the way, Kleancolor Metallic Orange is almost a one coater and looks great on its own. Awesome quality for a dollar! It stained my gel nails a bit, though, so be careful with this one.

This manicure is one of my favourites for a long time. Plus it was fun to photograph it matified, without having to worry about reflections. This mani, especially the "who, me" penguin, made me smile many times, and I hope it did it for you, too! Sometimes, when your life is a mess, such a small thing can make a difference for a moment: a fun memory or, say, a penguin on your nails.

No H8!

Lately I've seen a lot of posts against bullying in the nail blog world and a bunch of beautiful no hate manicures, and I had to add mine.

 Actually I really felt the urge to do this manicure and post it after reading Veronicas post at her blog "Gorgeois". 

She shares her story of being bullied in a way that is very touching, extremely mature plus totally brave. I really admire her for that, and I relate to her post more than I would actually want to.

 Basically, her idea (and mine) is that you don't win hate by creating more hate. You can choose to act against bullying if you have the resources, you can choose to concentrate on the good things in your life, you can let people know they're making a mistake or acting thoughtlessly (as we all do from time to time), but fostering hate does not get you anywhere.

Alright, end of rant and onto the polish...
The base polishes I used for this "Love, no H8" manicure were Essence Show your feet Purple Magic and China Glaze Señorita Bonita.

On the pinky I stamped a partial image from BM209 with Gosh Silver. On the ring finger of my right hand there's the No H8 logo with the polishes mentioned in this post together with Mavala Black, and left hand has a flower sort of thingy. Middle finger boasts Lacquistry Lilacquistry.

And the pointer is coated with the lovely Nfu'Oh 50, plus a black heart stud. I felt the heart stud was really appropriate - to exclamate love in all its richness and variety of forms, to leave behind any hate cycles that could entagle us all.

The Vampire Bat

Here's another Halloween manicure for you - although I still don't celebrate halloween. Maybe I should start some year...

With this one I got a polish out from my box-o-untrieds again: China Glaze Lubu Heels featured here on ring&index fingers. The other fingers are sporting ChG Mummy May I. Two coats of polish in all of them, I think.

These differed a lot on the nail, although when I first picked them up they seemed almost like twins in red and purple. They have different shapes of glitters, for starters (round in Lubu, square in Mummy). Well, it was dark when I planned this mani...

I painted on some drips with alessandro Virgin Temptation and Astor Pop color 139, both based with Mavala White. The stamping is from BM-301 (isn't that the cutest vampire bat ever?), stamped with my best silver stamping polish Gosh Silver. Geez, it was hard to get a near decent picture of the stamp. It's just in the part of the nail where reflection always inevitably sets. Grrrr.

That's the bottle pic - the official 'That's all, folks' of this blog. Please stay safe, no matter under which storm you're under!

Excuse Mon Papillon!

I intended for once to do something subtle and classy. An adult mani. Well, that didn't quite happen. (If pink glitter and foiled butterflies are suddenly not an adult thing.. No? I thought so..)

Everything was fine with the base colour, Catrice Just Married. It was not totally opaque in two coats, but I had a hinch that I'd be adding a little something more, so I didn't paint the third one.

I sponged the tips with OPI Excuse Moi! from the Muppets collection. Then I added a coat of seche vite to even out the base for stamping.

Then I added some stamping: flowers from Konad m53 with Konad black special polish, and on ring fingers the butterfly image from the same plate. Lastly I coloured the butterfly using the tip of a fine nail art brush and three foil polishes.

What can I say to justify this picture spam.. Just that I loved these a lot and was sad to remove.

 But as always with nail art, there's the option to re-create a design and make it even better. So each removal is a new beginning, too. Quite a philosopher I am, huh?

This last pic is in the sunlight just to show the multicolour glitter in Excuse Moi!. Pretty and bright at the same time, isn't it?

And here are the polishes:
Catrice Just Married
OPI Excuse Moi!
Color Club Foil Me Once
Color Club Hot Like Lava
Gosh Silver
Konad Black special polish

Red, Silver and Studs

This is one of my short lived manicures (from the archives). I don't know why, but for some reason I didn't want to wear this, really. Is it the mani, or is it just me?

The base colours here were Revlon's Revlon Red (a great basic red - my favourite!) and Essence Nail Art Twins Romeo.

The decorations were made using:
China Glaze Love Marilyn in the ring finger half moon
Stamping, dots& lines with Gosh Silver
Plate BM203 (pinky) and m59 (bows)
Silver studs from eBay.

 In retrospect, the only thing that appeals to me in these pics is Love Marilyn on the red base. I'll have to give that another chance.

 And here are the polishes.

 Please don't unfollow me for these! I debated with myself if I should post these at all, but I myself like to see manis that are a bit on the failing side one way or another. You can learn from the mistakes of others, too. And besides, I've got some pretty decent water marbling coming up next...

The Last Snowflakes

Today's mani has the last snowflakes of the season:

 I came across a Flormar shoppe inside a shopping centre in Madrid, and succumbed to a slight haul.. ahem.

For this mani - to get to try these as soon as I could, I decided to combine Flormar U34, which is burgundy glass flecks in a coffee- brown base - slight duochorme to red/gold and Flormar U33, which has blue/multichrome glass flecks in black base.

 (The names on these somehow sound like war submarines..) The duochrome is stronger in the 33, you get an array of colours from cobalt blue through green to purple.

To blend the colours together more, I sponged each tip with the other colour. The result was pretty awesome, especially with the blue sponged on the burgundy!

My husband suggested snowflakes on these. I know this is propably not the most original way to snowflakify your nails, but I was lazy and stamped on some from m59 with Gosh Silver. I also painted on some smaller snowflakes with a size 0 nail art brush, and added some dots, too.

The mani was still missing some glitter, so I grabbed China Glaze Snowglobe. I first tried to paint it directly on the nail, but it was too dense and the result had more likeness to snow storm than peacefully floating snowflakes. So for the rest of my nails I just dabbed on some Snowglobe here and there with a dotting tool.

It's a simple design, but I'm quite happy with it, mainly because of the base colours. This is also the last "winter" mani this winter season, so enjoy it while it lasts. And then, let's move forward to spring brights and pastels! Say bye for now to these polishes!