G -Get Carried Away

Alright. Let's make it clear right from the start. This manicure is a FAIL. But I blame the polish.

I almost didn't post this one, but without this I wouldn't have gotten forward with the ABC challenge... So bear with me!

 As the base colour I used various greens (from pinky to pointer):
Revlon Beach
Lumene Summer Rain
China Glaze Cha Cha Cha
Wild and Crazy Erie,
And for the thumb two coats of Alessandro Virgin Temptation.

This was actually the fun part, getting to play with my swatchsicles!

The topper and my G-polish is China Glaze Get Carried Away (from the Cirque du Soleil collection).

I think the problem with this polish is -added to the lousy application- the black jelly base. It makes any base colour - except for black - very murky and dirty looking, especially if you have to dab over a spot more than once as I definitely did.

Over red GCA looks decent, but I still think I won't be using this too soon again. This close-up is after two coats of Seche Vite, and as you can see it's still quite bumpy. Not one of my favourites, but maybe I'll create something extra fun for the next letter, H...

Red Ombre

Sometimes you feel your life is totally out of your hands. All the big things go to ass's arse, and the more you try to do about it, the more mess you make.

 Then it's the perfect time to take out your swatchsicles (or stamp collection, or whatever makes you tick). You organize it once again, marvel your collection, play around with it and get to organize everything again. And bit by bit you forget all your bad stuff -at least for a moment- and start to think everyhting is organizable if you take it in small enough portions.

 This is one of my best ever ombre manicures, created on one of those days full of swatchsicle therapy. I love the effect, how the polishes were almost the same colour unless you followed the whole colour change from pinky to thumb or the other way round. I'm sure I left a few people wondering, if they saw what they thought...

 The polishes from pinky to thumb are:
Essie Orange, It's Obvious
Essence Colour&go Wake Up!
China Glaze Pure Torture
OPI Off With Her Red
Essence Circus Circus Applause Applause red creme

To approach the fine world of "nail art" I added some somple white dots with Mavala white. I felt like Minnie Mouse! :)

I liked being dotty, but it was a shame the dots hid most of the ombre effect. In this case, I couldn't have it all.

Interlocking Glitter Skittle

Again a manicure for getting to play with my swatchsicles and getting some polishes out from my untrieds.

The base is two/three coats of Catrice I Wear My Sunglasses at Night. I was a little disappointed with the glitter effect on the nail - or the lack of it. It is much more visible in these pics than IRL, even if you place your nails right under your nose.

I went on to paint interlocking diagonals with (from pinky to thumb, left hand):
Orly Vip
Essence Circus Circus Cotton Candy glitter
Nicole by OPI My Sleigh's in the Shop
Milani Purple Gleam and
China Glaze Skyscraper.

And this is the right thumb:
Milani Silver Dazzle

As always, the greatest fun was organizing my swatchsicles, choosing the colours and just fooling around.

There you can see the ones I chose and also the ones that didn't make it.
The two Milanis were the worst topcoat eaters, propably because they are so dense that the glitter pieces sit on the top of each other. Well, there's nothing that three coats (!) of Seche Vite couldn't handle..

 Generally I loved the most the Nicole by OPI and Milani Silver Dazzle. I'd say it's because they have the clearest contrast with the base. Which brings to me an idea of interlocking mani with contrasting colours.. hmm...

Funny how these glitter polishes remind me of those glitter glues we used to buy before christmas to decorate christmas cards, and which were totally equally useless every time..

I had marvelled at these interlocking manis before in some blogs, and making my own was really quite easy. I used scotch tape to line out a diagonal section for the glitter, and then a dotting tool to make the "interlocking" lines of dots.

By the way... I love saying glitter skittle.. :) Try it!

Blueberries

Today I've got some more dotting for you.

I was playing around with my dotting tools and noticed, that if you plug the dotting tool on a dot that's not completely dry yet, you get a crater. And somehow those craters started to look like the blueberry "belly buttons" - you know, the opposite side from where the berry is attached to the twig. You don't? Oh well, never mind. You do? That's great - I bet you've been picking them sometimes.. Anyways, here is my blueberry mani.

The most fun part in this was definitely choosing the colours and getting to spread out my swatchsicles on my desk!

I started out by painting the base, which is three coats of Catrice Khaki Perry (was disappointed by the opacity of this one..), and adding the lightest purple and green dots.

Then I made a kind of a gradient by dotting the centres of these base dots with darker colours. Oh heck, what am I babbling here. You can propably see everything from the pics yourself..

You see the "craters" or "belly buttons" in my blueberries? I made them by poking the dotting tool in a semi-dry dot, and turning it around a little. I finished the look by adding a tiny dot in contrasting colour. And a coat of Seche Vite, of course!

And here are the bottle pics along with some clutter on my desk:
greens:
China Glaze Westside Warrior, Essence Show Your Feet In The Jungle, Catrice Sold Out Forever, OPI Stranger Tides

purples:
Essence Multidimension Found My Love, OPI Planks a Lot, Astor Pop Color 139, China Glaze Loft-Y-Ambitions

Teal Ombre

Happy Easter everyone! I'm back from a brief holiday and ready to boast a manicure with some serious golden bling. (And open a Cadbury Creme Egg - my Easter treat!)

This is a simple mani, I mean it required zero nail art skills, but still I liked it a lot and wore it for days. And, not unimportantly, at last I got to use my swatchsicles in the way they are at their best - ombre manicures. 

The polishes I used are:
pinky OPI Ski Teal We Drop
ring finger Essence Multidimension Trendsetter
middle finger Sally Hansen Complete Salon Fairy Teal
pointer Essence Multidimension Tryin' to Be Cool
thumb China Glaze For Audrey

All the polishes were two coats, even For Audrey, which I doubted at first.

I couldn't really decide the decorations, but int he end I decided to brush on one coat of Lacquistry 24k Shredded on each nail. And I loved the result!

Especially For Audrey in the thumb enjoyed the golden company. Lacquistry's 24k Shredded was easy to apply, had the perfect golden shade and lied flat on my nails. One thick coat of Seche Vite was enough to smoothen things out.

Here are the polishes and the chosen swatchsicles. I'm already planning a second ombre mani to get to play with the swatchsicles again...

Yellow & Pink Water Marble

I'm back from my hiatus, and I was really surprised to see my blog had attracted some new followers while I was away. Thank you for the "old ones" for sticking with me, and a warm welcome to you new ones!!! You mean a lot to me! I don't know which amazes me the most: that there are people who don't even know me, thus don't need to be afraid of hurting my feelings and still want to read my blog, or that there are people who know me and want to share my nail enthusiasm even if they don't do nails themselves.

Today I want to show you a water marble I did a while ago with  Flormar U23 and China Glaze Happy Go Lucky, Orange Marmalade and Señorita Bonita.

This is only the second water marble I've ever done, and I owe so much to all the tutorials and "tips and tricks" pages you other nail bloggers have made. Without you I would have thrown these precious little bottles straight out of the window so many times.

The pattern I used here is the classic slightly diagonal lines. I also did accent nails on the thumbs, by taping them diagonally before dipping. This came out as one of my favourite nails.

 The Flormar polishes I own - from the Miracle Colors series -  can be quite sheer, but they work well in water marbling. Keep that in mind if you don't know what to do with yours or would like to save some of your more expensive polishes for other purposes. While making this marble, for example, I noticed that CG 108 Degrees & Flormar U23 and CG Senorita Bonita & Flormar U15 are very near each other, if not exact dupes.

I knew I wanted a yellow on this mani, and I took out all my yellow swatchsicles to choose the right colour.

Try to explain a non-polish-addict that "seriously, these are totally diferent colours..." I truly identified myself with this awesome video about the life of a polishmaniac.. And well, Orly Spark and China Glaze Happy Go Lucky ARE quite near each other... But otherwise they really are different.

I wore this mani for a few days, and got an excuse to wear it a day more by adding OPI Rainbow Connection on the ring fingers. What a happy couple!

Guessing Game Winners!!!

It's time to announce the winners of my guessing game / mini giveaway. But at first, the answer to the question you've all been pondering on your sleepless nights since the launch of this guessing game...
The correct answer was 180. If you don't believe me, just count from the pic below!

These were only the polishes I had worn until then. I made the decision only to swatchsicle polishes as I use them, so I can keep track of my untrieds. As I've been working hard using polishes from my untrieds, I'd say I own about 200 swatchsicles at the moment. Oops... When did that happen...?

As I stated in the terms and conditions of the guessing game, the "closest guess" prize would only be given if the closest guess was no more than 10 percent away from the correct answer. Thus the scale of acceptable guesses ranges from 162 to 198. And there was only one guess that made it there. Congratulations to Jonochi, with her guess of 167 polishes!! These stickers, neon pink crackle and deco stuff go to her.

I picked the winner for the GFC followers prize with random.org, and it picked Iroshi as the winner! Congrats (and these neon polishes) to you!

 Thanks to all who participated! And thank you for your encouraging comments! They mean a lot to me! By the way, I got asked, what's the blue glitter polish in the foreground in one of the pics of my swatchsicles. (These kinds of questions don't bother me at_all!) It's Revlon Blue Mosaic, and I believe I did two coats for this.

I can tell you all I'm still fascinated with my swatchsicles, and I can't keep my hands off them when I'm at my desk. If you have the time and need some polish therapy, go for it! Just make sure you've got a glue that attaches well and does not crinkle the plastic. I ended up using clear superglue, after all.

Guessing Game - Mini Giveaway!!

In the latest post I wrote about this little project I had organizing all my polishes. Did I mention I counted them, too?

Well, how many were there? You tell me!!!! It's time for a guessing game - and with prizes!

The pics in this post are from the day I counted my swatchsicles. Feel free to try to count yourself.. :)

The prizes are:

1) Set of silver base coat, neon pink crackle polish and clear top coat, 3 sheets of nail art stickers, set of 6 glitters/beads/glitter figures.

The winner of this prize is the one whose guess is the closest. If there are more than one closest guesses, the winner will be drawn by lot. This prize will only be given if the closest guess is not more than 10 per cent away from the correct answer. So think hard!! There are some cute bows seeking a new home...

2) Set of four neon mini polishes, wheel of rhinestones.

 The winner of this prize is drawn (using random.org) from all CFG followers participating in this guessing game, regardless what they've guessed. New followers are welcome! And what's more, you'll get two extra entries if you post this guessing game on your blog (sidebar or dedicated post)  Snatch these pink bow shaped rhinestones to your stash!

This is not a real big giveaway you see in other awesome blogs. I just wanted to give all my polish friends a chance to have some raffle fun here in my blog and to thank all of you who follow me via GFC. I'm so happy to have you as my first followers!

The rules are simple:
use the form below and
1) guess how many polishes there are in my swatchbox
2) give your name/alias
3) give your email
(if you're a GFC follower, tick yes when asked to!)
(if you've posted this giveaway on our blog, say so! It's two more entries!)

I'll be more than happy to receive comments on this post, but entries left in the comments section will not be included in the raffle.

This guessing game is now closed. Thanks to all who threw in their guess!!