NOTW #3 November Rainbow Challenge

Hello Dahlings!

I know I said I'd be wearing the Halloween-esque nail design for a few days, but I couldn't do it. The more I looked at it, the more I wanted it off my nails. So onward to my self imposed November Rainbow Challenge. 1st up: Dark Reds.

I started this mani on Tuesday night & finished up tonight. The line up: Orly Crawfords Wine, Sally Hansen Quick Brick & Glossy. All 3 are shimmers. The hex shaped sponge is from the Essence Nail Art Kit that also had the really thin striper brush I used to make mummy bandages. The 3/4" x 1/4" size is perfect for doing gradients on long nails. This is the 5th time I've used it & I plan on trimming off the painted edges for another go around or two.

Two coats of Crawfords Wine. A great color to wear with a lil black dress! It was a lil persnickety to get off my skin, but some hot water, soap & a nail brush after I did the gradient & let it all cure did the trick.

I really like how this turned out!!! Nice blending, deep rich colors...YUM! As it was getting rather late, I added a coat of Seche Vite, waited for it to fully cure then scrubbed my cuticles. Add apricot cuticle oil & I was off to bed. Looking at this eye candy all day was distracting! LOL

I was going to use China Glaze Stone Cold to stamp with, but it was drying too fast. So I grabbed Orly Steel Your Heart. It worked better than the CG but I had to do some touch ups with a short striper where some of the lines didn't transfer. I used Cheeky XL plate B.

As I was getting ready to take a photo of my finished nails, Frau Meyer decided I needed to stop what I was doing & pet the cat. So I multi-tasked! LOL Yep! I got cat hair stuck all over my fingers from the cuticle oil. Oh well, at least my nails turned out mostly how I'd hoped.

~ Inky

NOTW #2 Halloween-esque

Hello Dahlings!

I usually leave my mani on for at least 2 days, but those carrots were bugging me. I went web surfing this afternoon looking for inspiration & I found it on LOVE4NAILS YouTube channel. You can see it HERE. I changed the colors to be more Halloweenish & added flakies.

Here's da line up: Ruby Kisses Whiter Than White; Sally Hansen Three D, Resolution & Cyber; Nubar 2010 & Sinful Colors Nail Art Lazy Girl.

This is Ruby Kisses Whiter Than White at 2 coats. If I were leaving more of it showing I might go for 3 coats cuz it's a tad bit streaky, but it does the job.

 

I do like this mani better than yesterday's nails, but as yesterday's nails were rather lame, almost anything would be an improvement. LOL

 

Oh looky! You can see the lack of downward curve on my nails along with a smidge of flakie sparkle.

 

This will do until later in the week. I hope to do a mani for each color of the rainbow featuring either the gradient or ombre technique in November. I figure it's a good way to appease a bunch of untried polishes whining at me from their storage drawers.

Thanks for stopping by! ~ Inky

P.S. Please think safe happy thoughts for our blogging sisters who live on the east coast of the USA!

NOTW #1 pumpkins or carrots?

Hello Dahlings!

When I asked for ideas for my last Halloween mani of da year, Kristine of Pink & Polished suggested Jack-o-lanterns for my last Halloween manicure, so I went her idea. Tonight's lesson was that I can carve pumpkins way better than I can paint them on my nails.

This was my jack-o-lantern in 2006. The faces & letters were cut all the way thru. The full moon background was created by carving away the skin of the pumpkin. This is my usual pumpkin carving style. Somewhat detailed & labor intensive.

These are my pumpkin nails. Yep! I definitely need to practice this design so  next time they look like pumpkins, not insane carrots.  

 

 Polishes used: Finger Paints Are You Blue?, Wet N' Wild 9.0.2.1.Orange, China Glaze Riviting & Agro, Joe Jet. I used my detail & short striper for the details.

This is Are You Blue? by it's self. It's pretty enuf & went on OK, but it dried a bit streaky as metallics are prone to do. Since I was going to be painting over most of it, no biggie, but this would drive me nuts if I just added top coat & called it good enuf.

Granted, I almost never use just one color & call it good enuf. LOL I know most folks do just this every day, but I have an issue with leaving well enuf alone. I have to do MORE even if it's just glitter or crack or a french tip for contrast & texture. One of the things I love most about nail art is that there really isn't a wrong way to do it as long as you aren't hurting yourself & like the results. I can't give myself an A+ on this mani, but I'll take the C and try to learn from my mistakes.

~ Inky

NOTW #3 I vant to paint your nails!

Hello Dahlings!

I seem to have been possessed by the Spirit of Halloween Manicures! I don't usually do 3 in a week, but there have been so many great manis out there to CASE (Copy And Share Everything) that I just had to up my game to fit the ones I most want to do in before the 31st. And now on to the art...

This manicure was inspired from 2 sources: Luvable Nail's YouTube video playing HERE & Nail Wish's Day #6 Halloween mani HERE.

After my usual base coat was dry, I gave magnetic polish another go. This time I used China Glaze Magnetix Attraction. This one was also a pita to get off my skin, but I had better luck with the magnet. I used the magnetic cap from a Finger Paints magnetic polish & turned it so the lil bridge one is supposed to place on the cuticle was just past the tip of my left pinky nail & the edge of the cap was resting on my cuticle. I did the same for my left thumb. The wave pattern is reversed, but I can live with that as some of the pattern is covered with red polish & upside down beats none at all.

I used L.A. Colors Color Craze Hot Blooded for the dripping blood & Wet N' Wild Wild Shine French White for the fangs. I used a dotting tool to place red polish near the cuticles & to make the bottom of the drips. I used a short striper (it's about 5/8" long & easier to control than the 3/4" - 1" stripers commonly used for nail art) to fill out & connect the drips & to paint the fangs. Last step was a protecting coat of Seche Vite.

I think I can squeeze in one more Halloween manicure before da season of spookiness is over. Any ideas on what I should do? Jack-o-lanterns? Ghosts or ghouls? I do want to do more with my GITD polishes...stay tuned!

~ Inky

NOTW #2 Black Cats Meet

Hello Dahlings!

First things first! Greetings & Thank You to my new followers! You've doubled my follower count in about a week & I'm flabergasted to say the least. (which you'll note, I rarely say the least I can LOL) The BIG Thank You goes to Michelle from Mimi Manicures!!! She did the shout out that got y'all to wander over here & see what I'm up to these days. Thanks Mimi! You can see her AWESOME nails & the fantabulous free hand art she does on them HERE. If you haven't been over there, you're missing what I think (in my not so humble opinion) is some of the best nail art out there to be seen. I'm just sayin'!

Now for the nail art here. This Halloween mani is inspired by ProfessionalDQ's recent blue Cat Nail Art. You can watch her video on how to do it yourself HERE. She's a seriously whimsical nail diva & I luvs her stuff!

For my version I started with my No More Wraps base coat then 2 coats of Finger Paints Cop An Attitude magnetic polish & used the China Glaze Magnetix II magnet bullseye pattern. I learned something new about my nails tonight...some of them don't play well with magnetic polish. Let me 'splain. My nails are abby normal. I chewed them until I was 13 then I decided I wanted long nails. I don't know if it was all the chewing or something genetic, but my nails don't have a downward curve to them. They have the left to right, parallel to the finger curve. They curve up from the cuticle, but where most nails curve down over the tip of the finger, mine just keep going up or at best go straight. They also start to cork screw as soon as the nail gets past my finger tip. I've learned how to file them over the years so this isn't so obvious & you may notice that I don't take photos of my nails from the side or angled.  This is to avoid distraction from my nail art as some of my nails could be used to launch rockets. LOL Anywho, due to this oddity of my nails, I learned that on a couple of them I can't get the magnet close enough to the nail to get an image. I put the lil bridge on my cuticle & the other end as close to the tip of the nail as I could without actually touching the nail & nada, zip, zero image on my left pinky. My left thumb got a lil bit of image near the tip & cuticle, but the angle on that nail isn't as steep as the pinky. My right hand worked well & this is the hand you're getting to see.

While I do think this polish is fun with lil micro sparkles of orange flashing about and the application was pretty easy (not too thick or thin), clean up was a pain. I use the pointy end of my jumbo cuticle stick dipped in acetone to remove polish from the edge of my cuticles & around the nail near the skin and a stiff, short bristle, angle tip brush dipped in acetone to get polish off the skin outside of the stick's clean up area to clean out. I did this several times & I still have lil bits of copper here & there. Most annoying. At least the pattern turned out fairly decent on most of my nails.

After applying the magnetic polish I used one coat of Ruby Kisses Pitch Black Darkness with my trimmed detail brush to paint the cats. (This black polish is also good for nail stamping!) I then used Ruby Kisses Whiter Than White to make the eyes so when I added China Glaze Splish Splash & I'm With the Lifeguard (from the 2012 summer neon collection), the colors would POP. I then added China Glaze Ghoulish Glow (from the Wicked 4 bottle set) so the eyes would glow in the dark. The detail to be added was the pupils & then Seche Vite FDTC. I don't have a GITD photo as my phone couldn't pick the lil eyes in the dark. Oh well, I tried.

Ta Da! Not perfect, but pretty cute all the same. I also couldn't get a good photo of my thumb. Both have wisps of bullseye near the tip & cuticle with black paw prints meandering from tip to cuticle. I used a dotting tool to make the paw prints.

I'm going to play with the magnetic polishes I have to see if I can find a way to make the magnets work on my wonky nails. I know from swatching on a nail wheel that the Finger Paints magnet is stronger than the ones China Glaze used for both Magnetix I & II and some of the other brands of magnetic polish I have may work better as well. I'll let you know what I learn.

Thanks for stopping by!
~ Inky

NOTW #1 ~ Franken Family 3rd generation

Hello Dahlings!

My 1st mani of the week is my version of Dayze'from Nail Craze with Daze Franken Family mani seen HERE. She based hers on Missy from Gnarly Nails HERE. My nails are a bit longer than theirs, so I had to adapt a smidge. These are the polishes I used:

In addition to my ancient, but trusty No More Wraps base coat & Seche Vite FDTC I used China Glaze Gaga for Green, Milani Black Magic, Milani White on the Spot & Orly It's Up to Blue.

Here's 2 coats of Gaga for Green. (See? I do have oil & know how to use it. I just have really dry skin & a tendency towards hangnails from working with paper.) This is a weird one. It's on the thin & runny side and the 1st coat had a jelly-esque translucency around the edges, but I'm pretty sure it's technically a creme. The 2nd coat made this go away, but I still had some VNL on a couple of fingers. Since I planned on covering the nail line with black, I didn't worry about it. If I weren't painting over the nail line, a 3rd coat would have been needed for full opacity.

Meet the family! I gave the teen daughter a blue streak in her hair as well as the mom & lil girl blue bows so my mani co-ordinates with my aqua hair.

I still have a lot to learn about using my phone to take photos along with fun stuff like cuticle clean up & care. I'll get the hang of this nail art this...eventually. LOL

~ Inky

NOTW #2

After taking off the white glue base coat glitter bomb, I decided a lil Halloween fun was in order!

I pulled what I thought were good mummy colors out of my Sterlite drawers & created mummies based on Mimi's Freestyle Halloween Challenge mani that you can see HERE. I love how she made such narrow lines with eyes peeking out!

All polishes are from Orly:
My version started with regular base coat followed by 2 coats of Dayglow.
Next I lightly sponged Decades of Dysfunction over the white to age its appearance.
I then used a small detail brush from the craft store (trimmed to suit) with Liquid Vinyl to make the openning in the wrappings for the eyes.
Using Faint of Heart & the thin stripper brush that came in the Essence Nail Art kit, I painted thin lines to create the bandages.
When all was dry to the touch I added Googlies from Stampin' Up! (These 5mm, self adhesive googly eyes can be purchased HERE as part of a Halloween kit or seperately in a package of 50. Alas, there isn't a photo on the separate package page.)
And last, but not least, Seche Vite FDTC (yes, Mimi dahling, I wrapped my tips) & I made sure to get it in between & under the edges of the eyes to 'glue' them down securely. We don't want any blind mummies wandering around, do we?

TaDa! A bit time consuming with all the lines to be painted, but not too difficult.

Thanks for stopping by!
~ Inky