Witch Essentials-101:Hobby Polish Bloggers' Halloween Link Up

What does every good witch need?

Welcome to this months Hobby Polish Bloggers link up. My theme for this Halloween challenge is things that all good witches should have.
Coming up with things that a good witch needed was not hard. In fact, I had to leave one thing out.

It's all hand painted using both acrylic paints and polishes. And I made sure I used a lot of polishes. So you know I had tons of fun.

Essence's Grey-t To Be Here and Finger Paint's Amethyst Accent were the polishes I picked for the gradation on each nail. As you can see by the basket of polishes, I had fun in using everyone of these in some way.

What witch doesn't need a great broom. This one is ergonomic in that the handle is bent. It was hard to get anything on the small nail and the broom was my best bet. The polishes used: Cult Nail's Baker, Cult Nail's Inescapable and acrylic paint.

Nothing like a good shiny black cauldron boiling with squid, eyeballs and a bat wing or two. Nails Inc.'s Embankment made a perfect texture for the cauldron. I used acrylic paint for the ingredients.

I always believe in having a good black cat around, even if you are not a witch. I actually have two. The cat is painted in Cult Nail's Ignite. The moon is Nfu-Oh's Opal Glitter 39 over white acrylic and the grass is Nfu-Oh's Opan Glitter 56 over white acrylic. His eye's are Illamasqua's Radium. The whiskers are Butter London's Bobby Dazzler and inside the ears is Stripe Rite's silver glitter liner. 

You gotta to have a great hat (or hats if you are me) for the occasion. The hat is painted with Dollish Polish's The Witching Hour. The band is Zoya's Pixie Dust Stevie and the buckle is Stripe Rite's Gold striper.

And you got to have a good spell book to brush up on those forgotten recipes. The spell book is done in acrylic paint. I just couldn't see that any polish could be useful with this one.

And the one thing I had to leave out was the wand. But I will have one by Halloween.  Meanwhile, here's a small sign I found for my kitchen...think I will leave it up all year.

Well, that's it for me this time around. But as I mentioned earlier, I am taking part in The Hobby Polish Blogger's group link-up. This is a great group of bloggers on Facebook that are very supportive and always are willing to give help to other bloggers. So check some of their art out below.

So until next time, take care and shine on!

An InLinkz Link-up

August Notebook

Well, here I am again one month later. Here's a run down of the few manis that I did for August. Or in other words, this was my IG feed for August. If you follow me on IG, these are all review. 

I started August with this flower dotticure using Signet Nails Kiss Off, Yoko 3000 and Hashbrown No Filter. It is a jelly sandwich with a design in the middle rather than glitter. 

Still working with Signet Lacquers, I then did a simple design using Tainted Love and Bells And Whistles.

It's Signet Again. This is my green wrap using, New Leaf, Out Of The Woods, and Opulent Okra with some added gold with my Strip Rite.

I was on a roll last month with Signet. Lauren was closing up shop and wanted her customers to do designs if possible. This is her Opal Flash over Dolf with an added top coat and studs.

This is Signet's thermal Tear The Roof Off over Dolf with some added stamping.

Macro

My last Signet mani. I did classical Greek vases using Lapis Lazuli over Yoko 3000.

Took some time off with Zoya's new Naked Manicure system.

O.K., I got bored and ended up topping it with Nfu-Oh'sFlakie #48

I started trying a new nail prep this month from Sallys.

And talk about new. Kim Michelle Colour has yet to release their first line of colors although she has some nail care items. I LOVE her cuticle balm in the Honeysuckle scent! This is her Teal Me Your Fantasy.

Macro

A fashion shot using Teal Me Your Fantasy with one of my rings and a vintage kimono.

I needed a color to match this top which has a very colorful dragon embroidered on the front. The perfect match was Priti NYC's Wedgewood Blue.

My neon mani for the Hobby Polish Blogger's August Linkup. Again, I am using Signet polishes. The are Stranger Danger Ranger (yellow base), Slutsicle Orange, and Hashbrown No Filter.

I then went to a copy cat mani from The Polish Dude and paired KB Shimmer's A Pigment Of My Imagination with my Starbucks duochrome drink cup.

A fashion shot of A Pigment with one of my B Makowsky purses and one of my rings.

My final mani was a Galaxy using all Indies for Nail Art Nation's Indie week challenge. I use the following: 
Signet Nails: Dolf, Tainted Love and Yuko3000
Ruby White Tops: Ashley Rose (thermal( Chai Maintenance, Misfit Toys and Here Piggy Piggy
My-Stash Lacquer: Shaken Not Stirred

Well that's it. For me, this was a lot in one month. I hope you enjoyed my photo. So until next month, Take care and shine on. Terri.

PLL's Coffee On The Stoop And A Change Up

A few week ago, Ester of Philly Loves Lacquer offered a polish to her Facebook group Philly Loves Lacquer Collective. Coffee On The Stoop was created to celebrate her new job as a Starbucks barrista.

Like millions of others, we are addicted to Starbucks and are regular visitors. I even have my, "gimme my discount cup".

And it is dead on Starbucks green with  a lot of extra visual interest going on.

A macro better explains the polish makeup. It includes black stars, black and white glitter of various sizes and shapes, smaller blue holo glitter and and very fine (macro) silver glitter. Or at least I think it's silver.

But the beauty of Coffee On The Stoop is that it works amazing with other polishes. Here is a change up that I wore for Six days. I loved it that much and it wore that long. 

I first put on Orly's Hook Up, then my Coffee and finally topped it of with Nfu Oh's 42. I love greens and this was a Summer green dream polish for me.

Here's my Nailie

And finally a Pic-Monkey collage covering it all.

The Beach and May's HPBs' June Link UP

Hello and welcome to my mani for the Hobby Polish Bloggers' June link-up. The theme this month was "The Beach". 

I looked at the stamping plates I had and had Nothing what so ever that even came close to the beach or ocean. And any kind of cute starfish nail charms, nope. I really don't have nail charms. I didn't feel like painting beach balls, palm trees, beach umbrellas or anything like that.

Helen Frankenthaler"s color field paintings have always been among my favorites. It's impossible to get the feeling of a huge canvass on something as small as a nail, but I thought I could go for at least the feeling. So I have my abstract representation of the beach, surf and ocean. 

My decision was to keep the visuals simple and experiment with surfaces as far as texture and reflection.
 

So here were my steps:

1. I first painted all nails with one of my new Juleps. The sky blue is Manda and Manda also has a holo shimmer to her. From the distance it does seem gold but up close you can see the rainbow. 
2. Then came the beach with Pure Ice's Shore Bet.
3. Next up was the surf which is made up of two parts. The white is Zoya's Purity. 
4. With the surf, I played with texture and added free glitter. First, I put down some clear coat, sprinkled on the glitter, patted it down and finally shook it off. The surf is actually a tad higher than anything on my design and being glitter, reflects light.
5. I wanted the water to sparkle like the sun was hitting it. Manda by herself was not going to do this. But add Nfu-Oh 39 and I got my sparkle. 
6. I then turned my attention to the beach. It just didn't look right to me. I wanted texture but wanted it also matte from contrast. 
7. This probably will sound crazy but I put Lynn's Love, Lace and Lilacs on the beach and then matted it out. It took two coats to tame that one. Lynn's polishes just don't like the idea of not shining. 

This was something I could do with both hands. I don't know if people will like this. Hey, I wasn't really sure I liked it when I finished. But wearing it, I decided that, yea, I like it.

I am writing this on Thursday (6/11)and I still have this mani on. I did it Monday and it is wearing like steel. Tomorrow, I will finally take it off. 

So here's the lineup-from left to right:Hard Candy's  Mattly-In-Love, Pure Ice's Shore Bet, Julep's Manda, Zoya's Purity, Lynnderella's Love, Lace and Lilacs, and Nfu-Oh's 39. In frony is sitting the small bottle of glitter that I had previously gotten at Dollar General.

That's it for the mani part. If you made it all the way down here, thanks for hanging in with me. This one was simple but took a while to do because every coat needed to dry. I got a lot of reading done last Monday!

Well, that's it for me this time around. But as I mentioned earlier, I am taking part in The Hobby Polish Blogger's group link-up. This is a great group of bloggers on Facebook that are very supportive and always are willing to give help to other bloggers. So check some of their art out below.

So until next time, take care and shine on! Or I guess matte on or glitter on.

I had to throw in one Helen Frankenthaler painting. 

See you next time.

An InLinkz Link-up

Happy St. Patty's Day Mani With Link-Up

Hello everyone. And I hope someone is reading blogs this Sunday. I rarely post today, but I managed to get my St. Patty's day mani finished and wanted to join my Hobby Bloggers Link Up. This mani was so easy to do, but I really like it. 

Step 1-I painted all my nails with Nuance's Goldstone.

Step 2-Except the ring finger, I painted all but the top 1/4" or so with Nubar's Emerald. With the gold underneath, the green really livened up!

Step 3-Using a dotting tool, I made four hearts that together look like a four leaf clover. 

Step 4-When everything was dry, I went over with a coat of Nfu-Oh's 57. This just set it off. The yellow green with the gold flakies were perfect for St. Patrick's day. I think they look like gold pieces. 

Well, that it for this one. There are still a few flakies at Fabalous Street. Nfu-oh was the mother of all flakies. Now that they have discontinued making them, others are trying to fill their shoes. 

Macro Time 

Well, that's it for me this time around. But I am taking part in The Hobby Polish Blogger's group link-up. This is a great group of bloggers on Facebook that are very supportive and always are willing to give help to other bloggers. So check some of their art out below. And until next time, take care.

Terri

An InLinkz Link-up

Three Color Gradient + Pink = Breast Cancer Awareness Mani

This is my design for the second week of The Crumpet's  52 week challenge. Yes, there are three different polishes in this gradient. I used Pure Ice's Happy Hour (cream), Twinkle (shimmer), an Can't Stop (cream). This is a very subtle gradient but it is there and this time I really like what I did.

 I picked these Pure Ice polishes up a various times during that dark and dreary February/March we were having in Missouri last year. I put them away and forgot about them for a few months.

I do realize that these three pinks are really leaning towards the coral. But saw an article last month on Sylvia's 40+ blog about wearing pink and orange together and really liked the look. So I thought I would interpret it in a mani.

Other things that I used were Nfu-Oh's 48, white acrylic paint and my little pink fraken polish. Unfortunately, after I painted my ribbon I dropped my fraken on the floor and lost most of it. 

I was so much happier this time with my gradation. Putting scotch tape around my nails sure helped with clean up. 

From left to right: my pink fraken, Happy Hour, Twinkle, Can't Stop and Nfu Oh 48.

This is a link up. Check out what the other ladies did below.

An InLinkz Link-up

Nfu-Oh To The Rescue Again!

I did this one last month when it was still a bit cooler.

Last Fall, Beauty Brands discontinued their Deborah Lippmann line and put all of her polishes on clearance. I saw this a chance to expand that part of my collection. 

One of the polishes I brought home was Don't Tell Mama. It was beautiful in the bottle; a dark turquoise shimmer. 

For some reason, when I got it on, it just didn't appeal to me (may some other time it will). I grabbed my Nfu-Oh 56 and added a topcoat. Then I was happy. I finished the look off by doing a french tip with the Lippmann.

This particular Nfu-Oh line which is termed "Opal Glitter" is now discontinued, but there are a few colors left. I think it is some of the most gorgeous polish there is and will be sad to see it go. I purchase Nfu-Oh products from Fabulous Street. Here is the link to see what is still available.

LVX And Nuf-Oh

I was up in the city Saturday. On the way up, I stopped by Beauty Brands (they are discontinuing the Deborah Lippmann line and all products are 50% off). The manager asked what polish I had on my nails So I thought it might be nice to share. 

Base Coat-Sanguine by LVX

Top Coat-Nfu-Oh #58

August '13 Nail Journal #1-Life After A Broken Nail-10 Polishes Of Fun

August '13 Nail Journal #1

Life After A Severely Broken Nail
Tearing Through The Polishes

The next month with be just single colors. With the exception of foils and metallics,  I add some type of topper if possible. I want to distract from the one nail that is incredible short.

Hashtag from the new Jenna Hipp "What's Hot" mini collection. I love this color. It has a brightness and cleanness about it. 

On day 2 I changed the look up with Color Club's Snowflakes from the 2012 Winter Affair Collection. Snowflakes is a flakie top coat. On top of Hashtag it flashed orange and gold. It did not take a great picture but the look was very nice and I got a few complements. So I guess that the Winter Affair can also be a Summer Fling. 

Jenna Hipp's Freshmaker: again from the new Jenna Hipp "What's Hot"mini collection

Changing it up with a top coat of Nfu-Oh #54-I don't need to talk about Nfu-Oh flakies;don't need to say anything, it's Nfu-Oh

Modern Romance by Essence-part of their Colour & go series. I really like this line. The price is right and the brushes are wonderful. The bottle caps match the polish which is another plus. This particular shade was a bit thin but not bad. Modern Romance is a light peach with a pink shimmer, really quite lovely

Changing it up with Sakura Matsuri by Rainbow Honey. Sakura Matsuri is the namesake of the collection.

This is a base coat of Son Of A Gun, the first Ulta lacquer that I bought (in January-probably something psychological about me picking orange at the beginning of winter.  In the end, it is just a average orange cream.

Changing it up with an OPI vintage classic, Man Of La Mancha.  La Mancha was part of their 2003 Holiday On Broadway collection.
This one is not 3 free. Anything before '04 isn't going to be. 

And I wore two single coats. this first one I needed to do something with but it was the first polish on after I broke the nail and I really wasn't in the mood.  The metallic shimmer needed nothing else. 

And I love this shade by Cosmetic Arts. It's a branch of Color  Club and has no name. In my stash I call it
 #14-Deep Lilac Metallic Shimmer

All of these polishes are cruelty free. The OPI was made before December, 2010.

That's it.