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

Pick N Mix #25-Stain Glass Window Nails

I've been MIA for a while on this challenge, but this one just calls for me to use my Nubar's Venetian Glass. This polish set and it screams stain glass windows!

Venetian Glass polishes were released in 2010. I didn't even polish my nails back then and purchased them from Ebay this past winter. These polishes are glass flecked and beautiful. They look like stain glass!

I first painted my nails a base white. After deciding on my design, I drew in the "lead" lines with an ultra fine Sharpie. I did the color work with a 18/0 spotter brush. 

There are eight hues in the Venetian glass set. I used six. Blue is not in the color collection so Pure Ice's Splash filled in. 

THE POLISHES

Oro and Arencia

Roso and Bronzo

Vino and Vaso

Pure Ice's Splash and China Glaze's White On White

This is a link up so check down below for some great design work. 

Well, that's it for today. Take care and until next time........Terri

An InLinkz Link-up

Pick N Mix #16-Gaff's Unicorn Origami From Bladerunner

The Challenge for The Pick N Mix this week was a holo polish and a film. I hope this means a cinematic film and not some nail technique that I have never heard of! I picked the unicorn origami from Blade Runner.

I have long been a fan of Ridley Scott's 1982 Blade Runner. This movie is dark, genius and haunting. It has seen many different cuts and there is always the age old question: Is Decker a replicant?

So on to the actual nail design part. For the holo part, I used a-england's Fated Prince. This needed to be dark.  The Unicorn is painted with Spa Ritual's Silver Shimmer. The top coat is something new for me. It is Pure Ice's Girl On The Run. I don't buy Pure Ice anymore because of it's association with Revlon, but made an exception for this top coat. Everyone has been raving so much about it, I decided to try it.  

Another new experience for me was using Julep's Plie´ Wand. It came in a free box this month and I only had to pay for the two extra attachments. I thought it worked pretty good, especially the stripper. It just added a little extra fun to the whole bit. 

It's hard for me do do something about this movie and not show a few scenes and dialogue from it. So here goes. The first has to be Gaff's Unicorn.

Gaff (Edward James Olmos): You've done a man's job, sir. I guess you're through, huh?

Deckard (Harrison Ford): Finished.

[Gaff throws Deckard his gun]

Gaff: It's too bad she won't live! But then again, who does?

Batty: (Rutger Hauer) I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate. All those moments will be lost in time... like tears in rain... Time to die.

Deckard (Harrison Ford): Do you love me?

Rachael (Sean Young): I love you.

Deckard: Do you trust me?

Rachael: I trust you. 

A new life awaits you in the Off-world colonies! A chance to begin again in a golden land of opportunity and adventure!

Blade Runner is loosely based on the Phillip K. Dick novel "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?"

That's it for this time around. Hope I didn't bore anyone with my movie stuff. So until we meet again, pleasant dreams!

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

Tri-Color Tuesday-Tealberry Bush

This is the first of my September Tri-Color Tuesday. Actually, this is my first Tri-Color Tuesday ever. The colors this month are turquoise, lavender and grey/silver. My design started out as a very simple and stark Asian influenced design. It looked great on paper, but I didn't like it when I actually got it on all my nails. So the bushes sprouted a lot more berries!

Louboutin Nails

Today's nails are a result of the Nail Polish Queen's challenge of Christian Louboutin. There has been a media buzz over his entering the nail polish market with some rather pricey polish. 

I first painted a layer of Zoya's Red Door Red (cream) and then topped it with Deborah Lippmann's darker red Stop And Stare (jelly) to get the color I wanted. 

I then:

•  drew and L on my thumb, 
• side view of a pump on my index finger
• the toe of a pump on the middle finger
• under heal on the ring finger
• and on the pinky I drew a elongated hexagon that I noticed on Louboutin's bottles of polish

Zoya's Red Door Red, Pure Ice's Black Out, Deborah Lippmann's Stop And Stare

No Miss's Cape Haze Crypto With Variation

No Miss is a brand new to my collection. However, it is a brand that I have seen on cruelty free and vegan lists when I research. I just never pursued  getting it. When I was shopping at one of my favorite organic grocery stores in the city, there it was. So I had to try one. No Miss is a Florida company. All of their polishes are named after Florida landmarks and towns. My sister lives in Florida. I am there at least once a year. Needless to say, Cape Haze Crypto will not be my last No Miss polish.

NOTES

No Miss Cape Haze Crypto-This is a frosted yellow green and I think gorgeous for the Spring and Summer. I know frosted polishes are a bit passe, but I like this. It went on a bit streaky, but after a second coat and top coat, I didn't think the streaks were that noticeable.  It wore nicely. I had it one for two days and then decided to do a change up.

THE CHANGE UP

First up, I coated my nails with a matte topcoat. I used Hard Candy's Matte-ly In Love. I wanted to have a contrast of finishes.


Using Pure Ice's Splash and a waded up piece of plastic wrap, I created a simple gradation on the lower half of my nails. Splash is a light blue heavily shimmered polish. It is a bit on the sheer side, but that was perfect for what I was doing. 


Using a dotting tool and Zoya's Christinna, I made random dots; sort of saw them as bubbles, I think. Christinna is a sheer pearly (slightly greyed white). I think it has been discontinued, as it is not to be found on their site. 


I don't think Hard Candy makes Matte-ly In Love anymore. But there are plenty of matte clear coats around.
 

My extravagant tools!

 If you would like to window shop at No Miss, here is the LINK
 
That's it for this time............ and have a happily polished life, Terri

A Simple Idea For A Holiday Mani

This is a transfer post from The MeadowTree Journal. It was originally published 12/21/12.

This is one of the first ideas I came up with when I was first became interest in nail polish and design. I chose Burgundy Frost and Sparked. I think the scarf I was wearing at the time influenced me. That is why I took a picture of the mani with my scarf which I knitted for myself a few years ago. 

I have always been fascinated by repeat and variation. And this design is a repeat of the one I did for Thanksgiving with different colors and with some of the surface matted. 

 I am now a fan of Hard Candy's Matte-ly In Love. If I could compare it to an interior paint finish, I would say it dries to an eggshell finish. Everything but the dots was finished in this matte effect. I went back over the dots again so they would be shiny and stand out. I like the contrast with the play of light. 

I did this for the holidays and it is  probably not something I would wear normally, but it was fun to create. And it really goes with my scarf!

Polishes Used 

Base Coat-Burgundy Frost by Wet N' Wild

Glitter Section-Sparked by Wet N' Wild

Matte Top Coat-Matte-ly In Love by Hard Candy

Dots (put on with dotting tool) Outrageous by Pure Ice

The line up-I got the dotting tools from Ebay for about $2. And I think they will have more uses than with just nails.  I want to see if they will work with thicken dyes on cloth. 

Have a peaceful day and take some time for yourself.

Sparked, Black Out, And Matted

Sparked, Black Out, And Matted

This is a re-post from the Meadowtree Journal. 

It was originally published 2/22/13

Sparked looked like a Peacock in a bottle when I saw it on the store shelf. At home, on my sample, the Peacock looked sort of forlorn. I decided to try a base of black as an undercoat and now I think I see on my hands what I originally was attracted to. Eventually, I want to try Sparked on top of a dark blue and a deep green also.

For fun, I matted out all but the tips. I can’t help but play with reflective and non-reflective surfaces. That black thing on my pinkie is actually a flower that I stamped. I finally got a stamp that looked like something. Stamping has been one of those disappointments. Given my past profession, I thought I would be a shoe in-not. Some things take a lot of practice, I guess. 

The Lineup-I think any black would work-I just happen to of had this one

That’s it this time around; until I come up with something new.

Nail Journal-Sept '13 #1-Julep, Pure Ice, and Rainbow Honey

Polish: Base coat-Top Photo-Julep's Char 

             Base coat-Bottom Photo-Pure Ice' Splash

             
            Glitter Topper for both-Rainbow Honey's 20% Cooler

(from the Equestrian collection)

Notes: I was interested to see what 20% Cooler looked like on light and dark bases. I used a gradient in both looks. The above photos are the results. 20% Cooler is a multi color glitter in a clear base. It is not one of my favorites. It is soon to find a new home with my daughter.

Cruelty Free Status:

Julep polishes are vegan and cruelty free. Rainbow Honey is also cruelty free.

 Pure Ice is no longer cruelty free. It was sold to Revlon which has resumed animal testing to sell in China. I no longer buy Pure Ice or Revlon products. But I will still use what I have. 

This Could Be What Fairy Wings Look Like In The Early Morning Dew Light

Today I have Celesia from the Rainbow Honey's Equestria collection. This polish has to be one of the most ethereal polishes on the planet. I am a big fan of ABC's Once Upon A Time (a very much  fairytale show), and my first thought when I saw this polish was, "This has to be what fairy wings surely look like". 

Rainbow Honey's description of Celesia is, 

" Celestia - A sheer, sky blue polish filled with bursts multichromatic shimmer and opalescent flakes, turning every color into something new."

Well, it's all that and fairy wings too.

This look started out with an underpainting of China Glaze's Rainbow. Rainbow is a prismatic hint of all the colors (like a rainbow). I usually use it as a topcoat but thought it could contribute to the quality of light I was trying to get with this mani. 

Rainbow is one of my "original ten" polishes that I had before the "obsession" hit. Even if China Glaze doesn't make it any more, it can be found on Amazon and Ebay without a problem and for a good price. When this one runs out, I am going to restock. OK, I digress......

Back to the mani-I put on two coats of Celesia. For as heavenly as this polish looks, it was that much of a pain to apply. Bits (I assume the iridescent heavenly stuff) kept hanging off my nail or went on in clumps that needed to be smoothed out. But it all worked out in the end. 

I finished the tips of my nails with Pure Ice's Splash. Splash came in as a close second as an undercoat. But, it was just to close in the same value and color as Celesia. I still wanted to use it, so I used it for a French tip. It gives a nice finished look, and the color is so close that it is very subtle. 

The Lineup: Pure Ice's Splash, China Glaze's Rainbow, and Rainbow Honey's celestia

I so enjoyed wearing these nails and I hope you have also enjoyed seeing them and how I did them. 

That's it this time. So until next time and I hope today brings you a beautifully polished life.......Terri

Dots And Stripes

Here's a design that I did a bit ago. It was inspired by a top that I had made. I left the yellow out of the nail design (see pattern below), but kept the grade shades. It uses simple elements of design, dots and stripes. The glitter was added later. Something was needed to make it pop and silver glitter was the answer.

From left to right: Pure Ice's Black Out (for the dots), Stripe Rite Black (stripes), OPI's French Quarter For Your Thoughts (base coat), and Art Deco's Ice Breaker (fill in sparkle for side section).
I started and finished out with Seche Vite's bottom and top coats.

This one was fun because I got to use a lot of stuff!

This is the fabric that led me to the design, can't really explain why

Two Moon Mani

Today I am showing Rainbow Honey's mare of the moon. This has to be on of my favorite RH colors. It is a stand alone (two coater) satin polish that is a beautifully hued blue violet with just the right amount of glitter.

This polish also gave me a chance to play with a theme. The half moon shaped glitter led to the idea of the half moon technique. These moons are in two layers. Layer one is a silver (Chi's Sexy In Stilettos) and the overlaid in silver glitter (Pure Ice's Beeware). 

There was nothing wrong with the satin finish, but for this design, I wanted shiny. I finished it off with a top coat of Julep's Freedom Top Coat. This polymer top coat is becoming one of my favorites. 

If you are not familiar with Rainbow Honey, check them out. A Brooklyn based company, they are now distributed in Europe, Philippines, and Singapore. Here's a quick link.

Beware, Sexy In Stilettos, mare of the moon

Does anyone else have Rainbow Honey? What colors do you have? 

Rainbow Honey and Chi are cruelty free. Pure Ice is not cruelty free.
Have a nice and polished day.

Silver, Glitter And Pattern

These are the nails that I wore Friday night to a Bat Mitzvah. For this design, I included a Kiss nail art sticker. There was a free sample with six different designs in the first Nail It! magazine. I  used one for an accent nail. The base coat is OPI's Moonraker with Pure Ice's Be Ware for gradient glitter layer.

One down, five to go. I went to Ebay and got a set of the Bustier (the style I used)

Bee Ware and Moonraker

It was my daughter's Bat Mitzvah and this is her choice of nail design. The base coat is Sally Hansen's Platinum, Milani's Hot Orchid for the gradient, and Rainbow Honey's Sakura Matsuri.

One of my inspirations for my nails that night-this Stella and Dot necklace

I like Nail It! It's targeting the non-professional nail community. 

Cruelty Free Status

Pure Ice (owned by Revlon) and OPI (owned by Coty) are no longer cruelty free. I have ceased to buy Pure Ice and only now buy OPI created before December 2011.