SNAPSHOT: Pot Skittle

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Hello lovelies!

Just a quick photo today; nothing special, but I wanted to share. :)

I call it my 'pot skittle' because the brown colour is called Legislate, from Mentality's 420 Holos line. (Not that the holo shows in the lightbox.)

Polishes used:

Mentality - Legislate, Taffy

Elevation Polish - Xixabangma (discontinued)

Duri - Rejuvacote (base coat)

Glisten & Glow - HK Girl (top coat)

1.5mm studs from Born Pretty Store

rectangular studs from The Nail Room

liner brush

dotting tool

This mani is kiiiiind of leaning towards the sorts of looks I'll be creating for Digit-al Dozen week starting next Monday. Any guesses as to what the theme is? ;)

xo,

J.

Subway Map

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HELLO LOVELIES!!

Have you missed me? I missed you, too. I've had a quiet holiday season, which is a good thing in my books. I hope yours was everything you wanted it to be.

I'm, in fact, about to go play some drunken Super Smash Bros. Brawl, because we have a Wii and it's the right thing to do, but first-- I have nail art for you!

I don't even know. Really, not even a clue. I think it was vaguely inspired by subway maps?

My base for this was one coat of Silver Sweep, followed by two coats of Atomic. The thicker lines are done in Camelot, using my striping brush. The wee thin lines are cheater lines; I did those with a .005 Copic liner pen.

Sorry about the cat hair above. Didn't realize I had to sticky-roller my lightbox. If someone would stop sleeping in my lightbox, this would probably not be an issue. Alas, it IS a box, therefore it is to be slept in, apparently.

Polishes used:

Sally Hansen - Silver Sweep

piCture pOlish - Atomic

A England - Camelot

butter LONDON - Nail Foundation (base coat)

Glisten & Glow - HK Girl (top coat)

.005 Copic liner pen

liner brush

What are you hoping for in 2014? I'm hoping for a job, mostly. That'd be a killer start to my year! :)

xo,

J.

Copper Pattern

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Hello lovelies!

Welcome to Saturday! At least, Saturday where I am. 

Today I have a very simple look for you, because I'll have to take these off sooner rather than later to do my ABC Challenge prompt (Q for quilting). But I kind of like them anyway!

This started with two coats of Lights Will Guide You, an almost black green with flake emerald shimmer and copper hexes in three sizes. It's a beautiful polish (I'm all over anything copper or rose gold, lately) but it stained my touch-up brush something fierce, so I'm somewhat wary of what'll happen to my nails. I will update this post tomorrow after removal to tell you how it went!

The designs were all done with a liner brush, a dotter, and a medium detail brush and Penny Talk. I don't know where I was going with this pattern, it just popped into my head randomly! I would have liked for Penny Talk to be more yellow-toned to go with the hexes better, but from a distance you can't really tell.

Here is a thumb macro to show you the depth and the flake shimmer!:

Polishes used:

Cadillacquer - Lights Will Guide You

Essie - Penny Talk

butter LONDON - Nail Foundation (base coat)

Glisten & Glow - HK Girl (top coat)

liner brush

dotting tool

medium detail brush

You know what I like about Saturdays? PANCAKES. My current partner makes pancakes for his kids and I. I love pancakes almost as much as I love waffles, and I actually own a waffle maker, so that should tell you something.

xo,

J.

Puzzle Pieces

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Hello lovelies!

Today's post is all about my Follow the Devil ABC Challenge prompt: P for 'puzzle'.

This is a pretty straightforward look. It took waaay longer than it should have, though.

I started with a base of two easy peasy coats of Where the Wild Things Are. It's a beautiful polish, but it's subtle, so you won't get the full gorgeousness of it through my photos. There's a macro down near the bottom that will hopefully help with that. I am always drawn to greyed-out blues / blue-toned greys like this. Add in tiny silver glitters and iridescent glitters and micro-shards and, well, you have a polish with my name written all over it. Plus it applied like a charm, requiring almost zero cleanup.

I then painted on the squares in white acrylic paint. And here's where it took forever: I had to go over them three times to get them to opacity. (And they still aren't COMPLETELY opaque.) Argh! Once done, I used a dotting tool to place the 'interlocking' bits of the puzzle pieces in mostly random order. So long as you have a dot per side of a square, you're good to go.

Finally, here's the macro I promised you. Check out the golden/green shimmer, too!

Polishes used:

Cadillacquer - Where the Wild Things Are

Duri - Rejuvacote (base coat)

Glisten & Glow - HK Girl (top coat; two coats to smooth out the bumps from the dots)

white acrylic paint

one-stroke brush for painting the squares

dotting tool

This cold I've got just won't kick the bucket. I'm a snifflemonster. I'm making tons of soups to try to rectify this, and I'm sleeping like a sloth, but still I sniffle. SNIFFLEZ 4 LYFE.

xo,

J.

Deconstructed Snowflakes

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Hello lovelies! Just a quick post tonight, as I'm off babysitting with my friend Andrew and we literally just took the toilet apart because one of the kids threw a toy train down it earlier in the day and it was irredeemably clogged. Ah, children. Little bundles of joy and unrestrained havoc.

Anybody who follows me on Instagram or Facebook saw something sort of vaguely like this that I did yesterday. Well, that started chipping almost immediately (blasted Marc Jacobs polish!!), so I decided to redo it in more seasonal colours.

All of this vertical-line-ness started with my seeing this manicure by the inimitable Spifster. She's an amazing nail artist and you should be following her. At any rate, I could do various iterations of this design over and over again forever.

I started with three coats of Dream, and the white is Tempest, all done with my striping brush and a dotting tool. With these seasonal colours, I thought I'd do something that looked, well, seasonal. When I finished, I thought it looked like Picasso's take on snowflakes, hence the title of this post.

Polishes used:

Zoya - Dream

Cult Nails - Tempest

butter LONDON - Nail Foundation (base coat)

la couleur couture - 2013 (top coat)

striping brush

dotting tool

Like I said, expect more of this kind of thing from me in future! But I will go a bit more detailed in my next nail art for you, my lovely readers, because you're here for the Good Stuff. ;)

xo,

J.

Law of Attraction

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Hello lovelies!

So this is the polish I was drooling over in Sephora:

It's called Law of Attraction and is very aptly named. Unfortunately, it applies like molasses. It's thick as all get-out; shown are three coats which, when given the two coats of Glitter Food it needed and the coat of topcoat to smooth it all out, made for a seriously thick nail. No fun. But it's a canvas, and it needed something!

Random geometric blobs! It's seriously the only thing I could think of that would stand a chance against all that bling. I don't HATE them, but I don't like them, either. They're coming off ASAP. But I can't only show you my successes, can I? ;)

Blobs are all acrylic paint. I wish my white acrylic paint were more opaque. Next time I do something like this, I'll be using my KONAD stamping polish, I think.

I'm really excited! For reasons that have nothing to do with this manicure, but I'm going to tell you Right Here anyway because I hate having photos back-to-back without any text in-between them!! I started a pastels course in the fall of 2010 but only made it to three classes (out of 8) before my schoolwork and exams caught up with me. And I just signed up for the same course again, and am starting tomorrow evening! I'm pretty stoked. I really enjoyed it, last time, and my creativity could use a boost.

Zoom this photo: this polish is so full of bling that not even my lightbox could kill all of the holo!

Polishes used:

Formula X for Sephora - Law of Attraction

Nail Pattern Boldness - Glitter Food

la couleur couture - 2013 (top coat)

Elmer's glue (base coat)

white acrylic paint

striper brush

Would you like to see photos from my pastels class in future updates? I will probably include them until someone tells me to stop, hehe...

xo,

J.

Smudged Lines

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... not to be confused with blurred lines. Very different things.

Hello lovelies! Today's post is an attempt at practicing my line work. It's still SUPER shoddy, but practice makes perfect, right? To do this, I aped this beautiful design by Sammy over at The Nailasaurus.

I began with that polish I told you was the least-me polish I own: two coats of Oui! by Marc Jacobs. I've taken a photo in natural light, at the bottom, to show you what the real colour is like. It's this crazy almost-frosted pink-fuchsia colour. I bought it specifically because I knew I'd own nothing even remotely like it already. :P It's definitely a bit loud for me, but I can see myself pulling it out for flashier occasions!

The silver is all done using a liner brush and Silver Sweep.

It didn't take too long, and the hardest part was keeping the silver from thickening up, since that affected the quality and thickness of the lines I was doing. I kept having to dip my brush into acetone and then into the polish to get a good consistency. AND THEN MY TOPCOAT WENT AND SMUDGED THE LINES (hence the title of this post).

I think next time I'll buy silver acrylic paint. Heh. Oh, and here is a funnily-lit shot of Oui! on its own. My skin looks awful, but it's actually quite colour-accurate for the polish itself:

I cannot pose my cinderella hand to save my life.

Polishes used:

Marc Jacobs - Oui!

Sally Hansen - Silver Sweep

Duri - Rejuvacote (base coat)

la couleur couture - 2013 (top coat)

liner brush

I have no idea what to do next! The rest of my week may be working on prep for Digit-al Dozen week in October... *wiggles eyebrows* If I disappear until the weekend (when I tackle the G prompt for my ABC Challenge), you'll know what happened!

xo,

J.

Lined French

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Hello again lovelies!

Two posts in one day because I've got something very simple and kind of out of the ordinary for you.

I wanted to take on the challenge of doing a French mani in an interesting way, because they've never held any appeal for me before. This is what I came up with:

Things I learned from this adventure:

1) I am crap at linework;

2) I need to thin my Glitter Food.

For this look, I began with base coat and a coat of Nail Glow. I then freehanded the moons in Gossip Over Gimlets, did the exaggerated French tips in Recycle (using French tip guides, because whoa let's not be over-ambitious here), and the linework in Tempest (which also needs to be thinned). Topped it all in Glitter Food for optimal smoothness, and top coat to finish it off.

Polishes used:

Duri - Rejuvacote (base coat)

Dior Couture - Nail Glow

China Glaze - Gossip Over Gimlets

Rescue Beauty Lounge - Recycle (which is a beautiful dark green, but not as dark as pictured)

Cult Nails - Tempest

Nail Pattern Boldness - Glitter Food

la couleur couture - 2013 (top coat)

liner brush

I could see a better-executed version of this being a really classy look for a cocktail party or other style-forgiving event. It holds up on its own without being too complex. :)

I bought a Marc Jacobs polish today that is literally the least me-like polish I now own, and my next challenge is to incorporate it into a mani! Eep!

xo,

J.

Sketches in Geometry Class

I hated geometry. I'm not the world's most maths-inclined person, but I'm especially resistent to geometry-- I nearly failed that segment of the curriculum in grade 9, only to score nearly perfect on the trigonometry segment. My teacher was very confused.

All that said, in my never-ending quest to use all of my jelly polishes, all of the time, I came up with this idea:

For this look, I started with a base of Spirit and Funny Bunny, which I topcoated to help it dry faster. In the meantime, I cut geometric shapes out of paper to which I'd stuck tape. These templates allowed me to colour in the jelly shapes and, once those were dry, use a pared-down striping brush to produce the messy, sketchy 3D-sort-of lines in black acrylic paint.

CLAW

The pinkie is my favourite <3

Polishes used:
Revlon Top Speed - Spirit
OPI - Funny Bunny
Nfu Oh - JS20, JS28, JS29, JS34
Zoya - Frida
INM - Out the Door (top coat)
black acrylic paint + striping brush

Are you a maths type, or not at all? Any time a class or subject really just kicked yer butt?


J.

Subtle Springtime Fishtail Manicure

It isn't spring yet. Not quite yet. But the week of the 18th, it'll warm up a bit! And then we'll enter Slush Season, which is the precursor to Spring! (I will admit, I am not fond of spring. I'm fond of early summer. Spring is more of an exercise in mud, defrosted dog poo, dead lawns, half-decomposed leaves, garbage everywhere, and potholes that can blow your tires.)

That aside, I thought a muted appreciation of the soon-to-be change in season was in order.

Na naaaaah!

For this manicure, I used the fishtail manicure technique, as devised (or at least perfected) by Sarah at Chalkboard Nails. I love this look on square or squoval nails; the combination of straight and curved lines is very aesthetically appealing. It's also pretty straightforward to do-- check out her video tutorial-- so, a laid-back manicure with visual punch!

I started with a base of Jacqueline, which is a polish that is a strange mix of thick and streaky. BUT it's also gorgeous, and worth the effort. I might thin it for next time; in general, though, leaving time between coats should avoid cuticle drag. I then painted on two coats of The Way I Am, which is stunning and I think I'll need to buy the full size of it (I only have the mini right now). After that, I painted on two coats of Hellebore, which is perfect for this use because it's very glitter-dense, so it gives major impact without having to goop it on. I chose to pair these two greens because they're fraternal twins! The Way I Am is the introvert and Hellebore is the extravert; both are greens with fuschia accents. (It's hard to see the pinkish sparks in Hellebore from my photos, but trust me, they're there). I then topped it with Glitter Food to smooth out the layers, then topcoat, and done!

And now, because I took a butt-load of photos, I will leave you with all of them! Think of new spring grass and itty bitty wildflowers. :)

And I leave you with this cell phone picture; I found that the reduced quality / slight blurriness helped to better show the sparkle smorgasbord that is Hellebore.

I think I'm going to try a Real Life Floral next! Lucy's Stash has me all fired up about it (though I am nowhere near her skill level, holy moly). We'll see!

Polishes used:
Zoya - Jacqueline
Contrary Polish - The Way I Am
Cirque - Hellebore
Nail Pattern Boldness - Glitter Food
New York Color - Grand Central Station (top coat)

J.

Failwhale February

So, this month was an exercise in nail-based humility. I could do no right. (Insert anguished gestures here.) I tried a bunch of things, and none of them worked as I wanted them to. Serves me right, probably, for the beginner's luck of completing the last objective.

FIRST: I MASSACRE OH SPLAT!

I lemmed Oh Splat! from the moment I first saw it. It's white-and-rainbow nail polish perfection. And then I went and screwed it up.

KILL IT WITH TOPCOAT

I attempted a swap mani of Oh Splat! and Orbital, with French tips in Order of the Garter. I figured this would work because A England polishes are outrageously pigmented and opaque. Order of the Garter, though a beautiful blue, needed two hefty coats to achieve opacity, by which time I was doomed to Bubble Tips™, which were only made worse by the thick coats of Seche Vite I needed to smooth out the ridiculous shelves of polish (and what do thick coats of Seche Vite always do? MICRO BUBBLES, augh):

I think my cuticles are screaming here?

Next time, I leave these beautiful glitter bombs the hell alone.

Polishes used:
KBShimmer - Oh Splat! (3 coats, works beautifully on its own)
Different Dimension - Orbital (3 coats, would recommend 2 on top of black undies)
A England - Order of the Garter (2 mortar-esque coats)


SECOND: I BRING SHAME UPON THE HOUSE OF JELLY GRADIENTS

This would have been excellent in theory, and I know how to fix it in future (a palette, a bottle of clear polish on standby, and a lot more time). I opted for a skittle mani in jelly gradients over a holo base. (I couldn't get direct sunlight, but trust me that Nfu Oh 61 is crazy-rainbows all ova the place in the sun.)

CLAWHAND

The OPI jellies are too pigmented for a smooth gradation. The Zoyas were a bit better (Frida in particular), but the net result was still too choppy for my perfectionism. Next time, I custom-mix the jellies with extra clear polish, and I work in reverse (i.e., wash of palest colour from the cuticle to the tip, and overlap layers building towards the tip, instead of the standard process of doing the tips towards the cuticles).

insert a pun about choppiness here

Polishes used:
Nfu Oh - #61 (2 coats, with Aquabase base coat!)
Zoya - Paloma (thumb), Katherine (index), Frida (ring)
OPI - Guy Meets Gal-veston (middle), Houston We Have a Purple (pinkie)


THIRD: I DO INJUSTICE TO NAILSIDE'S 80s PATTERN

I love Nailside's abstract 80s tutorial. I think this look is genius. I definitely plan to try it again in future, having learnt: 1) do not mess with the shapes, the triangle definitely looks best in the middle; 2) for the love of baby sloths, don't do nail art on top of a glitter bomb.

Okay, in this, my cuticles are definitely screaming at me, I can hear them.

The three coats of nail polish I needed for the base made it super-thick, and with the taping on top and the top coat to smooth everything out, it was a bit of a gong show. Satellite is a fantastic, gorgeous glitter-- it goes on well (I used the dabbing method but it was not at all finicky), it sparkles like our fates depended on it, and it's bright enough to run the show. I just couldn't leave well enough alone!

Also, for reasons that escape me, my Good to Go decided that it wanted to mimic Shrinky Dinks (can you believe they named them that? who rubber-stamped that?) and came up with the most outrageous shrinkage I have ever seen. I don't even have words for this. It's like the nail polish was trying to run away from my fingers...

That's, like, a sixth of my nail plate! Come back here!!

Polishes used:
OPI - Houston We Have a Purple (2 coats)
The Polish Bar - Satellite (1 coat)
Zoya - Jacqueline (1 coat; the opaque shapes)
Spa Ritual - Calm & Clear (1 coat; the translucent shapes)


And on that note, I'm off to bed. I have something hopefully better to show you tomorrow!


J.