I scream! You scream! We all scream for ice cream!

... I used to say, back when I could also skip in double ropes. (I can barely single skip with a single rope now. Oh, the halcyon days of youthful coordination.)

No tutorial for these, because the only real process was "screw around with acrylic paints in the general shape of ice cream". From left to right, we have mint chocolate chip, a banana split, some kind of berry sunday, and a peanut chocolate parfait that looks poop-ish because using dark brown tricks my camera into thinking things are solid black!

But the BASE of this manicure, which you can regrettably see little of, is another of the custom Tryst Lacquers I ordered -- Confection (aptly). It's a very pale nude/peach with super-pale green satin hex, purple micro holo, and tiny iridescent glitter. It's lovely and I'm sure you'll be seeing it again. It also applied like a dream in 3 thin coats.

The cups are made with polish, in a page I've taken from @glitterfingers' cupcake manis. From left to right: Jinx, Lil Miss Sunshine, Mermaid's Dream, another (!) custom Tryst Lacquer which is called Calypso and which you'll see more of soon.

Polishes used:

Tryst Lacquers - Confection (custom), Calypso (custom)

OPI - Jinx

CrowsToes - Lil Miss Sunshine

Deborah Lippmann - Mermaid's Dream

Nail Pattern Boldness - Glitter A-Peel (base coat)

la couleur couture - 2013 (top coat)

acrylic paint
detail brush
fine-nibbed pen with watered-down acrylic paint for the outlines

I think I'll be doing a watermarble next, because I bought a GOSH polish today that is SUPERB -- if only my photos will end up doing it justice!

xo,

J.

SIMPLE(R) SUNDAY: Houndstooth

Oh boy. It's 00:11 on Monday and I'm starting my Sunday post. Bad Jolène!!

Houndstooth is a weird pattern when you look at it, but it breaks down easily. There are a million tutorials for this one, but here's how I did it:

Step 1: draw your squares. You want them evenly spaced, so that it's a bit like a chess board where every second line of black squares was erased. That's a complicated way of saying what I hopefully have shown above.

Step 2: the first set of arms. Technically, the ends of the arms are supposed to be at an angle like fancy ribbon, but I challenge you to achieve that on the nail.

Step 3: the second set of arms. This should end up looking a bit like you're watching a bunch of block people doing the Macarena from above. (Good luck unseeing that.)

Step 4: the ears! So now the block people are looking up at you and they're actually CAT-BLOCK PEOPLE. I enjoy how my captions have managed to devolve into complete uselessness in only four steps.

That made sense, right????? Right. I'd make a pictorial for IG but it's clear by now that I do not function well without a staggering amount of words to throw around. Once you summon up the patience to do all your nails, you end up with something like this:

I did mine on a base of a glitter bomb for visual interest, but you could do it on anything. There are limitless colour combinations. I think it'd be really cool (but perhaps difficult) to do a houndstooth in a textured polish on a base of a similar shade of regular polish. Über classy!

Polishes used:

Cult Nails - Tempest (one coat underneath Rave)

Jindie Nails - Rave

Nail Pattern Boldness - Glitter A-Peel (base coat)

la couleur couture - 2013 (top coat)

black acrylic paint

detail brush

I think I will next do another post with a custom Tryst Lacquer, so keep your peepers peeled for that!


xo,

J.

Gradated Ikat

Helloooo lovelies!

Today's mani is my attempt to mash together the gradated dots look and the ikat look, inspired by a pair of shorts I bought recently.

The writing on my finger is because these are a contest entry. :) I figured this was a lot easier than awkwardly holding a small scrap of paper!

For this look, I began with a base of My Vampire is Buff. This is an excellent pale nude shade, but it's also a bit of a PITA as it requires four thin coats to reach opacity and uniformity. Boo, hiss! I wouldn't do it if the results weren't worth it, though. On the opposite end of the spectrum, my experience with 2013 (the top coat, not the year) have been AMAZING so far. This is my first time using it, and it goes on so well (more liquid than Seche Vite), the brush (as with all lacc colours) is my favourite thing ever, and no shrinkage!!! Glory hallelujah! I'll keep testing it, but this may be my holy grail top coat. :O

I then mixed up some ultramarine blue acrylic paint with white and/or black to make three different shades of blue, and dotted them on using my smallest dotter, starting with the lightest and ending with the darkest. It was a time-consuming process but very easy.

Polishes used:

OPI - My Vampire is Buff

Duri - Rejuvacote (base coat)

la couleur couture - 2013 (top coat)

acrylic paint in blue, white, black

smallest dotting tool

something to distract from the monotony

I had a post planned for tomorrow but I've deemed it sub-par. Now I'm plotting out what the heck to do! I'll keep you all posted. Literally. Haha! Dum-dum-TSCH.

xo,

J.

EDIT: Here's a pictorial if you'd like!