DIGIT-AL DOZEN WEEK: Vintage Polka Dots

Nothing to Disclose

Hello lovelies!

TWO POSTS IN ONE DAY! I was so chuffed after my last post that I immediately took to Google and found something else vintage-y to produce for you!

This was inspired by this polka dot pattern I found on DeviantArt. I started with a base of Rue (which took three coats to opacity, and was mysteriously sort of lumpy?), and then did dots with Crescent Heights, Where Did Suzi's Man-Go?, and Blowing Raspberries.

After that, I did two coats of top coat to protect the base, and did the 'watercolour' technique with Chelsea Physic Garden and Moody Blues. I then sealed everything in another coat of top coat. And then bumped my index and thumb badly while opening a bottle of wine. (This is, in a nutshell, everything you need to know about me.)

Polishes used:

Zoya - Rue

American Apparel - Crescent Heights

OPI - Where Did Suzi's Man-Go?

butter LONDON - Blowing Raspberries

nails inc. - Chelsea Physic Garden

piCture pOlish - Moody Blues

Duri - Rejuvacote (base coat)

Glisten & Glow - HK Girl (top coat)

dotting tool

square brush for 'watercolouring'

I like this effect, it's like a kind of verdigris... I look forward to doing it over more complicated patterns, probably using jellies next time for optimal ageing.

AND I FINISHED! AND IN THE MONTH OF FEBRUARY! I'm so pleased. Thank you, Dionysus, for all that you do.

xo,

J.

CHECK OUT WHAT THE OTHER TALENTED LADIES OF THE DIGIT-AL DOZEN WERE UP TO:

An InLinkz Link-up

I'm alive! But barely!

Nothing to Disclose

 Hello lovelies!

I'm still in Montreal. I was supposed to leave yesterday, but then I got The Summer Cold To End All Summer Colds and proceeded to spend three days in bed horking mucus via various facial orifices. A good time was had by all... the little virus buddies... taking over my body.

So I postponed my flight. I miss nail art. I return on Wednesday evening and will likely spend the next week ensconced at home, doing a nail art look every day or two. I gotta catch up!!

In the meantime, here (from my Instagram feed) are some things I've been up to lately:

I wore three coats of Ciaté's Ferris Wheel (augh, THREE COATS) with two coats of Lac Attack's Death Day Party over top! I love me some flakies. These charcoal flakies shifted purple and gold, very lovely.

I did a framed dotticure with... a bunch of things. Some random greyish polish that my mom had (Rimmel, I think), piCture pOlish's Sunset, Ruby Wing's Eternal, and white.

And I did my friend Laurent's nails! He's such a good sport. I will definitely revisit mermaid (/merman) nails in future. I could spend hours and hours on this look, but I feel like maybe his arms would have fallen off at that point. I'm told that cashiers gave him lots of compliments on these. I used the same base of Ferris Wheel and Death Day Party as above, then used a random Bourjois navy polish and acetone for the scales, some of which I dotted full of my custom Tryst Lacquer, Aqueous, and some of which I dotted full of a NOPI shimmery white whose name I've forgotten (but it's a lot like OPI's Happy Anniversary).

I will return to you lovelies later this week! I've got quite the queue of ABC Challenge prompts to catch up on, plus a couple other assorted ideas. :) Do stick around!

xo,

J.

Snapshots: Kurta, Summer Dotticure

Nothing to Disclose

Hello lovelies!

I wanted to share with you two looks I completed recently and posted to Instagram, but not here (it happens sometimes, say if something is specifically an IG request).

First up, we have a twin nails look with @thedevilwearspolish based on the design of one of her kurtas. I love these little elephants sooo much.

Polishes used:

Duri - Rejuvacote (base coat)

OPI - Germanicure

la couleur couture - 2013 (top coat)

gold acrylic paint

detail brush

Next, we have a simple summer dotticure requested by a wee denizen of Instagram (only 10 years old!). I of course had to had fun with her request, which was yellow-on-pink dots, because that's how I roll. This is an easy look to recreate if you use a small dotting tool and you take your time.

Polishes used:

Duri - Rejuvacote (base coat)

Nina Ultra Pro - Punki Pink (of course, the NEON does not show up, but trust me, it's NEON)

Cirque - Iris (shimmer top coat)

Sally Hansen - Mellow Yellow

la couleur couture - 2013 (top coat)

wee dotting tool

I'm always happy to field requests, so never hesitate! In the meantime, I'm thinking of more neons. I just painted my toes with Sunset (see previous post) and they bloody well glow and I love them.

xo,

J.

Purple Flowers

After completing a pictorial for the gradated dotted ikat look, I decided I wanted something quick and easy to do as nail art.

These are the famous Mr. Candiipants flowers; she has a tutorial on YouTube (start from 1:00 if you want to skip her characteristic intro-ramble) for anybody wanting to know how to do them. They're easy as heck and I love the visual punch they have! I made mine bigger than hers just because I was feeling something in-your-face, but you can make the petals larger or smaller by adjusting how little polish you leave on the brush. I used a dotting tool for the middles, but you can use the nail polish brush if you wipe pretty much all the polish off and are very careful.

I used three shades of more-or-less neon purple (which of course aren't showing up properly), plus a neon green for the little leaves.

Polishes used:

Zoya - Charisma

Models Own - Pukka Purple

Elevation Polish - Pic du Gar (deep almost neon purple jelly -- may be my favourite new purple)

Nina Ultra Pro - Lime Light

A England - Camelot

Cult Nails - Tempest

Duri - Rejuvacote (base coat)

la couleur couture - 2013 (top coat)

small dotting tool

Another easy look (plus tutorial) will be up tomorrow, and then I'm off to Victoria for the weekend to be pampered at the Magnolia, have high tea at the Fairmont Empress and, of course, nosh at Re-Bar! So excite!

xo,

J.

SIMPLE(R) SUNDAY: Paisley Print

This is technically Monday! But I'm still awake, so it's still Sunday as far as I'm concerned.

For this look, I began with a base of Play Me, sponged some Lil Miss Sunshine on the upper halves, and then did the paisleys using a small dotting tool, Honey Dew, and 1977. They are pretty messy little paisleys, I must say. But I wanted to keep it relatively quick in honour of Simple(r) Sunday.

Cleaning up Lil Miss Sunshine was unbearable, because it's a glass fleck/foil finish. So I apologize for the subpar clean-up job!!

This photo is all wonky in terms of skin tone, but it shows the shimmer in Play Me (and Lil Miss Sunshine) much more accurately than the two photos above. I recommend clicking it to zoom in:

I'm thinking that I'm going to tackle a contest entry tomorrow, so hopefully it'll turn out in reality as it is in my head! :)

Polishes used:

Contrary Polish - Play Me

CrowsToes - Lil Miss Sunshine

piCture pOlish - Honey Dew

la couleur couture - 1977

Duri - Rejuvacote (base coat)

Seche Vite (top coat)

small dotting tool

wedge sponge

J.

Cartoon Nails with Faux Half-tone

Cartoon nails are a big thing right now. I've seen them all over the place, and I find them impossibly cute. Very clever was the person who thought this up! Triztron over at Instagram wanted to see me do cartoon nails, and I happened to have prepared this post anyway! (I'm not sure this is what she had in mind-- she is very talented at doing cartoons ON her nails-- but I can give that a shot sometime soon, too!) And because I don't like making my life easy, I thought it'd be neat to do an accent nail of a half-tone like pattern.

The cartoon nails themselves were very straightforward and I'm sure there are a bajillion tutorials up on YouTube by now, but the basic premise is to paint your nails black, then paint them the colour you want (leaving a border around the tops and sides), then adding the black stripe at the bottom, followed by the shine marks in white.

For the half-tone, I found a picture online and tried to replicate it. It didn't work. In fact, it didn't work even a little, but I like the look anyway. Sort of macro-looking. I used two jellies for this, along with a bright fuchsia and black acrylic paint.

Polishes used:

Nfu Oh - JS20

Zoya - Frida, Charisma

GOSH - Nero

OPI - Jade is the New Black, Nail Envy Matte (base coat)

Revlon Top Speed - Spirit

INM - Out the Door (top coat)

black & white acrylic paint + detailing brush

Do you like this look at much as I do?

J.

Traffic Cone Easter Eggs!

These were not supposed to be Easter eggs. They were just supposed to be a palate-cleanser after all the intense cross-eyes-inducing painting I've been up to over the last few days.

I wanted to try out a horizontal version of a simple but really striking look I'd seen over at Chalkboard Nails: Sarah's Reptilian Dot Nail Art. Instead, I just have the world's brightest, most orange Easter eggs gracing my fingertips.

There is no grass in this winter wasteland I call home; this blanket will have to suffice.

I began with a base of Sarychev, with which I am officially in LLLOOOOOVVVEE. Oh, it's so gorgeous. It's also quite sheer, and I would have stopped at 3 coats if I didn't have nail bruises on my left hand from a drawer mishap last month. I like my jellies squishy, which typically involves them being slightly less than opaque. At 4 coats, which is what I used here, it's opaque but also quite thick.

I then taped off the upper halves of my nails and painted This New Sun on the bottom halves (one good coat was plenty). I'm excited to try this polish on its own sometime. I then whipped out my dotting tools and came to realize that I suck at dotting. They're all different sizes!! The large size dots are Cu Blue, which is another polish that deserves its own post; it looks purplish here but is actually a royal blue jelly with major copper shimmer! The small dots on the bottom are Action, which I doubled-up on for opacity but that still didn't quite go according to plan.

The opalescence of the Mylar shows up best in the shade-- these are actually translucent orange circles, not green!

The upper 'dots' are Mylar rounds from the Born Pretty store, which I stuck on with little dabs of topcoat. Positioning these in a way where they were even remotely in line was the hardest part of this look. The second-hardest part was making sure that I was picking up only 1 round at a time instead of several clinging together.

Sorry about the weird background, this was the best sun-shot by a mile. Look at the lusciousness of Sarychev! Look at the juicy glimmer of This New Sun! Man, I love orange polish.

That Mylar round is winking at you!

Polishes/supplies used:
Elevation Polish - Sarychev
Pahlish - This New Sun
Girly Bits - Cu Blue
Essie - Action
Born Pretty Store - mini Mylar rounds
OPI - Nail Envy Matte (base coat)
INM - Out the Door (top coat)
Poshé (top coat)

I have so many ideas for what to do next, we'll see how many I can get done before I run out of steam! ;)


J.

Staticky TV Screens

So, remember when I said I was next going to be taking it easy? Lies.

Still with the winter thing. The street is so deeply rutted with ice that driving IN the ruts is a death wish for your car's undercarriage. I've considered hiring a Sherpa for all my travelling needs.

I was taking a look at the LeaLaC plate I ordered from Llarowe last month and was struck by the rounded rectangles (3rd row from bottom, 4th column from left). They kind of reminded me of a bank of TVs, and my mind wandered to horror tropes of static-filled TV screens, kind of like this. (Note: I don't watch horror movies, I am the least qualified person to being mining them for inspiration.)

AND THEN I thought of something much happier, which is Persona 4. I think Aegis from P3 remains my favourite Persona character of all time, but Kanji from P4 is a close second. What a dreamboat.

Soooo anyway, the TV screens! The Midnight Channel! The static! The swallowing up our brave protagonists!

The steely hair of our unnamed hero, to match his steely will! Ok I'll stop now.

Depressingly, this took about as long as the Valentine's nail art I did, except the results are nowhere near as impressive. And it was a huge pain in the butt. HUGE PAIN IN THE BUTT. There is, however, one upside-- and I will get to it in a little bit.

I'm getting more consistent with hand position, which is a small victory I suppose.

The first step was getting the static going. A full 7 steps went into building it up. I started with Nfu Oh JS03, followed by a heavy dose of the spun sugar technique (I did it MUCH thinner than XOXO Alexis Leigh is doing it in the video, but same principle) with GOSH Nero, again with the spun sugar in Revlon Spirit, then spent a dizzying amount of time dotting Nero and Spirit all over the place with my tiniest dotter, followed by another coat of JS03 and a coat of American Apparel Moon. Then NYColor Grand Central Station to get it all to dry so I could SLEEP.

DOESN'T EVEN LOOK LIKE STATIC

This afternoon, I stamped the shapes over my nails with the LeaLaC plate using Nero again, and then whipped out my tiniest brush to fill in the in-between spaces with the black polish, add teeny silver dots to represent the TV knobs, and little reflection marks in white to try to give some dimension to the TV screens. Then two more coats of topcoat to even it all out, and a bit of clean up, and finally done.

You can see some of the neurotically thin spun sugar effect going on at the edge of my nail.

But, in a way, this was a worthwhile endeavour, because I got to use Moon. (My partner has been bugging me to use it since the day I bought it and, if nothing else, this mani makes him very happy.) Because Moon DOES THIS!

This photo involved tenting a blanket over me, a self-timer, manual shutter speed, manual focus, and a slapdash process of charging up the nails by lamp, hitting the shutter, shutting off the light, and stopping breathing.

So there you have it. A mani for all of us with a soft spot for horror films and/or Japanese RPGs.

Polishes used:

Nfu Oh - JS03

GOSH - Nero

Revlon Top Speed - Spirit

American Apparel - Moon

Sally Hansen Insta-Dri - Silver Sweep

OPI - Nail Envy Matte (base coat)

New York Color - Grand Central Station (topcoat)

J.