Fishy Experiment

For this manicure:

Revlon Quick Dry Base Coat

1 coat Essie Vermillionaire

Sponge gradient: SH Xtreme Wear Sun Kissed and WnW French White Creme

Stamped using Essie Good as Gold (Image from XL B)

1 coat Essie Shine of the Times

Seche Vite

I am really loving adding a coat of sparkle/flake-y on top of stamping.  Here I was hoping I could add to the fishiness of the manicure.  I still want to work on this idea, because it holds multiple possibilities! I was aiming for a Koi fish manicure but hubby didn't go straight to fish scales, just saw "vintage", so I'm not sure if this translates.  I might try with a more scale-like stamp next time!

Thank you for taking a peek!  What's on your nails?  

♥

JQ

Metallic Diamondback

Happy Happy Happy Dance!
I Squee!!
I did a dance around my living room yesterday when my plates finally arrived! And then sat down to try and figure out what manicure to try first!

Here is the result!


I used 2 coats of an olive green franken with gold shimmer in it for the base. I then lined up Sally Hansen Chrome Copper, Revlon Golden, and GOSH Metallic Green. I took the image I had finally decided on BM 215--Diamondback!!. I striped the polish on in the order I mentioned above. I scraped the image twice, just to blend the colours a LITTLE. I was going for a sheen-like effect.


This is my other paw. My right hand is the one the eczema gets bad on and this is a gross pic of my cuticles but the light just caught it right so I wanted to share it with you. :P LOVE.



I finished off with a coat of Seche Vite and actually managed to contain myself from taking pictures and then removing it to try something new. :P I might not have the self control to get through this afternoon though. We'll see. I really am in love with this pattern. I am imagining all kinds of colour combinations for it.

My Happy Thought:



Thanks everybody!

♥
JQ

Blended argyle with GOSH Metallic

Happy Friday everybody!

Lately I've been playing with stamping using my GOSH Metallics over similar creamier base colours. ABOP left me a note last entry saying it would be cool to see some stamping with more than one colour on the plate. I had been thinking the same thing! I've seen some pretty awesome multi-coloured stamping around the blogs and I figured I'd give it a whirl!


I'm THRILLED with it! I decided I'd use a dark base so that I could really see the contrast this first time. For my base I used a frankened black Wet n' Wild that I made into a slightly shimmery charcoal grey. I don't own a single charcoal colour! What?? The closest I have is OPI My Private Jet and it's more brown-y, plus I thought the holo sparklies might detract from my pattern.



Left to right: Seche Clear, frankened charcoal colour, GOSH Metallic Green, Blue and Pink, Seche Vite. Konad Image Plate M60. I painted a coat of Seche Clear, then one thick coat of my frankenpolish (it was teh gooey but it dried fairly quickly), then dragged the brush from each GOSH metallic across the image horizontally first with pink, then blue, then green. When I scraped I did it in the same direction I brushed on the polish, and I did it a few times just to blend the colours together a bit. I stamped so that the pink is at my tips every time. Next time I want to try diagonal.



Once again with the scaly look. I DIG. It's fun because I'm trying for a very reptilian quality with the tapestry I am currently working on. It actually distracted me from weaving yesterday because I kept admiring how my nails looked next to the leaf of my rose at the lower left hand corner.


Here's a couple more shots of the polish outdoors and indoors. The colors are actually a bit deeper in reality so the transition is quite visible. I just can't get enough of it!


In the two shots where you can see my thumb, you can see that it gets a bit messy on the one side. Even the Konad full nail images are not wide/long enough for my thumbs. The tip and the right side I tried to stamp on a little extra and it's gibbled but from a distance it doesn't draw attention. :P

Thanks everyone for stopping by and I hope you all have a great weekend!
♥
JQ

Dragon Scale

Hi everybody!

This one was a guest mani for my friend who was up visiting from the 1st to 10th (hence why I haven't been in to post!)


I was inspired by the Wet n' Wild fastdry Gray's Anatomy that we picked up while shopping. It's a super sheer polish that shines gray, fuchsia, and green. I thought it would lend itself well to a scale effect. I've been really wanting to try a snakeskin style manicure for awhile so we bit the bullet! We used four coats of Gray's Anatomy and still didn't get full coverage so I would use it in the future for layering, or sponging rather than full manis. Also, she told me that two nails just peeled right off within a day so I am wondering if that was just a bad combination with the base coat or if the polish itself a bad egg. I sure hope not! I lurv it.


My camera just doesn't want to capture the duo-chromeness on either manicure. This one looked grey green with a dash of pink but in the photos it seems more golden.


And this is the manicure I did for myself this morning.


My cuticles are icktastic right now. And I got black polish smeared into the dryness so it's staining. Also my nails are considerably bigger than the BM image plate so I had to match up the stamp on every nail but my pinkie. YIKES. and it shows. :( Kay now that I've made you notice that here are a few more shots. I got a bit better show of pink when I went in the shade. All of these should be clickable.



In the photos the manicure still looks pretty sharp but the pink and blue sheen is almost invisible. In person these nails are delicious and shimmery blue emerald and pink under the sharp contrast of black. Any suggestions for how to catch that or do I just have to invest in a better camera?

For manicure #1 I used 4 coats of Wet n' Wild fastdry Gray's Anatomy, for manicure #2 I used 1 coat of Revlon Top Speed Ocean, and one coat of Nicole Count on Me (super pretty, tiny fleck, sheer, baby blue and pink). Then for the stamping on both I used BM image plate 21 Honeycomb and GOSH Nero. Seche Vite topcoat to finish!

Left to right: Nicole by OPI Count On Me, Revlon Top Speed Orchid, Revlon Top Speed Ocean, Wet N' Wild fastdry Gray's Anatomy. Again with the photos not capturing the prettiness. *SIGH*


Yep, that's totally a Lush shampoo bar container. It's almost perfect for holding my BM and Konad image plates. The lid pops off due to the weight of the plates so I usually have an elastic around it. Just one idea for storeage. I do really like the trick of using trading card sleeves and a binder for easy browsing. Might have to switch eventually. :)

Hope everyone is having a stellar weekend!
Cheers!
♥
JQ