Well, one day I'll get back to doing the challenge manicures, I promise! But since Easter is tomorrow, you know I had to do appropriately themed nails! So, I did eggs. Man, I need to practice doing more detail work with my right hand (I'm left handed!). Some of my lines look wobbly and smudged on my left hand, but that's OK. Most people in the wild won't even notice.
Today I have pictures of both hands, because every finger is different. Lemme tell you, it's hard to take pictures of my right hand with my camera. It's just not easy to hold in my left hand *at all*. This is why most of my pictures are of my left hand! I'm planning on getting a more compact camera in the near future. That should help a bit.
No, I'm not in Hawai'i. I wish I was though! It's been so gray and dreary the last couple days. So, for day 10 of the challenge, I decided to do tropical sunset nails for my gradient. This was my first time doing a gradient manicure, and I love the way it turned out!!!
I had this grand plan to do rainbows and pots o'gold on my nails for St. Patrick's Day, but alas, it was not to be. My rainbows just wouldn't turn out!! So I went with plan B: Zoya Holly with pots o'gold that I made using a ziploc bag. For the pots, I started with a base of WnW Black Lace Creme. I decided that didn't look enough like cast iron, so I added China Glaze Stone Cold on top. The coins I made using a dotting tool and Orly Luxe topped with Color Club Take the Stage. I topped the whole deal with Seche Vite. Actually, that's not entirely true. I used Revlon Quick Dry Topcoat on all my fingers on top of the Zoya, then put the decals on my ring fingers, *then* put Seche Vite on just the accent finger. Of course, I had to go and bugger it up by putting the pots on my nails "upside down", but oh well. I'm still really pleased with how it turned out
The orange really didn't last long. I just wasn't satisfied with the dots :( So, on to yellow!! Unfortunately, the weather here is still dismal and I don't have a good light source yet. I'm planning on putting together a homemade lightbox soon, but I haven't gotten around to it yet. So, this is the best picture I could get, and it still doesn't capture the rainbow loveliness that is Finger Paints Twisted. My hands look freakishly dry too, since I didn't want to take a minute to moisturize and miss the wee bit of, well, I won't call it sun, but brightness that we got.
Hiya! I'm starting this blog mostly to help myself remember what manicures I've done, and to share with my friends. I'm not a professional, not even close. My clean-up may suck most of the time, and my designs aren't always perfect. And that's just fine with me! I'm also not a photographer. I do my best, but my pictures don't look anywhere near professional. Hopefully, I'll get better with practice.
So I've decided to start with the 30 day/week/whatever challenge that has been floating around for a while. I know it's old news, but I needed inspiration this morning, so I've decided to go with it. I don't paint my nails every day, nor do my manicures *ever* last a week, so I'll just be going down the list as I redo my nails. First up: Red!
For this, I started with Nailtiques 2 ('cause I have peely nails. They're getting better, though!), and then a coat of Orly Bonder for grippy goodness. After that, 2 coats of Orly Star Spangled and a coat of Revlon Quick Dry Topcoat. The dots were done with Spoiled Bite Me and China Glaze Poinsetta. I put a coat of Seche Vite topcoat over everything, to seal it in and give it that shine I love so much.
