From the Bottom

I had such high hopes for this mani, and they just didn’t pan out! Turns out tiny thin lines are HARD. Especially with slightly goopy polish. Oh well!

I was trying to imitate this design by Kira Sweet. I have  to assume she used either acrylic or paint and not polish to get those tiny lines! My freehand just can’t measure up

The base color here is another of my new OPI polishes, Yank my Doodle. I really wanted this one when I saw it in the store because it looked like a fun mix between coral, orange, and brown. Think of the possibilities! The truth is though, I don’t actually much like it on my nails its a little too dark. That being said, it self-leveled nicely and covered well in three thin coats. Maybe I’d like it better if I liked the nail art more?

The white used here was my standard Snow me White by Sinful Colors…which I can no longer find at my local Rite Aid! So now where do I get my white when this one runs out? *gasp*

Anyway, even if this isn’t the best mani ever, I hope you enjoyed it! I should stay away from super intricate freehand for the near future :-p

Sunlight

Remember how I mentioned on Monday that I finally had time for bright manis? Well, here is one of them!

Sometime over the last few months I went hunting for the OPI Washington DC collection because there where a whole bunch of polishes that I wanted from it (which is honestly rare). I ended up getting 5 (plus a random red). In retrospect, only two of those 5 were ones I’m actually going to get much use out of! Silly past-Eva.

One of the ones I am really glad I got is this, Never a Dulles Moment. There are a few reasons I like this polish…even though I hate the color yellow. I have fewer yellow polishes in my collection than anything else by a substantial margin…but every now and then one is unique enough that I want it. This polish is a nice darker yellow, almost a mustard color (not quite fugly), and I figured i was time. Anyway, Never a Dulles Moment is a bit finicky…it does not self-level (but it is a yellow, so that’s just what happens with them). That said, it did try very fast. It took three thin coats to be opaque, but dried speedily enough that I didn’t mind.

Colors

~ Yellow: OPI – Never a Dulles Moment

~ Light orange: OPI – Freedom of Peach

~ Orange: ULTA – Sun of a Gun

~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black

~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White

~ Stamp: BP – L008

There are only a few reasonable way to wear yellow on your nails (rather than as a highlight color) and since I had already done flames recently…I had to make a gradient with orange and then watermarble. The gradient actually features another of the OPI DC polishes, but it will get its own post in the future. Hope you enjoyed!

Glowing from Within

I seldom say this, but I regret buying this polish! A England went on sale at Color4Nails which meant I just had to buy a bunch of them. I only actually wanted one, but I purchased 3 (because of course). Thus far, I was happy with the two I bought…and this was the third, which I bought almost as an afterthought. I wish I hadn’t!

It’s not that this isn’t a pretty color, because it is. Its mostly just that I thought this polish would be red with gold flakes, and it is really an orange metallic with gold flakes. I don’t usually wear orange polish, and I already have an orange metallic! Oh well, now I own another I suppose. And it is a pretty polish, it just isn’t something I’m likely to wear often.

The polish itself is called Gloriana from A England. On the website it is listed as a “chili-pepper red with fine and ultra fine golden sparkle” but I have to disagree. Fundamentally, this is dark orange that leans red, that has a metallic finish and copious golden glass flecks. It covered nicely in two coats, but it is not a red!

I was having a hard time deciding between stamping with gold or black, but everything I saw with either color online was disappointing (I guess not a lot of people use this for nail art), so I ended up covering it with a red-to-black gradient using Siren by Pure Ice, Visions of Love by OPI, and Black Creme by Wet n’ Wild. The stamp is from Bundle Monster plate XL209.

In the end the mani is pretty enough,,,I was just expecting a red polish. In retrospect, I should have known from looking at everyone’s swatches! Oh well :-p at least I got a pretty purple and mossy green!

Cruella deVille

This is actually the first of the “newer” Disney manis that I did! I found the previous two (memo and dalmatians) in my unposted folder and decided to use them as the jumping to point to EVEN MORE DISNEY.

I actually think I ended up doing paired manis for almost everything at this point (heroine + sidekick and then one for the villain). I am not shy to say that most of my villain manis came out better than my heroine manis 😀

Obviously, this is the companion post to Wednesday’s 101 dalmations! This was inspired by Cruella deVille. You don’t get to see my thumb because it was an idea that did NO pan out properly. The rest of the mani was inspired by Hot Pink Zebra Polish!

Colors:
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Red: Covergirl – Forever Festive
~ Beige – Zoya – Charlotte
~ Pale pink: OPI – Be There in a Prosecco

The question becomes: do I want to post ALL THE DISNEY MANIS in a row? Or do a disney week per month? I don’t know! I guess we shall see next week :-D. Any requests? Specific movies you guys want to see? Painting disney is fun!

Geometric Expression

I bought a bunch of OPI polishes recently…and this was one of my unplanned buys. They were having a buy-two-get-one-free sale so of course I had to leave with 6 polishes rather than the 4 I really wanted! Well, there were 6 but two of them were not in stock 😦

I have been in the hunt for a nude/pale-pink/grey and I thought this might be it! Until I swatched it on a nail stick and realized that it is a PERFECT DUPE for a (much cheaper) polish that I already own! Grrrrrr…I don’t usually buy perfect dupes. I feel rather dumb right now.

Regardless, this is three thin coats of Be There in a Prosecco by OPI. Despite taking 3 coats, it goes on better than my OTHER light pink nude creme polish (which takes 4 and even then has leveling problems). The polish is a very pale pink creme. I’ll do a comparison to the dupe sometime soon! As soon as I get over my disappointment.

Colors
~ Nude: OPI – Be There in a Prosecco
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Black: Wet n’ Wild – Black Creme
~ Gold: ILNP – Clockwork
~ Purple: Zoya – Rue
~ Stamps: BP – L054, 77

The one benefit of this is that I made something cool and geometric! Honestly, I just wanted to color in some geometric stamps, and this made it possible without standing out too much in the hospital.

Unfortunately some of the stamping decals bubbled a bit, so the top coat looks uneven. Oops! Hope you enjoyed anyway!

Resigned Lines

I really need to cut it out with the geometric designs! I actually was deciding between 4 different ideas for this, and I like how it came out but you can barely see the background pattern!

I started with three coats of my nude polish, then water-spotted on (aka spread on water and spritzed on hairspray to make holes before dipping my nails) white polish. I added some golden dots and glitter for contrast, and then free-handed straight lines.

The final step was stamping on the geometric images and adding rose gold dots over the parts that were super black. To my eye (because I knew what to look for) the white waterspotting was visible and quite pretty, but you can barely see it in the photos! Darn.

Colors
~ Nude: OPI – Be There in a Prosecco
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Black: Wet n’ Wild – Black Creme
~ Gold glitter: ILNP – Clockwork
~ Rose gold metallic: Essie – Penny Talk
~ Purple: Zoya – Rue
~ Stamps: BP – L054

It also doesn’t help that there was a lot of texture to this mani, so the whole thing doesn’t look super smooth with top coat. Overall, not my best work oops!

Interwoven

I can’t tell if I love or hate the random disappearing nature of this mani…the silver is there one second and gone the next! You can see what I’m talking about best in the sunlight photos.

Regardless, this mani came out alright! I didn’t want the lines matching up exactly and I was stuck using different angles from the same not-so-large image, but it works somehow! Even if you can’t see part of the design half the time :-p

It also gave me an excuse to use Black Satin by OPI again…I don’t think I’ve touched this polish in the last year! Whoops! I would say I use polishes that I won less than polishes that I bought (simply cause I think of the ones I paid for more) but I don’t think that’s universally true…I just don’t wear that much almost-black!

Colors
~ Dark grey: OPI – Black Satin
~ Light grey: Zoya – Dove
~ Silver: Revlon – Metallic
~ Stamp: BP – L050

Anyway I hope you guys enjoyed, and happy Friday!