Gold and Navy…my new favorite

First, a big shout out to my sister and brother-in-law, Chrystal and Delano, for buying the pizza and Dairy Queen to fuel our mini mani marathon. I’m not sure if they’ll like their blog pseudonyms…but I do…and it’s my blog. 🙂

I’ve wanted to try a half moon manicure for awhile now and finally got around to it. I’m loving gold and navy. And surprisingly, my favorite gold is a Sally Hansen Extreme Wear in Golden. It’s really vibrant, sparkly but not glittery and isn’t too yellow. It dries quickly with one coat. I started with a base of golden and placed hole enforcers at the cuticle and did one full-coverage coat of China Glaze First Mate. I really like it! I’ll have to take another picture in the sun because this indoor shot doesn’t do it justice.

My other niece, we’ll call her Brandy (Barbie’s sister) started off with a base of the Sally Hanson Golden. It looked so good, we decided to keep it that way. We added First Mate polka dots to each of her ring fingers. I love it!

• Polish: Sally Hansen Extreme Wear Golden, China Glaze First Mate
• Tools: office supply hole reinforcers, dotting tool

Flickerman to Nemo to…grey?

I’m obsessed. I admit it. I needed a hobby and here I am…again. I wish Annika would let me do her nails every night! Then I could try out all this fun stuff and not get the double take at work. I think my Flickerman polish caught the light of the projector during a meeting today. I’m sure it was shocking. I feel like a double agent or something! So off goes Flickerman…but not before I tried something else.

I changed a ring finger to a clown fish.  I painted the nail white first so the orange would be bright. The orange is actually Hunger Games Riveting. (I swear this is not a Hunger Games Nail Blog, no matter how many times I post about it.)  Then I used white and black stripers and added a coat of Seche Vite.  It took longer to remove the polish than it did to paint the fish stripes!

This Nemo inspired masterpiece lasted just long enough to snap the picture.  BTW, lesson learned…I practically had to jackhammer the glitter off!  My fingers were raw and pickled when I was done.  When I did nails back in the day, we didn’t get too many glitter requests.  My clients splurged on french manicures and maybe a red polish at the holidays. Good, crazy times.

Here’s where I ended up. I looooove it. Plus it’s office friendly.  I might try the newspaper technique on it. But enough for now.

• Polish: China Glaze First Mate and Riveting, OPI Alpine Snow, Pure Ice Don’t You Wish (top), China Glaze Pelican Grey (bottom)
• Tools: makeup sponge, white striper, black striper

Caesar Flickerman Accident

I never change my manicure mid-week.  It’s too much work.  But this week, I had to make an exception.  The Essie polish I used for the Burberry manicure looked horrible on me…greenish brown taupe.  I couldn’t take it.  To me, it looked like I had some strange circulation disorder.  Plus Sheldon picked up dinner on the way home and Annika didn’t have any homework so I had some time to spare.

Annika and I experimented with our new stash and I intended to do a simple navy blue mani.  But noooo.  We couldn’t stop there.  Suddenly I’m adding glitter.  I’m a grown woman with a grown up job.  I should not be wearing glitter. But that didn’t stop me.

When it was all said and done, Annika declared my impromptu design a Hunger Games original – Caesar Flickerman.   And I have to admit.  It is (accidentally) Flickerman inspired (there’s a pic of him at the end of this post that I found after the fact).

I used China Glaze First Mate (two coats) and stippled Pure Ice Don’t You Wish in three steps: 1) ¾ way down my nail, 2) ½ way down, and 3) just the tips.  After it dried, I did two coats of Seche Vite to make it smooth (it was kind of grainy).  I wore a boring blue blazer to work today to coordinate with my madness.  That evens it all out, right?

I think it looks like the ocean.  It might be fun to paint the ring fingers orange and stripe them black and white like a clown fish.  Now THAT I could not wear to work!  Maybe before I take this off, I’ll try it.

Here’s Caesar Flickerman…

• Polish: China Glaze First Mate, Pure Ice Don’t You Wish
• Tools: makeup sponge

Ulta Haul

Okay, I have never been to an Ulta. I don’t know why, but I always assumed it was a low rent version of Sephora.  We only have a JC Penney Sephora in my town.  It’s fun, but teenie.  Plus, I’ve had bad luck with getting product home and it’s old.  Anyway, I went to Ulta today to see if they had the China Glaze Hunger Games Collection in stock.  Annika has some money burning a hole in her pocket and that’s what she wanted.

Wow. Is that place awesome! I’m actually kind of glad I’ve never discovered it before because I’d be broke.  I sort of went a little overboard.  The pro polishes were buy 2 get 1 free.  I figured we didn’t go to a movie as planned this weekend and we’d have easily spent as much on tickets and popcorn.  Fortunately, my hubby (we’ll call him Sheldon) is on board with our hobby in spite of the remover smell and random cotton balls in the kitchen.

So Ulta has everything! Including Annika’s requested polish.

Left to Right.  District 1 (Luxury) Luxe and Lush, District 4 (Fishing) Hook and Line, District 2 (Masonry) Stone Cold, District 5 (Power) Electrify

I picked up a few other China Glazes for a future Batman manicure and a few office worthy options.

Left to Right. Frostbite, Happy Go Lucky, China Rouge, Pelican Gray, First Mate (wouldn’t the grey and navy be cool together?)

Finally, I’m a sucker for purple and I needed a beige for the Burberry manicure I’m going to try next.  So I got three Essie polishes.  I also got some stripers and oil (since it was on sale too) and another Seche Vite topcoat since it’s the greatest thing out there.

Essie’s Left to Right: Jazz, Bahama Mama, A Cut Above

I know, I’m a crazy lady.

Matte Topcoat…my new obsession

Annika and I went to Sephora looking for a matte topcoat after searching several drug stores.  I’m surprised there’s not a cheapy brand out there yet.  Maybe I didn’t look hard enough.  I wanted to try something with both matte and shiny.  I got my inspiration on Pinterest.

This is the same pastel purple Zoya (Kendal) I used on my last manicure, but with the matte topcoat it turned out gray (which I liked).  I used a dotter tool to dot two lines of dots on the side of each nail.  It was so easy.  Anyone can do it.

Again, I got some funny looks at work in meetings.  They must think I’m going through a near-midlife crisis or something!  I’m not telling them about the blog. I’ve been at the company for many years and there a few folks that know of my nail technician past.  Perhaps they think I’m moonlighting at a nail salon??

Here’s another picture with the flash on.  Hopefully I get better at taking pictures.  I’m using my iPhone.  If anyone has any tips, I’m open!

• Polish: Zoya Kendal, Finger Paints Model Colour, Wet n Wild I Need a Refresh-Mint, Sephora by OPI Matte Top Coat
• Tools: dotter
• Inspiration Link: We Heart It via Pinterest

Penguins

This is so easy and cute.  Annika found it on Pinterest which linked to a simple tutorial (it’s so hard to find the originator of some of these ideas!)  We had to buy some supplies for this one, two nail art pens.  They are worth the money.  They write like a fine Sharpie.  All we did was polish her nails blue, then paint the white circles and draw on the eyes, beak and feet.  We finished off the ring fingers with a light sparkly topcoat.  It was a nice touch.  I think this is a better look for winter.  But not bad for our first attempt at an animal.

• Polish: Revlon Dreamer, OPI Alpine Snow, Pure Ice Don’t You Wish
• Tools: Sally Hansen Nail Art Pens in Black and Orange
• Inspiration Link: Nail Art 101 Penguin Nails