Icing

This will probably be my last week of overtime so I should be able to devote more time to my nails and my blog now.  While I'm extremely exhausted from working so much, it feels good to have the extra money to throw toward our debts.

This week I decided to do something a little more basic and elegant. 

For some reason, I am very partial to the french tip.  I always think it makes the hand and nails look so much more special. For this look, I used a base of Orly Bare Rose from their French Manicure line.  It's very sheer but adds a little pink to the nails. For the tips I used white nail polish.  Any white will do, and I think I used three different types because they always become gloppy when I do my tips.  I do them freehand so it takes a bit longer.  Once all that dried, I used Call Me Glitzy from Icing.

There is a little bit of wear and tear on my big toe in this one.  No matter what I do, that toe just doesn't keep polish well.  Regardless, I think the french tip on my toes makes them look better as well.

What do you think?

Until next time,

Chess

Snakeskin

This week has been extremely crazy.  I worked a lot of overtime again, and I got my braces off finally.  I'm no happy now with my smile.  I also found out I passed my last class, so I'm just waiting for my degree to come in the mail, since they never give those out at graduation.

Anyway, even though this is late, I hope you like what I came up with.

At first, I just put on Disturbia by Wet n Wild.  I felt it was rather plain, so I went searching through my plates and my other new polishes to see what I could come up with.

I ended up using BM-215 for the snake print and China Glaze No Plain Jane from the new Bohemian collection.  I think it turned out great.  You pretty much have to be up close to see the snakeskin print, but I love it.

This is with flash so you can see the print better.

This is outside, so you can see what it looks like more naturally.

I hope you like it as much as I do.  I saw another version of this with one of the other Bohemian colors that had more of a green shift to it that looked pretty amazing too. 

Until later,

Chess

Detour

Today we went to a car show in the city.  I know this has nothing to due with nails, but I figured I'd leave you with some of the beauty and history we got to see today.

Lotus

I managed to get this one up sooner this week than I have been able to recently.  The inspiration for this look came from two places.  One is this shirt I own.  

The other is a picture I saw posted on Pinterest which is housed here.

As a result, this is what I came up with.

I did a layer of Sally Hansen Insta-Dri in Whirlwind White.  Then I did a gradient sponge technique using China Glaze White on White and Sinful Colors Savage.  This turned out better than my previous gradients.

Then I stamped the image using BM05 and Konad special polish in navy blue.  I even did my big toes with this design.

This matched my shirt perfectly.  What do you think?

Until later,

Chessaria

Mirror image

I know this post is a bit late.  I spent the week working as much overtime as I could.  Then yesterday was my ten year reunion.  I spent most of the day with people that I hadn't seen in a long time, but it only seems like yesterday that I was in high school. 

It also made me realize just how much I've accomplished in the past ten years.  I graduated high school, when to college, got my Bachelor of Science in Chemistry.  I found a temp. job for a while, got married, bought a house.  Then I went back to school for my Master in Forensic Science, which hopefully will arrive in the mail soon, as they never give your diploma at graduation.  I lost some weight since high school and changed my hair.  I have braces now and soon those will be coming off.  Most people didn't recognize me at the reunion.  Even though I don't have my dream job yet, I'm really happy with how far I've come.  Hopefully that dream job is just around the corner now that I'm done with school.

Now what you have been waiting for!

I used Orly Preamp for the base color and I stamped the image using Konad special polish in black with the m56 plate.

I know this next image is a little blurry.  I tried a method for mirror imaging the stamp and I think it worked pretty well.  I took a little plastic bag and painted small strips of clear nail polish by Sally Hansen Insta-Dri.  I let that dry for a bit. Then I stamped the image on those clear strips and pulled the strips off.  They work much like the sticker appliques you can buy in stores.  The nice part is that since the polish is clear, you can use either side to produce the mirror image look. 

 

I really like having my hands look like mirror images, rather than exactly the same, so I'm glad I found this technique.