Cloudy Skies

It has been snowing a bit more here, so I guess this mani is pretty fitting.  All day it has been cloudy and cold.  This time I decided to test out one of the new China Glaze Holos.  It is not as intense as some of the other holos I have received before.  The color is still gorgeous and it is still different from many of the other colors I have with addition of the holo.

I started off with China Glaze Don't Be A Luna-tic.  Then I stamped on the cloud image with China Glaze Liquid Leather and plate BM-312.

Even though this one didn't require a lot of work to put it together, I found the whole mani quite appealing.  While I was a little disappointed in the strength of the holo polish, it is still different from most of my other polish.

I hope you like it.  If you like what you see on this post or others, please follow my blog or follow me on facebook or twitter.

Until later,

Chess

Feathers and Tutus

This week has been busy as well. A lot more overtime, with two of my audits finally done! Now I have one that is due in the beginning of May, so I can work a bit of overtime without being overly stressed.

 Also, a couple evenings I went to my parent's house to see how my bridesmaid dress is coming along. My mother is making it, so it's going together in pieces. The last time I was there, it needed some nips and tucks and for the straps to be set after it falls right. Then finally it can be hemmed up.

 Finally, there was a bit of drama in our guild we are in (World of Warcraft). My husband and I are deciding what we want to do, stay or go, and that has been some stress on top of everything. I know what you may be thinking, it is just a game. For me however, it's social time and an outlet for me from work. So when there is drama like this, it makes playing the game more difficult for me. It produces more anxiety, which is not what the game is for. So we have spent a bit of time talking everything over and trying to decide if we will stay or go.

 Ok, enough about my life, my drama, my anxiety. You all came here to check out what my nails look like this week, am I right?

 I love the feather image so much, that I used it once again. This one is really quite simple, once again. I started with a coat of Ulta Diva.  Then I stamped the feather image on with my Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Whirlwind White and plate BM15.  After that dried, I put on another coat of Diva.


The reason I called this post Feathers and Tutus is because the pink color makes me think of a tutu.

Even though it is relatively simple, I hope you all like this one!   Let me know what you think in the comments or on my facebook page!

Making people dizzy

Ok, this week has been crazy.  I worked six hours of overtime because we have a ton of audits that are just slamming us.  Two nights this week my mom and sister came over and we worked on invitations for hours!  My sister is a slave driver *wink wink*  Then one night this week we had our steampunk meeting.  All in all, I kept rather busy and am now finally able to sit down and relax a little.

I couldn't really come up with a name for this mani, but I thought about something a customer said when he saw my nails.  He said it made him dizzy.  I'm not sure if it was a complement or what, but I guess it could have that effect with the metallic color and the swirls.


It's fairly simple, really.  I used about three coats of China Glaze Rare & Radiant.  This is the last of the Bohemian Collection I bought last year.  After it dried, I stamped the black swirls using China Glaze Liquid Leather and the Mash-40 plate.



My coworker liked how my nails changed from a gold to a green color, and the swirls on top were a great effect.  I have to say, this is by far one of my favorites.








I'm going to throw in this pic of me in another steampunk outfit.  I wore this to the convention just recently, but I didn't get a picture of it.



 I hope you like what you see today.

Until later,

Chess

A Modified Snakeskin

After all the fun this past weekend, I had to return to work.  Unfortunately, it has been a huge trial of my sanity.  We have so many audits that I can barely keep my head on straight, and one of the reviewers is driving me batty.  I'm just very glad that tomorrow is Friday and I will have a couple days to do anything else besides work.

This mani was created simply because I saw these two colors sitting on my desk and I thought they would look great together.  Then I went through my plates to see what image I liked best at the time.

I started off with Wet n Wild Through the Grapevine.  Then I stamped the snakeskin image using China Glaze Jungle Queen with plate BM-215.

What do you think?  Great combination?

Until later,

Chess

AnomalyCon 2013

Here are some pictures from the convention we went to this weekend.  This was the reason I did the Steampunk mani.

This is a picture of the couple that we roomed with.

I somehow managed to get this lovely shot.  I love her face in this one as she's so startled.

My husband looking ready to go fly his airship.

















Me, wondering what is going on behind me.














This is another friend of ours from our city.  She is wearing a more Victorian dress than a Steampunk one.  It's absolutely gorgeous!

















This is her father in a great top hat!

















Here is a picture of most of our group from our city.



















Most of these are just picture of random people.

This is Echoes of Orpheus.  They are a new band here in Colorado.  I really like their music.

Of course, Pandora Celtica was there again.  I love their music and humor.

There was another band there called The Silent Still.  Their music was good, and they were very creative.  They have a being that they called Steve with them for their performance.  You can see a couple pictures of Steve below.

Steampunk, Take 2

I was anxious to try another Steampunk mani and we have a Steampunk meetup to go to, so I figured that would be a great way to show our support!  I also wanted to see how it would turn out with the plastic wrap method and using matte top coat.

First, I put on a couple coats of Maybelline New York Color Show Blue Freeze.  After that dried, I used the plastic wrap to put on a layer of Sally Hansen Lustre Shine Plume.  I love how this color looks when it is used in this manner.

Later, I stamped on the cogs with Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Silver Sweep and a plate from Vivid Lacquer, VL 003.  There are two different images of cogs on this plate and you can separate them out a bit more by just using polish on the one you want and scraping the excess in the right way to keep it off the others.  Lastly, I used plates BM-301 with Essie Good as Gold and Mash-32 with Essie Penny Talk for the keys.

After all was dried, then I used the Orly matte top coat.  I really should have taken a few pictures of the layers and of the mani before the matte top coat so you could see it all.  However, I was super busy yesterday taking care of things for my sister's wedding that is coming up.  Consequently, that left me less time to take individual pictures.  But that's ok, because it gives me something to do later if I run out of creative juices.
 
This one turned out better than the last one, I think.  The plastic wrap effect makes it look more like a tinker's collection of items, than a mish-mash of items.

Please comment below and tell me what you think?  Do you like this one better than the last? Do you have any suggestions that could make this look more steampunk?  I know there are a lot of people out there that don't like the idea of just placing cogs and such on an item to make it look more Steampunk.

Until later,

Chess

Pixie Dust

This weekend was fairly relaxing, even with the snow.  Once again, we had snow around spring break.  I'm hoping it will be the last snow of the season.  Summertime warmth is what I'm really dreaming of now.

So, due to these dreams of summer, I decided to try out a new polish I just picked up.   I seem to go through periods where I favor one color over all others, and right now that is minty greens.  I picked up a couple of the new Zoya colors recently, and decided to use Vespa this week, in anticipation of finally moving into spring.  I know everyone is probably innundated with pictures of this, but I hope mine gives a little more dimension.

I used three coats for this mani.  The first picture shows the color and how glittery it is.  The second one gives a better idea of the texture of this polish.

  

This one is relatively simple again, but the color is fabulous.  I, however, am not exactly looking forward to removing this one.  I'm thinking it will be even worse than basic glitter polish.











The next one I plan to do is another steampunk mani with the matte top coat.

Until later,

Chess

Quick Post

Life has been stressful at work.  We have lots of audits coming through that we can barely keep up with, let alone much of the other normal work.  Luckily, I've been given the chance for a bit of overtime, and I always do what I can to make a bit more money since I'm on a quest to get out of debt.

Consequently, that means my nail creativity and posts are a bit lacking.  This week I did something extremely simple, but since the polish was a gift from a co-worker, I didn't mind so much.  I was able to show my co-worker how great the color is, in all its glory.  This is Wet n Wild How I Met Your Magenta.  The color in the bottle seems much more pink, with a light gold shimmer.  However, when it dries, it turns a bit more of a coral color.  I absolutely love it!  Originally, I was going to use a purple polish, that was also a gift form the same co-worker, to do some stamping.  Once the base dried, though, and I could see the true color, I fell in love with it the way it was.

What do you think of this color?  Any suggestions for next week?

Until later,

Chess

Shamrocks!

Happy St. Patrick's Day everyone!!  I know it has been a while since I posted, and I apologize for that.  My computer decided it really hated me this time.  I got the blue screen of death for what seemed like the billionth time and I couldn't do anything.  I finally loaded windows in safe mode, which worked, and removed my documents and photos and such.  I reloaded Windows, so I then had to reload my programs.  So far, so good, but I know I should start saving and looking for a new laptop.  Quite literally when it was acting up, my husband came home to me crying over the darn thing, as I was just so fed up with it.  Needless to say, I will never buy a DELL again!

So onto the fun, right?  Partly because of the holiday and partly because it took a while to get back to posting, I have three different manis to show you wonderful reader who are still with me.



The first one is what I did last year.  The photo was
taken with my cell phone, which is why it doesn't look quite as great.  I started with a base of white.  I really wanted to stamp the shamrocks with holo polish, but it wouldn't work for me.  So, I ended up painting the tips in holo green polish.  I think it was one of the HITs holos.  Then I stamped on the shamrocks with Konad special polish in green.



This year, I reversed it a bit.  I started with Icing Mr. Right Now.  I stamped on the shamrocks using plates BM03 and RA-116, with Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Whirlwind White.  I like this one a bit better.  There is more green with a little white.  I love white nail polish, but because I'm very pink instead of tan, I feel it doesn't look that great one me.



Last,  I started with a basic white tip using Orly Pointe Blanche.  Once that was dry, I used another of those Icing glitter polishes I got in a four-pack.  There is no name on it.  I played around with the silver glitter to get it spaced out more evenly, because I'm a little obsessive about that.  I topped it off with my favorite Diamond Dry to keep the glitter from catching on things and scratching.



Which one do you like?

Until later,

Chess

Feathers

This week has been an extremely long week.  It seemed like we had a lot of odd situations at work compared to most weeks.

This week I decided to use another blue polish from my stack of challenge polish.  I wanted to try out a new black polish I picked up for stamping as well.  Also, my thumb makes an appearance this week.  I had a little issue with my nail and I ended up having to cut it down quite a bit, so I shortened the rest of my nails to fit better.  I'm really liking the shorter length, even if it is a smidge shorter.

I started off with a base of China Glaze Man Hunt.  Then I stamped on the feathers with China Glaze Liquid Leather.  I am very pleased with how well that one stamps.  Most of them are too thin and don't work well.  My Konad special polish is getting really thick and I'm having a hard time using it.  The plate I used for this was  BM15.

Please tell me what you think.

Until later,

Chess