Tuesday, October 30, 2012

This is Halloween day 30

Hello Ninjas!

We're getting to the end of this challenge! This will be my first challenge ever and if I can stay on track, it will be my first completed challenge as well. I imagine I'll have a little trouble reproducing a manicure for this but I'll certainly try! My main problem will be figuring out how to coordinate this with my Halloween costume.



Same base as yesterday, two coats of Barielle Decadence with various striping polishes used to make the "treats" I did two treat bags in the shapes of a ghost and pumpkin. I think my favorite treat is the devil shaped lolly pop, the piece of hard candy didn't turn out as well as I'd hoped so pay no mind to that!



Monday, October 29, 2012

This is Halloween Day 29

Hey Ninjas!

Hope you're all staying safe with the crazy weather out there! It's pretty miserable here in NC, and I'm a few hours inland. Keep warm and dry if you can!



This is not my best work. I sponged Wet n Wild Black Cream over Barielle Decadence then added ManGlaze Fuggen Ugly for the hedgestones. I highlighted the shape with a white striper then did the RIP (or AD for Albus Dumbledore) with a black striper.




Friday, October 26, 2012

This is Halloween day 26

Konbanwa Ninjas!!

This wasn't the easiest week but now it's over! As long as I stay healthy and don't pick up another cold  the next week should be great. I need to re-dye my hair red so I can be Poison Ivy for Halloween but it should be an otherwise uneventful (except for work tomorrow) weekend!



For witches, I went with the stereotypical pointed witches hat. They were freehanded with a black paint pen and silver/purple striping polish over two coats of Zoya Ziv. Ziv was an AMAZING gold polish that I almost didn't want to cover it up to do nail art on it. The star is from a glitter I got from Hot Topic a year or so ago and I thought it worked pretty well as an accent on the tip of the hat!




Wednesday, October 24, 2012

Awesome purple layering

Hi Ninjas!

Monday was crazy, not only did we have the big Grand Opening but I was sick so it was quite a handful! It was great to see so many new people and celebrate this new beginning with our Jiu Jitsu guys :)

 This is a manicure that was incredibly simple to do and looked awesome. This is exactly TWO coats of polish! One coat of the fantastic dark plum purple by Essie, No More Film, covered evenly and was completely opaque on the first try, I was quite impressed. The second coat was one of the pretty translucent purple with pink/gold/purple shifting glass flecks by Pure Ice, Busted. I cannot express how much I loved this manicure and it was soooo easy to do!






Sunday, October 21, 2012

This is Halloween day 22

Hello Ninjas!

The grand opening of our new building for Jiu Jitsu is today! I'll be super busy at work so I decided to so this post the night before things went crazy. Hopefully everyone will have an awesome Monday!



This is a pretty neat manicure, I think. Three coats of Nina Pro Cobalt make up the base, I sponged China Glaze It's Alive on the nail tips, then I added one coat of an unnamed Pumpkinhead polish with holographic moons over top. I wanted the overall effect to look like the crescent moon rising over a green field. I think this turned out pretty well though my right hand came out a lot better than my left.




Friday, October 19, 2012

This is Halloween day 19

Hello Ninjas!

I gotta say, this is probably my favorite manicure for this Halloween challenge do far! Bats are really neat animals and I have a habit of calling my chihuahua a fruit bat because of his huge ears and love of fresh fruit.



This manicure is done on two coats of ManGlaze Cabrón as a base and various art pens or striping polishes for the art. Cabrón is a color I picked up for two reasons: The name would probably amuse my mother as a native Spanish speaker and it's purple! This polish actually looks almost identical to butter LONDON Branwen's Feather when you first apply it. Sadly, it does not look as pretty when you apply a glossy topcoat over a mat topcoat (I wore this alone for one day before the art) Either way, I am, super proud of this manicure. The middle three fingers are my bat and my thumb is the flight trail of the moth that the bat is stalking on my pinky.



Wednesday, October 17, 2012

Sea Foam Layering

Hello Lovely Ninjas!

Busy week at work, it's stripe week again! My Husband and I both got our second stripe on our blue belts. Only one more stripe to go before we move on to blue-black belts :)

I was in the mood for one last summer color a few weeks back so I came up with this light green sea foam manicure to brighten up my week. This is two coats of Sinful Colors Mint Apple under two coats of Scherer Chameleon Mist. Mint Apple is a really pretty medium green with light gold shimmer. Mist is a pretty glass fleck sea foam color than flashes silver and teal.





Monday, October 15, 2012

This is Halloween day 15

Good evening Ninjas!

Sorry I'm running late on this post, had another rainy day so I didn't get a chance to take pictures until I got out of work for the night and re-adjusted my camera settings a bit.



Not the best representation of zombies but I didn't have a whole lot of time for the nail art. This is two coats of Zoya Storm stamped with Sinful Colors Casablana and free handed red stitches done with a striping brush. The plate is Mash m28 and I thought it was convenient that the Skull and Crossbones had stitches in addition to the eye patch to make it a little more zombie-esque.



Friday, October 12, 2012

This is Halloween day 12

Hello Ninjas!

This was not an easy manicure for me! I picked up a black nail art pen with the idea that it would make it easier to do a Jack'o'lantern face with a finer tool than a striping brush but it didn't want to cooperate. Ironically, it was easier for me to properly draw the faces on my left hand than the right hand. I ended up cheating and using triangular nail art stones for the majority of the face on my two left hand Jack'o'Lanterns.



The base is one to two coats of Finger Paints Courder-orange from last year's Fall collection. I used Wet n Wild's Tangled in my Web for the non-pumpkin nails, and a black Sally Hansen nail art pen for the faces. With the studs, I colored the tops of them black with the pen because they were already orange and you couldn't see them on my nails.






Wednesday, October 10, 2012

Orly Nite Owl

Hello Ninjas!

It's been cloudy, rainy, and chilly here this week! Today is the first day we've had proper sunlight since Saturday! I enjoy fall weather but I'm not really a fan of the rain that comes with it in the south. Ah well, at least it's not melt-your-face hot anymore.

Today's manicure is two coats of Orly Nite Owl from their super popular Birds of a Feather collection that brought us Fowl Play. While Fowl Play was busy being hailed as a fantastic dupe for the much sought OPI Merry Midnight, most of the other colors were forgotten, especially this nude shimmer. Since the collection has left stores, I've been wishing I'd picked up Nite Owl and I finally got in a swap with a lovely lady. Now that I have it, I love it! Minus the holographic particles, this is actually a dupe for butter LONDON All Hail (Mc)Queen which is on my lemming list still. This is a wonderful neutral color that isn't plain or blah; love it!




Monday, October 8, 2012

This is Halloween Day 8

Good Morning Ninjas!

Week two at work, working our way through the water curriculum for the second time. I'm getting better at the foot work but it's still not intuitive for me. Hubby loves it because it's a natural way to move for him; I'm jealous! Tango seems to be feeling better and now he smells pretty because he got a bath last night :) MiL leaves today to go back to NY, it was great having her down here, she's super fun and really sweet so it's always sad when she leaves.


Day 8 is ghosts! I did the design over a base of butter LONDON Branwen's Feather. BF is a really pretty blackened purple with silver and pink shimmer that I thought would work really well for a dark night time background. I did a freehand ghost with Sinful colors Snow me White on my index fingers and used a black striping brush to do the eyes and outline (White dots in eyes were also a striper). I then did "BOO" on my middle-pinky fingers with an orange Sinful striper I picked up this Saturday. Since I saw a bunch of spiderwebs on nails when I was looking at ghost designs, I decided to use my white striper to do a web on my thumbs. The left one came out much nicer than the right but that's to be expected!





Sunday, October 7, 2012

Essence Grey-t to be Here

Hi Ninjas! 

Short post, just polish description and pictures today! Tango was up sick last night so I'm running on fumes this evening.

This is the base for my Saw Manicure from this past Monday. Two smooth coats of Grey-t to be here which is a light grey cream polish with a lot of pink/red glass fleck shimmer that occasionally shifts to gold at extreme angles. This is a really nice take on a fall neutral with the surprise shimmer you can see. The shimmer didn't photograph very well but trust me, it's there in person!





Friday, October 5, 2012

Halloween Challenge Day 5!

Hey Ninjas!

It's Friday and my awesome Mother in Law will be here this weekend! I always love having her visit because I have someone to go shopping for makeup with. Hubby will go in to stores with me but he doesn't find it nearly as interesting as I do!


This is my very first water marble! Please be kind... Some of the nails turned out pretty funky looking. My favorites are the ring finger on my left hand and the thumb on my right hand (Not pictured) I used Wet n Wild Black Creme, Wet n Wild Ocean Grotto, and Pure Ice 311C (? not sure of the name) to do the marble design over two coats of ManGlaze #Matte is Murder.

Right Hand

Left Hand

Tuesday, October 2, 2012

ManGlaze Fatty's Got More Blood

Hey Ninjas!

It's been a heck of a day at work today! You know how they say when it rains, it pours? Well today that was the literal truth... Everything seemed to go wrong AND the AC unit broke and started pouring gallons of water on the mat. Eesh. Tomorrow has got to be better.

This is an absolutely amazing color! Tonight's manicure is two coats of Fatty's Got More blood from ManGlaze. This is my first ManGlaze manicure and one of the four polishes I own from this awesome company. The guys over at ManGlaze have some fantastic names for their products and I couldn't resist the the amusing "Fatty's Got More Blood" And the label art is fan-fuggen-tastic! There's a bunch of hot vampires eating a fat guy, how perfect! This is a deep red with loads of shimmer than actually look mildly holographic when paired with a shiny topcoat. SO MUCH LOVE...