Color Club - Harp On It: Because I don't want to be too flashy.

Again sorry I haven't been posting as I have been super busy!  As I'm writing this it's just past 2am.  I did a show tonight and it went well.  And for the FIRST time ever I forgot a line.  Like not forgot it as in I reworded it slightly, I forgot it.  I had a moment of my mind was blank.  Nothing.  And I had a moment of "Shhhhiiitttttt".   Luckily I managed to cover it up so it's all good!

Anyways I wore this polish for the show tonight because I though up close it looks all fun and flashy but from far away it just looks silver.

Color Clubs Harp on is it your classic silver linear holo.  I used 3 coats even thought I really only needed 2.  Application was fantastic(I used base coat) and it dried fast as ever.  Finished it up with Seche and it still looked great.  This is actually the first time I've worn a linear holo so that's pretty neat eh?

While at this time it's nothing new it is a very affordable, good, strong linear holo polish.  If you don't already have a classic silver holo this is a great place to start!

 Sunlight

  Sunlight

  Sunlight

  Sunlight

  Sunlight

 Natural light

 This last photo for some reason reminded me of a book cover.  So I had to do this.  You're welcome :)

Would you read my book?

And remember our giveaway closes in less then a week!

Awful Old Photos for Your Enjoyment

I haven't been feeling very inspired lately. While going through some photos today, I thought I would show you guys some past nail arts.  Let us get in our wibbley-wobbley timey-wimey machine for old crappy webcam photos!

Valentine's nails from last year. I used a scrapbooking punch to make the heart. The ring finger is holo, but, webcam. 

 My nails for The Avengers. This is actually the worst picture ever. Left to right: arrow for Hawkeye, Black Widow's belt, stripes for Captain America, Thor's Hammer, Hulk thumbs, Cap again, Iron Man's arc reactor, green and black triangle thing to imitate Loki's costume, and a rainbow holo mess for the bifrost.

 Star Trek nails with insignia, rank stripes and galaxy thumbs! I loved these and want to do them again. Who else is sh*tting themselves over the Into Darkness teasers?

I cut and pasted words from a newspaper to reflect my feelings.

  A standard evening of debauchery with my friend Trish.

Two Illamasqua Rubber Brights!

So it's obviously no secret that I adore Illamasqua.  They are easily one of my favourite brands, so I love when they release something new and interesting.  I loved Kink, the first of their rubber finish polishes I owned, and so when they came out with more colours I used my birthday money to snap up the ones that interested me.

So today I have Nurture and Serenity, two gorgeous shades of green and blue respectively.  I love these so much.  You'll have to forgive the slight lobster hands, I promise it wasn't nearly as apparently IRL, but I had been baking and I guess I was quite hot.

First up is Serenity, which is bright, very bright, blue.  It's almost like the brightest sky of the summer kind of blue.  It was so lovely on and I can see it beint a great nail art base.  This is two easy coats, dry time was longer than normal but not enough that it would bother me.

I thought I took a glossy shot of this but I don't think I did, haha.

Next is Nurture, which is a bright green colour.  This is my favourite of the ones I bought.  I love green.  You may remember the neon green walls of my former bedroom from old swatches... Well, this is pretty close!  Like before, this is two easy coats. 

Did you guys pick up any Illamasqua rubber brights??

Barry M - Racing Green

First off sorry I haven't been able to post or even comment on anyone else's blogs.  And thank you everyone that posted on my last post.  I'm glad you liked my stamping :) My week has been super busy and so will the next one due to rehearsals and shows.  Also this has nothing to do with my lack of blogging activity but I just got a night guard due to clenching my mouth constantly.  It's yucky.

Anyways I did these nails maybe a month ago and they have been sitting on my laptop since then.  Racing Green is not a true racing green in my opinion.  It's close but not exact.  It's a deep green with fine green and gold shimmer(which I don't think you can see in the photos).  What makes this not a true racing green is that it has blue undertones.  You can kind of see it in the photos.  I used 2 coats for full opacity.

Fun fact:  I took maybe 200 pictures of this.  I was convinced all my pictures were coming out blue.  Turns out none of them really did.  It was either my screen, my bad eyes or a combination of the 2.

Adventures In Stamping: The First Attempt

So thanks to the wonderful people over at The Born Pretty Store I decided to step out of my comfort zone a do something I never really considered trying.  Stamping.   I wont lie.  Originally I thought stamping was kind of eh.  But it turns out when done well it can look AMAZING. So because I already had a Konad plate (m65) I decided why not use it.  So I decided to try a Double Sided Nail Art Stamper and Scraper.

First off I decided against using the scraper for two reasons. 1)I didn't want to scratch up my plate 2) I don't know it you can see it in my photo of just the scraper but there was a tiny extra bit of metal on the scraper that would have for sure messed up the plate.  So instead I used an old, plastic HMV gift card.

 

 

You can see the extra piece of metal under my watermark

The stamper itself has two rubber sides.  A smaller green side and a larger pink side.  I had never even felt what a stamper feels like until recently.  It sort of feels like a REALLY soft, and squishy eraser.

As my base I used Milani Dude Blue.  Then for stamping I used ORLY Platinum Blush a metallic silver. Getting the polish onto the stamper was easy as pie.  Paint polish onto plate, swipe off all that excess with card, put stamper on plate(I tried rolling the stamper across the design and just placing it directly on top of the design. Both ways picked up the design just fine).  The actually application onto the nail was easy.  I just rolled it across my nail.  The tricky part was getting it to go on straight.  But I'm sure it will come with practice!

Going into this I knew what design I wanted to use, and I knew even though it was a full nail design I was only going to stamp half my nail.  The full manicure I ended up with has been something I have been wanting to try and thought the stamping would look good incorporated with it.  I really liked how it turned out with the black and the striping tape!  I also purposely started stamping the design so it was a different angle on each nail.  So it looks the same, but different!

How do you guys think I did?

 

And don't forget about out Born Pretty Discount code (EAL91)!  10% off already great prices! 

*Product was sent for honest review.

Peaceful Heart...or, Hearts About to Explode From Dropping Too Much E at That Weird Basement Rave

disclaimer: this is why I don't do swatch posts wow terrible photos

I found a great selection of Kleancolors yesterday for cheap and couldn't resist! I love their glitters. They're really funky without being too outlandish. I'm quite fussy about glitters.

Peaceful Heart is a sparse green holo-ish glitter with blue hearts in a clear base. The formula is a bit thick, but manageable. It is kind of loud and great.

1 coat over OPI Lincoln Park After Dark

2 coats. Dang, what a difference! With a bit of fishing, I was easily able to get hearts on every finger and acceptable glitter coverage. And totally different lighting. Because variety is the spice of life.

 The heart on my ring finger looks a bit squeaky because I tried to twirl it around with a toothpick. It didn't go very well. So, pro tip, don't do that. They are very easy to place with the brush.

Don't forget to check out our anniversary giveaway! How are those essays coming along?

Nori Nails: The Hobbit nails by someone who knows nothing about The Hobbit + I get to combine 2 things I really like! Nails & Food!

Here are the things I know about The Hobbit.

1) Anders (Try not to sleep with me) Johnson aka Bragi is in it.
2) John (Please don't kill me) Mitchell is in it.
3) Sherlock (I'm not a psychopath, I'm a fully functioning sociopath) Holmes is in it.
4) John (I have no feelings for Sherlock) Watson is in it.
5) There's a character named Nori. 

Now the only nori I know is the nori that gives my rice and raw fish loving hugs and the yummy snack I eat.   So rather than look up details on The Hobbit I put food on my nails.

I took a couple sheets from the snack version.  Crushed them with a mortar and pestle, then pained my nails with OPI's My Boyfriend Scales Walls and waited a few minutes for it to become tacky.  Next I simply used my fingers to pick up up the crushed seaweed(it stuck easily) and patted them onto my nails.  Then I finished with 2 coats of thinned down Seche Vite (Dries the same as my SV  that has a normal consistency but enables me to push any sticking up bits down, without making the mani thick.) and 1 coat of SV(normal consistency.)  I love how these turned out!

Oh I should add I also did these "Hobbit" nails because I'm going to another fan fiction reading tomorrow.  The fandom of the night is The Hobbit.

Stay tuned! My next mani will see me take baby steps in the world of stamping!