Polish All the Nails

Ok! So you may be feeling a sense of deja vu but WHO CARES SPARKLIES.  I actually did this flower mani before the neon one - I held the the neon glitter under my blacklight and there was no way I could not immediately apply it to my nails. Running The Sparkly Shop just continues to have perks...  And yes, I do have a blacklight bulb that handy.  Anyway, this glitter is just as amazing as the neon, it's RIDICULOUSLY sparkly.  Same thinness, nice and easy to work with.  Let's take a look, shall we?

Ok! Long time no see, blah blah, look, new glitter!  CAN YOU EVEN WITH 24 DIFFERENT COLOURS OF 1MM SQUARES???!!? SPARKLY, SPARKLY SQUARES.  Seriously, the glitter is so sparkly and the squares nice and even, you can create even the most intricate patterns.  OMG I SHOULD DO MARIO.  Shh, pretend I didn't say that.  Anyway, shall we look at the newest glitter available at The Sparkly Shop ?

I don't know what it is, but there's something about hex glitter that is very pleasing to me.  The tessellation, the way the colours can interlace, it's just great.  The problem is, the tiny glitter - my favourite - is actually quite difficult to find. The red, especially, difficult to track down.  I FINALLY FOUND SIXTEEN COLOURS BIATCHES.  THUS, RAINBOW-Y-EST RAINBOWS EVER AND I'm sharing too at the The Sparkly Shop ... But we're here for this rainbow today.  LOOK AT THIS WOULD YOU.

Ever have those days where you just can't make up your mind?  Of course you have.  That's me with these nails.  This is the first time I've tried a glitter placement on pointy nails and it's surprising how much the shape can affect a gradient.  I was going to go with the gold-green-blue gradient but then the black and white was cool and then I'm like ooo purple and stuff whatever.  At least the glitter is good.  Let's take a look at Rainbow Indecision Nails, shall we?

Ok so I've been trying something a little different lately.  The acrylic tips I've been applying let me get the length I've aspired to without having to actually get my nails there naturally.  I'm ok with this.  Some of us just get to have super long nails with no traumatic breaks and some don't.  Since I now have the tools, I thought I'd give a different nail shape a go and it turns out slightly rounded claws are awesome and give me all kinds of room and inspiration to try different things.  Thus, fiery mermaid scale nails!

I tell you, I can't remember the last time I did back-to-back posts.  The combination of having a job that requires a real commute instead of a five minute walk, said job being rather intense, then having my mum visit and going on vacation as well as managing The Sparkly Shop makes it difficult to manage.  I'm also old and get sleepy.  I'm not going to make sweeping statements about how I'm going to post every day from now on because that's not realistic but I just might be able to manage doing more.  You should follow me on Instagram  though, that I do keep updated.  Anyway, on to the glittery duochrome-ness! 

I've been working with hex-shaped glitter for years now and let me tell you, switching to triangles is quite the revelation.  There are so many new patterns and shapes to make, especially when you have fifteen colours to play with.  My current favourite thing to do is to make aztec-inspired patterns, mostly because the triangles in said pattern are such a PITA to create by hand.  So, let's take a look at my latest triangle thing, shall we?

Stars! Yeah! Woo!  I used to hate star glitter cos you'd always get bits sticking up and catching on everything.  Turns out that doesn't happen when your stars are teeny and adorable.  Yess.  It also makes me feel clever when I use matte glitter over holo polish.  No idea why but I feel like I'm inverting a paradigm.  And then I get to feel even more superior for spelling paradigm correctly the first go.  IM SMART GUISE.

Ok!  So.  Stuff.  I've had an interesting few weeks lately.  My mum came to visit and we got to surprise her with a trip to Curacao and it was so awesome.  I saw soo many fish, seriously, if you like diving or snorkeling even a little it's like paradise.  All this plus work means blogging is hard so here's something I did a little while ago.  It's glitter, but it doesn't take a million years to do.  Hooray! Sparklies, stuff, blah let's go. 

MOAR GLITTER YES SPARKLIES GOOD VERY MUCH YES.  I'm such the wordsmith.  What I lack in wordies, I make up for in sparklies!  Cos I have another mermaidy thing to show you!  This one is purple, pink and gold!  I have even made the glitter available if you wanna try.  You know, if you aren't chicken.  Bock.  I HAVE HAD A LOT OF COFFEE THIS MORN, DEAL WITH IT.

Hi everybody!  Sorry for neglecting you, life is hard.  I've still been doing nails but taking that extra step to take the proper pictures and edit them and actually write words is just a step too far lately.  To make up for it I did a mega sparkly mermaid mani!  With glitter that clocks in under a mm!  For what's probably very close to a thousand pieces of glitter! YOU STILL LOVE ME RIGHT????

The challenge isn't going super well for me.  I could do it, but it's bringing up this whole complex mess of procrastination, pressure and something undefinable that makes me just want to avoid doing it.  I feel like I'm rebelling when I don't do a day.  Screw you Past Laura, you can't tell me what to do!  Add the pressure of choosing something for "Glitter", well, that's clearly not going to be done on time.  It's late, but look, rainbows!  

This challenge is haaaaaaaaard.  Like, omg.  Especially when you're sick.  Cos days don't wait.  They just keep going and then you're behind and urgggh.  So apparently the solution to being sick and being behind is to stick on acrylic tips from a set you borrowed from your friend, remember you really be doing dots, make dots that kinda look weird like octopus sucker thingies and then post it anyway woo.

So yeah! Woo! Black and white!  Like, yeah, that's a thing!  All the black glitters!  Over white!  So black and white!  Woo!  There's not the most to say really. 

Ok, Day 4 of the 31DC2014 and we're at green!  I'm green um da ba dee da ba green ohhh yeahhh I'm hip, I'm with it, you better believe it.  Green isn't my favourite colour but I had enough green circle glitter to whack on so that's a thing.  Even though it took me a while to find a green polish cos I have a million blues in the way... Onwards!

TRIANGLES.  TRIANGLES.  THEY ARE AMAZING.  Also, still surprisingly pleased with the Sally Hansen Miracle Gel polishes.  SHINY.  TRIANGLES.  BAM.

Can I just first up how grateful I am to everyone being so supportive of The Sparkly Shop?  We've just passed our first monthaversary and it's just been amazing.  So thank you!  The triangle glitter sets though, hot damn.  I had a feeling they might be popular just because you don't see it very often but the orders have been ridiculous!  Since I did a full coverage one the other day, I thought I'd show you something you can do with it that doesn't take quite as much time. 

How has it taken me this long to realise that triangle glitter existed and that I should be all over it?? I'm silly.  Anyway, it's a thing and it's amazing and I love it and it's so nice to have a change from hex glitter.  It's so even and beautiful and matte and sparkly, there just aren't enough adjectives.  Yeah so this is what it looks like when you mix 15 colours together on your nails.  WONDERFUL THINGS.  You might even be able to get this glitter too - it's going up on The Sparkly Shop  this afternoon at 3pm.  I swear though I just want to share the sparklies.  Sorry for the self-promoting.  Anyway, focus, glitter time!

It's hardly a secret how much I love sparklies.  If it were at all practical, I would make my middle name Sparkly.  Laura Sparkly Tucker.  That does have a nice ring to it.  Anyway, this adoration of all the sparklies means just about my favourite thing ever is dazzle glitter .  It's like a bunch of tiny pieces of glitter were smushed together into a larger piece.  And oh, so sparklies.  I've done red and silver manis using this glitter before so that's the perfect excuse to use the pink.  That makes sense, right? 

GLITTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR.  I'm Australian so it's still aaaaaaar.  It's been a while since I've done a good mermaid glitter placement so I did that.  Some of the macro photos show why it's not the best idea to try to do glitter placements when you're tired cos they go a bit wonky but over, sparkly.  So the question I get asked the most is where I get my glitter from.   WELLLLL on Friday you can get some from me.  At The Sparkly Shop .  In very limited quantities because I may be a glitter hoarder but I'm not that much of a glitter hoarder.  Also charms.  Anyway, on to the pics!