Polish All the Nails

So I know I just did a post about my new holographic bar glitter but I don't care, it's sparkly so you'll probably see a lot of this in the next little while.  Having just tried stripes the other day, I wanted to see what the horizontal version would look like and it hit me: this could make for an awesome French tip!  To start, I applied three coats of China Glaze Turned Up Turquoise! It doesn't have the best consistency in the world (you really need the three coats) but the colour is so fantastic I can look past it.  Using a cheap top coat and working from left to right, I went to town with the glitter.  You have to be careful when working with such skinny glitter pieces - too much top coat and it will go over the glitter and look icky.  You can see that happening a bit on my middle finger.  Don't do that.  Very thin coats of glitter are your friend.  Once I was done, I put a preliminary coat of Seche Vite on to stick it all down t...

You might remember in my last post I get the newest set of stamping plates from MASH nails.  That wasn't the only thing in the package, there was also a set of 12 holographic bar glitter pots.  I'm normally not the biggest fan of bar glitter.  It sticks up, it catches on things, it generally drives me a tiny bit crazy.  This set had the most perfect set of rainbow colours I had to try out a hand-placed glitter arrangement.  So I present rainbow glitter pin stripes! To start, I applied my usual two coats of Rimmel Black Satin over a base coat.  I've just switched to Essie Protein Base Coat and it seems fine.  I've had a lot of nail breakages lately so figured I'd better try something a little more proper.  Next, using my slowest drying top coat, I painted a strip down the side of my nail and went to work with my toothpick.  Sure, it takes a while but nice neat pinstripes make up for it.  I found the best way was to start at the cutic...

Hey! I'm here! Not dead!  It's just incredibly hard to blog and start a new job when I've been sitting at home not doing much for two months.  I'm now working for an agency in downtown Toronto doing front-end web development and it's really fun.  Anyway, I was lucky enough to get some new MASH stamping plates in the mail this week and I just had to try them out.  I chose ridiculously cute as a theme and away I went.  As I'm still not that good at stamping and I'm only half-way good with the Konad polishes, I decided on a black and white theme.  To start, I applied three coats of OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls.  If you're looking for a white to be something other than polish underwear, this is actually a really good option.  It doesn't go streaky at all.  Once I was sure each layer and the overall result was dry, I waited another ten minutes.  I can't even count the number of times I've stamped on my nail only to have still-wet polish...

So, things have been a bit quiet around these here parts, it's ok, I've just been going through the process of getting a new contracting job, incorporating myself and all the endless paperwork that that entails.  Given I had a three week lead time before starting, I decided to peace out and go to Cuba for a week!  It's so beautiful there I can't even words.  I mean, this is where I was all week.  This was the walkway leading down to the beach:   That's not a stock photo, I just held my phone up and that's what happened.  So I've been warm for a whole week.   But you aren't here for the Cuba photos, you're here for the nails!  I wanted something bright and colourful before I left and since I haven't done ruffle nails in a while, I think it's time!

Ever since I did this mani recently I've been wanting to do a better version.  The colours seemed like they would work together but it just didn't turn out how I wanted.  I wanted to try again and decided to learn from my original mistakes.  For example, make sure you use a super opaque creme polish on your top layer, don't bother with horizontal stripes and using thicker lines looks cool too.

I've been super into Tumblr lately and I've been seeing some people do fabulous things with a glittery base and solid patterns atop it.  I just had to try it out myself after seeing what Whitney at Dressed Up Nails and Stephanie at Sincerely Stephanie have done recently.  By the way, I kinda hate you Whitney, you're just too good and it makes me incredibly jealous!  I loved the idea of using Color Club glitter polishes from Christmas last year so I started off with two coats of Sugarplum Fairy and then just painted half my nail with Beyond the Mistletoe.  Both are completely awesome and sparkly micro holo glitter, the former slightly purple-toned, the latter slightly green.  I wish I could do the glitter justice, it just doesn't come off in photos! Once dry, I dotted on Wet'n'Wild On A Trip, Sally Hansen Pacific Blue, Nina Ultra Pro Blu Blaze and Nicole by OPI "Baby" Blue.  So many polishes!  But look, sparkly!

Oh man, it's getting super hard to keep coming up with ideas so I'm just going to keep on plumbing different techniques.  I'm super into sponge gradients these days so I thought I'd try my hand at overlaid gradients, in rainbows of course because they're the best.  And that way, I get to show off my giraffe ring!  We all win!  Well, we would have had I taken more care to remove the yellow polish stains from my fingers :/ To start, I applied two coats of my new white, OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls.  Everyone seems to be using it these days and I can see why, it's one of the nicer, more even whites I've used in a while.  Next, I loaded up a makeup sponge with stripes of China Glaze Pool Party and Surfin' for Boys and American Apparel Neon Yellow to create the underlying gradient.  I'm getting pretty good at gradients these days, I find that I just need the two coats of gradient.  Makes things quicker.  After a coat of Seche Vite, I applied my...

Hot damn am I glad that Valentine's Day is over and I can finally stop staring at the collection of pink and red polishes on my desk that I never used.  Sure, it's nice to have all the holidays be inspiration for manis but it gets a bit old after a while.  Now it's all over and done with for, what, a month til Easter, I just had to have a go at a fantastic neon mani I originally found on Pinterest: Sparrow Nails' combination of China Glaze Purple Panic and Turned Up Turquoise Neon.  It's too blindingly bright for me not to! To start, I painted all but my ring finger in Purple Panic, leaving it to be Turned Up Turquoise.  Two coats is enough with these frosty neons, which is nice.  I added a coat of Seche Vite to each finger because I'm impatient and it makes the taping easier.  I then used my striping tape, painter's masking tape, pinking shears and dotting tools to make the various patterns.  Once they were all done, I finished off with another ...

Not into pink and hearts and flowers?  Me either!  Or, I tried to do a pink and hearts and flowers mani but turns out I can't draw even hearts for the life of me so it's the other end of the Valentine's spectrum for me!  I've been wanting to crack out the micro beads for a while now so let's take a look at my slightly scary studded nails.  Oh, and don't buy the caviar kits, just go to an arts and crafts store, you should be able to buy a bag that you will inevitably spill for about $1. To start, what I should have done was fix the settings on my camera so the colours aren't so wonky but it's too late for that!  After applying two coats of American Apparel, I went through my usual process for applying glitter, just using super thick coats of top coat and making sure the beads are pressed all the way down into the polish.  I used a toothpick to pick up the beads, it seemed to work ok.  I kinda cheated here and didn't add my usual covering coats of...

Ok so yeah, I know I just did this kind of manicure but it's totally different, I swear!  I found more pink glitter so the colours blend together nicely and I spaced the glitter out more!  Pretty much though it was the Reddit Monthly Meetup on Saturday night and I wanted sparkly nails.  What more can I say! To start, I did the usual two coats of Rimmel Black Satin.  Someone remind me to get a new bottle, cos it's getting a bit gluggy.  Anyway, next you'll need a think swipe of your non quick-dry top coat, I'm currently using Sally Hansen Invisible.  You almost can't apply this thick enough because you need to reallllly smush the glitter in there, so no bits stick up.  If I even have one piece of glitter sticking up, I can maybe go six to ten hours before I'mma need to get rid of it.  It's the main reason I trim all my glitter to fit, so it's nice and smooth.  I've found that with the big pieces of glitter, start in the middle with a colu...

Oh, it's fun to bribe your artist friends with french toast so they'll do art on your nails that you can then blog about!  I have a wonderful friend Erica who comes round to our place most Wednesdays and I just had to get her to paint me a teenie-tiny rocket with a space cat.  I have a cat called Rocket and if I ever get around to making my own line of glitter polishes, for sure it'll be called Rocket Polish.  With a cat in a rocket for a logo.  So that had to be the nail art I requested!  She's an excellent artist, you should go look at her work :D I needed a nice spacey deep blue so I started off with two coats of Sally Hansen Navy Baby.  Erica then painted the rocket ship, rocket cat and other spacey things with acrylic paints.  I managed to top it off with a coat of Seche Vite without smudging the design, so I'm happy.  Look, space!

I might be a little behind the times but I've just gotten in to Tumblr in a huge way.  Pinterest was getting a bit same-y so I've been trawling the tumbles for nail ideas.  Sooo many I really should start writing them down.  Anyway, I saw this amazing spin on laser nails where instead of stripes of colour under the black, it was a smooth gradient.  Since I can do gradients now, I had to give it a shot.  My tumblr is  polishallthenails.tumblr.com/ , by the way.  End shameless plug! I wanted super bright colours for my gradient so after applying two coats of L.A. Delicate - any white will do - I painted squares of China Glaze I'm With The Lifeguard, Sun-Kissed, Sky High-Top and Pool Party on my makeup sponge and went to town.  Turns out it's no more difficult to do a four-way gradient than it is to do one that goes top to bottom.  You just paint the pattern on the sponge and just make sure you line it up properly on the nail.  Once it...

Are you ready for the most cutesy nails ever seen on this blog?  I'm starting off with a warning cos they're a bit ridiculous.  So I've been on a bit of a gradient kick lately ever since I figured out that you just have to follow all the tutorials out there.  I saw a particularly awesome pastel and paisley design on tumblr the other day and thought I'd give it a shot.  Not only did the gradient work, the stamping did too! To start, I applied two coats of L.A. Girl Delicate and, once dry, painted strips of Revlon Pink Lingerie, Urban Outfitters Mojave and Revlon Cloud on my makeup sponge.  Three coats of dabbing got my colours nice and even, smooth.  I have trouble getting in around my cuticles so I helped the coverage along a little with applying the polish directly.  Once the gradient was dry, I waited another ten minutes before starting my stamping. Trust me, there's nothing worst than getting all the way to the stamp application stage only...

I've been doing a lot of glitter mosaics lately and sometimes you have to do something a little different.  I've done some gradients in the past but never had too much luck, mostly because I thought I knew more better than the makeup sponge technique.  Turns out that it's the best for smooth gradients, I'm silly and should listen to the internet more.  Just as well I did because now I get amazing vampy red nails! It seems that the trick to gradients is the base colour.  Light colours need white, dark colours need a dark base with a solid creme polish as the lighter colour.  Here, I started with two coats of Nails Inc Victoria, a beautiful deep, dark red jelly.  Once it was dry - seriously, let it dry otherwise you get dings like on my ring finger - I painted a stripe of Essie Fifth Avenue on a makeup sponge and laid a thinner stripe of Victoria next to it.  I then dabbed it on my nails, working up and down ever so slightly to get a nice blend. ...

Since my super sparkly glitter nails are still holding up and they took so long I can't bear to take them off, I'm going to do what I've been putting off for a while, and that's to do my 2012 year in review post!  Yes, I realise it's the 30th of January but I've done 390 posts on this blog and I want to reflect a little. There's too much here to fit in one post so let's start with the first part of my three part reflection.  Gotta start with glitter, right? Top Glitter Mosaics of 2012  5.   Most Complex Glitter Mosaic My most recent and most complex glitter mosaic comes in at number five.  It's sparkly and took forever but the holo glitter I usually use is even more sparkly and is a better colour combination.  I can still see where there glitter surface is uneven, which annoys me, but as a whole, it's still awesome.   Full post

It's no secret that when I get bored, I troll ebay for glitter.  I set myself a $10 budget, search for "holo hex glitter" or something, sort by buy it now and lowest price + shipping and go nuts.  I got a new package in the mail today and turns out we all have different definitions of "rhombus" as my rhombus glitter was distinctly hexagonally shaped.  Whatever, it's an excuse to the most rainbowy nails I've ever done.  They're so sparkly they're actually casting little rainbows on my keyboard as I type this.  Sure, they took a long time to do but look how sparkly in these static images! To start, I did my usual base, two coats of Rimmel Black Satin.  It cleans up well and doesn't do weird things to my glitter so it's a good base.  Then, using my usual technique and Sally Hansen Invisible top coat, I got to work with my glitter.  I've been having a lot of luck lately with starting with a column of glitter straight down the middle...