Week 16- Dotticure manicure

When I was searching on how to do this manicure I saw a lot of manicures that were obviously not dotticure (crackle, gradients, French tips, half-moons and splatter.) I went with what seemed most obvious (and hopefully the right one.)

I used the same colors from the last manicure challenge.

From left to right: FingerPaints Lemon Sour(from the Gumdrops and Lollipops Collection), Blue Raspberry Taffy (also from the Gumdrops and Lollipops Collection), Pea-Body, and FingerPaints: Watermelon Watercolor.

I painted my nails and then started shifting the colors over one nail.

I think I placed the yellow and green too closely together, and you can see the huge tear in my thumb nail. I could not find my dotting tool, so I just used the nail polish brushes and a straight pin.

I'll read everyone's comments and blogs when I get home!

These products were bought with my own money for review by myself.


I love the The Parasol Protectorate series by Gail Carriger. If you like vampires, werewolves and the Victorian Era, then you will probably like this series too.

Week 15- Easter Manicure

Hello everyone! By now I should be in Oklahoma with my daughter. We are visiting my dad and my best friend from high school.


Today we have, from left to right: FingerPaints Lemon Sour(from the Gumdrops and Lollipops Collection), Blue Raspberry Taffy (also from the Gumdrops and Lollipops Collection), Pea-Body, and FingerPaints: Watermelon Watercolor.


I had originally planned to have my ring finger pink with white flowers and the rest of the nails white with pink stickers (that's why you can see some white polish left over in the cuticles), but that started to seem more for Valentines and less for Easter. But now looking at the picture the nails seem more tropical and not for Easter. :\

Well, I don't think I'll be buying any new nail polishes in Oklahoma, but you never know. I'll read everyone's comments and blogs when I get home!

These products were bought with my own money for review by myself.

Sally Girl Mini Nail Polish - Poser 812051 swatch

I have used Poser in a few of my nail challenge manicures already, so I figured it was time that it got its own swatch post.


As you can see Poser is a creme polish.

It is a nice basic black polish. Easy to work with and dries quickly. I have never had a bubble problem with it and it has always turned out nice a shiny.


These products were bought with my own money for review by myself.

Week 10- Polka Dot Manicure (Wonder Girls - Be My Baby inspired nails)

I am a week off of the challenge, but hopefully I will catchup this week.

So, I watch a lot of Korean television shows and Korean music videos. The Wonder Girls are really popular in Korea and parts of Asia, they also toured the U.S. with the Jonas Brothers. Their newest music video, "Be My Baby" actually came out a few months ago, but it was the inspiration for this manicure.




If you need subtitles just click on the closed caption (CC) option.

My inspiration was Sohee's yellow and green polka dot dress:


I didn't have yellow, so I just used a neon green. Here are the colors that I used:


They are Sally Mini Nail Polishes in Poser on the left and Pea-Body on the right.

First I painted my nails with Poser.



This is a really nice creme polish, it takes two coats for me and dries quickly.

On my first attempt, which I tried back in December, I used a dotting tool (for the first time) and it was blobby and kind of runny.




On my second attempt I placed a pair of peridot rhinestones first, I used the head of a straight pin for the larger dots and an art brush to make the smaller dots.


Here are some closer pictures:




I think my second attempt is much better than the first, not perfect, but better. What do you think?

I will hopefully get out the week 11 challenge in the next couple of days.

These products were bought with my own money for review by myself.

Week 6- Half Moon Manicure

This is a little late, but we are still sick here.

So, here are the items I used:


Polishes are Finger Paints: Vintage Violet, Sketch N Etch, and Sally Hansen Super Shine.

I did a Mardi Gras colored half moon manicure, Mardi Gras is coming up on the 21st, but I don't know what I'll be doing with my nails then.

First I coated my nails with two coats of Finger Paints: Vintage Violet.


I did this at night, so most of the pictures are a bit dark.

Here is a better one with one coat of top coat.


Then I cut the page re-enforcers in half and placed them on my nails like so:


I painted my nails with with Sketch N Etch.


This is just one coat, so you can still see the Vintage Violet underneath.


After adding another coat of Sketch N Etch I did a layer of top coat and then placed yellow rhinestones. But... my nails must have been still been wet when I went to bed, because I had sheet marks when I woke up.


My thumb nail had the least amount of marks.


To try to help hide the sheet marks I added a coat of Sally Girl Mini Nail Polish: Chunky Gold on the Sketch N Etch green polish part. Chunky gold is a small glitter and larger hexagonal gold glitter top coat.


These products were bought with my own money for review by myself.

Week 4- Plaid manicure

I was not confident at all in this manicure, so I only did my ring finger. I also originally I had planned to do it all in tape, but that didn't work out.

Here are the products that I used:


From left to right: Sally Hansen Super Shine, Pure Ice: Super Star!, Pure Ice: Siren, Jordana: Pop Art in Star Designer, Sally Girl mini polish #812029 Way 2 Disco, The Color Workshop top coat, and Art Club silver holo stars.

Here is the only picture of my first attempt:


Pure Ice: Super Star! is the base color and the red strips are Pure Ice: Siren. It reminds me of the English flag. After this picture it all got ruined and I had to start over, so I just free-handed the strips.

My second attempt:


I placed a layer of top coat between the Siren strip and the Jordana: Pop Art in Star Designer, but as you can see the red spread. It gets worse.



Here I added a strip of Sally Girl: Way 2 Disco, but it is hard to see. I also added the Art Club silver holo star to help hide all the red that was being displaced, even though it should have been covered with two layers of top coat by then, I did switch top coats after the first time the red made a mess, but it didn't make a difference.

Here is a clean up shot:


I found this manicure to be messy looking, so I took it off right away.

These products were bought with my own money for review by myself.

Finger Paints: Vintage Violet swatch

Finger Paints: Vintage Violet is a shimmer nail polish with slight red and gold tones added to the purple.


From left to right: three coats of Vintage Violet, one top coat, and one coat of Sally Girl mini polish #812029 Way 2 Disco; three coats of Vintage Violet and one coat of top coat; three coats of Vintage Violet; two coats of Vintage Violet; one coat of Vintage Violet on the thumb.

A closer view:


This is a color that I probably wouldn't have picked out myself, but I like it. It was easy to apply, very smooth formula and became opaque quickly.

Do you like seeing the layers individually?

I received this as a prize in a giveaway from Polished & Not Quite Put Together. Go see it.

Week 1- Make it Sparkle manicure

Here is what I used:


From left to right:The Color Workshop top coat, Northern Lights Hologram top coat in "Gold", Finger Paints: Motley, Confetti: #083 Party Palace Blue, Sally Girl mini polish #812029 Way 2 Disco, Pure Ice: Don't You Wish, Jordana #675 Pink Hearts, Jordana 674 Red of Hearts, Pure Ice: Busted, and Finger Paints: Sparkle top coat.

I applied them from right to left, starting with the Finger Paints: Sparkle top coat and finishing with the Color Workshop's top coat.



And here is a close up of the messy fun:


These products were bought with my own money for review by myself.

Split personality nails

My nails have a split personality right now. Yesterday while I was sick I started on doing some nail art on my left hand, that I will hopefully turn out good and I'll post it up soon. But then Jennafroggy posted the 2012 challenge and on my right had I started the challenge.

Here is my left hand with Sally Girl mini nail polish 812051 (I believe this color is called "Poser" but I am not 100% sure.):


And here is my glitter bombed right hand:


I'll write about the different polishes that were used for that in a different post.

I tried to take a picture of my hands together, but I couldn't get the camera to work with just my chin.

The right hand reminds me of a diva style manicure, while the left hand is a classic polish. Sort of good girl versus band girl polish.

Although I will tell you glitter hides many polish flaws even if they are hard to take off afterwards, while creme polishes collect dust like crazy.

These products were bought with my own money for review by myself.

Glittering top coats

I've finally been able to take a picture of my nails in the sunlight, it really does make a difference.





I think the sunlight helps my camera capture the true color of the nail polishes that the flash on the camera cannot do.

So, since my nails already have some wear on them I decided to try out different top coats on them just to check out the looks. Here are China Glaze: Ruby Pumps and Finger Paints: Sketch N Etch with two coats of Northern Lights Hologram Gold Top Coat.


And here is from left to right: Confetti: Party Palace Blue (blue in the bottle with hexagonal glitters and smaller fine glitter), Pure Ice: Don't You Wish (clear/white gloss with opalescent glitter), and an unknown Sally Girl mini nail polish (it has no name or number on it, and I couldn't find it on the Sally Hansen website either, it is has a bluish tinge withe opalescent glitter.)


Here's a picture of the unknown Sally Girl.


Then on my other hand, this one is a little hard to see, I have Finger Paints: Sparkle top coat.


And here I have the Finger Paints: Sparkle top coat over the Sketch N Etch, but on the right is the China Glaze: Ruby Pumps that has Pure Ice: Busted over it, I think they look awfully alike in this photo, but the Sparkle is opalescent in the bottle and the Busted is a light purple.


These products were bought with my own money for review by myself.



EDIT: I found out that the unknown Sally Girl is #812029. They don't have names on the bottles or at the store, but the website lists this as "Way 2 Disco." 12/22/11