Green Skittlette Manicure - 23 June 2015

Finally I've managed to get my manicure for this week done, and it is a green skittlette, featuring two of the polishes I got in the Lyme Disease Awareness Giveaway Prize and another beautiful green polish.  I can't stop looking at my manicure, even though I thought I would never wear green nail polish, because it's never been one of my favourite colours.  Needless to say, I've changed my mind.  Then again, with these three beautiful polishes to use, I think it shouldn't have come as a surprise to me.

The polishes I used are Pretty Serious "VT100", Grace-full Nail Polish "Lyme for a Cure" and Emily de Molly "You're Not That Great".  "Lyme for a Cure" is the Limited Edition polish made only for the Lyme Disease Awareness Giveaway" last month, and "You're Not That Great" was also in the prize package. If you haven't already seen my post about this prize that I won, you can check it out below.  I also used Pretty Serious "Rock On Strengthener" and Grace-full Nail Polish "Quick Dry Top Coat".

Taken in the shade in my sunroom.

I started with one coat of Pretty Serious "Rock On Strengthener" on all my nails, then another coat on a couple that are still very fragile to give them a bit of extra protection.  Then, would you believe I forgot to put on my base coat?  I couldn't believe it myself, but there you go.  It will be interesting to see how "Rock On" performs as a base coat on its own.  I'll let you know when I do my next manicure.

Next I painted my pinkie and my thumb nails with two coats of Pretty Serious "VT 100", which is a beautiful deep-green shimmer polish with micro silver and green glitter, which unfortunately is no longer available.  The polish went on really smoothly, and is almost a one-coat polish, but I used two coats for my manicure.  The colour is gorgeous, and there is an amazing amount of glitter, which unfortunately was very hard to catch in some of my photos, but here is a macro photo of it that will give you some idea of how lovely it is.

Taken in overcast conditions outside.

Then I painted my index and ring fingers with Grace-full Nail Polish "Lyme for a Cure".  This polish is just beautiful to use, and coverage was fantastic with two coats.  I'm so glad I won this prize, because this polish isn't available to others, and the colour is so gorgeous and rich, with so many colours flashing through it I couldn't name them all.  It's a beautiful green holo, but unfortunately I was unable to catch its true beauty with my camera.  Here is a macro of it, however, which does show some of the colour shift.

 

Beautiful, isn't it?  This is one of the polishes that has completely changed my opinion of using green polish on my nails.  I can assure you, I will be using lots more in the future.

The polish I used on my middle nails is Emily de Molly "You're Not That Great", which is a lime green crelly, loaded with holographic lime and turquoise glitter, and blue shimmer.  I used three coats because I wanted to get the jelly effect, and the effect is amazing.  I don't know why it is called "You're No That Great" because it certainly is great!  I found it shifted almost to turquoise on my nails, but still had enough green in it to look great with the other two polishes.  Here is a macro shot of it for you to drool over.  

This polish is still available, so pop on over to Emily de Molly for a look at some more great photos.

I finished my manicure with one coat of Grace-full Nail Polish "Quick Dry Top Coat".  This is the first time I've used this top coat, and I'm very impressed with it.  There was no bubbling on any of the polishes, unlike with the OPI "Natural Nail Top Coat" I used for my last manicure.  The finish is lovely and glossy, and it flowed on beautifully.  I can really recommend it, so pop on over to Grace-full to check it out now.

Now, here are some more photos of my complete manicure, which will show you why I'm so pleased with the result.

  
These photos were taken in the sun on my front porch.

Taken in the shade in my sunroom.

  

Taken inside under artificial light.

Taken in overcast conditions outside.

Well, that's my manicure for yesterday.  I'm really pleased with all the polishes I used, and just love the final result of the combination of these three polishes.  I hope you agree, and I would really appreciate any comments you might have.

Thanks for visiting, and I hope you'll come back often to see what I have to share with you.   You can follow me by filling in the boxes at the top right-hand side of the page if you so wish.
 

Have a wonderful day, and may God bless you!

Hugs

Christine

(Please check out my other blog below, too.)

Words of Life and Hope

http://wordsoflifeandhope.blogspot.com.au/

 

I was not paid in any way, shape or form for using any of the items mentioned in this post,
and my honest opinions are given freely and without any bias at all.

My First Water Marble Manicure - 24 March 2015

Yesterday I did my first water marble manicure, and I'm pretty pleased with the way it turned out. 

Picture on left was taken inside under artificial light, and the one on the right was taken in the shade.

 
Please forgive the rough skin around my finger tips and cuticles, but my nails have had a pretty tough time over the last few days.  My index finger and my middle finger on my left hand, and my thumb on my right hand, all have patches on them.  They broke half-way down my nails - they have all pulled away from the nail bed down the side of the nails because of the chemotherapy damage, and they are still very thin and fragile there.  I still don't know whether this damage will be permanent, or if they will grow back onto the nail bed as the new nail growth comes through.  Only time will tell!  I went out today and bought some Revitanail "Strengthener", "Keratin Strengthening Serum", Nourishing Oil" and "Hand & Nail Cream".  They are on special at Terry White's Pharmacies, 3 items for the price of 2, this week (in Australia), and I'm going to start using them all as often as possible.  I'm afraid I haven't been following my own advice lately because I've been so busy, and have also been feeling really depressed and not at all motivated, so I have to start practicing what I preach again and try to get things back on track.

Now, on to my water marble manicure.  I started with 2 coats of Sally Hansen "Hard As Nails" strengthener because all my nails are so fragile, and I'm hoping this will help to keep them from breaking.  I got 6 bottles of it REALLY cheap before Christmas on eBay, but forgot I had it.  When my nails broke (after I'd stopped crying - literally), I started thinking about what strengthening base coats I had that I could use, and I remembered I had this.  So, God willing, I won't have any more breaks for a while.

I then added two coats of OPI "Alpine Snow" white cream polish to all my nails. I don't really like this polish because I need three coats to get a smooth finish, but because I was actually planning to do a plastic wrap marble manicure (tutorial here http://polishandpearls.com/watercolor-nails/ and elsewhere online), I just left it at two coats.  However, I couldn't get this manicure style to work with the polishes I wanted to use, so I decided to try an actual water marble instead (tutorial here http://www.beautybay.com/EssentialBeauty/Articles/watermarblenailstutorial and in many other places online). 

I then smeared Vaseline around all my nails and part-way up my fingers to make cleaning up a lot easier, because water marbling is very messy.  I had to be careful not to get any of the Vaseline on the actual nails, because it would have stopped the nail polish from going onto the nails.

Next, I filled my bowl with tepid water straight from the tap, and added drops of OPI "Alpine Snow" (white), Face of Australia Pastels "Boys 'N' Berries" (blue), OPI "Mod About You" (pale pink) and OPI "Planks A Lot" (lilac) (in this order).  I did this three times for each design (twelve drops in all), and then used a toothpick to make my design, following the above tutorial as a guide.  All the polishes spread over the water really well, which was great. I used a small glass bowl because I wanted to do all my nails at the same time, instead of individually or in pairs, which is the usual way it is done, because I was so frustrated that the other design hadn't worked and wanted to get it over and done with.  My design was a random one, instead of any particular design, in which I just swirled the colours around and through each other until I was happy with the distribution of the colours.  Then I just dipped all five fingers of my left hand in the bowl at once, and repeated all this with the other hand.

I finished off my manicure with one coat of Revlon "Quick Dry Top Coat", which gave me a beautiful, glossy finish. I am rather pleased with the end result, and really love the way the colour combination worked out.  Of course, I still have a lot to learn about this technique, but with all the advice and tutorials available on YouTube, and numerous blogs and websites online, I should be able to have a lot of fun trying out new designs, and a multitude of colour combinations, in the future.  It really is quite easy to do, I found, and the mess was easy to clean up because I had used the Vaseline around my nails and fingers.  Next time I'm going to try using sticky tape around my nails and fingers, and see how that goes.

Thank you so much for visiting, and I hope you'll come back often to see what I have to share with you.  If you so wish, you can follow me by filling in one of the boxes at the top right-hand side of the page, and I'd love you to share it with your nail-art friends.  Now I'm off to put some cuticle oil on my cuticles and lots of hand-cream on my hands.  I couldn't believe how dry they were until I took the  photos.  My new phone has a really good camera, and it's picking up flaws in my manicures, and every little bit of damage to my nails, cuticles and hands, which don't show up when you just look at them day to day.  So, I've got lots of work to do to repair all the damage, as if I didn't have enough problems with my nails already.  Oh, well, that's my own fault, I guess, for letting things slide.

Have a wonderful day, and may God bless you!

Hugs

Christine

(Please check out my other blog below, too.)

Words of Life and Hope
http://wordsoflifeandhope.blogspot.com.au/

Manicure for 26 January 2015 - Australia Day!

It was Australia Day on Monday, so I decided to do a red, white and blue manicure with Australian Flags on my middle fingers. Sorry it doesn't show very clearly in the photo,

I started with one coat of OPI Natural Nail Base Coat.  I then painted my middle finger with three coats of Sinful Colors Snow Me White. This colour was not easy to work with, and even with the three coats, I wasn't really happy with the coverage but, because I was going to put a transfer on those fingers, I decided to leave it on.
 .
Next, I painted my thumb and pinky nails with 3 coats of MUD Deep Blue Sea.  I found this polish to be very, very thin, and even with 3 coats it was still very patchy, so I decided to cover it with glitter (details below).  I followed this with 2 coats of Sally Hansen Lacquer Shine Luminous, which I can honestly say I have fallen in love with, to my index and ring fingers.  It went on like a dream, and if I'd been putting anything else on the nail I could have just used one coat, but decided to do 2 because I wanted it to look great!  The colour is so rich, and one of the most beautiful reds I've come across so far in my nail art journey.  I know I will be using this again and again, if I can continue to get it once my bottle runs out.  I'll definitely be keeping an eye out for any on sale.

Now to the glitter, Avon Opal, which I'm absolutely drooling over.  The photo doesn't do it credit, because it is the most amazing clear-based iridescent glitter, which really looks like you have placed shards of opal all over your nail.  One coat was all I needed to get this much cover, and the glitter is right through the polish and hadn't sunk at all, so I didn't have to go fishing for it.  The finish was a bit rough, but a good thick coat of top coat soon fixed that. I think I'll be buying some more of this next time it's on special at Avon, just in case they take it off the market.  I might even buy two bottles, because I think I'll be using this one a lot, it is just sooooooo beautiful!

I then covered all my nails with one coat of OPI Top Coat, which is still my top coat of choice.  Then I placed a transfer of the Australian Flag in the shape of a heart to each of my middle nails.  This was my first time using transfers, and I actually found these easier to work with than stickers, because stickers have got a habit of grabbing on before I have them exactly where I want them.  They are just so sticky, but I guess I'll get used to them after I've used them more.  I have lots of both transfers and stickers, so will be using these a lot in the future.  I then applied one more coat of OPI Top Coat to my middle fingers over the transfers, which actually caused a bit of a disaster.  On my left hand, I was a little heavy-handed with the brush when applying the top coat, and the colour smudged.  On my right hand, the one in the picture, of course, I just sort of waved the brush over it with a rather thick glob of polish on the brush, and it turned out fine.  So, another lesson learned through trial and error.  And, you know how the saying goes, one should learn something new every day or it has been wasted.  I've certainly not been wasting my manicure days, I can assure you, because I learn something new each time I do a new manicure.

I have been inundated with new polishes this week, but haven't yet got any photos of them, so can't show them to you yet, but I will as soon as possible.  They all turned up at the same time yesterday (Tuesday) - some were brand new Indies (YAY!!! Finally got some!), some were mainstreams I'd ordered online from BuyInvite last month, and the rest were from someone destashing, which only cost me postage.  I can't thank her enough, because she ended up sending me 13 polishes, and I was only expecting 6 or 7.  If she reads this, she'll know who I'm talking about, so thank you so much, Brianna.

I finally got my Konad stamper yesterday, too (the postman was overloaded with packages for me - 6 all-up for the day), so I might try experimenting with some stamping again and see how it works.  I hope it does, because otherwise I'm giving up on stamping forever.  There are so many other wonderful things I can do with my nail without resorting to stamping, so it really won't be a loss.  I love the look, though, and I've got some wonderful stamping plates, so I'm going to give it one more try.

Well, that's it from me for another week.  I hope you'll come back and visit often, or even follow me through G+ or email, because I've finally worked some more of the gadgets out for blogging on Blogger, so more learning as I go.  I'll work it all out eventually, and hopefully my hubby and I will be able to get some better results with our photos, too.  We're still trying to figure out the best place in the house, or outside, to take them, and what to use as a background.

So, God bless you, and have a wonderful week!

Hugs

Christine

(Please check out my other blog below, too.)

Words of Life and Hope
http://wordsoflifeandhope.blogspot.com.au/

Quilted Nail Art with Gold Decals & Glitter

Sorry this is a bit late being posted, but I've had an extremely busy week, with lots of doctors' appointments, etc, but I really wanted to show you what I did this week, because I am so pleased with the way it turned out.  Here is a photo of the mani for this week, taken just after it was done on Sunday, 2nd November.

I apologise for the picture being slightly blurred, but we are still trying to work out the best way to photograph my manis, etc.  However, you can see pretty well what it looks like.  

The colours I used were Maybelline "Tart", which is a beautiful, rich, dark plum colour, and MUD "paparazzi", which is gold and silver hexagon glitter of different sizes in a clear base polish. On the feature nails I added gold striping tape and placed 1.5mm gold decals where the tapes crossed over each other.  The"Tart" went on really well, and I only needed 2 coats to get full coverage.  The "paparazzi" only needed one coat to get this effect. I started with 1 coat of Revlon Quick Dry Base Coat and finished off with Revlon Quick Dry Top Coat, using 1 coat on the glitter nails and 2 coats over the taping and decals on the feature nails.  I am topping it up each day with another coat of the top coat.

Unfortunately, the photo just does not do it justice, because it really looks amazing.  The dark plum colour is so rich, and the gold and silver glitter, and the taping and decals, shine so brightly that the result is really eye-catching. Everywhere I've been this week people have said how gorgeous it looks, and asked how I did it, which has been really encouraging for me. I, myself, am really chuffed with the way it looks.  It took me ages to do, because it was my first time using the striping tape, but I just love the effect it gives and I have heaps of different colours, so I will definitely be using it more tapes in the future.

Thank you for checking out my blog, and I hope you'll come back to see what I have for you next week.

Have a wonderful day, and God bless you.

Hugs

Christine

(Please check out my other blog below, too)

Words of Life and Hope

http://wordsoflifeandhope.blogspot.com.au/

Update On Last Week's Nail Art Design

Last weeks mani lasted for about 5 days before it started chipping, and here are some photos of how it looked last Sunday before I took my polish off to do my next mani, which was a full 7 days from when the mani was done.  I added a top coat every other day, and I'm sure that helped it last as long as it did.

As you can see, the nail with the glitter had hardly any wear at all, which quite amazed me.  The fingers not shown had a little wear, but not very much at all.  Overall, I was very pleased with the way these polishes performed.

Thanks for looking, and have a wonderful day.

Hugs

Christine

Words of Life and Hope
http://wordsoflifeandhope.blogspot.com.au/

Follow-up To Last Post

Here are the pictures of my nails done on 26 October 2014 using the Essie Breast Cancer Awareness Collection I talked about in my last post.  The picture on the right is the one that is closest to the true colour of the dark pink polish.  It's even brighter and a bit deeper than it looks here.  Absolutely gorgeous!!!!!

I started with the essie "Grow Stronger" base coat, which came as part of the collection, but as you can see, I did not use the pale pink polish, essie "I Pink I Can".  When I put it on, even after 3 coats, I could not get an opaque coverage, so I scrapped it and went all dark pink instead.  The colour was gorgeous, and the polish was quite free-flowing, but I just couldn't get an opaque finish.  Then, as always happens, that very night I discovered what could be a solution to the problem, when I found a tip that said to try putting a white polish on your nail first to make your colours "pop".  I might try this polish again doing that, and if I do, I'll definitely mention it.

The dark pink polish, essie "Pink Happy" was amazing to use.  Even with just one coat it was completely opaque, but I added another coat just to help the manicure last longer. The colour is absolutely gorgeous, and is actually a lot darker and brighter than it seems in the bottle, and it went on so beautifully I would definitely recommend it.

The pale pink glitter, essie "Pinking About You", is gorgeous, but not easy to apply.  I found it tended to clog on the brush, and I worked out that the best way to apply this was by letting most of the polish run off the brush, and then dab the glitter on until I got the coverage I wanted.  The glitter is in lots of different sizes, from tiny little white specks to quite large hexagon shapes, and on the "Pink Happy" polish it actually looks almost white.  It is very effective, though, and I will definitely be using it again.

I finished with 2 coats of Manicare Glam Nails "Nail Art Top Coat" over the two ring fingers with the glitter, and 1 coat of Revlon "Quick Dry Top Coat" on all the other nails.  I will be topping them up every other day with 1 coat of the Revlon top coat, and I will let you know in my next post how long the mani lasts before I have to remove it.

Overall, I was very pleased with the collection, except for the coverage of "I Pink I Can".  I'm fairly pleased with the look of my mani, although my hands still look awful :(, and I will definitely be using all these colours again.  I hope they stay as part of their permanent collection and don't disappear too soon. I'll have to see if I can get some full-size bottles of them all as soon as possible in case they are discontinued.  I will probably use the pale pink for dotting, marbelling, and other forms of nail art instead of as a full nail cover, unless I get good results from using the white beneath it.

So, that's my mani for October 27th 2014.  I hope my next one will be a bit more interesting, because Breast Cancer Awareness Month will be over, and I can start using different colours instead of just pinks.

God bless you, and have a wonderful day.

Hugs

Christine

Words of Life and Hope
http://wordsoflifeandhope.blogspot.com.au/

30 Easy Nail Art Designs eBook

Today I'd like to tell you about a great Nail Art eBook I found about a month and a half ago which has been a huge help to me with my nail art.  It's by Maria Vlezko from the SoNailicious website.  You can find it at http://sonailicious.com/30-easy-nail-art-designs-nail-tutorials/, and it really is a must-have in your nail art collection.  There are 30 great nail art designs, with step-by-step photos for each one, plus heaps of hints and tips to help you get the best out of your nail art experience.  Here is a photo:

I hope you will go and check it out, and while you're there, also checkout Maria's blog, Twitter and Facebook pages.  She has some terrific tutorials, and lots of nail art ideas, hints and tips.  You will find links on the same page as the book details. 

I don't have anything more for you today because I had a doctor's appointment at the local hospital (my 6-week post-radiotherapy checkup), and he said everything seemed fine, and I don't have to go back for another 4 months.  YAY!!!!!  I also went looking for more nail art supplies at our local large stationery store, and I found some interesting bits and pieces which I hope to feature in the future on my blog for you.

Have a very happy day, and I'll see you again soon (I hope).

Hugs

Christine
Words of Life and Hope
http://wordsoflifeandhope.blogspot.com.au/