Spring ASBMF Challenge #11: Eggs and Chicks

If this post wasn't part of the ASBMF challenge, I might have instead titled it "Why Sarah doesn't do freehand."  Although, let's be honest here folks, if it wasn't for the challenge then this post wouldn't even exist.  This is waaaaaay out of my comfort zone.  I envy people who can draw those cute little animals on their nails.  Did you ever see Simply Rins Little Pink Pigs?  Adorable!!!  And she makes it looks so easy.  I love them.  But I doubt I would be able to recreate them.  Granted, I haven't tried anything like this using acrylic paints yet, which does seem like it would be easier to draw with.  But even with paints, I highly doubt I would come even close.  My little pink pigs would come out looking like they had one too many rounds at the bar last night.  Or that I had one too many rounds and then tried to paint my nails in a drunken stupor!  Sadly though, I couldn't seem to avoid trying freehand on this part of the challenge.  It may be the Spring Challenge, but thanks to my procrastination, it's the last day of June.  So I didn't want to make little chicks and pastel eggs or anything that would have been more Easter time appropriate.  And I didn't even have any useful stamps to Konad my way out of this.  My inspiration was actually a picture I had seen a hundred times before in a wallpaper app on my cell phone.  It's one of those dorky-funny kind of pictures and I hadn't really thought about using it for nail art before until I was scrambling today to try and knock out this part of the challenge already.

My version has a few slight differences, besides looking no where as cute as the original illustration.  I reversed the position of the cow and chicken so I could put the chicken on my index finger instead of trying to fit her on my pinkie and I added spots to the cow's face.  In the pic, clearly a cow even without spots on his face.  On my nails, some sort of weird white horse head attached to a cow's body.  Horsecow?  Cowhorse?  Corse?  Ya...so I decided to spot his big ol' noggin too.  Then I drew the cow-spotted egg (or something sort of resembling an egg-like shape) on my thumb.  Anyway, I'm just posting one picture, I'll spare you from having to look at more.  I present my Eggs and Chicks (and Cow).

Phew!  That hurdle is out of the way.  May flowers should be easy enough and I'm actually looking forward to the newspaper transfer compared to this freehanded flop!  Then it's just the design of my choice left to do.  Oh, and in case you were wondering, here's a quick run down of the colors used:
base - Zoya Bevin
bodies/egg - Wet n Wild French White
cow spots/eyeballs - Wet n Wild Black Creme
nostrils/horns - Zoya Caitlin
hen's comb - Zoya Sooki
feet/beak - China Glaze Sun Worshipper

Just a reminder that, while I'm still struggling with Spring lol, the rest of our Facebook group is just starting the Summer challenge.  There's still plenty of time to start up if you're interested.  Check out our group page to join!

KBShimmer Orange-A-Peel

Recently, KBShimmer moved the sale of their nail polishes to their regular retail web site, KBShimmer.com.  Even though the polishes are going to be listed online at all times for ordering, rather than dealing with the Etsy free-for-all, you better believe I was there to place my order the second the polish went live!  I could have easily bought a mountain of polish, but I decided to limit myself to the two I wanted most.  I ordered Proud Peacock, which I was too slow to grab on the last Etsy-go-round, and Orange-A-Peel, which is part of the new neon collection.  I was a little torn between Orange-A-Peel and Orange Pop, but after comparing swatches of the two online, I went with Orange-A-Peel because I found the glitter combination in Orange-A-Peel more interesting.  A few days later when my order arrived, I knew I had made the right choice!

Orange-A-Peel is kind of a deceiving polish.  When I was looking at the bottle in person, I was thinking it didn't seem as neon as I had expected.  It almost looked like it was leaning more towards pastel orange.  But then I put it on my nails and the color really started to pop.  It's a super bright neon and I don't think the pictures really can capture the glow that comes off your nails wearing this.  I'm not sure if it's the POUNDS of glitter packed into the polish that makes the color look more washed out in the bottle, but even in a dim light, the neon on your nails is really strong and noticeable!  As stupid as it may sound, if I was anywhere near a mirror while wearing it, I would catch glimpses of my nails reflected in the mirror out of the corner of my eye and totally distracted.  All pictures are of 3 coats of Orange-A-Peel, 1 coat of Gelous and 1 coat Seche Vite.

I'm really loving KBShimmer's polishes.  I've worn two so far and cannot wait to try out the other two I own.  Be sure to check out all the polishes currently on their site as well as all the handmade soaps, lotions and other goodies they have available.  Besides the polish, this time I made sure to buy one of the soap samplers.  I hadn't even unwrapped the soaps yet and I could smell them throughout my house.  They are awesome.  They currently have 23 different scents available and will be adding several more soon.  So if you're at all like me and hate trying to just pick one of anything, the sampler is a great and inexpensive way to test out 6 different scents at a time before you decide to order any in the full size bars.

Spring ASBMF Challenge #10: Butterflies!

As much as I love the look of the Monarch butterfly wings manicure (and want to eventually try it myself), I decided to use one of the gazillion butterfly stamp designs I have that I never ever use, so at least now I can say I've used one of them!

It's not that I don't like butterflies.  I do.  If I see a real butterfly, don't bother trying to carry on a conversation with me until it's gone 'cause I'm gonna be all "Ooh, a butterfly!" and just watch that little bugger flutter around and around until it flies away.  But butterfly patterns, decorations, etc. aren't really my thing.  So I've never had the urge to use one of the ump-teen butterfly designs available between all the different plates I have from Konad, Bundle Monster, Red Angel, etc...  I have had the DRK-A plate for a few months now though and have yet to use it.  Even though I'm not big on butterfly designs, the DRK-A plate has this full nail butterfly design that kinda caught my eye from the first day I saw it.  The butterflies are a bit more cartoonish, with a hand drawn look to them that I like.  So for this manicure, I decided to use a few polishes from the New York City Ballet Collection.  I started with 3 coats of OPI Care To Danse? to make it more opaque.  Then I layered on one coat of Pirouette My Whistle, another coat of Care To Danse? and finally topped it off with one more coat of Pirouette My Whistle.  For the butterfly pattern, I used Konad Special Polish in Dark Purple.

I like the way this turned out.  I really like the the look of these colors together and I love the jelly finish of the OPI Ballet colors, even more than I though I would when I bought them.  The stamping came out decent enough.  My only issue was my impatience, as usual, with waiting long enough to top coat when I stamp.  I have a few little smudges on my pinkie and ring finger.  It may seem dry enough, but the stamped polish feels almost perfectly dry as soon as you stamp it on, considering how thin of a layer of polish it is you're dealing with.  So you really have to give it enough time to set up and dry all the way before trying to spread a nice big glob of top coat over it.  This time, I didn't wait long enough and got a few smudges.  Not too noticeable though.  It didn't drive me crazy enough to redo them.  I've gone all week so far with smudgy digits.

Just a few more designs to go.  There is a Summer Challenge starting this Friday but I've decided to pass.  Especially since I would be overlapping the start of that challenge with the end of this one.  I'm planning to do a post probably once a week though linking either to the new manicures that week from the group or maybe one post a week for each part of the challenge and then I'll update links as people do them.  I'm not sure which way I'm going to do it just yet.  But there are some super talented ladies in our group, so even though I'm not going to participate this time, I still want to be sure to share the amazing manicures I'm expecting to see these ladies come up with!

Hannah from Polished Prisms

Amanda from Mandy's Polish

Heidi from DIY Polish & More
Katee from A Girl and Her Polish
Charlotte from Charlotte's Nails
Tess from Football and Fingernails
Karine from Karinea0a
Victoria from Manicurator
Sharon from What Color is My Coat?
Ashley from One Nail To Another
Dani from Rustic Comfort
Sue from Creative Nail Design by Sue
Amanda from Counting Down to Bliss
Kayono from Neues vom Kellerkind
April from Munia's Nails
Sharra from The Blahg
Jess from Nearly Natural Nails
CR from Color Me Silly
T from Mami Blogs
Alyson from Beads. Nails. Food.

Spring ASBMF Challenge #9: Fresh Cut Lawns

Sunday afternoon, I took off Hatched and I knew I had to get working on Fresh Cut Lawns for the ASBMF Challenge.  If I didn't at least start it, I knew that I would just end up putting it off for the entire week.  Having no real idea what I wanted to do, I decided to pick out a green polish to paint my nails with and then hope and pray for inspiration.  It finally came when I decided to make my Fresh Cut Lawns manicure more abstract themed and try my hand at a newer technique that I've been drooling over for a while now, the Spun Sugar manicure.

I don't know if that's the accepted name for this technique but I've seen it used as the name a few times and it seems like the catchiest name out of all the one's I've heard.  I can't remember exactly where I first saw this, but it may have been from an entry by The Nail Buff on Chalkboard Nails' dotting contest back in February.  Also, she links to this video on YouTube, which I remember watching back when I first saw this technique online.  There's also a pretty good tutorial video here where it is referred to as "Sugar Spun" nails, rather than Spun Sugar.  I started by testing it out on just my thumb, using an orange stick and three different greens.  And it was a good thing I tested it on just one nail first because I totally overdid it on my thumb!  I applied way too many strings of polish.  You couldn't even see the base color anymore and it was just a lumpy mess.  Adding top coat made it even worse!  That really helped me though to get an idea of how to limit the number of lines to use and the rest of my nails came out great, as well as my thumb which I had cleaned off and repainted.  And even when I got a small blob on my ring finger when I bonked the orange stick off my nail, I didn't mind how that mistake ended up looking.

My base color was OPI Here Today...Aragon Tomorrow Suede.  And let me just say, I love the OPI Suede Collection polishes!  They're matte polishes, but like the name implies, with more of a suede look to them rather than a pure flat, matte finish.  They are really great left matte/suede, but when you add top coat...WOW!

I managed to top coat my nails before thinking about taking a picture of the original matte finish.  I actually wasn't planning on taking a picture of this color by itself at all, but once I added the top coat, I couldn't resist snapping at least one shot.  I used to think it was odd to add top coat to a matte polish.  If you're specifically buying a matte nail polish, why un-matte it?  (Is that an actual word?)  But then I realized it just gives you another option for how to wear that polish.  And adding top coat affects the look of a matte polish in a completely different way than it does when applied to a regular polish, especially with the OPI Suedes.  They are absolutely my favorite matte polishes ever.  They have such depth and they have more of a gritty look to them.  But gritty in a completely awesome way.  Adding top coat just makes that gritty appearance sparkle in a "jump up and smack you in the face with all its sparkly glory" kind of way.  Actually, I didn't start the Spun Sugar part of this manicure until the next day after work.  So I had worn Here Today...Aragon Tomorrow Suede with just top coat all day on Monday and got a lot of compliments on it.  For the design, the colors I used for my "grass" were (in the order I applied them) China Glaze Tree Hugger, OPI Don't Mess With OPI and OPI Did It On 'Em.

This technique definitely takes some patience, but it's so worth it.  Clean up really wasn't all that bad either.  I considered taping off my nails, but I was worried that the tape might tug on the strings of polish and mess up the edges when I tried to take the tape off.  So I just used a small brush and acetone to clean up the sides of my fingers after I applied each color.  There really wasn't that much polish around my nails to remove, but next time I might try putting some Vaseline or chap stick on my skin first just to see if that makes any difference.

After letting the polish strings dry and set up a bit, I added two coats of Seche Vite top coat.  I can just barely feel a little texture on my nails from the polish strings.  So even with two coats of Seche Vite, it's not perfectly smooth, but it's close enough that I don't feel like I need a third coat.  I know this is my lawn manicure, but every time I look down at my nails it makes me think of the Green Bay Packers!  And dare I say, Zubaz!!!

Talk about a flashback!  Oh and here's a close-up of my index finger from my cell phone, so you can see all the stringy-ness!

Be sure to check out some of the other ladies who participated in this challenge!

Hannah from Polished Prisms
Amanda from Mandy's Polish
Heidi from DIY Polish & More
Katee from A Girl and Her Polish
Charlotte from Charlotte's Nails
Tess from Football and Fingernails
Karine from Karinea0a
Victoria from Manicurator
Sharon from What Color is My Coat?
Ashley from One Nail To Another
Dani from Rustic Comfort
Sue from Creative Nail Design by Sue
Amanda from Counting Down to Bliss
Kayono from Neues vom Kellerkind
April from Munia's Nails
Sharra from The Blahg
Jess from Nearly Natural Nails
CR from Color Me Silly
T from Mami Blogs
Alyson from Beads. Nails. Food.

Whimsical Ideas by Pam - Hatched

I finally got around to wearing another one of my polishes from Whimsical Ideas by Pam, which I had ordered a few month back.  Can't believe it took me this long to try another one.  Ugh, I have plans to do a haul post later this week, but this is one of the reasons why I kinda hate doing haul posts.  When I happen to come across one of my old hauls on the blog it's like, my God, I haven't even worn half of these yet!  ::sigh::  These types of revelations haven't stopped me yet from buying more though.  But enough self-loathing...let's get to the good stuff.

Hatched is a creamy, pale yellow chock-full of colorful glitter.  The first coat I applied was a bit thin and I didn't get many of the larger hex glitters.  It built up really well though on the second coat and I probably could have gotten away with just two, but I added a third coat before finishing with top coat.  Also, while I was waiting for the first coat to dry, I decided to stand my bottle upside down to let any settled glitter on the bottom and sides move around a bit.  That made a huge improvement when I applied my second and third coats.  I try to do that with all glitter polishes I use, but I have a tendency to forget about it until after I've already applied a coat or two.

I've had this one on for about 5 days now and zero chips.  Pam's polishes are fantastic.  If you're interested in any of the polishes from Whimsical Ideas by Pam, check out the information at the end of my original post back when I first received my order.

Spring ASBMF Challenge #8: Matte Magic

Yay, I finally did a manicure for the Matte Magic part of the challenge that I don't hate!  It's not that I don't like matte finishes, cause I do like them.  I've rocked a matte manicure before, I just could not for the life of me put anything together for this challenge that I liked enough to post, until now.  I think maybe I was trying too hard, over thinking it instead of keeping it simple.  I just got Barielle Elle's Spell yesterday in the mail, which I managed to snag off of Enamel Girl's blog sale.  So today while I was staring at the bottle (again) I decided to try flakie tips with Elle's Spell over black and then add matte top coat.  Flakies + Matte = Joy

My nails are a little shorter now, I trimmed them back before my last mani with KBShimmer Berry Patch, so it was a good time for the black polish.  Not that long nails have ever stopped me from using super dark colors in the past, but I do sometimes agree that darker colors can look better on shorter nails.  I just don't necessarily stick to that rule all the time.

This manicure started with one coat of Finger Paints Black Expressionism.  This is an awesome black!  Great coverage in one coat.  I bought this back when Finger Paints put out their Special Effects collection.  Black Expressionism wasn't a new shade but they were marketing it with the flakie polishes to use as the base color.  I had heard it was a good black polish, so I grabbed a bottle to try.  I liked it so much, I ended up going back and getting a second bottle later when Finger Paints were on sale.  Once the black base coat dried, I dabbed on Elle's Spell on the tips in a slight curve, rather than straight across my nails.  I went over the flakes two more times and then added a coat of Seche Vite.  I was going to skip the Seche Vite and go straight to Essie Matte About You as the only top coat used, but when I did that to the first nail, it ended up not being completely smooth.  So I decided to add the Seche Vite first, then matte the whole thing.

A quick peek at the challenges yet to check off my list (I need to get my rear in gear!) and a reminder to check out the other fabulous ladies participating in the ASBMF Challenge.

Hannah from Polished Prisms

Amanda from Mandy's Polish

Heidi from DIY Polish & More

Katee from A Girl and Her Polish

Charlotte from Charlotte's Nails

Tess from Football and Fingernails

Karine from Karinea0a

Victoria from Manicurator

Sharon from What Color is My Coat?

Ashley from One Nail To Another

Dani from Rustic Comfort

Sue from Creative Nail Design by Sue

Amanda from Counting Down to Bliss

Kayono from Neues vom Kellerkind

April from Munia's Nails

Sharra from The Blahg

Jess from Nearly Natural Nails

CR from Color Me Silly

T from Mami Blogs

Alyson from Beads. Nails. Food.

KBShimmer Berry Patch

After taking off my dark green snakeskin mani, I wanted to go in the opposite direction with something a little softer and girly.  Gah!  Me, girly?  Well, only when it comes to nail polish!  A few weeks back, I made my first successful indie purchase off Etsy.  I usually get shut out on Etsy restocks because I think I hesitate and over-think what I want to buy or just don't have a game plan going in.  But when KBShimmer did her last restock, I managed to snag Newsprint and Berry Patch.  Newsprint was the reason I was stalking the restock to begin with, but when I saw Berry Patch, I knew I had to have it also.  I'm so glad I got it because it's awesome!  When my shipment arrived, I kept staring at the bottle.  It makes me want to run out and get a fruit smoothie!

There is such a great mixture of glitters in this polish.  You've got micro glitter in different shades of pink, some small metallic purple/raspberry hex glitters, small holographic hex glitters and big blue hex glitters, which I think are a perfect contrast to all the pink glitter and the creamy pink base.  I love glitters like this in pastel cream bases!  They are some of my absolute favorite polishes.  For Berry Patch, I started with three thin coats and then added one coat of Gelous and one coat of Seche Vite.  I just couldn't narrow down which photos to use so get ready for some pic spam.

I can't wait for KBShimmer's next restock.  A date hasn't been set yet but she did announce on her Facebook page that she plans on having the next restock on her own website, KBShimmer.com, rather than on her Etsy shop.  She also has a line of handcrafted soaps, scrubs and balms.  I haven't purchased any of those myself but if I'm lucky to get a few more polishes on her next restock, I plan to buy a few of the soaps or the sugar scrubs as well.  They look great and I've heard some good reviews from others who did purchase soaps along with their polishes.

Blog Awards

A couple weeks ago, I was nominated for several blog awards by Sue from Creative Nail Design by Sue.  I was planning to post about this last week but didn't get a chance to do it before the fire department's carnival started and have now just begun to get caught up blog-wise.  So it's a little late and because of being a bit backed up, not just with my blog, I didn't have enough time to answer all the questions from each award and properly choose just a few blogs to nominate from the dozens of awesome blogs I follow.  I feel bad about that but I still wanted to make sure to post these awards to thank Sue for nominating me!  As far as other blogs to nominate, check out any and all of the blogs I follow.  I don't follow just any blog willy-nilly, there has to be something really eye catching, unique, informative or incredibly creative that makes me want to follow.  So I have confidence that you will enjoy each and every one of the blogs I currently follow.  They are listed in my blog roll along the right hand side or you can find them listed on my blogger profile page.  So check them all out and make sure to check out Creative Nail Design by Sue.  She is in the April Showers Bring May Flowers Challenge that I am also in, and I love her posts for the challenges along with her all of her other posts.  She recently did a series of manicures where her nails were designed to match her outfits and they were fantastic!  The awards Sue nominated me for were:

Liebster Award

The Liebster Award is meant to support blogs with 300 or less followers.

Appreciation Award

Kreativ Blogger Award

Sunshine Award

Awarded to bloggers who positively and creatively inspire others in the blogosphere.

Thanks again Sue!