The Lazy 15- Water Marble

Hey everyone! So today we have my mortal enemy the challenging technique of water marbling. Now this is something I'd seen on other blogs and thought was pretty cool, while also being like "Pfffft how hard can it be really? Put some polish in a cup and stick your finger in, I could TOTALLY do that. If I wanted to." Well I am here to tell you today that it is VERY hard really, and no I totally CANNOT do that.

This mani fought me every single step of the way, and I was very close to pulling a /ragequit and going to bed (I foolishly started this project at 11:45 pm.) However I didn't want to bail out of the challenge on the third day, so I steeled my nerves and fought on. The polish wouldn't spread. It dried too fast and wouldn't make a design. I missed getting the design on my whole nail and the white base was showing. I somehow smudged and dented my other nails in the process. My one cat decided he wanted attention and was walking huffily on my desk, dangerously close to my marbling cup. My kitten decided he wanted to torment my other cat and was clambering around my feet and trying to get close to the other cat. Oh yes my friends, it was no good.

I set out from the beginning to only do an accent nail of marbling, because let's be serious. Nail art + me= no bueno. I painted my other nails with Sally Hansen Green Tea because I haven't used it aside from Wednesday's dots. I like it except for that giant paddle brush. The "marble" (term used very very loosely) was done in China Glaze For Audrey because Green Tea wasn't pigmented enough, and with Essie In Stitches. In my first and most spectacular fail, I also tried using L'Oreal Walk on the Beach but it wouldn't spread enough. So I left it out on the second go. And this is what I got! I would try and explain it, but I don't even. Just.... Wow. On the bright side, when/if I ever get passable at water marbling, I can look back and laugh. Right? Right. With that said, here we are.

I just.... give up okay? I'm so sorry. I promise the rest of my posts won't subject your poor eyeballs to this level of fug. But everyone else's marbles are going to look really really good next to mine, so really, you should be thanking me! ;) ;) Haha! Anyway it is now 1 am, I am exhausted, and I am going to pass out on my keyboard unless I get by butt to bed! Can't wait to see everyone else's posts!

Lazy 15- Dots

Hey everyone!
Just a quick post for today, I have to get headed to work shortly. I am TERRIBLE at dots. Partly because I don't have dotting tools, and mostly because I am terrible at nail art! Haha. So I painted a base of OPI Ink Suede and then slapped a row of dots across each nail with my cleanup brush using Sally Hansen Green Tea. And they're uneven, I am the worst at this!

I do like the colour combo. I want to get some dotting tools and maybe with some practice I can get better!
Be sure to check the other girls' manis for today!

China Glaze 2NITE

Happy Tuesday everyone!
I'm not sure why Tuesday would be particularly happy except, maybe, for this polish of WIN I am about to show you!

When I first heard of the China Glaze OMG collection, I looked at swatches, I drooled, and I pined knowing these polishes would probably never be mine. I looked on eBay and thought wow, these are definitely never going to be mine!!

But, as you can guess from the title of this post, I would eventually own at least one. I was wandering one of the two small malls in my town, and noticed a nail shop in one with some polishes in the window. The store is across from the video game store my bf likes to browse, so I had lots of time to window shop. I noticed some silver capped China Glazes. I started to get hopeful. Silver cap = good. I went into the shop and asked if the polishes in the window were for sale. Yes they are!! So I asked to look at the silver capped polishes and SCORE!! 2NITE and LOL! I bought them both and took off with a huge smile! Then a few weeks later, I went back because they had some other awesome older polishes, and noticed yet another silver cap I had missed the first time. Well, TMI is now mine as well! This nail salon has another location and I need to get my buns over there to see if they have any more of this collection!

Anyway enough blabbering, here is the money!

In diffuse light, a beautiful cornflower blue with what looks like ordinary silver shimmer.

And then in most light, rainbows of awesomeness!! I could see rainbows seriously 90% of the time on my nails, even in low light.

Do you own any of this coveted collection? Did you luck into them dusty hunting or find them online or in a swap? I'm excited for the 2013 collection of holographics but I'm very excited to own these as well!

Lazy 15- Gradient Mani

Phew!! So this is today's actual prompt, a gradient mani!! I've actually done a few gradient manis and they're one of my favorite things to do, but this is the first one I've photographed for the blog!

I used two colours from the older Color Club Foiled collection, Cold Metal and Perfect Mol-ten. I found they worked really great for my gradient and blended very smoothly! I started with a base of ONE (!!) coat of Cold Metal, and sponged the gradient with Perfect Mol-ten onto my tips. A quick coat of SV to smooth it out and that's all folks! Now that I've done a few gradients I find them very quick to do, especially using awesome pigmented colours like these ones!

What do you think of my gradient? It's subtle but I like it that way! See you on Wednesday for some dots!

Lazy 15- Tape Mani

Hi Everyone!
I saw this nail art challenge on the Polish Enthusiast's blog and thought.... I'm lazy, this might work for me! haha. So there are 15 different prompts in this challenge, most of which are things I've wanted to try for a while! The first is a tape mani.

I used Ruby Pumps (man I am burning through these untrieds!) as my base, 2 coats. Then I taped off the triangles with regular scotch tape and added China Glaze Liquid Leather, my go to black polish. Once it was on, I peeled the tape off before the polish dried and voila, triangles! My lines aren't as neat as they could be, but for my first time I'm pretty happy with it!

What do you think about tape manis? I think they're an easy way to get a look that makes people think you did a lot more work than you actually did ;) Next I need to get my hands on some striping tape and try that out!

China Glaze For Audrey

Hello!!

This is a polish I wanted for a long time until the lovely Arlyn gifted it to me in the Secret Goblin swap a bunch of us did a while back. This is a great colour and I'm super happy to have it, a classic Tiffany blue creme.

Formula wise, this one was a little challenging. It wanted to run off the brush in big blobs and I was tired and let it get away onto my nails! Noooooo! I needed three coats to even it out, but I think next time if I polish more carefully I'll be able to get away with two. 

Then since I've been seeing lots of posts about RBL's Bring it Back event happening soon, and am trying to convince myself that I don't need to buy any more polishes at this point, I tried to imitate Aqua Lily by adding Amethyst Sparkle on top of For Audrey. It's certainly no dupe but it's good enough for me! I really love the CND effects, they're so versatile.

What do you think of this colour? You probably have it by now, it's a great shade! Hopefully soon my nails will be back in good condition, they haven't broken in a while so I hope they keep improving!

China Glaze Dorothy Who?

Hey all!
This polish is awesome because it came to me in a Secret Goblin swap I did with a few other girls for Halloween! It was started by the lovely Amanda of The Nail Polish Enthusiast and my Secret Goblin was Arlyn, she is a total sweetie and you may have seen her on twitter! @Arlyn531
She did a fantastic job and I love everything she got me, my gift included China Glaze Dorothy Who, Ruby Pumps, and For Audrey, as well as Revlon Naughty and some cute extras!

So I decided to get right into my gift and today I'm showing you Dorothy Who, a bright blue jelly base packed with silver microglitter. It does go on sheer, so you'll have to build it up to avoid VNL. I have three coats and you can still see a little bit. The formula was good, not too hard to control, and I didn't notice any staining when I took it off!

There you have it! Pretty hey? I think it'll be great in the summer but the glitter makes it work for winter too!

My nails and cuticles have been giving me some trouble lately, the corners kept breaking off my nails so I've rounded them a bit and am taking lots of Biotin and Omega 3 supplements so hopefully they toughen up soon, and I have some wounds on my cuticles I tried my best to photoshop out! Ouch!