Double Dots Day!

  Well, it's been a wacky couple of weeks since I last updated, and since I made sure to buy a round-trip ticket to Crazytown, I was happily able to come back!  I've since done quite a lot of "housekeeping" in my life, and now I think I'm ready to come back to getting my happy on about my nails.  And, and, aaaand!  I have some exciting new designs to share in the coming weeks, so stay tuned!  Not only that, but some hotly-anticipated mail will be arriving soon to my mailbox, and I'll finally have something other than manicures to share!!

  But enough chitty-chatty, let's get down to the business of polka-dots!  I adore polka-dotted nails, but I'm not keen on the stamper (I ordered some piece of shit version that doesn't work as well as my friend's "As Seen On TV" version - bah!) and dots are so hard to make with a brush!  Happily, whilst trolling Amazon I found a set of ball-point pens in various sizes, specifically for making dots and water marbling!  These little mofo's are a revelation, I tell you! 

  Let me warm you up by showing you how my stinky toes turned out!  I was attempting a comic-book gradient with a pepto-pink background (some new Revlon that I can't recall the name of) with white dots.  I used a few different sizes of the pointer tool to achieve a variety of sizes of dots - I tried to graduate the sizes to give the impression of a fade - to limited success, I think.  As always, the rest of my toenails get an abridged version of the design...they're just too small to give a shit about!

  Not quite finished with the comic-book theme, I decided to try out a little party-nail action on my fingers.  I used Sally Hansen's Smooth & Perfect in Dune as the base coat.  I have mentioned this color before, and I think I'm gaining more of an appreciation for it - it's nearly clear, and it works like a mineral powder - just makes my nails look like a more perfect version of their natural selves!  Also, it's not a pink-tinted sheer, which makes it unique!

 I've done a slightly-offset two-color diagonal grid pattern here.  The offsetting is what gives this look it's graphic, Lichtenstein-esque quality.

  Surprisingly, the higher contrast color combinations ended up looking a lot better - my favorite combo ended up being the orange/blue (left ring finger).  I had initially thought a more subtle blend would be the answer, but you can see on the yellow/green green/orange combination, that this was kind of a fail.  Perhaps a brighter background would have given the colors some pop, but you know how I feel about white nail polish....

Pebbles Flintstone Manicure

  It's been a slow week here in Blogland, and especially in Manicuria.  I can get a bit careless with my nails, since I am often working with my hands and using my nails as tools.  Just two weeks ago I was doing god-knows-what and clumsily brought my hand down with a mighty force on my coffee table.  Seriously I don't know why or even how exactly I did it - maybe my depth perception is off? - but I did, I smashed the hell out of that table with my thumbnail.  Unfortunately there was a casualty, as a long, deep shard of nail ripped off, bled a whole bunch, and then made a blood blister under the nail.  It hurt like a bitch.

  I didn't want to paint while I monitored the nail and prayed to the nail gods that the dang thing wouldn't fall all the way off.  Happily it doesn't seem like it's going to jump ship, so I went ahead and gave 'em a few coats and even glued some gems on there.  I just picked up my first nail gems, which I don't usually like because shit sticking off my nails bothers me a lot and I tend to just pick it off.  Besides, it makes your manicure more fragile and that is just not good for doing stuff with your hands.  There'll be more on that later, meanwhile I'm busy trying to figure out how to make nail rhinestones look like something other than super cheap n' tacky. 

 To tide you over, here's a little favorite I've been sitting on for a while.  For some reason I only have a right hand shot of these, and it seems I took it after a few days' wear, but oh well, you still get the idea.

Triangles. For. Days.

  I'm calling this my Pebbles Manicure because it just reminds me so much of the youngest Flintstone.  The base color is my beloved favorite, Savina "White Lavander," with some boring old Revlon black for the details.  I am definitely in a triangles phase right now, it's all I wanna paint.  Trying a few different styles here, and I'm feeling quite fond of the vertical zig-zag action on the pointer nail.  An idea to try for a full set, I think!  I'd say this look counts as party nails, too.

Springtime Toes!

 
  Now I don't usually spend this much time on my toes, (it's just such an awkward position, ugh) but I was in a mood so I did my nails and my toes.  I just had too many ideas, and didn't have room in the nail theme for this '90s abstract-floral thing I wanted to try.  And since it's still technically Springtime and the weather is rainy as shit in Seattle, here's a lovely springtime toe jam!  I decided to do all the rest of the toes in different combos of the floral palette, since my toenails are so tiny that there's not much to paint and i had to keep it simple.

  The floral was really simple, I just did layers and layers of big irregular blobs and vague flower-shapes, and a few streaks of green.  Then I added a few yellow dots in the centers of the blobs, and viola!  Looks like flowers.  This is a good look to try for some party nails, since you probably don't want to attempt full floral on the first try, and you can use the other nails to practice your polka dots and stripes!

Party Nails: Clarissa Explains it All...

  Usually I have a basic idea, or at least a color scheme, when I set out to paint a new manicure.  Other times, I have so many ideas floating around that I can't pick favorites, so I'll do what I call Party Nails!  They are great for experimenting with color combinations, designs, or techniques (or a mix of all three!) 

For this look, I decided to pit pastels against neons, and combine my two favorite awkward color trends of the season!  (Seriously, why are both so wrong and yet....feel so right?)  I also wanted to try a funky '80s triangle pattern, but wasn't sure I'd be able to execute it properly on all fingers, so I went with a multitude of patterns!  Once finished, I realized I'd totally been channeling Clarissa Darling!  I'd like to pop my ladder up to her window so I could see what she thought...

Clarissa Manicures It All

And here are the results!  I have a lot of great ideas kicking around in my head after doing this manicure!

Despite doing a pretty good job (if I do say so myself) on the left hand (leftie pride - holla at me!), I still don't know if I'm ready for full triangles.  I use nail art brushes (super cheap on Amazon) to hand-paint all my designs, and precision definitely requires practice.

Anyway, I'm totally obsessed with both the triangles and the little hearts, especially the neon orange on mint green!  The colors are fairly true to life here, but the orange is so much more neon than these photos would have you believe.  For some reason, my little digital camera just doesn't want to pick up that orange!

I also took a long time debating between white and lavender as the final base color.  I ended up going with white, but in retrospect I really wish I'd gone with the lavender.  I think it would have jibed with the other colors better.  Oh well, something to think about for next time!

(Yes, that is a little pill-o-the-week case in the background left on the bottom photo.  I got this cute flower-patterned one at Daiso Japan, and I use it to organize my fake eyelashes! It's just the thing!) 

I am obsessed with the thumbs of this manicure!!