NOTD Before & After: Surfin' USA!

Hello!

Today's theme in CNT is Surfin' USA! I had a bit of manicure-block on this, and wasn't quite sure what to do...well, that's not exactly true. I wasn't sure what to do that didn't involve freehand of some sort. Everything I came up with that didn't require freehand was just plain lame...so I decided to say 'what the heck' and freehand it.

I started with Sinful Color's Ciao Bella, which is a gorgeous deep blue with lighter blue glass flecks in it. You should click on this pictures to enlarge them, because they don't do it justice in this smaller size:

Sinful Colors Ciao Bella!

Sinful Colors Ciao Bella!

Sinful Colors Ciao Bella in direct sunlight (sort of)

I decided I wanted to do a glitter sandwich for my ocean, and I wanted to make a surf board on my accent nail. So I removed the blue from my ring finger, and put on a neutral beige. Then I put Orly Mermaid Tale over the remaining blue fingers:

Sinful Colors Ciao Bella! + Orly Mermaid Tale

At this point I started to wonder if something was wrong wit my camera, because I could not get a good picture of the glitter on top of Ciao Bella. I took these at a different time of day than I normally do, but still, it seemed odd that I had a problem with the focus. If this keeps up, I may have to get a new camera...:(

Anyway. My next step was to put a coat of L.A. Color's Radiation over the blue nails, to create the glitter sandwich. This made the blue a little less deep, and made it more sparkly like the surface of the water (or, that's what I'm telling myself). Then I freehanded the surfboard and the wave tube...Here's how it came out:

Let's go surfin' now, everybody's learning how

Come on and safari with meeeeeeee

To make the surfboard, I put a stripe of Spoiled Pumping Gas down the middle, and then four thinner stripes of Sally Hansen Night Flight, two next to the first stripe, and two down the edges of the nail (barely visible here). To create the wave tube, I started drawing parts of the wave with Sonia Kashuk Fairy Princess, and then tried to put accent white caps on with Sally Hansen White On.

I'm pretty happy with how it came out...I'm clearly still learning how to freehand well, but you can tell it's a wave tube, and it's kinda cool. I love how the glitter sandwich came out, and if you ignore issues of proper perspective, that part is very cool. And yes, if you're wondering why my surfboard is standing straight up in the air? Well, we're not all very good surfers even here in California, and sometimes we just wipe out...hee  hee hee.

Thanks for taking a look, and please check out the other surfing manicures done by the other participants, linked below. :)

M.

NOTD Before & After: Orly's Smolder (Or, Fall Is In The Air...)

Hello!!

A little while back I reviewed two colors from Orly's Fired Up collection, and liked them so much that I ordered a third color from the collection, Smolder. When it showed up, I couldn't wait to try it out, especially when it turned out to be more of a red than it looked from the promo materials, which made it look a bit more like a wine color.

Smolder is very similar to Flicker in the type of color and finish it is; it has incredible depth and intensity, and I want very much to call it a duochrome, but it doesn't quite shift as much as flash--it's sort of in between a flash and a shift. In the shade, you see deep red with orange/copper flashes and winey flashes. In the sun, more of the wine color comes out. And like Flicker, Smolder is true to the name of the collection in that is seems to be lit from within:

Orly Smolder--shade

Orly Smolder--shade, different angle

Orly Smolder--direct sunlight

I had been wearing this for a day and wasn't sure what to do with it because I didn't want to cover it up, when my AIS group announced the challenge theme, and solved my dilemma. The theme for today is 'Can't wait for fall!', and this color screams fall to me, so I knew I'd be using it as my base.

I personally love fall and fall colors, and while I don't want summer to end, I'm really jazzed about putting together my first official 'fall' manicure, so one fall color was certainly not going to be enough. So I grabbed a rainbow of fall colors in a bottle--Kleancolor Chunky Holo Bluebell. If you've never seen it, it's a stunning holographic duochrome (don't know where holographic came from!) glitter that's sort of like the rainbow flakies out there:

Orly Smolder + Kleancolor Chunky Holo Bluebell

It's like a spray of fall leaves in a bottle...

Honestly, at this point I almost decided that this could no longer be a part of the weekly theme, because AIS is a stamping group, and I almost couldn't bring myself to stamp over this combination. I wore it like this for a day, and then finally decided that a little spray of leaves would be a nice touch to stamp on top:

For the stamped image, I used Cheeky XL plate E, and stamped with Revlon Varnished, a greenish gold that I thought would be perfect for fall. However, if I had to do it again, I think I'd go with a straight gold polish, which would have a bit more of a warm feel. :)

So there you have it, a NOTD, review, and theme challenge all in one. I loved this all so much I wore it from start to finish for 5 days, which is crazy long for me these days! And I should mention, not one chip until the last day. :)

Thanks for taking a look, and have a great Sunday!

M.