Polish Days Before & After: Don't Panic!

Hello!!

Today is the next Polish Days group event, where we all post together on the same day once a month...and this month's theme is:

To Boldly Go! Yep, that's right, we're going where no man(i) has gone before (oh hush, the pun wasn't that bad), and doing Sci-Fi themed manicures. :)

One of the first Sci-Fi books I fell in love with when I was a young girl was Douglas Adam's increasingly misnamed Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy Trilogy (increasingly misnamed because it ended up having 5 books in it). It's funny, it's thought-provoking, it's zany, it's amazing. It will ruin your head for normal thinking. You should read it, you won't be sorry. Notice I did NOT say you should see the movie. The movie is crap. Read the books.

In fact, remember that polish that InDecisive Nail Lacquers collaborated with me to make, the one where my contribution was pretty much just to make ooh-ahh noises and name the polish when it was done? I named it 'End Of The Universe', after one of the books in this series, 'Restaurant at the End of the Universe'. Yep, that's just how much I love it. (Wait, you didn't know about this polish and my giveaway? Well, click here to check it out because the giveaway ends tonight at midnight.)

Of course I had to do a Hitchhiker's Guide manicure, and it had to involve that special namesake polish.

This is the logo from the original books, a crazy little green dude who reminds us that no matter what goes wrong, no matter if we're about to be thrown out of an airlock to die in space or turn into a whale and a pot of petunias, no matter what--we must NOT panic:

(Source)

Now that there is advice I can stand to be reminded of every day of the week, so I decided to make that little guy the content of my Sci-Fi mani. :)

I started out with InDecisive Nail Lacquer's End Of The Universe on three fingers, and China Glaze Starboard on my middle finger, to serve as my little guy's body:

InDecisive Nail Lacquer End Of The Universe, and China Glaze Starboard

Then I got to decorating. I used a combination of freehand art with polish, freehand art with my new acrylics, and stamping--I stamped a little alien eyeball tentacle on my pinkie, to stare at him in a bewildered fashion (using Cheeky Jumbo plate 4, and Barry M Silver Foil, with the eyeball added via acrylic paints):

All kindsa nail art up in dere!

You can really tell how much the acrylic paints help my nail art by comparing the face with the hands--in order to get the hands to match the body, I drew them with white nail polish, and then painted Starboard over them. The face I did with acrylics. The face is so much more precise, controlled and so much less messy!

I really love it...But wait...something's not quite right. Something's missing...What is it, what is it...

OH! I know!!

That's right, those sage words of wisdom!

Thanks so much for taking a look at my mani, and please don't forget to check out the other contribution to Polish Days. :)

Wishing you peace, love, and a constant awareness of where your towel is,
M.

Polish Days: Wrath

Hello!

It's that time of month again, time for Polish Days! This month's theme is The Seven Deadly Sins, and I just LOVE that as an idea for a challenge. One of these days I'm going to find an excuse to have a seven manicure challenge out of this theme (maybe for Halloween), especially because when I was trying to figure out what to do for this challenge, I had a ton of ideas swirling around in my head and the hardest time choosing between them.

I finally settled on Wrath. One of the reasons I picked this is because I have fallen in love with a polish that I think would be perfect for it...So first, a few minutes about the base polish. It's Consulting Criminal by A Study In Polish; when I first heard about this line of polish, I raced to see what they had, because it's inspired by Sherlock Holmes ('A Study In Polish' is a play on 'A Study In Scarlet') and I love anything to do with Sherlock Holmes. When my eyes hit Consulting Criminal, I fell instantly in love. Red is my favorite color, and I love it paired with black and white or silver--so you can imagine how I felt when I saw this:

A Study In Polish Consulting Criminal

 It's a squishy black jelly with red and silver hexes, and I adore it. Yes me, the one who hates jelly, and doesn't really wear black polish very often! It goes on like a dream, the glitters fall perfectly, and I can't say enough good things about it. In fact, I could have simply posted this and called it 'Lust', because I did, and do, have lust in my heart for it. So maybe in a way this post is a two-fer, lol!

But ultimately I decided to go with Wrath as my deadly sin. None of the sins are nice, of course, but to me this is a particularly nasty, dangerous one. Unlike most of the other sins, wrath allows us to think we are justified in what we are feeling and doing--if we're feeling wrath because our friend told all our secrets to everyone at work, we feel justified in that anger. And if we lash out at her and try to get back at her for what she did, that's wrath telling us that we deserve to make things 'right'. Even if we take no action, but spend days, weeks, or months angry with her about what she did, we still feel it's righteous indignation.

But I believe that we're only hurting ourselves when we get like that. I believe when we nurture wrath and block out forgiveness, it darkens our souls. And who does our wrath hurt? The person who hurt us probably isn't even thinking about us, but we're putting all our mental energy into being pissed off. We waste only our own time, raise only our own blood pressure, and hurt only  ourselves. And if we do take action against that person, we darken our souls further, give away our integrity, and turn into the very type of person we're angry at to start with. Of course, when I find myself getting angry about something, these things are easier to say than to follow! But I try hard to remember them and to act accordingly.

In my manicure, the black polish symbolizes the darkness of the soul when we're angry, and the red and silver glitters symbolize the love and light that we're allowing to get lost in that darkness. The flames are the flames of wrath that burn us up, and the chains symbolize how we only hurt ourselves when we allow our time and energy to be squandered in anger, and when we allow wrath to squash the positive elements in our nature:

Wrath

Wrath

To make this, I used Barry M Silver Foil and Bundle Monster plate BM12 to make the chains; I used Silver Foil again along with Sally Hansen Rapid Red and MASH plate 48 to make the flames.

So there you have it, my artistic take on 'Wrath'. Don't forget to check out the other sinfully good manicures linked below (see what I did there?!?!). And as always, a big, huge, monster thanks to Polly for putting this together every month. :)

Thanks for taking a look! Big hugs,
M.

Polish Days: Vintage

Hello!

This month's theme for Polish Days is Vintage. If you've been following me for a while, you probably know I adore anything vintage--colors, patterns, fashions, you name it. So you know I was one hap-hap-happy lady when I saw the announcement for this. :)

I started out with a base of Misa Got It Made In The Shade, which is definitely a vintage-y shade of soft antique light sage green creme:

Next I sponged the tips of the nails with Color Club Nouveau Vintage; I discovered when I tested this out that it separates a bit into a metallic green with a brownish-pink at the edge, which is another perfect set of vintage colors. Then, I wanted to go for an antique-letter sort of look, so I stamped with Konad black on all nails; I used Bundle Monster plate BM311 for the lettering (unfortunately, the loop from the big 'love' on the plate shows up and I soft of wish it didn't...oh well), and Drikk plate Drk-C for the postmarks:

I love how it came out, and for once the Konad polish bleed actually works for the manicure, like it's been streaked by tears or some liquid over time. The only thing I'd change is I might stamp with a dark brown if I were to do it again rather than black, what do you think?

Thanks for looking! And please check out the other entries in this month's Polish Days challenge!!

Xoxox,
M.