Black and White TV

Have you ever watched The Twilight Zone? You have to have seen or heard of it, and if you have, you probably immediately went to black and white. Those classic mystery shows were inspiration for this far-fetched Halloween theme tonight. Though it's certainly not your typical Halloween design, it still applies.

The ombre effect was continued onto each nail, pulling out the base color from each block of three on each nail. The colors used, from darkest to lightest, are Strumming my Nails (Sation), Carey (Zoya), Movie Star (Essence) and Black Onyx (OPI).

I'd also like to take a moment to thank everyone who supported me in the Tadashi Shoji nail art contest. Unfortunately, I wasn't the winner, but the talented Sarah at Chalkboard Nails did win, and I must say I'm thrilled it was hers that won. Her freehand skills were fantastic, and the colors were a unique choice compared to all the other entries. I can't wait to see what the clutch looks like! Congratulations Sarah!

Trick or Transition

My lovely Saran Wrap technique has really hit nail lovers everywhere by storm. I have literally seen countless girls try it and love it! The pull-polish-off method only requires you to know how to paint your nails...that's it!

In honor of this now-popular technique, I wanted to do a doubled version, using the colors indicative of Halloween: orange and black, and green and purple.

The orange is Lava Lamp (Color Club), and it's paired with Black Onyx (OPI). The green is Twiggie (Color Club), and it is paired with Keiko (Zoya). Topping off those are three of the Finger Paints flakie polishes, Asylum, Flashy, and Flecked.

Oh...and please remember to vote for my nail art entry to the Tadashi Shoji competition! You can vote once a day, and every vote is greatly appreciated!

Color Wheel Collision

Tonight I was going to put together some swatches of one of the two glitter polish swatches I owe you and their creators, but time slipped away more quickly than anticipated. Those are coming soon though, and trust me, you'll be excited! Halloween and fall colored glitters...hell yes!

In the meantime, here's a really fun manicure that everyone can do. It's so easy and so striking. I love this. Ingenious in its simplicity!

To begin, I painted my pinkie, index finger and thumb with Happy Go Lucky (China Glaze). I painted my ring finger with Lavendairy (Lime Crime) and my middle finger with Keiko (Zoya). Then, I added some thicker striping tape over the yellow on the pinkies and index fingers in two evenly spaced lines. Then, it was just a matter of filling in the empty spaces with Lavendairy, Keiko, and Grape Pop (China Glaze).

How fun and easy is this? Try it yourself with some contrasting colors on the color wheel. Orange and blue, red and green. Or mix it up entirely!

What a Load of Chat

A trip to Marshalls the other day revealed that Sation polishes are indeed in stock. You may remember a post about that earlier. It's not a complete stock, with only a few polishes here and there, but I couldn't help picking up a beautiful neon pink for just $2.99.

Mimicking a shirt I also picked up during that same trip, these stripes were created using Chatty Catty (Sation) and Load (Illamasqua). I love the way the accent nail looks. It's so subtle and difficult to tell there's a party nail in the mix.

Creamy Leopard

I've only used the delicious and creamy Posh from Revlon once before, and I forgot how unbelievably beautiful it is. It totally makes this manicure something incredibly special.

The half moon leopard print manicure isn't anything new (you've probably seen The Daily Nail version), but I love it with the green!

The leopard print was created using the Chalkboard Nails tutorial and the colors were Sand Tropez and Case Study (Essie), and Black Onyx (OPI). It was a simple design to do, and I'm lovin it!

Dysfunctional RV

Last night's manicure showed you one of the Sation Nailstock colors, but it definitely didn't glorify it. I had to give RV There Yet? another try tonight, with some complementary colors and accents to really help it pop.

Isn't it gorgeous? That almost antique jade color works perfectly with the ill pink color of Decades of Dysfunction (ORLY) and the gold striping tape. I love the way the colors and the design makes my fingers look. Elegant but definitely not ordinary.

Have I convinced you to get your Nailstock collection yet? I think I have, but for those who aren't sure, check out the Nailstock supply at the Miss Professional Nail store for all the colors you're missing out on.

I've also added this manicure to a contest hosted by Birchbox. If you have a moment, I'd love your vote! Click here to be taken to the entry on Facebook.

Cab Outta Hell

I once rode in a man's taxi who told us, on our 45 minute ride back to our hotel, about his crazy adventures. He had been held up multiple times, once even being completely stripped of his cash cab, leaving him not only broke, but stranded.

You can only imagine what I and my fellow passengers were thinking while listening to his terrifying tales.

"Are we actually going to make it back to the hotel?"

"I really should've practiced dialing 911 with my hands behind my back last week."

We made it back just fine, and actually tipped him quite well. Possibly to deter him from visiting the hotel room after his rounds.

I dedicate this manicure to him, and I'm calling it Cab Outta Hell.

The yellow is my favorite yellovely, The "It" Color (OPI). I used striping tape to keep the diagonal lines straight, and a now-steady left hand and a striping brush for the vertical lines and rectangles. Challenge yourself for a week with your non-dominant hand. You'll pick it up quicker than you think.

Cooooookie Crisp Lines

I'm back! Inspiration struck...and stuck! I'll often think up a manicure, love it in my head, and then as soon as I sit in my polishing chair, hate it or try to think of something else. I don't know why I psyche myself out like that, but it'll often result in a poorly thought out or poorly executed design. Not tonight! Tonight...we've struck gold! White gold!

I wanted to use my new TheHungryAsian polish, Cookies & Cream. (I've decided to change the way I display polish names from being italicized to bold, for easier readability.) I took her advice and used an opaque white underneath, White On (Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear). I'm not even sure how I came up with the idea for the stripes, but they worked out perfectly! I used Light Mist (Savina), Papaya Punch (China Glaze) and my small striping brush from Color Madric, Black. I got the crisp lines using tape. Good ole tape.

Nude on Black

If I were to rate this manicure on a patience level from one to ten, ten being the highest amount of patience, it'd score a ten...easily. The results speak for themselves though and I'm happy to say I like the gradient results I scored!

Getting a good gradient is hard, and this one isn't nearly as nice as some I've seen. You have to get the edges, blend it well, and get a good effect. If you screw up, it's kind of hard to fix it. You just have to keep blending, little by little. Again, mine isn't perfect, but I'm mostly happy with it.

Another piece of patience crucial to the success of this manicure is the taping. Luckily, I didn't need to cut strips of tape to be the correct width. I ordered some 1/16" striping tape, originally designed for use in model cars or trains. There's 36 feet of the stuff too, so I didn't feel bad about using extra to run the length of my nails. (It's one of the instances I'm glad I have shorter nails though.)

The base (which I teased some Instagram followers with earlier) is Black on Black (Sinful Colors), and the gradient neutral color is Nomadic Nude (Color Club). Both are super cheap polishes, but both are beyond lovely and deserve their own solo debuts. I adore them paired with one another as well though. The colors remind me of Nugget's colors a bit actually.

As vicious as this looks, Nugget's as gentle as cats come.

Clubbing with Cleopatra

One of my favorite title posts so far! Fun fact.

Dancing at Beta (a Denver nightclub) always require some glittery manicure. I can't help myself. I know no one will see my nails, but a club outfit is never complete unless it has some awesome nails to accompany it.

Yesterday was an odd day for me. I actually wore two different manicures, but smudged one to oblivion and wound up picking the whole thing off. I didn't even take pictures of it, so let's have a short moment of silence for the loss of polish involved. Saddest part? It used Katy, a Zoya color, and my name.

But my spirits rose quickly when I finished this manicure!

Here is Black on Black (Sinful Colors) and Cleopatra (China Glaze). I used the hole reinforcer technique to get the half moon shapes, and it was a piece of cake. I wound up dabbing a bit of Champagne Bubbles (China Glaze) on the tips to hide the black underneath, which you can just pick out if you look closely enough.

Crowned in Her Yellow Polka Dot Bikini

Thanks to everyone who wished my BBQ well! It went wonderfully, though most of us walked away with it regretting not wearing more sunscreen. I suppose we'll just call these burns our base tans, though the lines are sort of horrendous. Makes me wish I was wearing a bikini like my nails are today.

I've been seeing a lot of neons lately, but seeing Traci's manicure at Drinkcitra was the tipping point that made me realize I needed more neon in my life. I used Yellow Polka Dot Bikini (China Glaze) and Crown Me Already! (OPI) for this taped manicure. Nothing to fancy, but the color and the glitter, topped off with the striped line of Time Off (Sinful Colors) really makes my nails pop. Another crash-test-worthy set of nails I probably shouldn't drive with, especially with the sun so readily available now.

Also! Big news! I've reached 500 followers for my blog! I'm so excited! I've also seen some great advances in those interested in my other social outlets as well as you can see by these exciting numbers!

• Facebook: 231 Likes for Nailed It's page
• Twitter: 66 followers for my Twitter name, blognailedit
• Pinterest: 383 followers for My Nail Art board alone, plus others for my other boards!
• Tumblr: 3,042 followers for my Tumblr blog (I'm especially proud of this one, as on Tumblr, people tend to follow based on photos alone, so it seems people enjoy looking at what I work so hard to create).

So to everyone that has ever read, liked, repinned or reblogged my nail art compilations, thank you! You guys rock and it's so encouraging to get such awesome feedback from complete strangers!

Orange You Impossible to Get?

Enjoy that clever ravaged cuticle hiding technique I used there? Vegas did a number on my nails, and my immune system.

Yes girls (and are there any gentlemen blog readers?), that is a Nail-Venturous original you're seeing, Orange You Unique?. Its sisters Floam and Pinkerbell have eluded my grasp yet again, but this one was actually my favorite when it first showed up on Amy's blog just over two months ago. Since then, she's expanded her brand to include some of my other favorites like Flying Blue Jay, Robin Laid an Egg, and Humble Bee, seen here. They're unbelievably hard to come by, and rightly so! Look at them! In the time it took me to load 8 polishes into my cart for her Etsy store, all of her polishes were sold out. That was probably a whopping 30 seconds. After I brushed off the dust and wiped away my tears, I got up off the ground of the bar I happened to be at at the time and wrote to Amy. She was as shocked as I was at how quickly everything sold out, but it's honestly not surprising. The amount of stalking I did during that day was a bit embarrassing, so I'm sure there were hundreds of girls doing the same. I'm OK with not getting them because they're popular, but if there's someone out there buying up a HUGE amount of the stock just to resell, hoard or give away, I'll be upset. It's not Amy's fault she made such amazing polishes. Okay...it is her fault, but that's in no way a bad thing. Thank you Amy! (Also, thanks to Ninja Polish for selling her stock when there's enough to go around.)

I wanted to pair Orange You Unique? with something else because there's plenty of swatches already out there. I striped it in between Flyin' High and Papaya Punch (China Glaze) and left it at that. I thought about adding some black dots to outline it, but the blending that's happening is a little to lovely to futz around with.

I also have some rather exciting sneak peaks to show you. I snagged these three colors at Walgreens today. Are those micro white glitters in the middle swatch? Why yes, I believe they are!

Looks like one of the big-name companies has been paying attention to what girls are buying!

Pastelized Housewife

Don't these colors remind you of a kitchen in the 50s? The pastel greens and blues that colored the walls, the peach color for the toaster and rotary phone. The gold represents the ever-beautiful housewife, cleaning and cooking in heels and crinoline.

It also reminded me of a bracelet I hardly ever wear.

Both time consuming and difficult, my patience was wearing thin by the end of this manicure. The cleanup was dreadful, as it required more than a few coats to reach opacity, which means goopy taping messes. Honestly, when I started this, the lines were going to be covered by a stamp, but with the goop, I opted for a more complete coverage using Gold Digger (Color Madric). The two China Glazes, Re-Fresh Mint and Peachy Keen do pair well together though.

Stitched Together

I'm sure there exists somewhere a Hallmark card about stitching two things together that somehow relates to hearts and Valentine's Day, so use your imagination to connect that to my second Valentine's Day manicure while I dose off to get ready for skiing in the a.m.

This manicure took painfully long to complete, and I blame it on my impatience to let things dry before taping them off. I had to take off and redo my left index finger 4 times before I finally got it right. Darn Pointer!

The lighter pink is Soul Mate (appropriate for this holiday) and the darker is Feeling Great, both from Sinful Colors. The white stitches are French White Creme (Wet n' Wild). The pinks were done with the tape, and the stitches were a tiny striping brush. I'm growing more fond of the brushes I have, but I'm not sure I'll ever use the longest brush. It seems so unwieldy, but maybe I just haven't found its use yet.

Goodnight!

Pyramid Flaked

An unusually frustrating feeling occurs when you have so many ideas flurrying about in your head, and can't decide which one to pick and ultimately apply to your nails. It's like walking into a candy store and being told you can only have one piece of one flavor. The decisions weigh so heavily on you that you eventually cave under the pressure, and pick up the first piece that you can grab. In the end, you're not thrilled with it, but the sweet taste is too distracting to care.

Faced with such a dilemma last night, I wound up with this cluster of colors. I chose the black base (Black Platinum from Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure) because I didn't want to use the solid black you see paired with flakies on almost every Googled image of "flakies". (I wish I had used a solid though.) The pyramid shape filled with Twisted (Finger Paints) is something I've been envisioning for the past few days, but it was only while I was applying my base coat that I decided to use flakies instead of my original idea. I won't say what that idea was yet, because I'm sure in the next few days I'll use that still. Ultimately, this is what I came up with, indecision be damned!

Gnar Pow

These bright nails are inspired by fashion. Not high-fashion fashion though, or anything you'd normally wear. This is season-specific fashion appropriate in only some places. No, it's not black tie. It's ski season chic!

Tomorrow morning is the first ski for me for the season. I just got brand new skis, boots, beanie, face mask, socks and jacket. I'm ready to go out, enjoy some snow, or as my friend Mable calls it, "gnar pow", and come home absolutely exhausted from it all. I'm by no means anywhere close to being a good skier, but I enjoyed the first times, and probably about 4-5 times I've gone (all last year from January to May). Now with a season pass and gear in hand, it's time to start getting good and comfortable out there.

My jacket, as shown below, is bright yellow and purple. My new nails, match it perfectly. Too bad they'll be in gloves all day.

Click for more life-like coloring.

The colors I used include:

• Lightening from Sally Hansen Insta-Dri
• Senorita Bonita from China Glaze
• Bubbly Bombshell from ORLY
• Bad Chick from Sinful Colors nail art brush

The thumb in the first picture was actually inspired by this morning's miracle hangover cure, Snooze. If you don't live near a Snooze, I feel sorry for you. Their food is absolutely some of the best breakfast food I've ever eaten, and breakfast is my favorite meal. I mean come on...red velvet pancakes? Breakfast pot pie? De-licious.

Studly Stubs

Alliteration. It's hard not to use it. Look at my blog titles thus far. See a pattern? Of course you do, because it's alliteration. Alliteration is "the repetition of a particular sound in the first syllables of a series of words or phrases" and in my case, the first letter of the words in the phrase. "Pretty Pinks", "Glutton for Glitter", "Smooshed Skittles." I'm totally guilty of alliteration obsession.

It comes as no surprise then that today's manicure, while sophisticated and sleek, comes with another doofy title, "Studly Stubs." I may just make a thesaurus to reference when talking about hands, fingers, or nails.

The dark brown Get in the Expresso Lane (OPI) almost looks black both in the images shown, and in real life. There's such a small strip of it showing, and it's contrasting so vividly against the gold of Passion (China Glaze), that the rich brown flavor is lost. No mind though, I was going for deep and dark.

So, superfluous alliteration sidelined, is this sick? Would you want to wear it awhile? Would that damn detailing drive you daft?

;)

Early morning edit. This next week, particularly Thursday, does not bode well for my skin or nails...

Pirate Scales - A Tale of Woe

Before we begin, check out the new page at the top of my blog, Red Angel Plates, for images of all the Red Angel plates I recently got from Amazon. Links to posts using the designs, as well as a link to purchase them from Amazon are all provided.

Another gorgeous Red Angel plate design for you. This design took a LONG time for me to get done. Let me share my tale of woe with you.

I had been wanting to use my Planks a Lot from the OPI Pirates of the Caribbean collection for a while now. Since I had just purchased As Gold as it Gets from Essie's Luxe Effects collection, I thought I'd slap that on. It looked great!

It looks really similar to a manicure using Sally Hansen's Hidden Treasure or Nubar's 2010, but the flecks aren't as gold and don't change color quite as much. They stay more gold, rather than change to that iridescent, bubble/oil effect. I like it.

Since Red Angel plates have been requested by a few of you, I wanted to use one of them, and wound up deciding on plate 111. I tried the floral pattern on it first, but didn't like the way it looked with the flecks in the background. So wipe. I then tried the pattern I wound up using, but I used Awaken by China Glaze first. Didn't like that either...not enough contrast. So wipe. I chose to use old faithful, Black on Black from Sinful Colors instead.

By this time, my nails had started to dry out, so I tried putting some chapstick around my cuticles to moisten and make cleanup easier. I'd never tried it before, but it seemed like a great idea. For science, I only applied it to one of my hands, so I had a control group to test this new technique. Felt good. My cuticles were thirsty.

SO...after setting up the test groups, I got to work. On my left hand, I stamped the design on my thumb. Gorgeous. Loved it. So I moved onto my pointer. Not gorgeous. Didn't love it. Only about 1/4 of the design wound up on the nail. So wipe. Tried it again. Worked well. Great. Moved onto my middle finger. Same thing happened to my middle finger that happened to my pointer the first time. Come on! What is going on? I was getting fed up. It had been too long already, and I was just thinking about the cleanup that I still needed to do, so I took a break. I grabbed a handful of chips, and as I was licking the deliciousness off of my fingers, I thought to myself, "This tastes a lot like chapstick."

That's why the stamp wasn't working. So wipe...with soap.

After all the stamping was done, I realized I had rushed it, and the edges of my nails had bald spots. Uuuuuuugh. Cue tape and black polish, Black Creme from Wet n' Wild. Finally, you have the end result, which I'm mostly happy with. I'm upset it took so long to finish (sorry Bree!). I also should've just used a nail art brush for the black stripe, as I'm sure it would've taken less time and less cleanup, but I guess that's just a lesson to be learned.

Another lesson to be learned. DO NOT leave nail polish anywhere that curious kittens can conspire with mischievous pups. Nugget (the kitten), decided exposed polish bottles are great toys, since they roll around in unpredictable directions. Unfortunately, they sometimes roll off of edges, and land on the floor. This brings Riley (the puppy) running, to see if she can steal the toy from the cat. All the while, parents (Andy and I) lie in bed, oblivious to the sounds. They sound so much like the chewing of a bone, but alas, they're not. They're Planks a Lot, in the crushing jaws of a seven month old puppy.

The result?

 A chewed up bottle top...

and a guilty looking dog.

B&W Mini Self-Challenge: Day 1

Using the supplies from my previous post, I've put together something I'm excited about. The concept rocks, but I still need to brood on the best taping strategies. You'll see that the cuticles got a little ignored by Black on Black, but by the time I had un-taped and cleaned up enough to notice the oversights, I was pretty drained. So abandoned they'll remain. Poor cuties.

This manicure was actually inspired by Bundle Monster, and its first nail plates I bought. The pattern is from plate BM21, and it's one of the designs that isn't large enough to cover the whole nail of most girls, including me and my nubs. So, I sandwiched the pattern that did stick between two pillars of black. It reminds me of a decadent floor tile somewhere. The kind of place that would have a grand piano and at least one harp player. Maybe even a butler.

So I'll get some more taping practice, and revisit this another time. Not bad for a first attempt though! I just wish my nails were a bit longer, then it would look more delicate.

Oh, the white you're seeing is French White Creme from Wet n' Wild. It took quite a few coats to get it solid without streaking. So unfortunately, I won't be using it for stamping (which is why I originally bought it.) So far, Sally Hansen's Insta-Dri Whirlwind White is best for that.

Seeing Spots

Sorry for the missing posts the past few days. Halloween costume making took up all day yesterday. When it was time to hit the bars, I was barely finishing the costume. It turned out great though, and I'll post pictures of it tomorrow.

For today, I painted something I've been thinking about for a while. Unfortunately, it didn't turn out as well as I had hoped, which I partially blame on having short nails. I also blame it on taping the wrong side of my nail. Oh well, here it is.

As you can see, it got a little blotchy at the base of my nails. I'm wishing I had just left it with the stamp, and not the additional black bottom. It was a little too ambitious.

In the picture below, you'll see my nails painted in the opposite way. The top half of my nails are adorned in black on my right hand, which looks a little more sexy. As I'm typing this, I'm favoring my right hand. If I had done it on my left hand, it would've looked better for sure. I'm not ambidextrous, but I'm working on that.

Should've wrapped those tips huh?

It still turned out okay though, I can't beat myself up too much. You're seeing Black on Black (Sinful Colors) as the stamp on top of Sally Hansen's Insta-Dri Lightening. (It actually is spelled that way...not like lightning that comes during tumultuous thunder storms.)

Overall, pretty tasty, but it looks a little too leopard print. The image on the plate (BM 211) doesn't come across that way, but it's probably the color combination that's turning it into that. Oh well, enjoy, and keep an eye out for my costume post.