Liquid Sand Jinx

It feels like a really long time since I last blogged.  Ever since Summer break started, the three of us have been ill.  The girls are still not their best and I have an ear infection that doesn't seem to be responding to the prescribed meds I got.  It's now officially two weeks that we've been sick.  We still have been doing our Summer activities minus the trips to the beach.  My daughter had an appointment on a neighbor island and I think that the pressure of riding in an airplane might have caused my ear infection.  My daughter and I also have allergies.  We've been taking allergy meds, mucinex, antibiotics, ibuprofen.  I have a mini pharmacy in my cabinet.  It's just been exhausting. 
On one of our mini travels, I picked up Jinx from the OPI Bond Girls set.  I've seen other brand textured polish, but they look like stucco.  I like the sparkle of the Liquid Sands.  I might pick up a couple more from this set.  Jinx is a perfect shade for Summer.  I did a matching mani/pedi with it.  In pictures, it looks bright red orange, but it's a toned down coral in person. I did two coats over a base coat. I added When Monkeys Fly with Revlon Matte Top Coat as an accent for some added bling.

My Private Jet

Okay, I know everyone has seen this swatched a hundred times over.  This (of course) is the non holo version of OPIs "My Private Jet" from the Night Bright collection that also included "Give Me The Moon" and "OPI Ink".  I like both versions of this polish.  They are two completely different colors and should have had different names
Tonight I felt in the mood for a darker, nonsummer color.  I decided on MPJ.  It reminds me of a light rainy night sky in the city.  The way that the red and yellow lights reflect off the soft rain drops.  Haha, talk about imagination running wild.  This version of MPJ has a soft sparkle in the reddish brown base.  My bottle is runny and making a mess of my cuticles. Looks like I painted my nails with my eyes closed.   I'm using two coats, even though I could get away with only one.

This is showing up as charcoal, but it is actually brown.

Before I went to sleep, I rubbed vitamin E into my cuticles.  The next morning, cleanup was very minimal.

Into The Night (The Amazing Spiderman)

 I actually picked up one of the OPI Amazing Spiderman shades.  This is "Into The Night".  It's a beautiful frost/shimmer.  In the bottle, it reminds me of satin.  This is 2 coats.  The first coat was sheer, but the second coat made it opaque.  Application was smooth.  I wasn't going to get any of the colors because I thought they weren't that unique.  When I walked in the salon, this blue caught my eye.  Pictures cannot capture the glow of this polish.  It's my new favorite blue.  I want to wear this all the time. 

 This collection has a green shatter.  It represents the lizard and just didn't seem right to pair it with this blue.  I picked up Red Shatter instead.  This looks more Spiderman to me.  It's a fast, easy manicure that I really like.  The red shatter went on smooth and it cracked nicely.  It has the consistency of black shatter.  My white, teal, and silver do not shatter this well.  The white is thicker, the teal and silver do not show that much of the color beneath.  There are other colors that I want to use the red over and I will do a "Red Shatter" Spam Post when I get around to trying all my combos.  Just when I thought I was over the whole crackle/shatter trend, this red got me excited all over again.

The Comic Book Version

My Pointe Exactly Jelly Sandwich

 Two nights ago I decided to do a jelly sandwich using the new "My Pointe Exactly" from the OPI NYC Ballet collection.  It's a sheer gray jelly, a very unique color.  The possibilities for this polish is only limited to your imagination.  If you like to Konad stamp or do jelly sandwiches, this is a must for your collection.  I paired it with Milanis Jewel FX in "Teal". 

My light box finally has a lamp.  My camera, however, was not playing nicely. 
My sweetie took this pic with his phone.  It turned out way better than the many attempts
I tried with my camera.  Thanks babe!

I started off with the intention to do a basic jelly sandwich. It just didn't seem complete.  I kept
adding to it and this was the finished result.  This is a total of 7 coats.  I did it before
 going to bed.  I expected some dings.  The next morning is was flawless and glossy. 
 I skipped the base coat this time. 

• 2 coats My Pointe Exactly
• 1 coat Milani Teal
• 1 coat My Pointe Exactly
• Sally Hansen Quick dry top coat
• Teal Accent nail/ Konad stamp m79 using Konad white polish
• Konad special polish top coat
• added gems and topped it off with Seche Vite

On another note, I wanted to show you guys a Gyotaku print my soon to be 3 year did.  I never heard of it before and thought it pretty cool.  You paint an actual fish and do a rubbing of it.

"Gyo" means fish and "Taku" means rubbing or impression.  Japanese fishermen used to do it hundreds of years ago as a way to record their catch.  Now its a form of art done with rice paper.

Doraemon

Had fun this weekend at the Childrens Day Festival on Cinco De Mayo.  There were lots of arts and crafts for the children to do, good food, and entertainment.  The kids loved watching the Taiko drummers.  Doraemon also made an appearance.  He is a robot cat in a Japanese Cartoon.  From what I understood, he likes to invent things.  We never watched an episode before, but he was big and blue and the girls loved him.

Doraemon Clipart

They were making paper bracelets and
learning to reuse and recycle



Finished Bracelets

Im so glad we attended. Both girls can't stop talking about it and they are
still playing with their projects

 Once home, I decided on a blue manicure (like Doraemon).  I also wanted to play with my new dotting tools. 

• No Room For the Blues (OPI) base
• Last Friday Night (OPI) layerd over
• a franken polish dropped and dragged from my cuticles
• Russian Navy (OPI) dropped, dragged, dotted over everything

I still need some practice with my dotting tools. I dragged the polish to hard and lifted parts of the polish giving it a sharp texture.  The follwing pics are in different lighting.  I still need to pick up a lamp for my lightbox.  Also still waiting for the charger to arrive for my other camera. 

April Nail Polish Haul

Back L-R: Russian Navy, Do You Think I'm Tex-y?, At First Sight, Mannicurist of Seville
Front L-R: Teal or No Teal, Happy Anniversary, Cinderella, A Million Sparkles, Twining Vines

This year I've really been holding off buying polish.  I did A LOT of hauls last year and wanted to enjoy those colors.  I have been buying a polish now and then but April is my first haul of the year. Through the course of a month, I acquired 13 bottles.  It wasn't intentional.  I went to watch The Hunger Games and since I was at the mall, went in to Trade Secrets (my favorite mall shop).  They have some OPI colors that are being discontinued. I also had to get 4 of the NYC Ballet shades.  I made a total of 3 visits in the week.  Walgreens had the Wet N Wild Flora and Fauna sets.  I got both since wet n wild are my favorite eyeshadows. ( I have almost every palatte).  The polishes I could have done without.  When I went to Target, I saw A Million Sparkles by Nicole.  It was the first time I noticed that color. Beautiful.  A few days ago I was killing time in Walgreens and they finally had Cinderella by Sinful Colors. They were out a while, so this time I bought it.  So that basically sums up my haul.  I don't intend to do another haul for a while. 

The Ballet shades are so pretty, they needed their own picture. L-R: My Pointe Exactly, Care to Danse?, You Callin Me a Lyre?, Pirouette My Whistle.  I made good use of them last month.  Softshades are usually not my thing, but I really, really like these. The formula is smooth and not streaky.  You Callin Me A Lyre? is my favorite.  It is a true ballet pink.  Scrangie did a beautiful review on them.  Thanks to her I didn't pass up these jellies. http://www.scrangie.com/search?q=nyc+ballet. Ommorphia Beauty Bar also did a spectacular review on the collection. She included pictures of the New York City Ballet and the result is stunning.  http://ommorphiabeautybar.com/2012/03/03/opi-new-york-city-ballet-softshades-collection-swatches-review/

I will do full manis from my haul, including the softshades again. I might need a backup bottle of Lyre

OPI Fiercely Fiona and "The August Blues" preview



Another day, another manicure.  I removed the depressing "suede/silver shatter" and decided to go for something fun and summery even though it's cloudy and rainy.  This is from the OPI Shrek collection of last year.  "Fiercely Fiona"-it's the color of Fiona's skin tone.  My daughter has the toy to compare.                                            I used 2 coats but it could've used a third to even out the streaks.  Streaks are normal with this type of color.  On that note is also wasn't as streaky as some other pastels.  I thought it applied well.    I like this yellow/green better than a normal yellow because its not blinding on my fingertips.  This is my 3rd manicure with this color but the first time I'm posting it.  I've been wanting to do this watermelon stamp and "Fiercely Fiona" is a good base color.  The stamp is from Konas plate m55.  It includes a variety of summer fruits.  The colors did smudge when I added a top coat (a random mini bottle that said top coat).  I decided to add gems to distract from the smudging. I might keep this on until August.  If not, I'll use Paint my Moji-Toes Red (OPI South Beach 2009) to finish off the month.  It's been on my toes all of July and never made it to my fingertips.

Fiercely Fiona, Paint My Moji-Toes Red, Konad Special Polish -Green

This is a preview of my "Blue collection".  I lined them up for August.  Blue is the color I'm most drawn to when buying polish.  (Left to Right)  CA Colors #47, SH XTWear  "Blizzard Blue", OPI Burlesque "Simmer and Shimmer", Milani 3D "Cyberspace", my own Frankenpolish, OPI "No Room for the Blues", OPI Katy Perry "Last Friday Night" (my favorite), SHXTWear "Pacific Blue", SHXTWear "Deep Blue Sea", another Frankenpolish I mixed, OPI "Blue my Mind", and OPI DS "Fantasy"   

I still want to get a pastel blue like "What's with the Cattitude" and next month OPI has a bright turquoise foil to be released "Swimsuit, I Nailed It" from the upcoming Miss Universe.  I know that some mainland shops have this collection out but here in Hawaii, I don't expect to see it til the end of August.  I'm telling myself I won't buy it....but when I go to pick up "It's My Year" (a light purple shimmer from the same set) I will probably get it too.  I just really like blue polish.

OPI Flit a Bit and OPI Conga-line Coral

Here is one of the five OPI colors that I found at Trade Secret for $2.  Because these usually are $8.50 each, I grabbed every clearance color. This is from last years "Summer Flutter" collection.  It's called "Flit a Bit".  I didn't know I would like orange so much.  It's a nice shade for spring, summer, and fall.  I used Sally Hansens speed dry in "Lightning" to do the Konad stamps.  I'm glad the image picked up on camera.  It's not that noticeable in person. 

Here is a pic of the "Summer Flutter" display.  All of the colors are really pretty.  I wish it was part of their permanent collection.

My orange manicure didn't last because I was messing with the nail polish remover again.  I was cleaning empty polish bottles so I could mix Franken polish.  I made three of them.  I will swatch them next month because two are blue and another is purple with pink sparkles.

This is my third mani for the month of July.  This is another clearance OPI.  Conga-Line Coral  from the Spring 2009 South Beach Collection.  It's a color I would normally not use.  Turns out, I really like it.  It's bright and shimmery.  A fun color.  I will probably be using it again through this month and also in November with a glitter top coat.  The hibiscus Konad stamp turned out nice.  My nails are super soft right now from using clorox last week.  I'm getting a lot of breakage and will have to file my nails shorter for my next mani

Spark De Triomphe with White Shatter

June 23, 2011

This is from OPI's Serena Glam Slam collection.  It's one of the French sets. I couldn't wait to try this color on.  Spark De Triomphe is super pretty. It has fine glitter and larger round flecks. The pictures didn't catch the depth of this polish.  It could be a top coat or opaque on its own.  I used three coats.  I didn't want to cover it up so I used white shatter only on the tips.  Glad I did.  It didn't shatter well.  Could be the angle I applied it or the texture of the SDT.  I noticed with glitters, if you don't use a top coat before applying shatter, it won't shatter as much.  Can't stop looking at all the sparkles.  This is a great year round color.