Tri-Polish Challenge-March 2013 #4

Well, this is the last post of this month's challenge colors, purple, coral and green.

Oh, the plans I had! This was going to be gorgeous and space-y and interesting.
And then the fail happened.
I started off (after my base coat-always remember to use base coat, boys and girls!) putting down a layer of OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls to enhance the neon appearance of my green and "coral".  I then put stripes of my feature colors horizontally on the nails. SVed that, then taped off a wedge in the middle, yes, it was de-stickified. Put a coat of black on the edges and pulled off the tape.

You can see the black pulled up here.

What a mess. The black bled. And worse, the tape pulled up the stripes! What should have been an easy peasy manicure turned into a superb failure. Oh, it may not look that way in ALL of the pictures, but it was.

But, I decided that honesty needed me to post it anyway.
"Learn from my fail" sort of thing.
So, know what you intend to do before you start-I think the mess started from too much MBSW.
And take your time. I rushed the whole thing, and for no reason.

So learn this and go look at the other challenge manicures, pretty much all of which will be better than mine.

Adios!
Lizajane~~

Tri-Polish Challenge-March #3

This third installment in The Crumpet's Nail Tarts Tri-Polish Challenge is my favorite of this round! As usual, it didn't end up being what I planned for it, but I love it better that if it had.

I started out intending to do a cloud mani-I love the look but hadn't done one, or if I had it was quite a while ago-so I put down the base coat of Julep Hayden. Then I started in on the clouds using Julep Courtney, but something happened and I ended up with this!

I ended up outlining (and on a couple, giving a little pointy hat) with Sally Hansen White On.

Love this! Love this! Love this!

Take a look at what the other Tarts came up with for this challenge-they all do such nice work!

Adios!
Lizajane~~

Zoya Kelly

Just a quickie today. I kept my St. Patrick's Day mani on all week (yes, the TriPolish Challenge manis are done ahead of time, you knew that from the Flip Flop February Challenge) just because a coworker said that I changed my polish more than anyone she knew. I am pretty sure that she didn't mean that as a compliment, so I didn't change it on Wednesday, my day off. Six days with the same mani. I had so much I wanted to TRY!

And now that I took that off, all I wanted was simple. A palate cleanser.

Zoya Kelly is perfect for that! So simple, easy, comforting. In the bottle, it looks like there is a hint of purple in this deep gray, but I don't see it on the nail. Just a bit of a blue lean to it, so that means it works really well with my skintone.

And this knocks another one out of the Untried column! Yay!

I hope everyone has a great weekend! I plan on going to my parents' and wishing them a happy 50th anniversary in person. (And then tonight there is bowling league fun night, and tomorrow we are going over to a friend's house for gaming! Fun weekend!)

Adios!
Lizajane~~

TriPolish Challenge-March 2012, #2

The colors that Ashley chose for us this month are purple, green and coral. We have to use at least two in each of the four manis for the challenge, and all three in at least one.

Today I used all of them! I laid down my purple and then tried my fan brush for the first time. I had intended to do this for Flip Flop February, but I found a different technique to use, so I had this one in my back pocket still.

 Inside, under my OttLite.

I first did Courtney almost all the way along the nail, then Hayden a little farther up, and then ended up with Courtney again toward the tips.

Inside, under my OttLite again.

Easy, but interesting, manicure.

Inside, in the sunshine.

Sometime, I want to use this technique to do a Northern Lights manicure, I can just picture it now!

Be sure to look at what everyone else has done today, and thank you, Debbie Crumpet, for starting this challenge! It is so much fun!

Adios!
Lizajane~~

Premiere of the Tri-Polish Challenge

New Challenge time!
Over at The Crumpet they came up with these rules:

The Tri Polish Challenge is a way to have creative fun with the polishes you already own, with no set themes.  Here are the rules -

* each month Crumpet's Nail Tarts will set 3 colours for the challenge.  You then choose 1 polish to represent each of those 3 colours.  You must stick to those same 3 polishes throughout the entire challenge.

* example - if the colours are red, blue and green, you might pick Zoya Dakota, Models Own Beth's Blue and China Glaze Starboard.   You must stick to those polishes and cannot change which polish represents which colour.

* each Challenge Day, you must use at least 2 of these 3 polishes in your mani.  You must also use all 3 polishes at least once.

* you also have free use of white, black, silver, gold and glitter toppers

* there is no theme - what you do is up to you - let the colours inspire you!

* there are 4 posts in the challenge, on the Tuesday and Thursday of the 3rd and 4th week of the month

* full details and Inlinkz codes will be available in Crumpet's Nail Tarts so come and join us there :)

Special thanks to Ashley from Smashley Sparkles for having the original idea and creating the banner :)  xx

With such flexibility, how could I resist?

So, March's colors are Green, Purple, and Coral. I probably have more purple in my stash than any other color, and I have plenty of green, so no problem coming up with something there.

And then there is coral.
I had 8 polishes on my Orange Wheel.

Orange is just not my bag, baby. Oh, yes, my favorite pedi color is on there, #4 Sally Hansen Crushed, but I have always considered that a true bright orange. #1-3 are not accurately pictured here, they just didn't work for coral in my mind.
So I chose #6, Julep Hayden. I might have ventured into "peachy" territory, but that is the color I chose, and so I have to use it in all four manicures for this month.

Started off with two easy coats of Pure Ice Black Velour, a lovely matte. It says in the rules that you have free use of black.

Then I used Hayden and Julep Courtney to try a funky Animal Print.

(I would say this is the most color accurate pic of the bunch.)

And then apparently I thought it would work better with a matte topcoat.

There we go!
Premiere Tri-Polish Challenge!
Stay tuned for more (and of varying quality) manicures!
And don't forget to check out everyone's manis! That is my favorite part of participating in a challenge! Even this weekend, I found new posts in the FFF challenge! Bonus!
Adios!
~~Lizajane

PS-Can anyone teach me how to do the upside down exclamation point? That always bothers me when I sign off. Thanks!

Happy St. Patrick's Day, 2013

It's evening now, so I can't even use the Irish greeting Top O' Th' Mornin' To You!
Well, I can, and I did, but it isn't the most appropriate at 5:30 in the evening.

Posting this later than I would have liked, but real life got in the way.
Yesterday was the baby shower for Daughter Number Two-yes, you may remember the other daughter's shower during the Flip Flop February Challenge. I am SO glad that all these are done! Now just to wait for the babies to show up!

I took off Friday's chipping mani before I started the food prep Saturday morning, and ended up just wearing a coat of OPI Matte Nail Envy on my stained nails. I doubt anyone noticed. I keep telling myself that no one noticed.

After the shower, I touched up the two nails that needed it, put down a base layer of Zoya Purity, then put on a fun green glitter, Vivid Lacquer's Shiny New Australia, from her Evil Collection of Evil. Because of the white unders, you could see that from across the room in the dark. I am only embellishing a little. No way would I have been able to wear that to church, especially since choir ended up singing up front for a couple songs. I went back to my Melmer and dug out Zoya Frida, and with that application, I ended up with a fun St. Paddy's Day mani!

The sun was out after church, so I grabbed a quick sunshine picture!

Look at those micro-flakeys in there! I think that is Anni's signature touch!

(Gee, can we call the Seche Vite shrinkage my signature touch?)

May the the road rise up to meet you.
May the wind always be at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face,
and rains fall soft upon your fields.
And until we meet again,
May God hold you in the palm of His hand.

And as my Sullivan Grandmother taught my mother, Good Night, Sleep Tight, Don't Let The Bedbugs Bite!

~~Lizajane 

Try It On Tuesday-3/5/13

Just a quickie here because I forgot to post earlier, and now I need to get people to bed.

Back on Black Friday I bought myself an OPI Ger-minis set, and until today only one had been used.

Today, I tried on Suzi and the 7 Dusseldorfs.

Lovely purple color, I thought it leaned a little magenta rather than blue.
This worked well with my skintone and two coats was all that I needed for my nubbins (not complaining, I keep them this length for work.) I kinda wish I had tried this right away, it would have been a great one for winter vampies.

In order to knock out another untried, I tossed a coat of Black Tie Optional from the new Hard Candy collection. I never expect to even see Connect The Dots in person, let alone use it, so this is my substitute. I can see why it is so popular, though.

All that on my nails is just from one dip! Seriously, I just pulled the brush out of the bottle and applied, and applied, and applied, and applied! I had to move about two pieces of bar glitter around, but it all lay down very nicely. I can certainly recommend this polish, and if the others in the collection are as good, then they would be worth picking up, too.

Good night, all!

Adios!
Lizajane~~

Camouflage nails

Well, the art that I had in mind over the previous mani fell through, I can't find my A. England Dragon, and the OPI DS Classic didn't stamp as well as I had hoped, so I ended up putting Darling Diva Chandelle on the A Taupe The Space Needle. I like it a lot!

You can also see a difference in the ring and middle finger. I ended up removing the polish from those after a couple failed stamping attempts, so I just put on some DS Classic, a single coat of Chandelle, then a coat of Gelous, and then Seche Vite.

It is really wearing well, too! I did this last Friday night, 3/1/13, and it still looks pretty good today, 3/5/13. The only place that doesn't is on my right thumb where I jammed it into a monitor holder at work. Ouch! That had actual nail damage, not just polish wear.

But I am bored, and it is Try It On Tuesday, so this will be coming off, soon.

Do you participate in any regularly scheduled posts/prompts? Can you recommend any?

Adios!
Lizajane~~

Calm yourself

Whew! February was quite the whirlwind, wasn't it? That challenge really was loads of fun though.
But now, I really felt that I needed a bit of a break, however my nails got uber-stained this week-I suspect the Julep Morgan, but I can't prove anything-so I HAVE to have something on the nails.


I wanted something easy, calming, so I thought a nice neutral would work. Looking in my Melmer last night, OPI A Taupe The Space Needle was calling to me. I listened!

This will be a wonderful base for the art &/or glitter I have in mind when I get tired of simplicity.

Adios!
Lizajane~~