Tri-Polish Challenge-July #3

Hey! How's everyone doing? The nasty high temperatures broke so it is very comfortable here, yay!

Today, I experimented.

Everyone says that you can stamp over the textured polishes, but I didn't really believe it. Not that I didn't believe the people, I just thought they must be much better than I am.

The Nicole by OPI Blue-Berry Sweet On You is a textured polish-see, it says Gumdrops on the handle! So I layed it down for a first color. Then I went to my favorite stamping plates-the whole Vivid Lacquer line.

As I was asking my husband whether to do Houndstooth or Stars, I spotted a different design, and stopped short. Yep, Tetris was it. (VL 002 has both the stars and block-game, houndstooth is on VL005.)

As you can see, it truly does receive stamping excellently! After stamping with Wet & Wild Ebony Hates Chris,  I went in and used my other two Challenge colors, Navy Narcissist and Ivanka (as well as Zoya Trixie) to fill in some of the blocks.

After doing that, I decided that Blue-berry was too shiny, so I matted the manicure. As long as I was in an experimental mood, I decided to compare the two matte topcoats I have, NYC Matte Me Crazy and China Glaze Matte Magic.

Left-NYC  Right-China Glaze

This really confirmed my suspicions, China Glaze Matte Magic isn't what I would call Matte. It is barely flat. I am sure that I will find some application for it, but...serious mattifying isn't it.

So, thank you, Crumpet, for channeling our creativity by these rules-three colors assigned, and bonus black, white, silver, gold, and glitter toppers. So many different ideas have been floated...check out the links to see what we put out there today!

Adios!
~~Lizajane

Untried Polish Challenge-Prettiest

Skipping around again, but that's OK, Jonochi said so! Thanks, Jo! That freedom makes this so much more enjoyable of a challenge.

This was a bit of a challenge, choosing which polish was to be classified as "Prettiest". I was thisclose to calling my "Most Expensive" polish my prettiest, but ...then I wouldn't have something for that category! I am glad that I decided to do this one, though. It truly is a very pretty polish.

Not that it shows in this picture! I wanted to have a pic that I would (for once) do some color adjusting on, because I knew this Periwinkle blue would not show up decently. And I was testing my idea for nail art, which, BTW, I passed on, and I came up with a much prettier alternative! With another untried! Win-win!

Anyway, this still looks more purple than I want it to, but it is a gorgeous periwinkle in person.

What polish, you ask? Salon Perfect Pure Azure. This is OPI Matte Nail Envy, two coats of OPI Don't Touch My Tutu!,  1 x Seche Vite, and then two coats of Pure Azure. There was also a stamping attempt in there, but I decided that it didn't work.

Then what? I decided to put a dot line with Zoya Song at the edge of the Periwinkle French and then a dot line of Julep Isla inside that.

Rough and ready.

That worked for the Frenched fingers (thumb and pinkie on left, other three on right). So what to do on the other nails?

More stamping, anyone? I used the Vivid Lacquer scribble heart image from VL001 and the whole nail full of scribble hearts from VL009. Stamping polishes were Song and Isla.

I think that Isla is a new favorite, surprisingly. She looks like such an old lady in the bottle, a pearly white, but she does such an excellent job as a subtle stamper, that I think she is another "Prettiest" untried polish!

Xs and Os from VL001

So happy with the way this turned out! Now I have a great mani to wear to my uncle's wedding on Saturday! And I can't stop turning my hands this way and that to see the sparkle in Song!

By the way, this was inspired by Pkbmum's post here. Inspired by, not "a copy of".

Check out the rest of the UPC Bloggers' manicures for today. Only two more prompts left? 

Jo at Just Add Polish 

Masha at Lost In Lacquer

Raine at Lacquer Lily
Amy at Fancy Side

Amanda at Designer Nail Accents
Sam at Polished Art 

 Blueberry Pie at Blueberry Nails
Kristina at Lacquer Fetish

Missy at Gnarly Gnails
Uni at Acetone Files
Isabel at Little Fairy

Raux at Raux Polish

Alison at UKNailRunner 

Adios!
~~Lizajane

PS-What do you use for your blog photos? Instagram is becoming more "social" and I don't like clogging that up with manicure pics.

Tri-Polish Challenge-May #4

Fourth issue of the May 2013 Tri-Polish Challenge presented by Crumpet's Nail Tarts!
If you are unfamiliar with the TPC, each month we are told three colors, and then we have to select a polish to represent each color. We then do four manicures with those colors-at least one has to have all three colors, up to three can have only two of the month's colors. We also are allowed to use black, white, silver, gold, and glitter top coat.

May's colors are Red, Blue, and Gray.

My selections!

For my fourth mani, I decided to do more stamping. I used the Butterfly wing image from Vivid Lacquer. She has both a larger and a smaller wing design (on two different plates) and I used the smaller, because nubbins.

First I put down a coat of a white, and then sponged over it with Elisa and Song.

I stamped using Zoya Raven, and I was disappointed by the coverage. I had hoped that this would be my Holy Grail of black stamping polishes, but it was not. (I bought yesterday Wet & Wild Fast Dry "Ebony Hates Chris" which has been highly recommended.) Because the coverage wasn't sufficient, I took my cut down nail art brush and went over the lines with more Raven.

I love how this turned out! The plate's etching is great, and the artwork has more graceful lines than certain other plates I have seen, plus I didn't have to try to do it by hand!

Check out the other Tart's May Wrap Up manicures by following the links below.

Adios!
~~Lizajane

Tri-Polish Challenge-May #3

Happy Tuesday!
Yesterday was Memorial Day in the USA, so I did a mani in honor of that. The color choices worked out great for it.

I put down a base color of Zoya Elisa (my red choice of the month) and then tried out a stamping image for half moons. I have had this Vivid Lacquer plate for quite a while and hadn't tried the half moons-there are two on plate VL005, as well as a solid one on VL002. I stamped with Zoya Song (my blue choice of the month.)

If you look closely, you can see there are stars in that moon!

After stamping, I outlined the half moon with my silver striper and then put lines out, like a shield.
I really like the way this turned out, more than the alternative which I tried on my thumb, reversing the two colors.

The red didn't show up as well on the blue. Well, probably it fell down when I tried to use the silver striper to fill in the stars. Live and learn, that is why we experiment, right?

Thank you to all who have served their countries, in any capacity. Personally, few of my relatives have been to war. Both grandfathers served stateside in WWII, Dad was stateside Army, hubby Coast Guard, cousin Coast Guard currently. I guess we have just been lucky.

Take a look at what the other Tarts have come up with using their Gray, Red, and Blue polish choices.

Adios!
~~Lizajane

Untried Polish Challenge-Cheapest

My cheapest untried? How about a Sally Girl, on clearance? Yep, that is what it is.
This was a color that I just couldn't justify paying even the cheap price of 99 cents. So when it went on clearance, I grabbed it at 59 cents!

This is Sally Girl 812161, three coats, which I put on over a coat of China Glaze White On White-needed some unders with the Blaze Orange!

I paired it with another polish from the Evil League of Evil Collex from Vivid Lacquer-Random Crazy Happenstance.

There were occasional bright orange pieces in RCH that made me think this might work, so pinkie has RCH by itself, and pointer has it over the Sally Girl.

This got the three coats because it dragged a little on the second coat, although I may have been in a rush to get this done.

Another couple of colors that I will have to pull out come fall.

I love how this picture looks like an old-fashioned hand tinted photograph. Positively unnaturally glowy.

59 cents! Pretty darn cheap! That's a whole lotta color for that little price!

Only two more prompts left! Jo, what should we do when this is done? Thanks for organizing this challenge.

Jo at Just Add Polish 

Masha at Lost In Lacquer

Raine at Lacquer Lily
Amy at Fancy Side

Amanda at Designer Nail Accents
Sam at Polished Art 

 Blueberry Pie at Blueberry Nails
Kristina at Lacquer Fetish

Missy at Gnarly Gnails
Uni at Acetone Files
Isabel at Little Fairy

Raux at Raux Polish

Alison at UKNailRunner 

Adios!
~~Lizajane

Untried Polish Challenge-Creme

 

This particular polish should have been in the running for "prettiest", but I didn't realize it until I had already decided on that category.

For the creme prompt I chose to feature Julep Millie from the May 2013 box. I love Art Nouveau and the pretties in this box hark back to that era. Millie is a lovely deep purple creme.

It applies beautifully-this is one coat. Absolutely lovely.

Of course, I couldn't leave it at that.
As I was painting the swatch sticks, I saw that Millie and Vivid Lacquer's Moonlit Cheshire would work very very nicely together.

Anni packs so many varieties of glitter in her polishes. This one has full coverage in three coats, but I only used one.

I see purple bar glitter, hexes, flakies, black micro glitter, sliver flakies and micro glitters, and holo glitters. So complex and pretty.

What are the others putting out there today?

Masha at Lost In Lacquer
Raine at Lacquer Lily
Amy at Fancy Side

Amanda at Designer Nail Accents
Sam at Polished Art 

 Blueberry Pie at Blueberry Nails
Kristina at Lacquer Fetish

Missy at Gnarly Gnails
Uni at Acetone Files
Isabel at Little Fairy

Raux at Raux Polish

Alison at UKNailRunner 

Adios!

~~Lizajane

Untried Polish Challenge-Ugliest

Someone who isn't into polish might ask why one would have a polish one would classify as ugly. They just don't understand.
This was included in a collection, and I liked at least three of the eight, and have regretted not picking up other collections, so this, I bought the whole thing (in minis).

This is a skittle mani, since I didn't know what it would look good over, but I knew from my swatch stick that it would need unders of some sort.

Black, orange, copper, nude, (and white on the thumb).
Now that I have this on, it isn't that bad. It is a warm beige jelly with red, orange, copper and blue glitters in it.

I used three coats over each base color, and Seche Vite to top coat it-I think this collection (Evil League of Evil from Vivid Lacquer) is mostly a rubbery finish, and that is appealing less and less to me.

This is really surprising me, because I thought this would be an "apply and remove immediately" manicure, but I think I will keep it on for work, it mellowed together enough that the skittle isn't bothering me.

Thanks Jo for including this prompt, because I would never have tried this one without it, and now I am looking forward to fall when the colors will be more appropriate.

Take a look at the other bloggers who are doing this challenge, you might find something that you love!

Masha at Lost In Lacquer
Raine at Lacquer Lily
Amy at Fancy Side

Amanda at Designer Nail Accents
Sam at Polished Art 

 Blueberry Pie at Blueberry Nails
Kristina at Lacquer Fetish

Missy at Gnarly Gnails
Uni at Acetone FIles
Isabel at Little Fairy

Raux at Raux Polish

Alison at UKNailRunner 

Adios!
~~Lizajane

Untried Polish Challenge-the Early Edition

Supporting World Ovarian Cancer Day.

Most days at work I have patients who have cancer, or who have had cancer in the past, but I don't clearly remember any who have survived Ovarian Cancer. It just isn't that well known. Even being a medical professional (I am NOT a doctor), I learned some things about this disease today. Laurie over at Dressed Up Digits taught me that this is associated with the BRCA 1 and 2 genes, I had thought those were only for breast cancer.

 Teal ribbons for Ovarian cancer. Hand painted by me-you don't see THAT very often.

This is one beautiful cool teal. One coat topped with SV.

Then I used a toothpick to add little veins of gold (Zoya Ziv-another untried!) throughout.

Let that dry a couple minutes and then used my newest stamping plate, VL 009, the ninth plate from Vivid Lacquer. Thanks, Anni, for making such great plates!

Pre-clean up

Look at that! Positive and negative scribble hearts, basketweave, a thumbprint, the spotted overall, and the faux-watermarble overall stamp. She designed those two overall designs so you can get slightly different designs across all your fingers, similar to her dandelion design on VL006.

I finished it off with NYC Matte Me Crazy. I think this was very successful, I was going for a turquoise stone look.

Tomorrow is the scheduled day for the Untried Polish Challenge, but I wanted to get this up for World Ovarian Cancer Day. Hopefully we will someday be able to cure, or better yet prevent, this.

Look at the other bloggers doing the Untried Polish Challenge, although I jumped the gun, they might not have theirs up yet.

Masha at Lost In Lacquer
Raine at Lacquer Lily

Amy at Fancy Side

Amanda at Designer Nail Accents

Sam at Polished Art

Jo at Just Add Polish

Patricia at Polished and Glittered

Blueberry Pie at Blueberry Nails

Kristina at Lacquer Fetish

Missy at Gnarly Gnails

Adios!

~~Lizajane

Untried Polish Challenge-Newest

Skipping ahead to newest today because I just got these on Saturday and I love this! And I have to get this in before I receive my Julep Add On, because then THAT will be the newest.

How am I going to get ahead on my untrieds when I keep buying more? Only by counting it as a percentage rather than the raw number, that's how.

Anni at Vivid Lacquer had a sale and I took advantage of it, grabbing one grab bag, one discontinued/limited edition color, and one current offering.

(Night time pictures don't do these justice!)

Here we have the grab bag minis Waning Gibbous, Would You Kindly, You Are NOT My Nemesis, and Pick Your Portal. I also got Real, Audible Connection, but I RAKed that right away to a friend at work. The one on the end is the limited edition Black Widow-I hesitated on that one at Halloween because I hate hate HATE spiders, but when it was available marked down, I grabbed the last bottle. And last but not least, there is Theoretical Rainbow.

Theoretical Rainbow is part of VL's Theoretical line, with Rockstar, Blogger, Vegan, Girlfriend and Gamer. (I also have a failed Rockstar, renamed Rejected Rockstar, the glitter bled which is why it was rejected. She tests everything for at least a month for colorfastness. She also only uses stainless steel mixing balls.)

Three easy coats of polish and a coat of Seche Vite gives you this:

You have to look pretty hard to see it, but there is the whole rainbow in there, ROY G. BIV.  The yellow is a neon so with all the rest in there, it is hiding pretty hard. And either the violet or the indigo is sparkly, so you can only see it on occasion, like here:

See? There on my pinkie? Sparkle! You might also get some hints of the yellow, mainly on the ring finger, slightly to the left of midline between the two obvious pieces of blue and green. You don't see it? I told you it was subtle. Oh, you were distracted by my nasty cuticles. Well, excuuuuuuuse me! (As Steve Martin used to say).

Anyway...I am loving this mani. Looking at it this morning, after a day and a half, there is starting to be just a hint of tipwear at my weak point (pointer!), but it doesn't show much because of the light tint of the base color-yes, it is tinted but I can't decide if it is light blue, light lilac, light pink, or light grey. Subtlety, again.

Thanks for looking, thanks, Jo for running this challenge, and take a look at the other participants. (Am I being overly precious by never saying "ladies", in case a man is doing a challenge? Or am I just being inclusive?)

Masha at Lost In Lacquer
Raine at Lacquer Lily

Amy at Fancy Side

Amanda at Designer Nail Accents

Sam at Polished Art

Jo at Just Add Polish

Patricia at Polished and Glittered

Blueberry Pie at Blueberry Nails

Kristina at Lacquer Fetish

Missy at Gnarly Gnails

Adios!
~~Lizajane

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 

Flip Flop February-Day 7

Happier today, nothing has changed with the car other than my attitude, but this is a perfect example of "Attitude Is Everything."

Today our options are Sugar Spun and Pattern.
I tried Sugar Spun three times and failed.
See?

This was before I followed the link Jilltastic Nail Designs provided, so I didn't know that it was done with semi-dried polish.
I just tried dripping it over the edges of my nails, I used Sally Hanson InstaDris here.

And see?

Here I tried again, knowing that the deadline was coming up soon and I had time to play.
Time, I had.
Patience, I had not.
I never did get it goopy enough to drag thinly across the nail, and the white?
That's Nivea cream, I don't have any Vaseline or Chapstick in the house to protect the skin around what promised to be a messy mani.

So I gave up.
And I am very happy with what I ended up with!
I applied Essie Blue Rhapsody to all but the ring finger which got my new A. England Tristam-yay, it avoided the fires of the Royal Post!-and then stamped with the opposite color using Vivid Lacquer's VL006 plate.
I had originally gone to her plates for the stockinette stitch (double entendre "pattern"), but I really liked the chevrons today.

Here, have another.

You can tell that Anni is a knitter, she has a much better stamp than the other, holey knit stamps!
I love how large the images are, too!

 You can buy Vivid Lacquer polish and plates on Etsy.

I look forward to seeing what everyone comes up with for today's challenge.
Did anyone have enough patience to do the Sugar Spun?
I hope so, and I hope they give out tips!

Adios!
Lizajane~~

Flip/Flop February-Day 1

So it is finally here!
Flip Flop February!
Yay!
Such a fun idea, to have two choices each day in this challenge!
Supposedly, there is an easy choice and a more difficult choice, but I sometimes couldn't tell which was which.
I guess I just have tried certain techniques and haven't tried others.
And...as you will see later on, I have tried some techniques and now know that I need to improve, to practice.

So, today's choice are either a gradient or a skittle.
Even though I am sure it is on the "easy" side of the equation, I had never actually done a skittle manicure.
I don't know if it is my need for symmetry, my age, my very low level OCD, but the idea of deliberately doing a different color on each nail didn't light my fire.

So of course, I did a Skittle for the first day of the challenge.
It isn't a challenge if you don't stretch yourself.
Also of course, I had to have SOME theme, so I chose to do a skittle with polishes from the same maker.
Kinda.
The underwear for the glitters are from different manufacturers.
But the stars of the show?
All from Vivid Lacquer! Top to bottom, we have Paint Me Patriotic (over Essie Blue Rhapsody), Notebook (over Maybelline Navy Narcissist), Marriage Equality (by itself), and Hurricane Season (over Zoya Charla).

I am so glad that I chose these, it was fun coming up with combinations, and I came up with a new fave-Hurricane Season over Charla!

I can't wait to see everyone else's Gradient and Skittles for today!

Adios!
Lizajane~~