We interrupt your regularly scheduled Tri-Polish Challenge...

I didn't plan on it, but I think I am going to sit out this month of the TPC.
I really was going to take part, but I just absolutely love my current mani, and there is another NP fan at work who hasn't yet seen it, so I am going to keep it on so I can show her!

Oh, you are wondering what it is?
Sure, glad to share!

This is a base color of Gelish Mini Up To The Blue (see, I WAS planning on doing the TPC!) stamped with Color Club Harp On It, using the four Fireworks images from Vivid Lacquer's latest release of plates, VL015. I love it! Imagine, this picture was taken at night with room lighting and the flash from my camera. I had to turn off my full spectrum light because it was too much for the camera to handle!

I just love the way this stamped! Exactly the reason I bought the Color Club in the first place! And Anni's plates are always grand!

Maybe I will take part, just a little behind. Depends upon if I can give this up!

Adios!
~~Lizajane

Tri-Polish Challenge-Pippa loves the Packers, and they love her back

Today is the last day with our lovely red, yellow and greens. Next month, Crumpet assigned us lilac, pink, and blue. Oh, my.

Pippa has been somewhat neglected this challenge. Probably because the other two are just so gorgeous, and yellow is hard to whip into shape. So I decided to try the reciprocal gradient again, this time with higher contrast colors.

I have to say, I like this much better than the other day's.

This second pic shows the two yellow application techniques I used. Pinky (on the left) got the yellow sponged on (tiny corner of a sponge torn off and held with a hemostat), but by my middle finger (on the right) I had decided to just use the brushes. First layer was sponged for both colors, so you do get SOME of that softer gradient.

Only problem, for me, is that I live in Green Bay Packer country, and I just can't see this color combination without thinking of them. And I usually don't start thinking of them until the pre-season is over.

So check out the rest of the Nail Tart's designs by following the links below.
See you next month.

Adios!
~~Lizajane

Tri-Polish Challenge-August #3-Dragons in the Roses

Happy Heat Wave here! Summer is back, as expected at the end of August in the US.
My hot polishes for this month's Tri-Polish Challenge are A. England BriarRose, Zoya Pippa, and A. England Dragon.

This time I am only using the two A. Englands.
I have loved the Reciprocal Gradient since I first saw it this spring, so I was looking forward to trying this.

I dunno.
Maybe next time I will use more contrasting colors. These are too close in value.

I painted on one coat of Briar Rose, then painted a swipe of  Briar Rose and Dragon next to each other on a sponge, then sponged the colors on. After letting them dry for a bit, I put manicure tape on. Then more polish on the sponge and more dabbing on, but in the opposite direction.

After some half-hearted cleanup, I topped it off with Seche Vite.

Next time will be better. And there WILL be a next time. This isn't as clean as I would want. Next time I think I will use just a small piece of sponge and dab them on separately. That will make for better color saturation and more precise application.

I wonder what the other Tarts are doing today. Let's take a look in the links below.

Adios!
~~Lizajane

Tri-Polish Challenge-August #2-Flowers near the Waterfall

Hi there! Hope you are having a great week. I am having a mixed week, but am home and relaxing, glass of sangria has been achieved.

Second manicure in this red, yellow and green challenge.

My polish choices-A. England Briar Rose, Zoya Pippa and A. England Dragon. This time I also used white-Picture Polish White Wedding.

I am calling this one Flowers near the waterfall.  Dotted the flowers and did the waterfall technique on the rest.

Check the rest of the Crumpet's Nail Tarts group's efforts. Such pretty manicures!

Adios!
~~Lizajane

Tri Polish Challenge-August #1-Roses among the Leaves

Welcome to the August edition of Crumpet's Nail Tarts Tri-Polish Challenge, the fun challenge where we are assigned three colors to use in four manicures, along with black, white, silver, gold and glitter topcoats. For August we are assigned Red, Yellow, and Green.

I chose to use A. England's Briar Rose, Zoya Pippa, and A. England's Dragon.

I stamped my base color of black (actually Midnight Rendezvous Gel topped with China Glaze Lubu Heels) with Dragon in the leaf pattern, and then with Briar Rose in a rose pattern.

Except for my right thumb which got a barbed wire.

I really like it, but better without the roses, this particular nail looks the best, it was less busy.

Look at what the other Tarts are doing with these colors, we are always so creative!

Adios!
~~Lizajane

Tri Polish Challenge-July #4

Happy Thursday! Just squeaking this one in before bedtime! Busy day today.

In all likelihood, you know the rules, but here is a quick review.
Debbie Crumpet's Facebook group, NailTarts, originates the challenge. Each month, they select three colors to use-this month is blue, blue, and green-and each participant chooses one polish to represent each color. They then use at least two in each of four manicures, and one of the four must have all three. Black, white, silver, gold and glitter toppers are freebies.

I went extremely simple with this mani. Just a base color of Zoya Ivanka because I love the bright green! and then three largish dots down my accent nail-in Maybelline Navy Narcissist-and then those topped with slightly smaller dots of Nicole by OPI Blue-berry Sweet On You. Seche Vite on all, except the accent nail also got a coat of Gelous.

I am on day three of this mani and it is going strong (except on my weak spots-next up is my first attempt at gels, I need to improve the strength!)

You can really see the 3-D effect in this last picture! I know I tried this last month, but this month, I SUCCEEDED!

Take a look at what the other Tarts have been up to-I am sure it is gorgeous!

Adios!
~~Lizajane

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