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.

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-Three Colors

Going back to the Three Colors of untried polishes, then I will be back on track with Jo at Just Add Polish. Even though skipping around is allowed, I feel like going along.

I changed my initial plans on this mani completely, I initially planned on using the Zang Toi Trio from Zoya, but I got inspired and did this:

I used my usual OPI Matte Nail Envy and then dotted on some pansies with Orly Royal Velvet. That is the PERFECT pansy color, blue and purple and rich and deep. SO love this color!
That's one color.
Next, I added some black stems with my striper and then picked up my fan brush. I first used OPI Nein, Nein, Nein, Okay Fine!, brushed as a grassy French, and then Julep Piper over, to lighten the grass.
That's two and three colors.
I went back and used my yellow striper for the centers .
A quick coat of  SV , hoping and praying that it wouldn't smudge, and there we go!

The thumb only got the grass, not really sold on that.
One more shot, in my car, afternoon light rather than morning:

This is a far more Spring-y mani than anything I would have come up with using the Zang Toi Trio, gorgeous colors though they are.

Take a bit to check out the other blogger's creativity.

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

Until Friday!
Adios!
~~Lizajane

Untried Polish Challenge-Two Colors

 

Jo at Just Add Polish's UPC, installment number two. So far, I am doing these in order, so today is Two Colors.

I chose two Julep polishes-Janel and Glenda.

Glenda is a crackle, which, I know, is SO last year. But conveniently, that is when I got this. She is my only crackle, and I kinda felt it was a hole in my collection, so I didn't cancel the Julep box when it came up. (Whoa, that sounds like I am serious about this.)

I am old enough to remember when crackle came out for wall paint and craft paint. So I remember some of the tips from then.

So I applied the crackle in different directions-outer fingers are angled outward, vertically on my ring finger and horizontally on middleman. You can also tell that middleman had a MUCH lighter coat on it, the cracks are near invisible. Thicker cracks come from thicker coats of polish.

Janel was pretty cool. Because I knew I was putting the crack on top, I planned on only one coat. But even if I hadn't, I think it could have been enough.

I finally figured out why Julep polishes sit in my Melmer-the long brushes collect too much polish and it drips. If only I could remember to clean that up, I am sure I would use them more, the formula is pretty much always good.

Pop over to Just Add Polish and follow the links that Jo put up to the others participating.
Watch us clear out those untried polishes before your very eyes!

Adios!
~~Lizajane

eta: How about I copy the links for you here?

Jonochi at Just Add Polish
Raine at Lacquer Lily

Amy at Fancy Side

Amanda at Designer Nail Accents

Sam at Polished Art

Masha at Lost In Lacquer

Patricia at Polished and Glittered

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~~

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~~

Flip Flop February-Day 23

I am scheduling this post because today I will be very busy, it is my daughter's baby shower today!

Back in the nail world, today's options that Jilltastic Nail Designs offered us are Lightning and Bows.
I really wanted to do Lightning, but I also wanted to use another design from a Vivid Lacquer stamping plate.
I put down a base color coat of Julep Amber alternating with Maybelline Onyx Rush, and then stamped the bow image with the opposite color.

This happens so often, I don't know why I don't just start it this way, but I liked my accent nail loads more than the rest of the manicure.
I think the Maybelline did not stamp as well as I was hoping, but I was experimenting to find another black to stamp with.

Take a bit of time to check out what the others have done for today.

Adios!
Lizajane~~

Flip Flop February-Day 21

I have SO been looking forward to today's challenge-I have never tried Flames!
Unfortunately, I ended up not doing them, but only because I saw a gorgeous Dot mani that I wanted to copy!
I feel certain that I Pinned it, but "ain't nobody got time for that".
So, I present to you-

My Dot manicure!
I think I was thinking of this for Day 7-Pattern, because the color order is the same on all the nails, outside the accent nail which got a row of purple also, but I then did my chevron stamping and saved this for today!

Loads of colors went into this.
Base color coat of Zoya Purity (previously untried) and Revlon Snow Bunny, and then dots of Essie Geranium (red), Sally Girl Amped (orange), Julep Courtney (green), Madison (neon pink) and Hayden (peach), and the accent purple is OPI The One To Watch.

Love this mani!
Definitely going to be a repeat!

Have you had a mani that you just LOVED recently?

Please take a few minutes and look at the other nail fiends who are doing this 28 Day Challenge that Jilltastic Nail Design put together.

Adios!
Lizajane~~