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-July #1

Hello again, Tarts!
I had thought to skip this month's TPC, but I found myself wearing a Blue & Blue mani and decided to hold off on putting it out there in internet-land, so I have at least the first installment today.

Yes, really it IS two blues! Base color is Maybelline Navy Narcissist, top coated, taped, and then Nicole by OPI Blueberry Sweet On You. This was so cool, lasted well (four days) and was easy to touch up where my nails are super weak.

Sorry that this photo is off center and blurry, but I just loved the lighting here. My car is a wonderful light box, LOL.

Check out the other manicures the Nail Tarts are creating for this month's Blue, Blue, and Green colors (and the white, black, silver, gold, and glitter toppers.)

Adios~
~~Lizajane

Tri-Polish Challenge-June #1

Third Tuesday of June, so it is time for the first of this month's Tri-Polish Challenge manicures.
Basic Rules of this challenge:

• Three colors selected by and posted on The Crumpet's Facebook page.
• Select a polish to represent each of those colors.
• Do four manicures, at least one using all three colors, and all of them using at least two of the colors.
• You can also use black, white, silver, gold, and glitter topcoats.
• Post the manis on your blog or straight to the Nail Tarts FB page and link up using Inlinkz.
• Profit. 

OK, maybe not profit.

This month the colors are Red, Purple, and Pink. Here are my polishes:

 That there is Zoya Isla (my tip top favorite red!), Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Orchid Express, and Orly Rose Radiance.

 Full sunlight

Today, I am only using two, the purple and the red, along with my silver striper and tape as a tool. This is so simple and graphic, I love it!

Even fuller sunlight

This mani succumbed to my inability to stop when I am ahead.

I thought it would be cool to make pyramids on either side of the stripe, don't ask me why. But when it got this far, I realized I wouldn't be able to do that.

Inside, indirect sunlight

Oh, well. In other colors, this would have been a cool football or baseball or patchwork manicure.

Take a look at the other Tarts and their manicures-pretty much bound to be better than this. Better luck next time, Lizajane!

 

 

Adios!
~~Lizajane

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~~