Saturday, June 30, 2012

Albino Fish Scales

I've made my first YouTube Tutorial! http://youtu.be/oTI2mS1jttk

I'll be posting another very shortly, probably, for the 4th of July. C'mon, brain, come up with an idea...
Yeah, so that's probably a tall order, but we'll see what happens.

Anyway, here's the design I made & posted today - a white-on-cream fish (or dragon) scale pattern with PearlEx interference pigments giving green, gold, and violet accents. Love 'em!


These turned out very cool, with a fantastic shimmer in the sunlight. They're close enough to bare nails they're not going to get attention from across the room, but they definitely invite a closer look!

Sunday, June 24, 2012

I'm back in the saddle again

 Evidently spending a week moving means spending a month not blogging. Can't say I'm particularly surprised by that, but I am amazed at how much nail painting I actually got done in that space of time - without any smooshed fingers, toes, or horrifically broken nails. Go Me! So with no further ado, here's what I've been up to between wrapping, packing, taping, hauling, unloading, un-taping, unpacking, and unwrapping. I'm SO ready for science to catch up to the SyFy channel with transporter technology it's not even funny.

First, while planning for the mashed fingers that thankfully never came, I was rocking red nails for possibly the first time ever. I've spent years avoiding red. It's so ubiquitous it's boring. Also, I'm definitely a spring and typically just cannot pull off jewel tones without looking like I'm in the final stages of acute liver failure. I have to admit, though, I really liked this look. Matte red with one complementary glittery nail had just a touch of pizzazz!


Then on nearly the last day it was possible to still go see it in the theaters, I went to see The Hunger Games with my two BFFs. I have to say they did a very good job following the plot as laid out in the book. So of course I had to go in style, though I do think it came out looking pretty hurried. Oh, well.


My mom has recently discovered the Steampunk phenomenon and just had to have something inspired by it. Well, cogs & gears to the rescue!


Family & friends both got pampered this week, with awesome amethyst jewel-toned toes (design courtesy of Robin Moses) here modeled by the lovely Jessie.


Hard to beat a French manicure with a bit of a 'punch' of color to liven up the stark white!


Also this month I finally got around to getting a curette and a set of Mango Miracle & Mango Magic for my cuticles. I'd heard good things about it, but I'd been leery of the price (Those are pretty darn small bottles for  roughly $15 between them!), but I never did manage to move past the cracking and feathering cuticles. I'm just neurotic enough that I cannot ever manage to wait until I can get to a set of clippers to take care of them properly, either, and will just pick until I've removed the little waving tag of skin, which inevitably ends in a less-than-lovely scab and a tender finger for days. And after trying it out, I have just one thing to say:

This stuff Works.