Day 9: Rainbow

Hello, readers. To all of you on the East Coast that have been affected by Hurricane Sandy, my heart truly goes out to you. Since I'm in Pittsburgh for school, we haven't been hit very hard. But my family and loved ones are in New Jersey without power, and they're in a state of emergency. Thankfully, they are all safe. The pictures I've seen of the devastation break my heart. I hope everyone affected is able to recover from this tragedy quickly.

On a brighter note, I have some nail art for Day 9's rainbow theme.

To achieve this look, I started with some glittery polishes, which I've listed below.

Thumb: Milani One Coat Glitter in Red Sparkle

Index finger: Milani One Coat Glitter in Gold Glitz

Middle finger: Milani One Coat Glitter in Purple Gleam

Ring finger: Milani One Coat Glitter in Blue Flash

Pinky: Milani One Coat Glitter in Silver Dazzle

Then I used striping tape to make the designs. I painted over each nail with Sephora by OPI's Never Enough Shoes, a black creme with lots of rainbow sparkle. I topped this mani with a coat of Seche Vite.

I think these are the last pictures from my old camera! But my new camera has come in, so posts will continue regularly.

Please keep those affected by Hurricane Sandy in your thoughts.

Pretty & Polished: Jawbreaker

Today's NOTD is another indie: Jawbreaker by Pretty & Polished!

Jawbreaker is a mix of purple, red, yellow gold, blue, and green glitters. Most of them are hex glitters, but there are some big red squares and green bars too. All of this is suspended in a milky white base.

I layered two coats of Jawbreaker over one coat of China Glaze White on White. The polish went on very evenly. I had no problems with the glitter either. The formula was just right.

This polish is definitely a hit with me. It really does remind me of jawbreakers!

You can purchase Pretty & Polished polishes from her Etsy store.

Bad News :(

I have some bad news...my Canon Powershot is officially broken. The flash broke recently, but I could still take pictures without flash. I was going to hold out until Christmas to buy another camera, but it looks like I have to start looking now.

I was all ready to take some pictures of my new manicure, and then the screen said "Lens Error" and shut off. My lens is broken, and the internet says you can't really fix it yourself. And the camera is old and worn down, so it's not worth paying to have it fixed.

I took some bad quality photos of my mani using my Nintendo 3DS since I don't own a phone with a good camera.

I have pictures of two manicures on my camera's memory card that I can still put up, and maybe the ones I just took, depending on how bad they really look.

I'm so sad :( I'll keep you posted on the status of my camera hunt. Bear with me in the meantime.

Day 8: Metallic

Day 8's theme is metallic! I decided to do a metallic dot gradient.

Oddly enough, all of the polishes I used for this mani are Sephora by OPI. I started with a base of Queen of Everything, which is one of my favorite polishes. I've put a pretty big dent in the bottle, so you can tell I really like it! It covers perfectly in just one coat.

Then I used a large dotting tool to add some dots of Rumba Romance, a metallic brown. I switched to a smaller dotting tool about a third of the way up my nails. I repeated the steps with Tempted by Teal. To seal it up, I used a coat of Seche Vite.

I liked this mani! Queen of Everything is just so lovely and perfect, and polka dots are always fun.

The next day's theme is rainbow!

Whimsical Ideas by Pam: Wicked

I had been admiring the polishes from Whimsical Ideas by Pam for a very long time. After she released her Halloween collection, I caved and picked up four polishes: Superhero, Seuss, I Heart NY, and Wicked.

Today, I have Wicked to show you! This one is one of Pam's Halloween polishes, but it will be available year round.

Look at how cute the label is! And she ties little bows on every bottle.

Wicked is a a mix of matte white and black hex glitters, matte black circles (!), and shiny red hexes all suspended in a sheer, shimmery lime green base.

Since Wicked is rather sheer, I decided to layer it. I used two coats of China Glaze's Tree Hugger and two-ish coats of Wicked. I say two-ish because after two coats, I thought some nails (especially my thumbs) need some more glitter, so I dabbed some on.

I had trouble getting a good amount of glitter on the brush. Sometimes I would get no glitter at all! I did a lot of bottle shaking. I didn't have issues with any glitter in particular; the big black circles came out just as readily as the rest of the glitter. The actual formula of the polish was very nice; not too thick. But I did have to dab and place the glitters to get them evenly dispersed on the nails. It took a little finagling to get this mani the way I wanted, but I think it was worth it. It's such an interesting polish! I'm a sucker for lime green. And look at that gold shimmer.

I added two coats of Seche Vite to get this mani smooth. Indie polishes really have a tendency to make me stare at my nails!

Whimsical Ideas by Pam can be purchased via her Facebook page. Just send her an email with the names of the polishes you want, and she'll invoice you.

Day 7: Black and White

I'm so glad it's finally the weekend! It was a rough week at Carnegie Mellon since it's midterms. I had a ton of work to do. But I'm all done for the week :)

Day 7 of the challenge is black and white! I figured it was a good excuse to do some stamping, but it was a bit of a fail :(

I always have trouble scraping the polish off the plate properly, so I couldn't get the full image! And then I put on topcoat too soon and smeared it. Ugh! So frustrating.

I started with two coats of White on White by China Glaze. I used Konad Special Polish in Black to stamp on an image from Konad plate m73.

I think it looks okay from a distance! Strangely enough, a lot of people thought this mani was really cool even though I thought it was a mess.

Oh well. Practice makes perfect!

The next day's theme is metallic; stay tuned.

Once Upon A Polish: Queen of Hearts

I finally tried out one of my new indies that I had been admiring in the bottle for a very long time. It's called Queen of Hearts by Once Upon A Polish. When I saw it in her Etsy shop, I knew I had to have it. For some reason, I let it sit on my shelf for a few weeks before I finally tried it out. But let me tell you, this polish did not disappoint.

Queen of Hearts is PACKED with glitter: black, white, and gold hexes as well as big red and black hearts in a clear base. I was nervous that I would have trouble getting the bigger glitters out of the bottle. But that was not a problem.

That is just one coat of this fabulous polish over Recycle by China Glaze. I'm drooling. Look at all of that glitter!

I love this polish so much that I took lots of pictures. See the rest after the jump!

Day 6: Violet

Happy Friday! Today's theme is violet. I had been meaning to try out that spun sugar technique, but I knew it would take a lot of time. So I finally had a nice chunk of time (and no pressing assignments to do), and I gave it a shot. And oh my gosh, I love it.

To do the spun sugar technique, you essentially put a blob of polish on a plate and use a dotting tool to swirl it around until it gets a little tacky. Then you dip the dotting tool in and pull it out slowly. If the polish is the right consistency, you'll be able to pull up strings of polish. Then you lay your nail next to the blob of polish and transfer the little strings right on. I decided not to put any top coat on since I like how 3-D it looks!

It's hard to explain how to do this in words, but there are lots of YouTube tutorials! Just search for "spun sugar nails tutorial" or something similar.

I took about a billion pictures, so you can see more after the jump!

Day 5: Blue

Day 5's theme is blue. I had actually just received my very first Butter London polishes in the mail when I decided to do this prompt, and among them was a blue! So I decided that would be the base color. I ordered them from Coterie - I got three polishes and a matte topcoat for $10! You can't beat that.

Anyway, I've been meaning to try out that Saran wrap technique, so that's what I decided to do.

I started with two coats of Bluey by Butter London. I let that dry, and then I painted on a coat of Wallis, another Butter London polish. Then I quickly dabbed off the wet polish with some crumpled plastic wrap and voila! Nail art.

I'm definitely a fan of this technique. It's quick and simple, but it produces interesting results! I think next time, I'll pick colors with more contrast.

I'm a fan of these colors, too. They have a lot of depth. I don't think I have anything in my collection that looks like either one of these, so I'm happy with them.

Butter London bottles are hard to hold!

The next day's theme is violet. Stay tuned for that!