Quick Photo Dump ;D

Rica's "Squish the Rainbow" set

Unsure of the colors

A baby blue (not sure which) with Indigo Banana's Holo Top Coat

Water Marble using two Revlon colors (names unknown)

Attempt at leadlight technique using Rica's Squishy Lime and Squishy Grape(?)

Dark Blue topped with a ChinaGlaze Prism glitter topper

ILNP Ultra-Chrome Flakie collection (happy birthday to me)

Unknown colors, using nail vinyls to get the lightning bolt outline

An ILNP pink holo with negative space chevrons

All China Glaze colors

Birthday Nails, KB Shimmer "Shade Shifter" with Mundo De Unas Silver stamping polish

Birthday Nails, KB Shimmer "Shade Shifter" with Mundo De Unas Silver stamping polish

Light blue with a holo top coat and stamped with a blue mundo de unas stamping polish

Sorry I don't remember the names of everything. If you are seriously wondering what one is I can rack my brain and look through my polishes to try and figure it out per request. But for now it is 1am and I need sleep.

Why did I stay up all night?

To paint my nails, of course. Well that's not all I did but I did start painting pretty late... here's some back story:

For the last two weeks wild fires have been raging all over Eastern Washington, which is where I live. In the last 5 days the smoke in my area has be exceptionally thick, due to the fact that we had a lightning storm on the 14th that sparked a few fires and some are still going strong. In fact one was almost scarily close I mean this was a photo taken a block from my house:

In the lower right of the picture is where you can see the smoke billowing up and then the smoke blows into the left side of the picture. This fire was put out fairly quickly, but there were more started by the storm. In my neighborhood that day the smoke was thick, but that's not as bad as it got later in the week...

Lovely sunrise on the 17th which was the worst day for smoke I have ever lived through. Living in eastern Washington comes with some summer smoke, however the sun being a tiny red dot, they sky being sooty greyish brown, not being able to see more than half a mile ahead of you... that's all NOT normal unless you are VERY close to the fires. On the 17th most of the smoke was probably from the Chiwaukum Creek Fire near Leavenworth. Prevailing wind blew it right at us as this lovely satellite photo shows:

Satellite image from an article on discovermagazine.com

The blue dot is approximately where I live. Red dots are active fires and the smoke is pretty obvious. In fact the Smoke from the Chiwaukum Creek Fire was visible in SEATTLE. Which is on the other side of a mountain range from that fire.

ANYWAY, I am blathering about the fires because the smoke from them has been causing my mom, who I live with, a lot of issues with her lung and eyes. On the 17th she almost didn't eat because the smoke was making her nauseous, but once we sat in a restaurant for an hour while I ate she started feeling better and also got some food. Once in the car again she started feeling sick again. So we went to Walmart and got replacement filters for my air filter unit. so that at the very least we can have one room in the house with decent air to breathe. Last night my mom slept in my room on my bed because she needed restful sleep with clean air. So I let her. Which is why I was up allll night and decided to paint my nails at nearly 3am. If I'm gonna be awake all night letting my mom sleep in my bed I might as well do something fun and constructive right?

So now to the actual nail polish related bit of this post!

I decided I wanted to use one of my new ILNP brand polishes, because pretty, and I wanted to try negative space style art. As much as I wanted to use Exodus or Purgatory I decided
to go with something lighter since my nail beds are fairly pale and I didn't want the contrast to be jarring. In my opinion negative space with bright/bold/dark colors tend to look really odd. I find that pale, softer colors appeal to me more for this type of style. SO I decided on You're My Boy Blue as my color. It's a gorgeous dusty baby blue linear holographic. So pretty.

Stock Photo from ILNP website

 Once my color was decided I applied a base coat, the one I used was NailTek Foundation II, which is a ridge filler and strengthener combined. TAKE NOTE this brand is not 3-free so there is Toluene and Formaldehyde in it, I looked up an ingredient list for those curious. However I like it because it does help my nails stay strong and it also has the ridge filling which I really wanted for the negative space look. Seeing gaping ridge lines in my area of no polish would have killed me. Although I don't have super bad ridges, I do have some that annoy me even if they are minor. After base coat was on I waited a good half hour before the next step to be 100% sure the base was dry.

Once my half hour was up, I put a lightning bolt nail vinyl (bought here) on my index finger, made sure it was firmly attached and properly pressed into the creases between my skin and nail bed. I didn't want to mess this up. Sadly I managed to do so anyway. After I had applied the vinyl I threw down three coats of You're My Boy Blue as quickly, yet carefully, as possible then removed the vinyl with tweezers. I was very pleased wit the outcome until I noticed a teeny area where the polish had gotten under the vinyl. I cursed a bit but decided I didn't want to remove it and start over as the removal process on one finger would mess up my base coat on other nails. I decided to keep going and I am glad I did, rather than, say, giving up completely.

I worked nail by nail, apply vinyl (ultra super carefully and securely), apply polish, remove vinyl, repeat on next finger, until both hands were done and then I waited for 20 minuted before adding my top coat because if the top coat smeared the polish into my negative space I'm not sure I would have taken it very well. But it went perfectly, no smears, no streaks, just glorious glossy holo blue and negative space lightning bolts! After a bit of half-assed clean up I was content to rest and take my glamor shots then veg on Netflix. Here are a two images of the final result:

Indoors under CFL bulb.

Outdoors in full morning sunlight.

So there we have it. the product of just over 2 hours of nail painting, which would have taken less time if I weren't being such a perfectionist. I love them and so do most of the people I have shown them to.

Ever tried negative space? How'd it go for you? If you haven't tried it yet what do you think of it and would you ever try it?

This is what happens!

Whenever I make a blog I never update it regularly. I'm. A. Bad. Blogger. But I will continue to blog anyway cuz why not? 

My birthday rolled around on the 7th  and I got 80 dollars to play with. What did I do with it? Blew most of it on nail polish of course! I have several packages arriving next week and tomorrow and HOPEFULLY Will get my booty in gear and do some posts about them.

I also got the Winstonia 1st generation stamping plat set. AND a set of the Winstonia 5x2 Dotting tools that actually has 10 different size dot tips! My last set (a generic bought on Amazon) had 6 sizes on a 5x2 set, how rude. So today after the mail arrived (quite late due to a substitute mail lady) I had the fun job of reorganizing my stamping plate sin the place binder thing I have AND removing all those blue films... which wound up with these results:

Nails are not tools they tell me, don't use them for anything they say... THEN WHY ARE THE SO GOOD AT PICKING AT THINGS?! (that's a big chip in the tip of my actual nail not just the polish in the first image in that collage)

Anyway will update eventually with something interesting I'm sure, hopefully sooner rather then later.

Sincerely, 
Emily the Bad Blogger

Here I am! First Week of May Update.

It's been a while, I apologize. My notorious blog laziness has apparently struck with a vengeance.

ANYWAY!

Spring has sprung and so have my allergies! Also my desire to garden.... My nails are pretty short currently to accommodate my gardening and yard/house work. But I am still painting them! Today's nails I used three colors on, all of which I bought/received this last week. Here are some pictures:

The blue I used for the base color is Bonita, Ride the Waves. Bonita is a new brand for me that my RiteAid has just started carrying. I don't know if it, as a brand, will be permanent but for now I very much like what I see.

The purple streaks were done with Wet-n-Wild, Buffy the Violet Slayer. That shade of purple is very dark yet very bright, and I see myself using it for accents and nail art, but not generally as a main full coverage color, even if it is super pretty. To get the streaks I used a fan brush and dipped the tips of the bristles in the purple polish then brushes it on lightly.

The purple around the lightning bolt is Zoya PixieDust, Carter. I got this as part of my Zoya Earth Day Sale haul and I'm glad I did. Pictures never do justice to textured glitter polishes, but this color sis very shiny and glittery. the lightning bolt shape was achieved using a Nail Vinyl so it was pretty easy to do.

Added Bonus: I have a very short video of my nails today that was meant to show off the sparkle of the Zoya polish I used:

Next up! I have two videos of my most recent hauls.

 In the fist video we have the following colors:

Expressions Nail Paint (No color name on bottle); Wet-n-Wild MegaRocks, Gettin' Amped; Wet-n-Wild Mega Rocks, Stick It To The Man; Bonita, Ride The Waves; Bonita, Royal Highness; Wet-n-Wild FastDry, Buffy The Violet Slayer and Wet-n-Wild FastDry, Saved By The Blue

And in the second video all the polishes are Zoyas the colors are: Neve, Carmen, Hunter, Chita, Godiva, Sunshine, and Carter.

 All of the swatches shown in the videos is with two coats of the color they are displaying. I do that with all my "swatch sticks" to ensure I can know how opaque or sheer any given color is in two coats.

Well this is all I can manage to write tonight due to my being sleepy, it is 3am after all by the time I finished editing it's actually closer to 4am now ; n;... Goodnight everyone and I hope I will start posting more again. <3

Zoya Monet

So in the mail today I got something neat. My Zoya Monet bottle, along with Zoya Dillon and Rebel. They are amazing. But this post is focusing on Monet.

I got Monet for free because of the promo code I got in an email, because I did the 3 free promo. Hooray for promo chains! Monet is a glittery top coat with multicolored iridescent hex glitters. The glitters seem to be yellow, pink, and blue/green. But they look different on different base colors as they are somewhat sheer glitters. Because a friend was curious I wound up swatching it over various dark or bold colors, and not over Dillon or Rebel despite the fact that Rebel, Dillon and Monet all came together. However one of the colors I did use was Zoya's Wednesday which is almost a creme version of Dillon. I mean look at them side by side!

Dillon on the left and Wednesday on the right.

Scarily similar, but definitely not the same.. Anyway, I tried Monet on five different colors, one on each fingernail of my left hand. Here they are before Monet:

I didn't clean up right away because I wanted to wait until I had Monet on. Polishes are as follows:
Index: Zoya, Wednesday
Middle: Zoya, Lael
Ring: Wet-n-Wild MegaLast, Toxic Apple
Pinky: Wet-n-WIld Wild Shine, Burgundy Frost
Thumb: FingerPaints, Vintage Glam

Now after I put on Monet I kinda fell in love with it's looks but also rather dislike the formula. The glitter are suspended in a very thick and kinda gloppy sheer pink jelly base. While the thickness helps suspend the glitter so it doesn't all sink and you get plenty of glitter on the brush but, it's kind of odd to work with. I may get used to it but for now I'm not a fan of the formula. While the base is pink it applies sheer enough to not see the pink at all, or dull down your base color. the glitters are very sparkly as glitter should be and they distribute pretty evenly but will occasionally clump, which in a way means the thick formula helps give you time to spread more evenly, so there is a plus. The glitters are very good at catching light even on very dark colors. Here is photographic proof:

Honestly? I like it much more over dark colors, because it really pops. And for bonus points here is a video! Pardon the fact that I took it before I cleaned up.

Over all I love Monet, it's very pretty and unique in my collection. I would recommend it to anyone who has a hunger for glitter and pretty colors. Really the only con, and I'm not sure it really is a con, is the thick base. If you get past that, it's all bling and beauty.

Anyone else get Monet? How do you like it?

Whoopsies, how time doth fly.

Here it is almost a month since my last post. Sorry about that. I have two paint jobs to share, and a count update. First the more boring of the things to share, my bedroom wall has a new addition. It is a fourth polish rack. Dear lord what have I become.

That is just over 200 bottles of polish. I swear I don't have a problem. ; n;

Anyway for new year I did a fireworks themed paint job and I was not thrilled with it but it was still fun.

The fireworks designs were done with acrylic art paint and the base color I am sad to say I have forgotten the brand and color of polish. Shame on me.

And finally something I tried a couple days ago. Interlocking dots!

Interlocking dots are super fun and pretty easy to do. I messed these up before I had a chance to clean them up completely but at least I got one picture even if they are messy as heck (even by my standards). The colors here were Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Mint Sorbet and Lacy Lilac.

Sometime around the 8th of next month I will have another bit of nail art to share. Hopefully I can pull it off without too many flubs. Later today, or maybe Tuesday I will have another post ready, hopefully.

Happy Painting!

Christmas Nails

Well here it is the 28th and I still haven't posted specifically about my Christmas nails. It's been a crazy week. Topped off with my mom in the hospital yesterday, nothing super serious just an abundance of caution. Still stressful. ANYWAY about my nails. I used a green color I am fond of for a base coat then added nail vinyls then threw on a copper to red gradient. It looked nice but a little "crazy" according to my family who noticed them. Here are some pictures: 

 

As you can see the shades were not "typical" Christmas shades but I love them regardless. My ability to place the nail vinyls is getting better. So hooray.

I am still tired I just wanted to get this post out before I fall asleep again.

Polishes Used were 

China Glaze Agro

Kleancolor Metallic Red

Revlon Copper Penny

Seche Vite Top Coat

Finally... a light box.

I finally made a light box for myself. I used a medium shipping box and paper towels. It is glorious. I actually also used some twigs from a plant we have to re-enforce the areas where the cardboard was pretty narrow. It's small as light boxes go but it will work for pictures of my nails!

Here is the box:

And my messy desk.

Anyway here is a picture I took with it of my Christmas nails (which I will talk about more in my next post).

Unfortunately along with my pretty polish, you get to see all my ragged skin/cuticles/fingers. But I am still happy with having made the box. I've been meaning to for months and now I did. ITS A CHRISTMAS MIRACLE!!

Anyway, Merry Christmas everyone, what did you get? Did you have fun with family and/or friends?

Christmas Chevrons Attempt.

Well since the big day is quite literally around the corner (five days?!) I decided to start playing with ideas for how to do my nails for Christmas. Last night I was really having trouble sleeping so I just decided that was the time to start. Three in the morning is a great time to paint your nails right? Right.

So I got out my only solid gold polish, which is actually Klean Color Metallic Yellow, then started looking for a good metallic green and a good metallic red that would look good with the "yellow." I finally settled on Wet-n-Wild Poison Ivy and Wet-n-Wild Under Your Spell. Ironically those are from the Halloween/Fall collection if memory serves.... 

Anyway painted on a base coat, then the gold, waited for everything to dry up, then applied some single chevron Nail Vinyls, aand on went the green(Poison Ivy) on all but my ring fingers who each got the red color (Under your Spell).

Naturally polish went everywhere, my nails, my skin, my desk.... it was after 3am, that's my excuse. Yep. I was tired, uh-huh, yep.

Anyway After removing the Nail Vinyls I had some pretty rad looking nails but they don't strike me as a great Christmassy paint job. One of my friends (who happened to be online while I was doing this) says they remind her of Power Rangers. Not what I was aiming for, not at all.... Still I really like them.

Here is a picture:

These were taken pretty much right after I finished doing clean up. After I took these pictures I was still not ready to sleep so I took a shower and next thing I knew the sun was rising. Whoops.

But wait... the sun... for the first time in weeks is actually showing through the clouds?

SUNSHINE NAIL POLISH PHOTO OP!

So I took a couple more pictures and my nails looked even better anyway thanks to the shower lifting off more excess polish.

The reason these aren't Christmassy enough is that the green and red are too dark. So my next attempt will involve a brighter green and a brighter red if I have one. I don't have very many reds.... Also in the sunshine pictures you can see my flubs. Whoopsie-poopsie.

Anyway, have a holly jolly holiday season! If I don't see you again before the holidays are past I hope they are merry and full of joy!

Nail Vinyls! Such fun! Much Awesome!

Have you ever tried to cut your own chevron strips/stencils for your paint jobs with masking or scotch tape? I have, aaaand it sucked. Recently I was cruising around instagram and came across a small review and pictures of the beautiful lines nail vinyls makes. Without ripping up your base color or being horribly uneven in shape/size.

So I waddled to the linked shop and bought a handful of them, they are very inexpensive, and they arrived yesterday which was 2 days after they shipped. My only complaint about the shipping was it arrived at our house with the return address label ripped half off and the envelope was open. I assume it was the crazy postal service's fault but who knows for sure, everything was still in it so I'm not upset.

I wanted to try them immediately buuut we had errands to run and I didn't get back home until well past dark (which is around 5pm here) and I had to put stuff away, make dinner, and all sorts of distractions. I finally gave the french tips vinyls a try. They worked like a dream and the only problem is my nails are stubby and I am horrible and getting them straight. I don't do tips often so I figured if I used that sheet first and accidentally mutilated beyond use some of the vinyls I would not be heartbroken. HOWEVER! they worked great I was able to reposition the ones I misplaces without the adhesive damaging my base color or losing their stickyness too much to still work. That alone made me love them. After I got them situated and painted on my second color and removed them the crisp lines were to die for. However there is a noticeable "altitude" difference between where the stencil was and the second color, however it filled in and smoothed out nicely with the application of a top coat.

The result? These:

Beautiful tips using Pure Ice All Night Long and Revlon Emerald City

Compared to my usual tips these are vastly superior. And as you can see the biggest problem is my sloppy painting skills.

And for those who wonder, this is what the vinyl sheets look like:

Black (and whites if you can see them) are for half moons. The top red and greens are different sizes of chevrons. The pink is a single chevron. The lower red is three sizes of stripes and the very bottom green is for french tips.

SO, this is me saying OMG! THESE ARE GREAT! When I get more money I will be getting the lightning bolt vinyls. I am very sad that I have to wait until the first to get paid though... I want them now!

And now that you have read far too much of my raving and rambling... here is the link you probably want:

NailVinyls Shop!

Hooray!

Shopping Spree on November 30th!

Yep. Spent over 40 dollars at Sally Beauty on stuff for myself and for gifts. As well as a few dollars on stuff at Rite Aid for myself. Most of the "stuff"? I'm not saying it was nail polish... but it was nail polish. As a side note because I spent so much at Sally I got a free flat iron. Which I might never use becasue curling with it is a pain and my hair is pretty durn flat/straight anyway. MOVING ON!

Sally now carries OPI. HOORAY! But it is still like 8 bucks a bottle. So the four I got are probably the only four I will get for a looong time. But they are so pretty! The first paint job I did with the new polishes was using the dark blue OPI and stamping a lighter blue atop it and it was gorgeous:

This is OPI Incognito in Sausalito as a base with Sally Hansen Xtreme Blue Me Away for the stamps. I love the deep blue of the OPI. I can't begin to tell you HOW MUCH love I have for it.

The next paint job was a gradient, or ombre if you wanna use fancy talk, using two OPI colors. I have three pictures to share:

 

First you make a mess here....

Then you make a BIG mess on your fingers!

 And finally! BEAUTY!

This was done with OPI Teal the Cows Come Home and OPI Purple with a Purpose. Both are beautiful colors and both are great to work with in a gradient! I have not used the fourth OPI yet or any of the polishes I got form Rite Aid. All in due time though... all in due time.....