Mani Monday: A little ombré.

Seems like a good time for a bright ombré!!!

I do love this technique.

Colors used:  Julep's Eden and China Glaze's Pink Voltage.

These colors are so bright and cheerful.

Mani Monday: Pretty In Pink Monday with Zoya Dita.

It's MONDAY!!!!!!!!!! More specifically: MANI MONDAY!!!  New start to the week = new manicure, but of course.  I am starting this week off pretty in pink.

Sadly, I broke my middle finger over the weekend.

Colors used for this manicure:

Zoya's Dita-  rich, deep pink cream

OPI's Pirouette My Whistle- Multi-dimensional hex and micro glitter mix

I topped off Dita with Essie's Matte About You to give the beautiful pink color a different dimension.  This color is usually pretty glossy, even without top coat.  The pink color is really receptive to the matte top coat, which gives it a rich and velvety look.  

I can never leave well enough alone, so I then added two accent nails in which I topped Dita off with glitter.   As you know, I always need more glitter in my life.  This is two coats of the OPI polish.  I do like this glitter because as you see it is how it goes on the nail.  With some larger glitter or glitter mix nail polishes I find I have to place the larger pieces so it doesn't do its own thing and clump up on the end....which can be nice if you are looking to do a glitter gradient, but not this time...Pretty In Pink Monday!!

Who Photobombed who?  

Mani Monday: Orange Crush

Mani Monday time!  New week, new manicure.

Today is the last day off from work for my birthday mini-vacay.  It has been really nice to not be worried about work for five days.  Sadly, my time has come to an end.  Vacations really do ALWAYS go too quickly.  To cap the time off manicure wise, I wanted something bright.   

Orange Crush Ombre on a Bright Sunny Day!

Colors used: Julep's Parker, Zoya's Sharon, Butter London's Jafa, OPI's Brights Power, and little OPI Jinx.

Bright little orange ombre manicure to end the day.  Yay!

Sadly, I need to work with my camera a bit more.  It is not managing reds very well.  I noticed this when photographing flowers outside as well in good sunlight.  If anyone has any photography tips, I would LOVE to hear 'em!  

Side note...

For my birthday, I received a new rack for nail polish to up my total to two.  Hung this bad boy today so that my stash can have some breathing room.  I am trying so hard to fight the urge to fill up the space up!

Mani Monday with Julep's Simone

It's Monday!!  Which means that classic time of the week for Mani Monday!!  After rocking some Star Trek nails all weekend, I knew I needed to change it up to start the week off today....sidebar:  the movie ROCKED!!!  Totally need to see it again as soon as we have a moment to do so.  My geek flag is flying high on this one.  It was soooo good.  Paired with the season seven finale for Doctor Who less than 24 hours later, I almost felt like I needed a recovery day on Sunday from all this greatness.  I had to watch Who over again as soon as it ended.  It was a good weekend of geeking out, but I digress...So really quick before work this morning, I put on some Julep Simone from their Classic With a Twist collection.  Some of you might have seen in my previous post that this is one of the nail polishes I received with my Julep Sea Salt Mystery Box and I have finally gotten around to putting this really pretty purple on.  

Simone

Julep describes this cutie as "soft pastel lilac opalescent shimmer".  The shimmer is subtle and pretty.  This is 2 coats of polish with their Polymer Top Coat.  The one thing I love with the top coat is that I had a bit of bubbling with this manicure because I really was cranking this bad boy out quickly and the top coat just buries it, almost like a magic eraser.  I am looking at them now, and you would never know they were there.  Love it!!

Mani Monday: Adventures in striping tape

I have been drawn to what folks are doing with striping tape and their manicures lately.  And I have had striping tape sitting in my stash drawer for the LONGEST time.  It has just seem too fussy for me to want to deal with.  But that is just silly.  So I settled in with Game of Thrones episode last night and set about cutting tape pieces to use....

First, I need some nail polish...

Of course I need some neon to start.  From left to right: Celtic Sun, I'm With The Lifeguard, Spectacle, Pool Party, and Tightrope.  I started with a base of Essie's Blanc as a base.  I wanted this neon to pop as best it could.  I topped off this neon party with some Wet n' Wild fast dry in black...well, I  don't know if that is its real name as it's sticker has fallen off.  But it is black.  :)

I went for a variety of pattern.  I wanted to see if my left hand could keep up in this adventure as well, and it did!  I guess this tape is not as fussy as I thought it would be.  Because as we all know...

But I did not really have that problem this time around, thankfully.  

Overall, this was an easy process and it has me thinking of all kinds of designs I can start playing around with.  It was a learning process as well.  I found I really needed to pull the tape off directly as any kind of angle just caused some speckling, which you can see on my ring and pinkie fingers.   Heck, for a first time while watching one of my favorite tv shows, I am okay with it it!  

What are your taping horror or success stories?  Happy Mani Monday!!