July 4th Weekend

Last weekend, I posted a quick pic on Instagram showing my last minute July 4th manicure.  The day was so dreary, it was raining all morning and showing no signs of stopping.  I knew any original July 4th plans were going to have to wait until the next day.  It was going to turn into a "stay home and watch fireworks specials on TV" kind of night for sure.  I had painted my nails white in the morning, in anticipation of doing some type of July 4th themed look with white as the base color.  But the gloomy day didn't really put me in the mood to paint my nails.  About halfway through the day though, I decided to do just a really quick, dry brush American flag (sorta) design.

I tested it out on my thumb first and was loving the effect, which was the shot I had posted on Instagram.  I was a little indifferent to the finished look though once I had completed the rest of my nails.  It did definitely grow on me over the next few days, and a few of my friends really liked it.  I think the overall effect was much cooler looking in person than it looks in photographs.  And I'm definitely inexperienced when it comes to the dry brush technique, so that's something I think I'm going to need to practice a bit more in the future.

My base was two coats of KBShimmer Eyes White Open.  The blue and red stripes are both polishes from Priti NYC.  The blue is Canterbury Bells, and the red is called Cherry Ripe.  If you aren't familiar with the dry brush approach, you basically try to scrape as much polish off the brush as you can back into the bottle, and then swipe the brush across your nail.  There were some times where I thought I globbed on a little too much color, so to fix it I just went over a few spots with more white polish.  I finished it off with a coat of Seche Vite.

I hope everyone had a fun and safe July 4th holiday last week.  I definitely enjoyed July 5th a whole lot more than July 4th.  The weather was perfect on Sunday, and there was a great fireworks display put on in my town.  I even snagged a few good shots of the show.

Old Glory

So I did end up doing a second July 4th manicure on Friday afternoon, to wear for the rest of this weekend.  I posted a quick cell phone shot on Instagram Friday after it was done, but Saturday morning I was able to get some better shots in natural light with my Canon.  I wanted to break out a few Zoya PixieDust polishes because I thought they would work well for another flag design.  I'm so glad I did because I'm pretty sure this is now my new favorite July 4th manicure.

Initially, I was a little worried that the stars and stripes wouldn't show up that well over the darker colors, but the stamping actually came out more opaque than I expected.  I really like the way the white has just a slightly faded look to it.  Mixed with the texture of the PixieDust bases, it really reminds me of pictures of historic, vintage looking flags.

All stamping was done using Konad Special Polish in white.  For the blue base, I used 2 coats of Zoya Sunshine.  The red base is 3 coats of Zoya Chyna.  The stars design is off of Nailz Craze plate NC05 and the stripes are from Winstonia plate W107.

I can definitely see this being my go-to design for any patriotic holidays anytime I might have trouble coming up with something new to wear instead.

Stars and Stripes - Happy 4th of July!

Happy July 4th everyone!  Leading up to July 4th this year, I took part in an Independence Day themed swap on Facebook and my awesome swap partner, Cari, sent me a box full of Salon Perfect goodies and some candy.  So after I came down from my sugar high, lol, I got to work on putting together a look for July 4th.  Using a bunch of the items she sent me, here's what I came up with this year.

For my thumb and index nail, I started with Salon Perfect Blue Ribbon.  This was my first experience trying any Salon Perfect polishes and I was pretty happy to see I only needed 2 coats of Blue Ribbon for decent coverage.  The star designs are from a Salon Perfect decal kit that Cari also included in the swap package.  I topped these blue nails with 2 coats of Seche Vite, just to try and even out the edges of the decals.

For the red and white stripes on the rest of my nails, I decided to do a reciprocal gradient instead of regular stripes.  I started with one coat of Salon Perfect Sugar Cube, then sponged on a red and white gradient using Sugar Cube and Salon Perfect Paint The Town Red.  Once that dried, I placed 3 strips of striping tape onto each nail, then redid the gradient with the colors on the opposite ends as the original gradient and quickly removed the striping tape.  I finished off these 3 nails with just one coat of Seche Vite.  The gradient isn't quite as smooth as I would have liked.  But I didn't want to blend the red and white much more because I was hoping to minimize the amount of pink through the center of the gradient.

I've been wearing this all week and it's starting to show a little wear in real life compared to the pictures.  Since July 4th is a Friday this year, there is sure to be some celebrating all weekend long, so I may take this off and do another July 4th manicure sometime today.  Have a fun and safe holiday everyone.  'Murica!

July 4th - Stars and Stripes!

Happy 4th of July!  I had some more elaborate plans in my head, combining stamping and striping and gradients and um, ya...just a mishmash of everything really.  But I usually like to try to pull off more complicated nail art on the weekends, since I have more time in case I screw something up (which is pretty much bound to happen at least once if not on several attempts).  I didn't get a chance to do my July 4th manicure until Tuesday though, so I decided to keep it simple this year and stick with just stamping.  And I'm glad I did because I think it turned out to be my favorite July 4th manicure ever.

I started out with 3 coats of China Glaze White On White.  The stamp designs are both from
Winstonia plate W107.  I stamped using Konad Special Polishes in blue and in red, then top coated with Seche Vite.  I stamped the blue stars design on my thumb as well, but earlier in the week I somehow managed to snap off the entire free edge of the nail...whomp, whomp.  The nail is so short that my thumb now basically bares a striking resemblance to my big toe.  So ya...I'll spare you from having to see that!

Happy Independence Day!  Have a safe July 4th!!!

Happy 4th of July!

Happy Independence Day everyone!  Here's my manicure for the holiday this year.  I've had this on since Sunday afternoon.  I was thinking I might do a second manicure for July 4th but I might just end up leaving this on my nails for the rest of the week instead of changing it.

This was supposed to be a simple manicure but it turned out to take a hell of a lot more time than I thought it would, mostly due to uncooperative glitters.  I started with two coats of Zoya Cynthia on all of my nails.  Then I applied one coat of Candy Lacquer's American Pie to three fingers on each hand.  My only complaint with American Pie is that the red hex glitters did not seem to want to come out of the bottle.  It was really weird and a little frustrating because there are a lot of red hex glitters in the bottle, maybe not as many red as blue and white but enough that I expected to get a few on my nails naturally.  But the majority of the red hexes you see on my nails were ones I placed individually with a toothpick.  Other than that, the application was easy and I really like the glitter combo in this polish, especially over such a dark blue like Zoya Cynthia.

For my index fingers and thumbs, I used Wet n Wild Stars & Stripes.  This was the glitter that really gave me a hard time.  When I originally bought it a month or two ago, I pretty much expected that I might need to fish out a star or two during application, but I had to place every single glitter by hand, including the bar glitter!  There is certainly a lot of stars and a ton of bar glitter in various sizes throughout the clear(ish) base (it's a little cloudy looking), but each time I tried to put on a coat with the brush, it looked like I was applying top coat.  I got no stars, I got no bars.  Ok, well maybe two or three measly little itty-bitty bars, but none of the thicker bars and not a damn star.  It was hard just trying to scoop them out from the bottle in the first place.  They just did not want to stick to the brush and come out.  In the end though, I managed to get just enough stars and bar glitter out of the bottle and placed on my nails using a toothpick.  Even though it's a total pain in the ass glitter, I don't regret buying it.  First of all, it's Wet n Wild, so super cheap.  I've spent more on a cell phone app than on this polish.  The stars are a perfect size too...not too big, not too small.  And did I mention the stars are holographic?  I didn't?  Oh, well hey, the stars are holographic!  So ya, it was worth the aggravation.

I applied two coats of Seche Vite and then realized that I probably should have added at least one coat of Gelous first to really cover the stars sufficiently.  But then I thought, well why not put the Gelous on top of the Seche Vite?  So I did and it worked great.  Booya!  The Gelous dried just as shiny as the Seche Vite had been and if I didn't use the Gelous, I probably would have needed another two coats at least of SV to contain all the points on the star glitters.  Even a friend at work made a comment on Monday, while examining my nails, that you couldn't feel the stars at all.

Here's hoping everyone has a great holiday today!  Enjoy the parades, barbecues, fireworks and hopefully some good weather!