Artsy Wednesday once more! These days whizz around I can tell you. This weeks offering is the product of one of those happy occasions where you just throw something together out of neccessity and it actually comes out okay. Nice one!
As quite often happens with me, it was after 9pm on Tuesday night when I started thinking about doing these nails. As I work all day through the week, I have to prepare my posts beforehand, so this really is the last chance saloon. I have of course been trying to think up designs for a couple of days, but it turns out that white is quite difficult to think of designs for.
I went through all the thoughts of glitter accent nails, or crystals/glequins, but nothing really made me think, ooh yes I'd like to try that. So I just went upstairs to my polishes, grabbed the obvious white, OPI's Alpine Snow, and thought, what colour do I really like with white? And as it happens only one colour came to mind, and that's orange. Now, I have done an orange and white manicure on the blog before, (here's the link) but that was stamping, and that means waiting for the base to dry, and no time for that today, not even with Seche!
So here's what I came up with:
One of the brightest oranges I own is Essie's Orange It's Obvious, which I swatched and reviewed in full (here) so I thought I'd go with that. A good nailart technique to use if you're in a rush is dotting, because you don't have to wait for the base colour to dry fully before you get on with the art. I decided to make random flowers instead of plain dots, just because I wouldn't have to take so much care (and therefore time) over it, and actually, I like the results!
Here's another pic with the bottle getting a look-in:
As you can see, the Essie dries a shade or so darker on the nail than it shows in the bottle. I used one quite thin coat, and then one thickish one because I was in a rush (as I think I've mentioned haha).
And I might as well put in the last picture, seeing as I took the time to edit it:
Back to indoor photos now, as there's no light left in the sky when I get home from work. But to be honest, I didn't really take that much advantage of it even when there was. So many more fun things to do when the sun's out, like sunbathing and reading a book in the garden. I actually enjoy my polishes more in the winter, when I'm indoors and sitting still long enough to let them dry properly.
Why not take a look at what whiteys the rest of the Artsy Wednesday crew have come up with:
Catrine at Unnaked Nails (link)
Michelle at Labmuffin (link)
Maria at Maria's Nail Polish Blog (link)
Melanie at Nail and Polish (link)
Emily at An Accent Nail (link)
Ameerah at Valiantly Varnished (link)
Anna & Haylee at Makeup and Masala (link)
Rosemarie at Every Little Polish (link)
Anna at Makeup N More (link)
All in all, I like this, and I think I'll definitely have a go at it in some other colours. What's your go-to "in a rush" nailart technique?
Until next time...
MASPOOASE x x x
~Wendy~
Hi all!
It's late at the weekend for posting I know, am having to work Saturday mornings again, and it really throws out my routine. This achilles problem seems to be dragging on and on....
However, the sun actually came out yesterday, and I finally got around to swatching the Essies I bought a week or so ago from my trusty TK Maxx. Good job too, because it's done nothing but rain today, if it carries on I'll need a canoe to get to work in the morning!
I was so excited when I saw these in the shop, because it actually contained polishes I'd heard of, they were Ballet Slippers, Orange It's Obvious, Tour De Finance, and Navigate Her. For £9.99 for all four, I didn't need asking twice to pick this set up. I'd been disappointed with the last set of Essies I got there, reviewed HERE so if I hadn't heard of these ones, I probably wouldn't have picked them up.
The first one I swatched, I nearly didn't bother with, because I knew I wouldn't like it, Ballet Slippers. I already know it's a sheer and as you know I hate VNL, so wasn't expecting too much. As it was, I didn't hate it as much as I thought I would. Here's the pics. Firstly outdoors:
Next indoors in shaded light:
As I always do, I made notes while I was swatching, and next to this one I wrote, first coat - not even there, which tells you how sheer it is. The second coat was a bit patchy and streaky, so I did a third coat and this evened it out. It is super-shiny, and dry time was medium. I don't despise it, so it can't be all bad.
Next I swatched Navigate Her. This was the one I was most excited to try, as alot of people seem to like it. The formula was a bit of a nightmare, I had to take off my first attempt to apply this, as it just looked so scruffy. It managed somehow to be runny without having any nice flowy-ness. The first coat went on streaky. I used 3 coats for the photos and it needed them all, as the second coat produced bald patches as it was drying. Here's what it looked like in the garden:
It's lucky for it that it's such a pretty colour, kind of a pastelly khaki, or I wouldn't consider using it again because of the formula. As it is, I'll probably get this one out again from time to time. Here's a pic taken inside:
Next up we have Tour De Finance, I loved the name of this one, I don't wear many pinks but this one has a nice purply shimmer running through it, which gives it a nice depth. I liked the formula of this one. The first coat was patchy, but I only needed two coats for these pictures. Firstly outside:
Next indoors. This shows the shimmer quite well:
Last but not least, we have Orange, It's Obvious. In the bottle this is a really bright primary orange. It had a reasonably good opacity, this is 3 coats, but I could still tell where my nail tips were, so it's not going to be a go-to. It reminded me very much of Nails Inc's Portobello, which I reviewed HERE it had the same runny formula, but it was reasonably fast drying. Here's the outside pic:
And here's a close up. I didn't have any inside pics, as my cuticles were starting to look a bit ick, and this was one of the least disgusting pics I could find out of the ones I took:
And last but not least, here's the brush shot. It was a wide but flat brush, it was actually very wide, and if you have narrow fingers you might struggle, but I didn't find it too bad. The green brush is sideways on:
So there we have it, one set swatched, do you own any of these? What do you think?
Until next time......
MASPOOASE x x x
~Wendy~
Hi there again everyone
What a tough challenge this was! The idea I've had in my head to do was already done by someone - and so much better than I could have done it, so I had to start planning again from scratch. I've got a cold and had a pretty tough day at work - and wasn't feeling the inspiration. It took a very nice tweet from Inky to put it all back into perspective, so I took a deep breath and thought, what Christmas movies do I actually like?
To be honest I'm not really a Christmas movies kind of girl, my first thought was Gremlins, but I didn't know how to get one onto my nails, so my next thought was The Shining (yes I'm a horror gal), and an iconic image in there is the carpet in the long corridor where Danny cycles along on his trike.
That got me thinking if I had any stamping plates that might do, and I found one in my Cheeky Plate B which looked like it might do the trick. I found this design quite hard to photograph, but it came out best with the flash:
Now, I know I missed a spot on my middle finger and my thumb, but to be honest it's after 10pm now, and if I want to get this post out at all on the right day I just have to go with what I have!
Here's a picture of the carpet I mean:
My base brown wasn't quite dark enough, I used Nails Inc Ganton Street. For the orange stamping I used Essie Orange It's Obvious, which stamped really nicely. Then I dotted the centres with the ruby colour Maybelline Salon Finish in Ruby Fire Creme, which I've had FOREVER.
Here's another pic:
And one final pic:
Actually, even though it's not perfectly executed, I'm quite glad I did this manicure. For one, The Shining is actually one of my favourite Christmas films, and not just one I picked because I could do nail art for it. For two, I haven't done stamping for ages. And three, it does actually look a bit like the carpet! Next time I'll use a darker base coat, because I will definitely be trying this out again!
So there we have it, I got a post done, even though it was touch and go there for a while. I hope you liked it! You've probably already checked out everyone else already as I'm so late, but if not, check out the links below.
Until next time...
MASPOOASE x x x
~Wendy~
