White Leopard

It won’t stop snowing!  Seriously, I’m 100% ready for spring.  The high temperature yesterday was 9°F.  THAT WAS THE HIGH!!!  I didn’t even leave my house.  It was too freaking cold.All the snow and whiteness is what prompted this wintery leopard mani. My base polish was Essie Main Squeeze.  It doesn’t look at all pink in the bottle, but looked like a very natural pink on my nail.  It’s not exactly what I was going for, but I like it anyway.  A happy mistake.
My spots are OPI DS Radiance and OPI Swedish Nude.  I know I do a lot of leopard manis and have mentioned more than once that it’s one of my favorites.  To prove it and show my dedication to all things leopard print, here’s what I had my sister do to my hair over the weekend.Isn’t it fun?!  There’s a peek-a-boo panel on both sides of my head that replaced the stripes that were there for the last year.  It took forever, but it was worth it.  I love doing unique things to my hair without going completely crazy.  I’m grateful that I have a sister that can do these kinds of things and is willing to experiment with me.  There’s no way I’d be able to do it otherwise.  I don’t think I would trust anyone else to do something like this to my hair.  I love it!

Twinsie Tuesday: Birthstone

This week was an easy one for me.  We’re showing our birthstone colors.  My birthday is in January, so my birthstone is a garnet.  I actually have a polish called Garnet.  Hmm… I wonder what polish I should use for today’s theme?  No brainer.

This was the first time I’ve actually used Kleancolor Garnet.  It’s a jelly for sure.  You can almost see straight through the bottle.  It looks much deeper in the bottle than on.  I’m sure with multiple coats it would look darker, but I got excellent coverage with one coat so I stopped there.

 To add some extra sparkle, I added a coat of Kleancolor Chunky Holo Scarlet over the top.  Of course I can’t leave well enough alone.  Heaven forbid I just wear some polish without embellishments.  I added a silver dot in the form of OPI DS Radiance to each corner to represent a prong that would hold such a stone in a piece of jewelry.  I don’t like it all that much, but I don’t hate it either.  I do love garnets though.  Such a beautiful deep red color.  Very pretty.

We’ve got a new member of our group debuting this week.  Show Jamie a warm welcome by heading over to see what she’s been up to.

Be sure the check out all the other manis today:

Amanda of Amandalandish
Anna of Going to the Showing
Anne of Grape Fizz Nails
Ashley of Art Evolve
Brandi of The Collegiate Nail
Chelsea of Nailed Blog
ChiChi of I’m Just Me…ChiChi
Cordia of Seriously Swatched
Elizabeth of Did My Nails
Jamie of Polish, Please!
Jenn of All That is Gorgeous
Jenna of I’m Still Thinking
Katherine of Haul of Fame
Maribeth of Obsessive Cosmetic Hoarders Unite!
Marisa of Polish Obsession
Meredith of Polish and Charms
Nory of Fierce Make Up and Nails
Sarah of See Sarah Swatch
Tara of Polishy of Truth

Red and Silver Leopard

Ahhhhhh…  Last week was so busy.  I’m glad it’s over.  I wanted to play with red and silver together.  I’m busting out the holiday colors.  I’m not in love with how this turned out though.  Individually the colors are great and I would probably like them better with another design.  I have to say that I did this quickly, under a bit of a time crunch and I wasn’t all that creative.  Oh well.

My red is China Glaze Velvet Bow, one of my favorites!  The grey stripes are Julep Annette and the silver is OPI DS Radiance.  I’m excited to start in to holiday manis.  I just hope I can think of some fun stuff to do without duplicating last years Christmas manis.  Do you have any fun ones planned?  Any good suggestions for me?

Explosion Fail

I think we’re all familiar with Jane from Nailside. I envy her skills. She’s one of my favorites. I did not do her explosion mani justice.This was my second attempt at this design.  I’m seriously struggling with it.  I don’t know why.  Her tutorial makes it seem so simple.  I’m determined to get it right.  I’m struggling with the tape placement.

In an effort to save time, I did it over an existing mani  The subtle polka dots paired with the black and silver “explosion” looks very comic bookish to me.  Like they should have “Bam!” and “Pow!” captions.  I used Sally Hansen Black Out and OPI DS Radiance for this look.

I will for sure keep trying at this one.  I love the explosion when Jane does it.  I will conquer it.  Mark my words. 😉

Crackle Patchwork

I decided to try another crackle mosaic.  For some reason, this one really reminds me of a patchwork quilt though.

This time I went with a white base coat rather than a colored underbelly.  I also tried to keep my spots of color a lot smaller than the last time.  I like version 2.0 better than the first.

I used all of my crackle polishes.  I need to add to that rainbow I think; an orange or a yellow.  If you’re exceptionally curious about one of the polishes in particular, ask me and I’ll go see what it’s called.  Otherwise I’m not going to catalog them.