A Frustated Monkey

My life is filled with frustration at this point.  So frustrated that I can't spell frustrated (don't look to closely at the title)!  Remember how I said that I got a "new" computer?  It is a used laptop purchased from Ebay.  Computer is great, but the charger went out.  With hubby currently laid off money is tight and I had to wait until we had some cushion in our budget to purchase a new one.  All that to say that it has been to long since I posted.  Guess the blogging fairies have not been on my side.  Please forgive me (if you even noticed tee hee)  I will try to make it up to you.  (Watch for a post later with one of my all time favorite manis).

But lets start with what is posted on Monday's.  Yes, it's another monkey!  For today I have something a little different.  Monkey See Monkey Do does not have to only be inspired by other nail artists, it can be inspired by anything.  Since I wasn't able to do my So You Think You Can Dance Fashion Friday post, I am going to show you it now (cause I have even more SYTYCD inspired manis...I think I could do a whole month of these!)

The first thing I have to say about this is....don't look to closely!  I LOVED this on my nails (and hope to do it again with different colors), however, with the dreaded macro shots all of the flaws show.  Bear with me (where did that saying come from?) and I will explain why it is all a little messy.

This was inspired by Amy Yakima's rehearsal tank.

 Please forgive the quality of this pic...it is direct off my TV.  Plus I had to do some color correction to get close to how neon and vibrant that purple was..still didn't get close...and her skin tone is totally off.  

 
This started with three coats of Revlon Decadent.  It was a really good match for the actual purple in the tank.  This is one of many "burples" in my stash, and it is burple for a good reason.  It is a lovely violet base with this amazing shimmer.  LOVE this color....however....I wasn't happy with the polish itself.  It had a horrible tendency to drag.  (See the bald spot on my pinky?.  Plus, if you look at the first image, you can see some dramatic tip wear...well, dramatic for ONE DAYS WEAR!  Yes, I did what I normally do and painted my nails in the late evening (or early morning in some cases :) and then did the nail art the following evening. Three coats of polish, tip wrapping, a coat of Seche Vite and less than 24 hours...this is horrible wear time in my world!  I thought about adding another coat to cover the wear, but decided against it to show you how bad this was.  Any of you know of a better polish with this color/finish, I would love to hear about it!  Any of you indie polish makers out there...well you know what I want.

 
 Now here is where it got crazy.  You have heard me talk about my A type personality before?  My desire for perfection?  (Although I rarely achieve it.)  My OCD tendencies?  Here is total proof of that!  I started by using 4 stripes of striping tape down the center of the nail.  I could have then just painted the blue and black across my nail bed....but no, I wanted the lines to be straight, so I went crazy with the painters tape!

 
The craziness did not stop there....oh no!  The only blue that was a "as close as possible" match to the blue in the tank (although you can't tell from the crappy TV pic) was China Glaze Splish Splash, a lovely matte neon robins egg blue.  The problem was that it required 3 coats so that the base wouldn't show through, and you know how thick matte polish can be.  Then, when I started peeling off the painters tape it  pulled the striping tape right off with it, which caused some mangling of the not quite dry enough blue.  All this to say that if you like this look, please make it easy on yourself and choose one coaters for the accent colors....or don't use painters tape.  Gah...sometimes I make things a lot harder than they need to be!  On top of all that....the Seche had some shrinkage, which happens rarely for me.

 

 

Despite all of this manis' faults, I loved it.  None of the blemishes were noticeable IRL...I loved the design....I loved that I haven't seen it previously in all my blog hopping....it was just different and I love different.

Well, what do you think?  Winner or loser?  Let's see if there are any other Monkeys today.