Life is getting in the way of nails around here :( I had my water marble (you can see it HERE) for several days and finally forced myself to change it. As I sat at my desk with a list of the prompts I had not completed yet for the #31DC2014, I spied a nail decal left over from THIS nail art. It was done months ago but must have been hiding out under a polish bottle or something :) As soon as I saw it, I knew I was going to do the book and movie prompt together, plus the skittles prompt for Blogger Braggers.
Yup, Silence of the Lambs was a book before it was a movie. I have seen manis inspired by this movie before, but I wanted to concentrate on Buffalo Bill instead of Hannibal Lecter.
I started with two coats of LynBDesigns Battle Dress, a shimmery nude polish. This is an older swatch pic, which is why my nails are shorter. I need to go back to this length :).
The well is on my index finger, which of course had to include the bloody scratches and finger nail. I sponged with Julep Daria (a dark grey) and Nails Inc Old Compton Street (a light grey texture) then stamped with LLC-B. Scratches are Orly Naughty.
The middle finger is a decal using MoYou 67. I double stamped the ring finger with Messy Mansion MM36, Mentality Prim and Mentality Foxy. "It puts the lotion in the basket or it gets the hose again".
The pinkie was splattered with Orly Naughty, what I think is the perfect blood polish. I did not clean up the cuticles on purpose for a more gory effect.
Finally I free handed Buffalo Bills hand tattoo on my thumb. Did you know that the three tattoos he has are tattoos from three notorious serial killers, at least that is what I read somewhere during my research and you know everything on the internet is real :)
That's it kiddies. I have the mood stone, not particularly because I love the nail art, but because I love my interpretation of the movie onto my nails. Kinda like my Donnie Darko manicure you can find HERE.
As always, thanks for looking and commenting!
At the beginning of the month, I shared the nail art I wore to the Doctor Who premiere. If you missed it, you can find it HERE. Today I am showing you what Bria wore. This is for the #31DC2014 prompt "galaxies".
This is my first attempt at galaxy nail art. I always have been a little nervous about it. I shouldn't have been.
I started with a base of Pahlish Eleven's Hour Is Over Now, a dark grey filled with flakies and some silver glitter. It is the perfect base for this. Not too dark, but with interest all on its own.
Next I sponged it with LynBDesigns Oobleck (green), LynBDesigns Tesalecta's Kiss (pink) and INLP Peace (purple). I topped it all off with Orly Shine On Crazy Diamond, a holo glitter.
I created decals with MJ XII, Mentality Tough (blue) Cult Nails New Day (yellow).
I took these pics several days after I painted them, so there is a little bit of cuticle growth.
Bria loved this, so she wanted to make sure that that I took a mood stone. I even ended up liking it., although I still can see areas of improvement. It was so easy, I will definitely be trying it again!
Thanks for looking and commenting!
Tina
When I saw that the theme this month of The Nail Challenge Collaborative was music/movies/TV, I knew I was going to revisit a mani I did previously and wasn't happy with. Well, I was happy with it, just not my execution and photos. So, here again, is Sherlock at Buckingham Palace.
If you want to see the original, you can see it HERE. In case you don't want to, here is the inspiration for this mani.
Don't recognize this? Then you need to run to Netflix and watch one of the best TV shows ever made, Sherlock. Smart, funny and brilliant.
Index represents John's jacket with it's leather shoulder patch. Middle is the pillow. Index is Sherlock's sheet. Thumb and pinkie is the couch.
I still love this, and although I wasn't quite sure if I should revisit it so soon, I am happy I did. I am ambivalent about not creating something new for Sherlock, but I have two other chances for new ideas this month. Just a one more pic because....well, I love it!
Do you have some love for Sherlock? Understand why I redid it? Want to check out the other inspired manis? Thanks for looking (even though you may have already seen the original).
I am a total geek so this prompt is right up my alley. With the 3rd season of Sherlock so quickly over, I am now going into Sherlock withdrawl, so I knew that today would be Sherlock themed. My original idea was to do the wallpaper/smiley face/skull theme, but I thought I would save that for the wallpaper prompt. Then I saw a couple of them floating around the nail community, so I might scrap that idea. Then again I might not :)
In getting ready for this season, I went back and watched the previous two seasons and got my daughter hooked on it at the same time. While watching season one, I was struck by a bolt of genius, if I may say so myself, during the Buckingham palace scene (my all time favorite by the way). Here is my inspiration.
Sherlock laughing...be still my heart! Here is what I did.
So, doing this in the hotel room made me realize how good my lighting set up is! Plus I forgot my clean up brush, so I had a bit of a mess on my middle finger. And let's not even go into my sad little nubs :( The patch I have had on my middle finger for two weeks finally gave out, so everything else had to be cut down to match.
- Index - Representing John's hunting jacket with the leather patch at the shoulder, 2 coats of Finger Paints Black Expressionism with Nails Inc Noho in the corner.
- Middle - Representing the red pillow, 2 coats of Zoya Rekah "sponged" with Essence Do You Speak Love. I say "sponged" because I forgot to bring a sponge or saran wrap, so I scrunched up the plastic wrapper on the microwave popcorn provided with the room for a makeshift saran wrap. Worked pretty well! You can see it better in the first and last pics.
- Ring - Representing Sherlock's sheet, 2 coats of LVX Fantom.
- Representing the couch (I am sure it is called something fancier in the palace), I started with 2 coats of Barry M Lychee. I then stamped with Vivid Lacquer VL020 and Maybelline Bold Gold.
I LOVE how this turned out, despite not having all the tools I usually have and poor lighting for the pics. It turned out just like I envisioned! So rare that this happens!
What do you think? Are you a Sherlockian, like me? Did I nail my inspiration or do I just have a high impression of it? Gotta run, the boys are getting restless and we need to vacate the room. See you tomorrow!
Today starts a challenge I am hosting for the Facebook group Nail Art Challengez. First day and I am already late! But if you let me take a moment I will give you my excuses, and boy howdy, they are good. Don't want to hear about my crappy day? Scroll down to the pics.
I consciously do my best not to put my personal life out here on my blog, but sometimes it just calls for it. I am just so....frustrated....pissed....lost some of my faith in humanity. I generally think of myself as a generous, kind and positive. I know that not everyone is like that, but I find that it makes my life, and hopefully others around me, easier and more pleasant. So what happened to me today just floored me. Someone cut the catalytic converter right out from under my van today as it sat in the parking lot at work. WTF! Sawed it right off and now I have a vehicle that sounds like a Harley and is blowing exhaust right under where I sit. I still am in shock. Who would do such a thing? Hubby says that he just recently heard on the news about this happening around the Twin Cities. And it's not like we can afford it. Who can, right? But I am not going to bitch about my finances, that is not what this is about, it's about the total disregard of personal property and f***ing audacity.....Please forgive me, I am just so....I can't even find the words to express what I am feeling.
So, when I got home from work we had dinner and then I took a 4 hour stress nap. Hubby took his frustration out by baking and cleaning the kitchen. Yes, I love my hubby! Now I am taking it out by eating what he baked. Yes, those are oatmeal cookie crumbs in my lap :)
Now on to the more pleasant stuff, NAILS. Not only do you get nail art today, you also get a comparison.
Some of you may be asking "What the hell is that?". Well let me explain. I am a HUGE Supernatural fan, you know, the show with the two hottest brothers on TV, not to mention their angel sidekick. If this show is not on your radar, you need to head over to Netflix. Not only does it have hot men, but it walks the fine line of taking itself seriously AND making fun if itself. Whoever would have believed that a show about ganking monsters would make me laugh and cry so often. Did you see the premier this season? Cass without a shirt? Be still my beating heart! He can be my pizza man any day (tee hee). My son and I have recently been having Supernatural marathons on Netflix. He just discovered the show last season, so we are watching from the beginning so that he knows what is going on and I don't have to explain so much :) We are already to season 6, so needless to say I have had a bit of vampire killing, demon kicking and monster hunting on my mind.
When I saw the Apipila Supernatural plate the first time, I knew it would be MINE! How could I not love it? If you haven't seen the show, here is a little breakdown of the images I did on each nail. I will try not to fangirl to much.
The index image is the symbol that, when written in human blood, can banish any angel nearby. Why would you want to do that? Well most of the angels on this show are bad ass, and not in a good way. Let's just say that the sword wielding (or in this case knife) God avengers from the old testament are all over the place and they don't particularly like that we humans are loved by their Father.
Let's talk some angel wings, shall we? If I ever found myself in purgatory, this is the angel I would want to pull me out. Seriously, this stoic/hilarious, good/eviI, power hungry/self loathing emotionally stunted angel really does it for me. Don't care how many times he comes back from the brink, I will love him when he is good and mourn for him when he is bad.
I didn't like any of the wing images on the plate, so I went searching through my plates. After a thorough search I asked my hubby, "How can I have so many plates and not a single angel wing image?", so I improvised. I used the stamping decal method with Bundle Monster BM03 and cut out the heart (seems appropo) to create my own angel wings. By the way, after receiving the Bundle Monster Create Your Own plates this week, I know have a wing image :)
The ring is the symbol used to keep demons from possessing you. Yes, you don't want those little devils taking control of your meat bag and using you up until there is nothing left. Plus it gives us fans the chance to see some chiseled chests :)
Pinkie is the infamous knife. Before discovering the demon killing knife, the only way to get rid of demons was to exorcise them. Tee hee, I typed "exercise them" first, I crack myself up! Of course, once there was a demon knife, there had to be an angel knife too....and a kill anything gun, etc.
Finally we have the thumb where I show where my heart really lies. Yup, Dean and his baby. A man who takes care of his car is a total turn on, right?
Okay, now that I have spent hours finding the perfect gifs and being distracted by all the Supernatural awesomeness out there, let's stop fangirling and get to a little comparison.
I don't have a whole lot of reds in my stash, but the number is growing. I recently purchased OPI Lost On Lombard, a red I felt I could really get behind. Shortly after I got some mystery polish sets from OPI and Essie, both of which contained very similar reds and I realized that these are the reds I go for, not the tomato reds or the orangey reds or the bright reds, but these darker, blue leaning reds. So I picked out 4 that I thought were very similar to do a comparison.
- Index - OPI Lost on Lombardo 2 coats
- Middle - Essence Do You Speak Love 1 coat
- Ring - Essie Raisinnuts 3 coats
- Pinkie - OPI Just a Little Rosti 2 coats
Under artificial lighting these all look similar, with the exception of Essie Raisinuts. With the flash, however, the differences show up.
Essence DYSL (middle) seems to be sheerer, but look at the list above and you will realize that I only used ONE coat. It seems orangish in the flash pic, but I think that is only because of the one coat. The artificial light pic was more color accurate. Not only did it give full coverage in one coat, it also had the best formula, not streaky and not too thin or thick.
Of the OPIs, Lost on Lombardo (index) would have to be my fav. It had a little bit better formula with full coverage in two coats, whereas Just a Little Rosti (pinkie) needed three coats to get rid of any streakiness. JALR also leaned a bit bluer.
My least favorite is Essie Raisinnuts. It is a lovely color, kind of a dusty raspberry red, but the consistency was horrible. It was thin, streaked like a mother (or one of those idiots running across the field at football games) and a total cuticle flooder. It's only saving grace was that it wasn't a huge cuticle stainer, which made clean up easier.
So there you have it, a fangirl mani for my first challenge host and a little comparison. Kind of like an enchilada of nail blogging, all kinds of goodness rolled up in one package (tee hee). Don't forget to check out the other reds.
