The Girl With Rainbow Hands: 2011

Saturday, December 10, 2011

Day 5: Garland and Day 6: Elves

Hi all!

I started out doing Day 5: Garland. I thought this was going to be an easy one, but my color choice turned it into a major fail! Ha! We all have our down days. I used a base of Essie Case Study (an ugly pretty color) and Sinful Colors Call You Later as the winding garland. I thought it would look like a garland running up the side of a brown house but... it just looks like swamp weeds. Woops! I'll share the pictures though, perhaps they can be a learning experience for somebody else who wants to try these colors together.

I can't bear to end the post on that note, so I'm going to add in Day 6: Elves to this post as well. Now this... this is cute. This is something I'm happy to wear on my hands. :) My boyfriend thought this one was clever and called me a real artist.

Colors - Ulta Limelight, Wet n Wild Red Red, Zoya Shay, NYC French White Tip, and Wet n Wild Black creme.

I really wish blogger had a rotate picture function!!

Hope you're a little bit more in the Christmas spirit than you were five minutes ago :)

The other bloggers doing this challenge are:

Claire Gallaugher - Purple Fairy Dust All Things Beautiful

Emma Hoop - Manicurity

Kerrie Black- PhishPosh and Polish

Bee Justice - Bee Polished

Zoe Garner - Obsessive Compulsive Nail Painting Disorder

Felicia Banuelos- Confessions of a Nail Polish Junkie

Lisa Armstrong-Waite - Happy Nails

Julie Rivard - Tales of Knit and Nails

Alyssa Dees - No Junk Nail

Arielle Stephenson - Only Always Soccermom

Merry Christmas!

Maria

Wednesday, December 7, 2011

Day 4: Water marble

My first water marble post!

Here goes nothing ;)

I had never done a water marble before, and, from the sounds of others' trials and tribulations with it, I didn't really think I'd ever do one. I mean, I have plenty of ideas for freehand nail art.

But I'm so glad this challenge forced me to try it, because what fun!

I decided to start very simply before hassling with room temperature distilled ionized straight from Mount Olympus water. I just used average tap water in an average paper dixie cup.

In case I messed up, I chose cheap, opaque polishes. Wet n Wild Red, NYC French White Tip, and Sinful Envy.

Then I used an unfolded safety pin and dragged it around to make a design... then took a deep breath and made my first dip...

Whooooooooooaaaa!! How cool is that?? It totally worked! I'm not sure I can express how excited I was. You'll just have to take my word for it.

Then I repeated the process with the two other fingers on that hand, with good results.

(By the way, I don't regret not taping. It looks a hot mess, but it all came off for me rather easily with an acetone soaked Q-tip while it was still wet.)

For my thumb, I decided to be brave and I tried red, green, and a metallic silver color. First I dropped the colors...

Off to a good start...

Then I swirled them, dipped my thumb in....

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaand, I missed. hahahaha. The pattern looked so good in the water! Not sure how I ended up with an almost all red thumb nail. Oops. But it was bound to happen sooner or later :)

So I re-dipped it, with the red, green, and white again. Unfortunately I swirled it a bit too much, so it is more mixed than the other fingers, but it's still ok. I allowed it to stay on my hands ;)

Oh! Cool science! I accidentally dropped one drop of silver from too high up, and it sunk about half way down and stayed suspended there as a sphere! Whoa! You can kind of see it in the above picture.

Final product:

Epilogue:

The next day, la-di-da, just minding my own business, I looked down, and my ring finger was missing a corner! *sniff*

This manicure was definitely an attention getter, and inspired me to try more marbling in the future! I can't pick a favorite nail of this manicure, but I can pick a least favorite. ;) Do you like water marbles?

The other bloggers doing this challenge are:

Hello? Can you hear me?

So, I just found out, that due to an unfortunate issue, 90% of my RSS subscribers haven't been receiving any of my posts! O.O The horror!

I think I've resolved the issue.

If anybody sees this, would you be so kind as to comment? Especially if you're one of the 90% who hasn't been getting anything from me?

Thank you so much!

Maria

Edited to add: OMG. It appears to have just sent out my 14 last blog posts?! If that is true, I do apologize for flooding your reader!

If you follow me via RSS:

Edited:

Please be sure that you are subscribing to me at this URL in your RSS reader: http://rainbowhands.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default , as some people were subscribed to a different RSS URL that I am now going to cancel.

IF you just got a ton of my blog posts today, then you are perfectly fine and do not need to switch anything. :)

Thanks for reading! I really appreciate it :)

Maria

Tuesday, December 6, 2011

Day 3: Snow Globe

Ciao pretty ladies!

Day 3 of this challenge is themed like a snow globe. Yes, just like every other person who saw this theme, I did contemplate doing pastel nails with China Glaze Snow Globe on top. But no! I had to take it to the next level, and I'm really glad I did.

Base color is China Glaze Secret Periwinkle, a color I have been crushing on for a long time, and I finally received it in a swap, with Sinful Colors Unicorn, Envy, and Green Ocean! How exciting! I love saving money by swapping rather than buying new polish, don't you?

....

...

What, you mean to tell me that sending nail polish to random strangers in exchange for other nail polish isn't a normal thing to do?

...

...

Oh.

I don't see myself stopping anytime soon though! I much prefer trading nail polish to trading something like baseball cards! :D

Four of the nails in today's design have just a tip of CG Snow Globe, to represent all the fake snow in a snow globe when it has fallen to the ground. The accent nail is a actual snow globe! With a teeeeeny tiny Christmas tree. Base is Milani Red Sparkle (one coat glitter collection) and the tree is SC Envy (also from my swap). I painted another layer of snow globe over the globe, but it was denser than I thought, and covered the image pretty much, making it hard to see and photograph. But I'm ok with that, it's like a real snow globe swirling with snow.

GLITTER

This is my right hand, for once, since I couldn't bear to take the Dear Santa off my left hand! I had quite fun taking this progression of pictures, getting closer and closer to the camera.

Now for the important question - do you even have a snowglobe? When's the last time you've actually shaken one? I can't remember for me!

The other bloggers doing this challenge are:

Monday, December 5, 2011

Day 2: Writing my Christmas Cards

Hello again,

On to the second post of the challenge! When I first saw this challenge, I signed up but then backed out because there are some very very tricky things on this list of theme. For example, writing your Christmas cards. But I decided I was up to the challenge and wanted to start regularly posting here agan, so, I'll take whatever themes they throw at me!

Day 2 - Writing my Christmas Cards

I did this manicure with a color I hated (Revlon Aloof, Edgy Elegance collection), and a design I hated (handwriting on my nails), and wouldn't you just know it, I LOVED this look! I kept it on for longer than just the one day of the challenge. I am certainly going to try something like this again in the future.

The fine writing was done with my favorite nail art pen! That thing is glorious! One day I will own the whole set and then I will TAKE OVER THE WORLD! MUAHAHAHA. Here is the link if anybody else is interested in these. Or if Santa is reading. Same difference.

44 cent postage stamp on my thumb - I know that price because I have to mail my rent in :P

Just a funny pose to show that it even looks cool when the words aren't aligned.

Dear blogger, PLEASE add a rotate picture function, because occasionally my computer glitches up and ALWAYS uploads a certain picture sideways. Grrrrrrrr. Well, you dear readers are just going to have to turn your heads I suppose.

And that's that! Did you write letters to Santa when you were little? I definitely did! I left them out with the cookies and milk and carrots (for the reindeer). I guess I thought Santa had all the presents in the world in his bag, and would be able to read my note and pick out what I wanted :P

The other bloggers doing this challenge are:

Maria

Sunday, December 4, 2011

Day 1: What you like most about Christmas

Hello all!

Time for another challenge, one that I'll actually finish this time! Christmas is my favorite part of the year, tied only with the first month of summer :) so I couldn't turn down this challenge!

Day 1 is a manicure themed about what you love the most about Christmas. What I love the most about Christmas is seeing decorations everywhere and feeling such a part of the community. Even with all the stresses of the holidays, I feel like it is pretty impossible to be sad while walking down a street with Christmas lights on all the houses.

My manicure's base color was 3 coats of Orly Meet Me Under the Mistletoe. This is a beautiful and unique green polish, it has noticeable tiny flakies and glass flecks that give it an unparalleled depth! Then I put a matte top coat on it, and added white dots, then went over them to add color to my Christmas lights <3

(Pardon the cleanup, I know I only cleaned two nails....because I DROPPED MY PAINTBRUSH IN THE PURE ACETONE AND IT DISSOLVED! ha. ha. ha. Frustrating though. Lost a brand new brush and a giant bottle of pure acetone. Sigh. Trials of being a nail blogger.)

So there you have it, my favorite part about Christmas is the Christmas lights :) What is your favorite part about Christmas, or the holiday that you celebrate?

The other bloggers doing this challenge are:

Thursday, December 1, 2011

Fantastic Nail Polish Deal!

Hi all,

I just had to share this one, nobody told me to do this, I just wanted to share the deal :)

Savemore.com is a coupon site like groupon. I've used this site before, it is reputable. The first time you sign up for the site, you get a $10 credit in your account. Today's deal is $15 for $30 worth or $19 for $40 worth at beautyofasite.com! If you use the signup credit, that means only FIVE dollars for $30 worth or NINE dollars for $40 worth! And the voucher can be used toward the shipping price! This is a good site, with OPI, Orly, CND, Poshe, Seche, China Glaze, Zoya, and Essie (including Luxeffects)!

Click here to check it out: http://svmr.co/HhFX (this deal is in the right sidebar)

Wow. I only wish I could buy more than one voucher! With my voucher, I'm spending $9 total for 2 china glaze, 2 OPI, and Essie Shine of the Times

Maria

Wednesday, November 30, 2011

My friend Rena's nails

Rena was my roommate sophomore year.

That was a very fun year.

Rena is amazing.

On an unrelated note, Rena lets me paint her nails for fun and practice!

This post is dedicated to Rena. :)

One day, Rena came over to watch TV and just hang out. Unsurprisingly, I hijacked her hands and she let me go to town and paint whatever I wanted! I gave her a blue ombre manicure, and I think it turned out very well! These shades transition very nicely together.

I used, left to right:
OPI What's with the cattitude?
OPI No room for the blues
OPI Suzi says Feng Shui
Barry M Cobalt Blue
Maybelline Denim Dash

The paler hand is mine.

This manicure was definitely a success. It is simple ans subtle, but still striking and attention-catching. In fact, Rena told me some of her male friends even commented on it! To me, that means it must be something really special, if they noticed it.

We had fun after this manicure! The nail polish drying dance:

A few weeks later, Rena asked me to paint her nails with a running theme, since she is an avid runner. She has a fantastic blog over at http://milehogger.blogspot.com/ and her posts are always so much fun to read! She makes me wish I could run.

On her thumb, a replica of her actual running shoe.

On her other fingers, from left to right, a gold medal (made with striping tape), her Garmin GPS, a galaxy nail (her choice), and her specific water bottle. I'm sure she will remind me of all the acutal names for these things, because I forget them. My brain is busy speaking polish-speak, about dupes and CPs and layering and holos... no room left for running vocab.

The ring I love:

Posing like a nail blogger:

All ten nails:

So, Rena, when can I paint your nails again?

This has been a public service announcement, reminding all us polish-aholics to remember about all the potential nail art canvases on our friends hands! :)

Maria