October Fan's Choice Poll

I've gone through the comments on my submission video and picked a baker's dozen of the suggestions to be voted on - please check out the poll in the upper right corner and vote for your choice!  The top 4 designs will be featured on Fridays in October =)

This poll will be open until next Sunday 10/2/16.

Also, please let me know if you think I should do Fan Choice Friday in November & December also?

And, stop me if you've heard it before ... I WILL be posting more here on the blog.  Like, for real this time.  I had a lot of trouble getting myself on a normal schedule after I quit my job, but I've managed to kind of get on track while I'm on vacation in California, which is unfortunate since all I have is my Chromebook so my productivity is a little limited.  But once I get back to my main PC & my external drives with all my old pictures on them, I am making it a priority to dig in and start editing & posting!

Thanks for reading and for voting!

~Colette

NOTD: Goodwill Halloween Faces + Tutorial

This is so my favorite commercial right now - just puts a smile on my face every time I see it, and I (along with nearly everyone else in my family &, it turns out, many people at work) can't help but to sing along - if you haven't seen it yet, you can see it on YouTube here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vw4De9it-8Q&feature=share&list=LLl6OwCbW6bdtZ14hoxJrgwg

So, since the faces are all pretty basic, I decided to try my hand at putting them on my nails.  Just picking out the polish for this manicure took longer than some of my designs!  And would you believe that with over 2000 bottles of polish, I still had a bit of trouble?  I would have liked the pirate's beard to be a slightly lighter brown, but I didn't have one that was a creme, and since I was able to find creme matches for all the others, I didn't want to use a shimmer there.  So I just went with the slightly darker shade that was used for the cat/werewolf.  There were a few other things like that, but overall I think I did a pretty good job color matching everything.

I used black acrylic paint for the details, and 18 polishes for everything else:  China Glaze Papaya Punch, Essie Boxer Shorts, Nails Inc Tate, Nails Inc The Thames, Nubar Milk Chocolate Creme, OPI Alpine Snow, Orly Glow, Orly Orange Punch, Revlon Stone Edge, Ulta Blue Streak, Zoya Blu, Zoya Carmen, Zoya Evvie, Zoya Jacqueline, Zoya Josie, Zoya Neely, Zoya Pippa & Zoya Shawn.  Whew!  But worth it I think:

Here's a close-up view ... I see I could have done a bit more cleanup at the cuticle area LOL:

Here's the tutorial - there are annotations to navigate to each one, so if you only want to see a few of the faces it's easy to jump around:

This was a fun mani, I was a bit sad when I took it off to fix the break in my index (that you might have noticed on some of the pictures on the witch nail).

Thanks for reading!  I hope you all have a safe & happy Halloween =)

~Colette

NOTD: Skull & Crossbones + Tutorial

So, as far as old vs. new posts, I decided that I'm going to do both.  If I just try to do the old stuff, I'll feel like I'm just falling further behind & it would be true.  Plus, with Halloween today & the holidays right around the corner, no way I'd get caught up in time to share this year's themed manis with you.  So, I'll just try to state whether what you're looking at is old or new ... although in the end, it probably doesn't matter that much, right?  Nails are nails & a mani that was beautiful a few months ago is still beautiful today.

This post is a new mani, for this year's Halloween.  I wasn't sure at first if I was going to do any Halloween manis this year, I just didn't have much inspiration, and then I decided to do these ... they weren't my favorite ever, because as you know I'm a perfectionist, but it was fun to do & good practice at freehanding (which I need).  Base colors were OPI Black Onyx & OPI Alpine Snow, bones done with AS & the skull done with black acrylic:

Here's the tutorial:

And I actually ended up doing another, even free-handier, Halloween design - stay tuned for all of the little Goodwill Halloween faces from the commercial!

Thanks for reading.

~Colette

NOTD: Orange with Spider Web Tips Drag Marble + Tutorial

Those of you who've been following my blog for a while will remember the original version of this manicure, which I did in 2009 & you can see HERE.  I'm still working on my side project of making monthly slideshows back to the beginning of my blog, & when I posted this one I got a ton of requests for a tutorial on this look.

 

For this year's version, for my base color I started out with Milani Brisk Orange:

 

And then for the drag marbling on the tips I used Wet n Wild Black Creme & French White:

 

I actually like my first version a little better LOL - one of the reasons I don't always like revisiting old looks, I swear that's been the case in several instances.

 

Here's the tutorial (which you may already have seen, considering it's been up for 2 weeks!):

 

 

Just a few more NOTDs to post & I'll be fully caught up.  Thanks for reading =)

 

~Colette

NOTD: Halloween Mummy Water Marble + Tutorial

I feel like Halloween is a holiday that I'm almost obligated to do extra-crazy nail art =)  & so what better excuse to bust out the googly-eyes?  My base for this marble was 2 coats of OPI Calling All Goddesses!, marbling done with CaG, OPI Ti-Tan Your Toga & China Glaze Ingrid:

 

The black I used for the "mask" section was just Wet 'n' Wild Black Creme.  I'm sure there are other places you can run across googly-eyes than where I got them too, you just have to keep an eye out =)  I did manage to smudge a few nails on my right hand but I corrected them as best I could.

 

Here's the tutorial:

 

 

Only about week until Halloween!  Except I don't know if that's enough time to fit in all my ideas ... probably not LOL, a few of the ones I've already done this year have been waiting since last year =)

 

Thanks for reading.

 

~Colette

NOTD: OPI Zom-Body To Love

I originally saw OPI's Halloween Spookette mini set at Ulta, convinced myself I didn't need it - and then changed my mind LOL.  Of course by that time I couldn't find any, so I ended up ordering it from Amazon, which was OK because it was a little cheaper than it would have been in-store, even after shipping charges.

 

This is the first of OPI's glow in the dark polishes I've tried - unsurprisingly it's pretty sheer, I started with a white base & then did 3 coats of Zom-Body to Love (which put a serious dent in the mini bottle LOL) to get this color green - stamping is done with Black special polish & Bundle Monster image plate bm224:

 

Although it's a pumpkin, from certain angles I keep swearing it's a skull head =)  Of course, if you're a photographer you know shooting in low light or the dark can be a challenge, but I managed to get a couple of pretty decent shots of it glowing for you - it doesn't stay this bright for long, but it sure is fun while it lasts:

 

I was going to do a video, but for whatever reason my camera refused to cooperate, it was no where near that bright in video mode so I ended up skipping it. 

 

I've read that all of OPI's glow in the dark polish, regardless of color, glows green - the set of Icing glows that I recently picked up & will show in my next haul, actually glow the color of the polish, so I'm looking forward to showing you guys those as well =)

 

Thanks for reading.

~Colette

NOTD: Halloween Candy Corn + Tutorial

It's almost the middle of the month & this is only my 2nd Halloween look!  I'm going to run out of time for everything rattling around in my head LOL.

 

Candy corn is such a traditional part of Halloween, but I did a candy corn inspired water marble last year & so I wanted to do something in a different direction.  I started with a base of Wet n Wild French White & Orly Twilight, then did the yellow & orange with L'Oreal Yellow Seahorse & Coral Starfish, and the outline with Wet n Wild Black Creme:

 

Overall I'm pretty happy, although I have a tendency to pick apart my freehand art.  This one, the biggest mystery is that my right hand seems to have turned out better than my left somehow!  Maybe because I am even more careful when I'm painting with my off-hand?

 

Tutorial:

 

 

I know I said last post I wasn't going to tease about what I had coming tomorrow but I can't help it ... I went & got the Nails Inc magnetic polish at Sephora!  & I am very excited to try it =)

 

Thanks for reading.

 

~Colette

NOTD: Halloween Orange & Black French Tip Water Marble + Tutorial

I have always received a lot of requests for french tip marbling, and somehow just never got around to it - until now.  Pretty happy overall with how it turned out although I still see room for improvement.  Base color is Finger Paints Prints & Printsess, marbling done with P&P & Orly Liquid Vinyl:

 

Favorite nails are left pinky, left index (the ideal design IMO, what I'd like them all to look like), left thumb & right index:

 

Here's the tutorial:

 

 

Lots more Halloween designs to come.  I posted an old slideshow on YouTube of NOTDs from October 2009 & generated a lot of requests for tutorials for those old designs, but I already have a whole list of new designs so it will be a little competition with myself how many I manage to get done before the holiday =)

 

Thanks for reading.

 

~Colette