And So On.

The idea was simple.
Take another set of brown and blue and do another nice little manicure.
It did not go the way I'd hoped. This mani seemed doomed from the beginning.

You know that colour that you LOVE, that's so beautiful in the bottle.. but.. that's really sheer, and basically useless? But you want to give it another chance despite knowing it's a bad idea?
NYC's '206 East Village' is that for me.

Ughhh.

Because it's so sheer it would need about 10 coats to build up, I figured I'd layer it over a base white. And this white base is really awful and doesn't cover worth a damn either and I was up to way more layers than I had wanted to use at this point, and then the picture on the left happened. Picked up the brush handle thinking it was screwed on but .. well, you see for yourself.

I think it turned out alright in the end. Because it took so long to dry it ended up with some damage but it doesn't bother me too much.
Halfmoon shapes were achieved with reinforcement rings.

Blue NYC '206 East Village', brown NYC '220 Canal Street'.

Underrated.

Though I usually prefer to paint my own designs or get them through other techniques, I do enjoy the occasional stamping adventure. One of the things I really like in stamping is a pattern that covers a full nail. I don't get the chance to try that very often, because I generally like my nails to be longer than the plates will allow for. I trimmed my claws a fair bit the other day, so I hoped they would be short enough to allow this to work!
The plate is BM21, in case you struggle reading upside-down.

Not.. entirely a success.
I love the colour combination of blue and brown, and I think it's a vastly underrated one. It has been some time since I used it, so it was about time to give it another go in a different styling. Miss Sporty's '455' is my go-to brown and I was already previously aware that it carries a matte finish well, so that was an easy decision. I originally had a different blue in mind, but it looked very dark when stamped on so I switched that for a MAX (Action's own brand, I believe?) Nail Art Polish called 'Blue Galaxy'.

In real life the look is a lot more subtle as here I obviously tried to photograph it in its most visible state. As you can see the stamping didn't go all that well. Since I'm not too experienced a stamper, I struggle with placement and end up not getting part of the design on. Oops. I don't mind too much, though. It's not that apparent unless you're on top of my hands.

For my thumb, which is too broad and still too long to fit the full-nail design on, I went for a small detail. It came from one of Essence's stampy plates.
I had meant to center it more, but like I mentioned, my stamping-aim is not that great.

Half Rhombus Tutorial.

Please click the link for the tutorial!

You Belong to Rambo No. 5

And with this - another version of my beloved half rhombus - I complete the Catrice section of my Stash page. Post title is a mash-up of the two polishes used. The green is Catrice's '670 It's Rambo No. 5' and the mint blue is an Essence colour & go by the creepy name of '53 You Belong to Me'. No, nail polish, as a matter of fact, you belong to me. The 'colour & go' polishes were such a hit and miss in terms of quality that I almost never bought them for myself, but since they were very affordable I was often given them as little presents. This one falls under 'miss', which is a shame because I like the shade, but its coverage is terrible and the formula is very disappointing, very streaky. It is however fine for this type of thing.
Added a little rhinestone because I don't often do, and made the rest matte because I think it's suits the army green of Rambo.

>> Click for tutorial <<