It's Christmas!

Though this post is literally nothing other than a "Look at my Christmas nail polish!". I wanted to do something fancy for my nails this year - my friend Lara found a great Xmas tree design that I really wanted to try. But to get the proper triangular design I needed to use sticky tape, and I didn't have the time in the lead up to Xmas to actually do it justice. So I just got out my five Christmas nail polishes and plonked them on.

And the only reason they are Xmas nail polishes are that they are from various OPI Xmas ranges - they put out Xmas colours every year.

So we have - from left to right - Music Hall Curtain Call, Baby It's "Coal" Outside (see what they did there ;) ), Dear Santa, Merry Midnight and Gone Gonzo. I love all these colours, for various reasons.

Music Hall is a wonderful Copper type colour. Or is it Bronze? I'm so bad at all those types of colours! It does have amazing coverage on the nail - all you really need is one coat.

Baby it's Coal Outside is a wonderful sparkly black. But it is slightly less good on the coverage - needs two layers to be truly opaque.

 Dear Santa is a sparkly red. And actually I think it's one of my favourite reds. But I love anything sparkly.

Merry Midnight is a sparkly purple. The coverage on this one is less good - even with the token two coats, it needs more. It is however gorgeous and I wish I had got a photo to do it justice.

And lastly Gone Gonzo - which is just blue glitter - but so tightly packed that it doesn't really need anything underneath it. And it is ultra effective - really eye catching.

A very sneaky intermission

Just wanted to update people on the state of my bangle holder - I have started work on the hand. Based on a glove pattern that I have; I've had to make a few changes to the pattern - when I was following it, it didn't match the size of the bottom of the hand/wrist. Unfortunately, because I changed the number of stitches, I also had to change how the fingers fit into the rest of it. In this pattern, you crochet a number of stitches, chain 2 and then skip a number of stitches before crocheting the original number. And then you do that again, for another finger - it gives a basis for the fingers to be worked on. But I had to change the number of stitches to make and then to skip, and then I had to play around with my finger sizes. I didn't want them to be too big, because I still need my rings to fit on them.

And so far - this is what I have...

New Nail Polish!

This week is an exciting week - for me anyway - because I finally have some new nail polish! It's an early Christmas present from my Mum, because Adore Beauty was selling OPI bottles for about $10 - which is half the price that you'll find it at David Jones. I managed to get three colours out of her - one by itself and the other two in a pack. Usually, when I get a pack of two or more colours, I lose out somewhere; honestly, that would be the reason that I have some of the less extraordinary colours. But this time, and this pack, I really didn't lose out at all!

 On the right...no, I mean left...we have Pepe's Purple Passion. Though why it's Purple, I'm not sure. Because it's the reddish-toned one. Even though it's the Muppet Collection, for me it's more of a tribute to Pepe Le Pew, my favourite Looney Tunes character.

 In the middle, we have "You Don't Know Jacques", which I think is from the French collection and is a gorgeous taupe - the type of colour that is very in right now. And finally, OPI Ink. One of their more boring names (unless I'm missing something) but a colour that I spent years drooling over in the store. I could never justify it, but I always wanted it. So I was uber-excited to finally get it.

 As I couldn't paint my nails evenly (unless I went in for a stripe) I painted You Don't Know Jacques and Pepe's Purple Passion on one hand, because I think they go quite well together - so well in fact, they're hard to tell apart in this picture.

And on this hand, I have OPI Ink - I just wish you could see the awesome blue glitter it has to it. It sparkles in the right light, which is just how I love my nail polish...

Slackness...

So, once again I have been a little slack - very slack in fact - about updating this. I have only two excuses - I have been a little busy with the real world; attempting to find work sometimes can be very draining and time consuming. And my nail polish has been - to say the least - BORING! The colours have been a bit blah, and I have been too busy doing other things to update them.

 So two weeks ago, we had <-- colours. Another red (very like Edin-burgundy) and a nice, if pale, purple.

 Prune Danish, and I Lilac it Hot. Unfortunately, as Lilacs go, it's really not that hot at all. The purple was a bit translucent, as you can see. Pretty, in a pastel, Spring, type of way. But somehow lacking. Though, if I had done the red over the tip, as I considered, it would have looked much better

 And last week, it was Pink Before you Leap - a sort of sparkly pink - and Sonora Sunset. Which is, once again, one of those classy colours that I for some reason buy and then never wear. Though, if I ever get married, I will be wearing this colour...

 ...well, actually, I won't. I'll be wearing It's All Greek to Me...

 Unfortunately, the pink - though wonderfully sparkly - was also totally transparent.

And this was just...classy looking...

Some design...

I think this week is the first time I've been truly surprised and happy with the nail polish I dragged out of the back of my bookcase. Because this week, I pulled out "It's All Greek to Me" which is my all-time favourite colour. Along with Pistol Packin' Pink, which is less beloved, but does work well with the other.

 And when I say this is my favourite colour, if you made me choose from all the bottles I have (and believe me, there are many bottles to come) this is the one colour I could never do without. Admittedly, I would prefer it if you didn't make me choose...

 I was also happy because these colours work well together. I've been a bit tired of clashing colours that I can't even wear on the same hand, let alone the same nail. And I also got a bit tired of one colour on one hand. I can't remember the last time I limited myself in that way. So I wanted to do something different - something new - and these colours were perfect!

 One of my friends sent me a link to a nail polish blog a few weeks ago, and they had some nice simple designs that I had never thought to do before. Admittedly, I didn't think I would be doing them any time soon - especially with the colours I have been dragging out lately. But I realised this week was perfect. First I covered all my nails in Pistol Packin' Pink (2 layers).

Then I just used one layer of It's All Greek to Me and painted it diagonally across the top of the nail. Technically I should have used tape of something to make it neat, but I'm a bit impatient like that. And I have to say - I love it! the colours work well together and my nails look fancy and funky at the same time. Honestly, I'll be hard pressed not to do this style all the time now...

Lucky Dip

Otherwise known as "the challenge, week 5". I went with 'the lucky dip' because it is very much like putting my hand in and seeing what I'll get. And quite scarily, I often get a surprise!

On my left hand this week is a colour that came as a rather big surprise. I remembered that I had it - it's a sort of red/maroon/burgundy - but I had forgotten what it is called. The name has practically come off the sticker, but I can still read it. And imagine my surprise when I discovered it was named after one of my favourite cities - this week, on my left hand, is Edin-burgundy.

Not the best colour, I have to say. I love red, but I prefer reds that shimmer or sparkle - this one is a creme, so it does neither. And I know from experience that this one is not fun to get off. The red just goes everywhere and stains my fingers until I have spent ages wiping everything in sight with nail polish remover.

On my right hand, is the much more favoured Don't Socra-tease Me. Unlike the red, this is a great colour! I suppose you could call it coral or melon or something, but basically it's an orange with a pink shimmer. It's from the Greek collection and it is an amazing colour. It also won't stain my fingers when I try to remove it on Saturday.

What I do love about owning Edin-burgundy (and believe me, this is the only thing) is the fact that I managed to buy nail polishes named after the two cities I have lived in. I am not sure how many more colours I have named after cities, but I suspect they might give me some indication of where I should move next...

 .....

And now for Week 6 - I meant to post this two weeks ago now, but what with one thing and another, I didn't get the pictures uploaded until yesterday. And as the next lot of colours were so uninspiring, I didn't really want to give them their own blog. So they have to  piggyback onto Edin-burgundy.

 Week 6 was a very boring week. I pulled out an iridescent white, called "Think it's Pink? Pastel" and a nude called "Embrace".

 And honestly, nude is the best word for Embrace. It left my right hand looking like I didn't even bother painting it. I alternated the pinky nail just for something different, but honestly, I shouldn't have bothered. It just made me look a little lax with my nail polish.

A crafty intermission cont...

So I have come to a decision about what to do with my metres of French Knitting! I realised, recently, that what I really wanted was some type of jewellery hand to put all my bangles and rings on. I have somehow amassed quite a few of both, but because of my total disorganisation, I can never get to them and don't wear anything as often as I should.

Originally, I was going to crochet a glove, stuff it with...stuffing...and tada, a hand. But I realised, that instead of that, I could wind the French Knitting around a cylinder and make a wrist-like thing from that. So I got a cardboard tube (from the middle of the paper towels) and I cut slits in both ends, and then proceeded to expand the ends, to make them more wrist-like. The original plan was to have the wrist and into the bottom of a hand.

However, this was a lot more difficult than I first anticipated and it took me ages to get the cardboard to stick out in the way it was meant to. I then realised that I had nothing to put on top of the wrist, so how could I stuff it? What would I cover it with?

As for sewing the french knitting together - so annoying and time consuming. Unless you're incredibly lazy like me. I just sewed thread straight up and down through all the rings of the knitting, about an inch apart. Of course, it doesn't hold well together, but I'll figure that out later.

But back to covering it - I went back to my 'crochet a glove' plan. So I found some cotton to match the top of the wrist, and then I started crocheting a glove pattern I had, from just below the thumb. I'm not sure yet how it's going to look, but I am quite hopeful that it will work. And if not, I'll pull it out and start again.

A Crafty Intermission

Originally, this was meant to be a craft/ice cream/nail polish blog, and recently I have been very slack on both the craft and the ice cream. The ice cream is forgiveable as, until a couple of weeks ago, I hadn't actually got out my ice cream maker, but ignoring my craft is not on.

I have been very crafty since I got back - I finished a pile of embroidery panels that my mum needed for a quilt she's working on. It's only taken me about 8 years to do it. Mainly, however, I have been French Knitting.

I bought a French Knitting Spool when I was in Edinburgh - it was shaped like a bug or something - but I never found out how to use it. When I got home, I was suffering pretty badly from the jetlag. I didn't have a computer I could use, so I would spend a lot of time sitting in front of the TV, and every afternoon, around 3, I would fall asleep. I would then continue to doze off all evening. The first week was especially bad, but it took a while to wear off. So to help me out, I decided I needed a craft. I had no crochet I was desperate to do, and I don't really need another knitted scarf, so I started French Knitting.

And after a couple of days - I finally figured out how to do it.

The problem with French Knitting, however, is that...well...it's a long, thin tube. A bit like...this...

This is actually so long that if I stand on my back veranda (which is reasonably high) and hold this over the edge, it drags on the ground. Unfortunately, in French Knitting terms, it's not really long enough to do anything with. I did discover, however, that it would make a great arm warmer/fingerless glove.

Unfortunately, I've run out of spare thread, so I can only have one. Have to think of something else to do with it really...

The Challenge (Wk 4)

It occurs to me that I will have to start varying the titles again, because I am going to lose track of how many weeks I am into this, and "The Challenge" could just get a bit boring, title-wise, before you know it. Though, honestly, I don't know of any greater challenge you could put me through than to give me immense variety of nail polish (especially after a year of 6 bottles) and only allow me to paint my nails a couple of colours at a time...

Though, like I said, I love the surprise and the fact I don't have to make a choice. I am a bit worried though, that I will just miss some nail polish as I have various hiding places.

This week was the first where I have really pulled out colours that don't really work together. It also seems to be the first week without any white, which is a minor miracle in itself. This week I got brown and orange...

 Honestly, I'm not sure if brown is quite the right word to describe this. It's brown with a tinge of pink when it hits the light. But I stand by the fact that that is orange.

 Just because I know this is blurry - the 'brown' is called Niagara Falls for OPI and the orange is Bet It All on OPI, rather appropriate for the week of the Melbourne Cup. Though, obviously, completely accidental.

 I put these on separate hands because the orange is bright and vibrant and something I would wear when I want to feel vibrant.

But the 'brown' on the other hand, is kinda classy. So something I would wear if I was going out, and wanted my nails to look nicer than usual. Or something I would wear in the colder months - autumn especially. Honestly, right now I feel like my hands are suffering from some type of split personality...

The Challenge Wks 2 & 3

So I didn't get a chance last week to update this blog - I don't necessarily think that posting pictures of plain colours on nails is the most exciting thing possible. But I wanted to keep a record of the colours that I've used and this is easily the best way to do it.

I'm enjoying this challenge - or at least, I am right now, I may get bored of painting my nails is one colour. The current alternating colour, or one hand per colour was something I remember from high school. Back when I only had a handful of nail polish (shock horror) and painting different colours on different nails was as interesting as I got.

But anyway, I am enjoying it because there's an element of surprise. Sometimes I start the week with a definite plan, but often I have no idea what colour I should paint them. I'm facing a similar problem with my toenails at the moment. But this current 'just putting my hand into the lot and picking some up' is great! Most of my nail polish (say...60%) is on a bookshelf. And I started at the back of the shelf, so I don't know what's back there. I just stick my hand in, pull out two bottles and go from there. The element of surprise is great.

 Last week, I stuck my hand in and brought out another bottle of white and a bottle of orange.

 Neither colour is ground breaking, and the white is a bit translucent which I don't really like.

 The orange could be brighter, or bolder, or something.

  I tried to break it up with some daisies on my ring finger, but I don't know what it did.











 This week - I pulled out yet another white! Or, to be more accurate, cream. I'm not even sure why I own so many bottles of white/cream. One I understand, and I do love the black/white look. But 3...so far? Overkill.

 The pink/red I pulled out though - one of my favourite colours, and one I had practically forgotten about. It's still nice and thin and spreadable with great coverage. And it's a wonderfully vibrant colour.

T

The Challenge (Wk 1)

So the challenge for the foreseeable future is to use ALL my nail polish. The best way, I think, to rediscover all the colours that I have at my disposal. Being away from them for a year has made me forget some of the colours that I have.

 The real challenge has been how to use all the colours - I could easily do 10 a week, but that doesn't feel like really getting to know them again. I considered doing one colour a week, but I suspect that will take me over a year, and I will get bored if I don't get to mix it up at all. I still haven't really decided yet, but I have decided I'm going to do them row by row. I might change my mind depending on how things are placed in relation to each other, but for now I decided to go with two colours.

There really wasn't much decision involved - I have a bookshelf of nail polish, so I put my hand in and pulled out these two colours. I used them together because I love using black and white together. But this isn't how I will always choose, as I am not sure that, for instance, orange and blue will really work together...

Mimicry...

So I've been a bit slack this week - I meant to post this last Tuesday, as I had a nail design that I LOVED! Honestly, words can not describe how much I loved my nails last week. They were bright, they were funky and they were really easy to do! I bought some nail apps a few months ago, when I was living in Edinburgh. My favourite design of the lot consisted of leopard print down one half of the nail, and a bright metallic pink down the other.

But when I attempted to apply it, it immediately fell off. I was very sad, and attempted to reconstruct the design - an easy feat here, where I lost count of my nail polish years ago, but basically impossible in Edinburgh where I only had 10 bottles of nail polish.

So last week, I decided to finally reconstruct it; in Brisbane I have all the necessary colours - a bright pink, a deep gold and a black OPI shatter.

For the occasion I used La-Paz-itively Hot, Bling Dynasty and Black Shatter. And this is what I got...

It was fairly easy to do - just paint pink down one side of the nail, and gold down the other. I always make sure I do the darker shade second, in order to cover up any mistakes by the lighter. Of course, this means you have to be really careful with the darker colour.  After two layers of each, I painted black shatter down the gold side, and let it dry. And you end up with this effect - unfortunately, it does not do it justice. As getting the lighting right was impossible.

 

Just so you can get a better idea of the colour...

This design, however, has led me to my next challenge - to use all my nail polish again. I was going through looking for a bright pink (and having a surprising amount of trouble finding one) and I kept finding colours I had forgotten about. So I decided to go through and use every colour - and not just on one nail either...but that will wait until the next instalment...

Home!

So after living in Scotland for a year, I am finally home and surrounded by my nail polish collection again! Not only that, I now have all my nail art stuff - the brushes, the stars, the diamantes, it's fantastic. Plus, I am back with my ice cream maker, so hopefully there will be some ice cream posts again at some point.

But this week's nail design...

I based this on something one of my friend's posted on my facebook wall - I have a few people now who find nail polish designs and then tell me about them, generally via facebook. This particular one was instant love on my part - all you do is paint a couple of bright colours on your nail, then put some nail art tape in an interesting design over the top, making sure it goes over all the colours, then you paint it with a black nail polish, and peel off the tape, to reveal the bright pattern underneath.

This appealed to me simply because when I was a young child (a very long time ago now), my favourite thing to do was to get some bright colours, colour a piece of paper, completely cover it with black crayon and then get a coin and draw patterns in it to reveal the bright colours. Loving the idea so much, I decided it was the perfect thing to do to celebrate my coming home.

I made a few minor changes - as I had never tried this before, I decided to use only one colour on each nail, instead of several. This also solved the problem of exactly what type of underlying pattern I should have - stripes? blotches? - it was too difficult. I also knew I would want to let my nails dry as much as possible before applying the tape, to avoid the tape removing the base colours of nail polish. In the end, I left it over night as it just didn't feel dry enough - and I knew that once I had all the coats of nail polish on, there was no way my nails would dry by the time I went to bed. I think, in the end, I had a good 6 layers of polish on my nails.

I wanted something bright, so I went with two of my favourite colours - a blue (Teal the Cows Come Home) and a red (You Rock-Apulco Red)

 I decided to go with a very simple design on this hand - something I do paint a lot on my nails, just a few stripes starting from a single point.

 Then I painted it with Baby it's Coal Outside (it's a sparkly black). Had to do 2 layers, as the blue was originally showing through.
Just peel off the tape and reveal - something kinda awesome.

 My main problem with this design was that it was fiddly. I had tape all over my hand and it was getting in the way of things. It also doesn't stick very well, which is why I don't use it for decoration. Generally, it got very messy.

 It was definitely worth it in the end. I probably would have (or should have) left the tape on longer, but I needed this hand to apply tape to my right, and the nail polish covered tape was leaving black all over my fingers.

 I couldn't do anything near as fiddly with this hand, so I just went for some very simple stuff.

In the end, I actually preferred this hand
 - the simplicity appealed to me.

 

 And this is the final product - when I had removed all the mess from around the edge, and painted them both with top coat. You are currently looking at 6 layers of nail polish. 

 Totally worth it though - and hopefully next week I can try one of the other awesome things my friends found for me.