Friday, 14 November 2014

Texas Traveling Nails

Hey y'all!

Happy Friday!  I've been gearing up behind the scenes to power through the rest of the year, and hopefully to start posting to my neglected YouTube channel again on a weekly basis.  My hope is that I'll be able to do nail polish swatches and art here on the blog, and use my channel to do tutorials for polish nail art and... acrylics/gels!  Since taking my tech training, I've been gathering supplies and practicing with them so that I can hopefully start those weekly videos before the end of the year!  I'm waiting now for my gel supplies to arrive, along with a training practice hand, which I'll use for the videos since I've decided I'm rubbish at keeping my own hands in frame while I'm working on them.  In the mean time though, I've still got a lot of polish nail art to show you, and I'm starting with the nails I did last month before setting off on our trip to Texas.  I wanted something sparkly and burnt orange and white (because I'm a Longhorn, afterall), and threw these together the night before we left (in a rush because I still had to pack!).

Texas tribute nail art featuring burnt orange OPI Chop-Sticking To My Story and Mentality Revelry under matte top coat.

I started with two coats of my favorite burnt orange polish, OPI Chop-Sticking To My Story.  When it was dry, I brushed a stripe of Mentality Revelry down the center of each nail, two coats.  I then framed that glitter with my Kiss White striper, and sealed everything with SV.  When it was dry, I added a coat of NYC Matte Me Crazy and called it a day!

Texas tribute nail art featuring burnt orange OPI Chop-Sticking To My Story and Mentality Revelry under matte top coat.

Unfortunately I didn't have time to review these pics until long after the mani was removed, and so I didn't realize that Revelry would be so hard to photograph!  It's a brilliant mix of deep orange and silver glitter, and apparently all those shiny bits completely befuddled my camera because none of them look in-focus!

Texas tribute nail art featuring burnt orange OPI Chop-Sticking To My Story and Mentality Revelry under matte top coat.

All told, though, I was pretty pleased with this, as a tribute to the city I call home.  It's also kind of weird to me to see just how far my nails have come in only a few weeks, because these look so short!  It's hard to imagine that it has only been about 8 weeks since I chopped my nails off completely, but they're now back to the length they were at before I cut them, albeit definitely not as strong as they were (remember that my nail plate was seriously thinned, and that bit is what actually makes up the free edge of my nail now, so I'm being very delicate with them).

I genuinely hope that you all have a great weekend, and I will see you tomorrow!


Comments (24)

Loading... Logging you in...
  • Logged in as
Oooh, I can't wait to see your videos once you start up, those are always fun! This is really cute, it makes me think of a football for some reason!
1 reply · active 552 weeks ago
Thank you! We did fly in on game day, so it's possible that was in my head too :)
I love this mani! I was actually planning something along the lines the other day, wanting to paint a glitter vertically in the middle of the nail, exactly what you did!
1 reply · active 552 weeks ago
Oh I can't wait to see yours!
This is such a pretty manicure, and I think it's a great tribute to Texas Longhorns!
1 reply · active 552 weeks ago
Thank you Jessica!
Love this! It's simple but packs a punch! Adorable.
1 reply · active 552 weeks ago
Thank you Valesha... also, welcome to our commenting circle :)
I love this! It's so perfectly fall-ish!
1 reply · active 552 weeks ago
I love this! The stripe of glitter down the middle is great, and those polishes look amazing together! Burnt orange looks awful on my skin tone - I'm jealous that it looks so good on you :)
1 reply · active 552 weeks ago
Thanks Nicole. My camera definitely did some funny things with my skin tone in a lot of my pics from this shoot, so between that and the glitters I definitely had my work cut out for me. As for wearing burnt orange, I suspect I trained my skin to accept the shade as one of its own, because I've been wearing UT swag since I was a kid! :)
Shelby Lou Nails's avatar

Shelby Lou Nails · 551 weeks ago

Lovely tribute!
1 reply · active 551 weeks ago
I agree. I am not a burnt orange fan, but these are awesome!! I love the glitter stripe!
1 reply · active 551 weeks ago
This is so perfect for fall!! Reminds me of blingy pumpkins!!!!
1 reply · active 551 weeks ago
Revelry is exactly the same polish I used to make my blingfinger jack o'lantern at Halloween!
Beautiful glitter. Very apt for Autumn - love it x
1 reply · active 551 weeks ago
Thank you! Because it's microglitter it actually came off really easily too.

Post a new comment

Comments by