31DC-D25 - Complement and Contrast

Hey y'all!

Happy Sunday!  Today begins the last week of the 31-Day Challenge, and I'm so grateful the end is in sight!  I really could kick myself for not getting a head start on it, because I feel like I've been in rushed catch-up mode for the past three weeks!  I haven't had a chance to cruise through the other challengers' nail art looks other than what's on IG, nor have I been able to read any of my other favorite blogs, or even respond to the comments that have been left for me, and that makes a hugely sad panda.  To that end, let me first apologize for not being quite so "present," and also assure you that I will be playing catch up during the first week of February to get things right.  For now, however, we continue pressing on, and today's prompt is Complement and Contrast.  I had really been wracking my brain trying to be clever with this prompt, and the answer dawned on me as I was looking at the trim of one of my makeup bags!  As I was growing up, I was always taught not to mix brown and black because they don't complement each other.  I think these days that rule has been pretty well tossed, but there are most assuredly some brown/black combos that don't work.  With that in mind, I created my own brown and black modified French tip nail art look that my grandmother would have hated, but I definitely love.

Fall-ing for Nail Art: Traditional Thanksgiving

Hey y'all!

Happy Thanksgiving!  To my US readers, I hope you're all stuffed to the gills with yummy food and in the company of loved ones.  At the very least, I hope each and everyone one of you can find something for which to be thankful, and that goes for all of you, regardless of your national origin or geographic location.  Today's final prompt in the Fall-ing for Nail Art challenge is Traditional Thanksgiving images, and I bounced back on forth for this prompt for several days, trying to find something that wasn't too cliched or that hasn't been seen a million times already.  I've got a very untraditional take on traditional images, and it was inspired by my shopping trip today where I was really overloaded with all the Christmas decorations and sales going up in November.  It seems to happen earlier and earlier with each passing year, and here in the UK I was actually seeing Christmas sales going up before Halloween!

For Chibi

Hey y'all.

I'm heavy-hearted this week.  Several months ago, I talked about Chibi, the sweet, adorable dog who has been my mom's constant companion for the last 10 years.  Of course, he is so much more than that, and when I said I was heavy-hearted, I was lying.  Right now, I am completely broken-hearted.  Our sweet furball crossed the rainbow bridge on Monday, a week shy of his 12th birthday.  Today, I want need to talk about him.

My oldest picture of Chibi, at about 4 months old.

Foil's Gold: Black and Gold Foil Skittles - LNTC

Hey y'all!

This week the Llama Nail Techniques Challenge has prompted us to do foils.  I am aware that this caused a lot of stress amongst those of us who are completing the challenge.  Personally I wasn't worried so much about working with the foils, but more about creating a dynamic look.  I played with creating designs using my striping brush for my birthday, but when the time came to actually do my challenge look, I felt a BIT overwhelmed, cuz...

'Ikat a cold on 'oliday... LNTC - Ikat

Hey y'all!

The Faffs recently returned from a 2-week trip to Texas so I could visit family and friends and of course shop for a mess of nail art goodies, coffee, and other sundries.  Unfortunately, both of us came down pretty miserably sick at the beginning of the visit, so our vacation was definitely not what it could have or should have been.  I missed out on spending as much time with my peeps as I would've wanted, and we definitely didn't feel up to doing everything we had planned to do.  However, it's still nice to get away and of course Mommy Faff and I were happy to spend time together.  The Chibi monster also seemed happy to see me and was grateful to have someone else to play with.  He's definitely showing signs of slowing down though, and he gets exhausted very easily so we had to play in very short bursts.  The plus side of all of this is that there will be a haul post coming up very soon (if you follow me on Instagram you may have seen a rather huge nailmail picture I shared, but that didn't include my retail purchases!).  The down side is that while I managed to get 2 weeks worth of nail art up and scheduled before we left, I came back to an empty buffer again, so today's post has literally been photographed and edited today.  Whee for working on the fly!

This week's theme for the Llama Nails Techniques Challenge is Ikat - which I know very little about except that it's pronounced ee-kaht rather than eye-cat.  I'm quite sure there's a joke about Apple's newest pet product out there, but I'm still a bit too full of sinus stuff to possibly attempt more than one pun today, and the title of this post wore me plum out.  Anyway...

I will take what is mine with fire and blood - LNTC-3D

Hey y'all!

If you read my post on Monday for St. Patrick's Day, you know I teased today's post.  Can I just say how excited I am that this manicure is finally seeing the light of day?  Be forewarned, it's HUGELY pic-heavy, and for good reason!

When I read through the prompts for the Llama Nails Challenge and saw 3D, I had to have a good long think about what I would do, since I've used so many 3D elements in manis past.  Then I read that season 4 of Game of Thrones is coming in April, and this look started forming in my little head.  I wanted to pay tribute to Daenerys and her beautiful babies, so I have created a dragon egg manicure for you!  As a bonus, I've put together a little pictorial for how I created this look, so be sure to read through to the end if you want to see it.

Watercolor Butterfly stamping - TPTC

Hey y'all!

It's Tuesday, so you know what that means!  It's TriPolish day!  Woohoo!  I was playing around with some Revlon Chroma Chameleons that I picked up in Poundland recently, and thought they'd make a really pretty base for some butterfly nail art - so that's what you get!  I actually picked up 3 of these shades, oddly enough in Aquamarine-blue, Amethyst-purple, and Topaz-green (not intentionally acquired for this month's theme), but I opted not to use the green in this mani.

Bend ahead: GOT Polish Chevrons

Hey y'all!

It's time for another round of TBT with the Golden Oldies Thursday Polish Challenge.  This week's theme is chevrons!  Since I'm still deeply embroiled in getting my driving test passed, I can think of no other interpretation of chevron than as a road sign.  So that's what you get.  Road chevrons.

You can't scare-a-beetle - LNTC Stamped Nails

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This week's theme for the technique for the Llama Nails Technique Challenge is stamped nails.  That's a pretty open-ended prompt, so I figured I could have some fun with it.  My final look is remarkably similar to wallpaper with a ginormous bug on it, but that's okay.

Valentine's Hearts Argyle - GOT Polish Thursday

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I'm back in the GOT Polish Challenge this week with a new take on the argyle pattern using polishes that are all over a year old, and in at least one case, probably about 10 years old.  The theme this week is Valentine's Day, so I've adapted the typical diamond shape in argyle and replaced it with hearts!

GOT Polish - Dots

Hey y'all!

Yet again, I'm a day late on my Thursday challenge, but... reasons.  We've got DOTS up this week, and I don't really have much to say about it, so... pictures.

Tri-Polish Tuesday - Red on yellow, kill a fellow...

Hey y'all!

Today brings us to the end of my first month of Tri-Polish Tuesdays, and I knew I wanted to try something a little bit wacky for it.  Ever since January's colors were announced, I've had a rhyme from childhood bouncing around in my head and it wasn't going to stop until I put it on my nails, so I present to you my coral snake manicure!

GOT Polish Challenge - I got the Blues

Hey y'all!

I'm still playing catch-up today, and so I have yesterday's GOT Polish look today in Blue.  I'm not entirely sure where I was going with this.  I only had one legitimate oldie blue polish in my stash, the same L'Oreal that I used in last week's Stripes look, so I set about working with that and another oldie in what all started as a saran wrap mani and morphed into... well, you be the judge.

It's finally here! Doctor Who 50th Anniversary!

(Fair warning, this post is faffy AND pic heavy.  You've been warned.)

Tonight's the night we geeks have been waiting for - the long-anticipated airing of "Day of the Doctor", the 50th anniversary episode of Doctor Who.  I knew I had to create some nail art to mark the occasion.

Doctor Who has a pretty special meaning in this house.  When hubby and I first started bonding online, what with him being British and me being an Anglophile, it was only natural that the subject of the good time-traveling doctor would arise.   Hubby's doc is Tom Baker.  Mine is David Tennant.  Although I remember seeing the show on PBS as a kid; it was Colin Baker's era, and I remember looking at his ridiculous costume and the not-good monsters and thinking, "this is a little too weird" - even for a weird kid such as myself.  It just didn't "take" back then.

I mean, seriously?

Llama Nails Holiday Challenge week 2: Halloween

Hey y'all,

Quick post to put up my Halloween mani.  This week's theme was Halloween, and I struggled a bit before I finally decided on something that I liked but wasn't too cliche.

Last month I picked up a couple of W7 crackle polishes at Poundland or somewhere similar (Americans: think Dollar Store) and hadn't really had a chance to use them yet, but one of them is a lovely cranberry purple and I thought it would make a nice Halloweeny hue.

To start, I put down a base color of elf Cranberry on my pinky, middle, and index fingers, and Maybelline Onyx Black on my ring and thumb.  Then I splotched on dabs and smears of Collections Scorched over all the nails, making sure I left some base color exposed.  I used Rimmel Black Graffiti over the pinky, middle, and index, and the W7 Crimson Crackle on the ring and thumb.

The effect was sort of wood-grainy, but in a dark and kind of vampy way.  I finished off the look by adding eyeballs with Fright Night Glow-in-the-Dark Claw Polish and added pupils with the Black Onyx.