Happy Memorial day!

In honor of Memorial day, I went for a patriotic mani.  I love the look of different patterns on each nail with a common color theme.  Normally I couldn't pull this off at work, but fortunately it was a three day weekend.
I'm not feeling very chatty tonight, so I'm going to stick with photos and few words.

Here are my red, white and blue nails.

 Here is my right hand.

I hope everyone had a great day filled with sun, picnics and friends.

Does a tiger say roar?

My nails decided to stop cooperating and continued to break for the past few weeks.  They weren't photograph-worthy until this weekend.  In the meantime I've been experimenting with all my new glitters from youmix and TKB.  FYI the sample size of TKB shaplies is plenty.  I ended up ordering 1oz of some of the sizes and ended up with way too much glitter.

The manicure below has china glaze seduce me as a base, topped with two coats of my magenta glitter franken.  I stamped a franken over that, put on a coat of seche and called it a day.  Typically I'm not one for animal prints, but I thought I'd give it a go.

Glitter appreciation shot.

 It's so glittery.  The purple magic glitter looks awesome when the light hits it.

Silver holo franken love

I'm loving all the glitter options from you mix cosmetics.  I felt it was necessary to make an awesome franken with silver and black glitter. Below is a photo of the glitter used.  All of them are from YMC except luminosity (left) and the black micro which are from TKB.  The remainder of the glitter used included silver holo square, black holo hex, black shredded, black hex, 2 sizes of gunmetal hex, small silver hex and 2 sizes of silver holo hex.

It's so pretty in the sun.

The base is one coat of a silver steel franken followed by 2 coats of the glitter polish.  There was a bit of shrinkage near the tips of the nails following application of seche vite.  For some reason it always looks worse in photos than in person.

*On a side note, I've been experimenting with the use of xanthan gum in glitter suspension. It seems like people have had mixed results with it.  The polish was only made last night, but so far it has remained suspended. *fingers crossed*  I will post photos after the weekend with an update.

Rainbow nails

Rebecca is hosting a contest that combines a few of her favorite things.  I chose to incorporate gradients and dots in mine.

This is a little more busy than what I usually do, but I it's always good to try new things.

1. Pointer: sinful colors Ruby Ruby with multiple orange dots and two sizes of red hex glitter
2. Middle finger: OPI rising star and take the stage stripes with gold hex and bar glitter
3. Fourth finger: Sheets from dry water marble (previous post)
4. Pinky: Too many shades of blue and purple to count applied with a dotting tool (notice the dots of Cult nails clairvoyant)

Time for the macro shots...

The blue polish instantly stained my cuticles.

Glitter!

Glitter franken

I may have gone a little overboard when you mix cosmetics added a ton of bar and hex glitters a few weeks ago.  My bank account is still feeling the pain.  It's a real challenge to not just throw all the different colors in a base together.  If you haven't tried their glitter yet, I highly recommend you do so.  The quality and the price are great.  Also, they are clearing out their stock of magnetic polishes and are offering grab bags at a great price.

Ok, back to the glitter.  This is two coats over china glaze first mate.

Polish recipe:

small and large hexes in blue, pink and purple (YMC)

blue bar glitter (YMC)

large hex and square holo (YMC)

purple micro(TKB)

pink and blue solvent resistant glitter (TKB)

chunky opaque blue (art institute glitter)

suspension base

This is super sparkly in light.   I got a bunch of compliments at work which made my day!

You can't do that on television

Does anyone else remember this show?   People got slimed if they said "I don't know".  Well, this polish reminds me of that slime.  I tried using texture in my mani but it didn't turn out quite as planned.

I started with a green base and used a buffer to thin out some areas.  I then used an old unsuccessful franken to add a brown glistening tint.  It's not the most beautiful polish job but it's still fun.  Prepare to be slimed......

And you thought I wouldn't add an extreme close-up.  

Continuing with the dot tool inspiration

It was 68 in Chicago today which is pretty amazing for March.  If only it would stay light long enough for me to get decent indoor nail photos after work.  I guess I'll just have to wait until summer for that.

This mani is growing on me, but it's still not quite what I was hoping for.  The blue and silver alone looked nice and a few orange dots have been better.  I think I went a little overboard.  The base color is cult nails is time traveler.  It goes on so smoothly and covers pretty well with just one coat.  The silver and red/orange dots are frankens which are two of my favorites.

In reality the dots and the blue mesh a little better

This was a poor attempt to mess with the lighting, but it still looks more accurate than the above photos. 

This franken is a little more orange than a brick red and has subtle gold shimmer.

This franken is a darker silver with multi-colored shimmer.  The second photo really highlights how this polish looks in the light.

Opposites attract

I've started to get into the habit of changing my nails almost every day.  Although I'm pretty certain most people would think this is obsessive,  I know anyone reading this blog probably does the same thing....so no judgement here ;)

I'm really excited about this one.  I went to sally beauty today since they were having a sale on china glaze magnetix (which I've been wanting to buy).  If you purchase 2 polishes, you get a free magnet with three designs.  I went with you move me and instant chemistry polishes.

The star pattern works really well.

I painted a broad stripe on each nail with this electric blue franken (which is awesome one its own).  

The magnetic polish was placed adjacent to the blue stripes.  I used the diagonal magnet for the pattern followed by a black stripe to separate the two colors.

I absolutely love the contrast between the blue shimmery polish and the depth created by the tan magnetic polish.  It reminds me of something in ancient Egypt.

Saved by the bell

This finished manicure reminded me of a shirt pattern that would have been popular in the 90's.  I started with a mustard yellow franken.  It looks a little more orange in the photos than in person and has a subtle shimmer.

 I used a BM plate 221 with china glaze first mate.  It was topped off with cult nails clairvoyant.  I haven't mastered using a camera to show off glitter and flakies.  This ended up looking muddy.

Pre-valentine's day

 This is a really pretty peach/pink franken with blue undertones.

Check out the purple-blue shimmer!

First post

So this is my first attempt at a blog.  I have been mixing frankens for several months now.  Here is a shimmery red in time for Valentine's day.  This is a combination of TKB's hot step mama and rouge flambe red.

It has a really nice sparkle in the light