31DC2014: Day 21

We are into the third and final section of the 31 Day Challenge! Lemme tell you, I love when it gets to the final stretch but it also brings some of the most challenging days. It's good and bad. Haha!

Today's theme is Inspired by a Color. I always choose a polish color (and usually name) to take inspiration from, because we all know that polishes can have some fun and/or weird names.

I read through basically all of my polish spreadsheet to find a name and mani idea, and here's what came to me.

Butter London - Cake Hole
I know a cake hole is technically your mouth, but donuts are basically little cakes with holes. A cake hole. So I did donut nails!

The base color is China Glaze - Something Sweet which is appropriate because donuts are sweet. The dough color is OPI - San Tan-Tonio, the icing is the aforementioned Cake Hole, and I did the sprinkles with acrylic paint.

I'm really liking these! I wanna do them again with more colors. What do you guys think?

Now take a walk down memory lane and check out my previous day 21 designs:

• 2013: Pink Yet Lavendar 
• 2012: Russian Navy Nautical
• 2011: Hello Kitty Candy

my first ombré! with butter london jelly

I do gradient nails all the time. So how come I haven't done an ombré until now?

It's a bit streaky, because I did it by layering more and more coats of Butter London - Stroppy, a sheer purple jelly with shimmer, over the light purple creme of China Glaze - Light As Air.

It was hard to get even coverage, especially on the one-coat and two-coat nails, but I really like how it turned out! Very subtle, but still noticeable, and it was one of those manis that feels "chic" on your nails. Do you know what I mean? Of course you do. You're reading my blog, after all, you must be nuts like me.

I definitely wanna play more with ombrés now! But I would probably have a hard time trying to pick out polishes that work together instead of doing the layering thing. Hmm... We'll see!

Tonight I will be seeing my favorite hockey team, The Chicago Blackhawks! They will be beating the crap out of Dan's favorite team, the St. Louis Blues. Be sure to watch the game and try to spot us in the crowd! HA!

:)

31dc2012 - day 10

Day ten! We have made it through 1/3 of the challenge!

Today's theme is Gradient Nails. You all know I love me some gradients so of course I've been looking forward to this theme!
I decided that today was the day to finally recreate a manicure I have been wanting to do forever!
And it turned out even better than I could have hoped so I am totally stoked!

This is the gradient manicure of my dreams. Purple and teal.
I am drooling over my own photo. I could just end the post right here because I love it so much. Haha!
I'll try to keep going...

You may recognize this manicure from All Lacquered Up.
It's been over 2 years since she did the manicure and I'm pretty sure I've been wanting to do it ever since then.
But first I had to get my hands on the polishes... Which was no easy task.

Unfortunately this manicure is done with three polishes that are not easy to come by.

The base color is the CND Night Factory Duo, which I somehow found at a low-traffic beauty supply store last year. (CND - Urban Oasis & CND - Teal Sparkle.)
Let me just say again that these polishes have freakin' amazing formulas and I totally want more CND cremes if they are all as fantastic as Urban Oasis.

The polish you use for the gradient is Butter London - Stroppy, a very sheer purple jelly. I haven't swatched it on its own but you can see it in ALU's post.
This polish originally belonged to someone in the states, and then my friend Marilia in Brazil bought it, and then Marilia sold it to me. And now it is mine and it is never leaving!!!

It wouldn't be too hard to franken a sheer purple to create this look with, though. Just find a similar hue of purple (with shimmer, preferably) and dilute it with clear polish until you have a very sheer jelly.

I didn't even use a sponge for this gradient. I just built up layers of Stroppy, on top of one coat of each of the CND polishes. It blends so well and so easily, I was kinda shocked. And I just adore all the shimmer.

Why did it take me so long to do the manicure of my dreams?! I'll never know!
But I'm so happy I was able to pull it off. Loooooove.

Gah. I'll stop spamming you with pictures now.
What do you guys think? Did I do justice to this look? Is this a manicure of your dreams too?

Aaaaaand, here's the challenge photo prompt once again, just to see what you can look forward to in the remaining sections!

rebecca's favorite polishes of 2011 - #8

Hey everyone! I'm really excited to show you today's polish! So let's get right to it.

My #8 favorite polish is Butter London - No More Waity, Katie. (If you live under a rock, the name refers to Price William's now-wife and the long wait she had before marrying into the royal family.)

I wanted this polish for 2 reasons:
1) The color is awesome, and I love the glitter.
2) My nan was always interested in the royal family so I figured it would be neat to have this, and it reminds me of her.

Butter London is not sold here so I swapped with Brie for this baby!

Let's see the swatches!

For these photos I layered 2 coats of No More Waity, Katie over 2 coats of Zoya Caitlin.
Caitlin is the perfect underwear for NMWK - it's a bit sheer on its own and it is easier to layer it!

I just love that it is this great neutral color with some very pretty lilac glitter that looks so cool suspended in the layers of jelly.
Here's how it looks on its own:

As you can see it is a bit sheer in places and I find it hard to apply the three necessary coats neatly. I will continue to layer it!

Do you guys have Waity Katie? I know a lot of people were disappointed with this one, but I sure wasn't!

I wonder what Kayla chose for her #8 polish! Go check it out!