Autumn Rainbow Dot Gradient (Day 7)

I was trying to put off the rainbow manicure for a bit, because after doing bright colors for the previous 6 manicures, I was wishing for something a little more muted and neutral.  After I'd resigned myself to a bright dot gradient, I was picking out colors for the rainbow when I got the idea to do a muted, autumn-toned rainbow instead, vaguely inspired by these socks from Sock Dreams (which I really want, but can't quite justify $16 for).  The colors still ended up looking brighter than I'd envisioned, but I think if I compared this side by side with the original manicure I was planning, I'd see a noticeable difference.

Colors Used

Base:  ORLY Decades of Dysfunction

Gold: Revlon Gold Coin

Red: Finger Paints Bauhaus Burgundy

Orange: China Glaze Desert Sun

Yellow: Sally Hansen Yellow Kitty

Green: Revlon Spanish Moss

Blue: Sinful Colors Rain Storm

Purple: Sally Hansen Greige Gardens

Overall I really do like how it turned out, although I think I should have just stuck with one large dot under each rainbow and not put the two smaller ones on the sides, as it ended up looking a bit crowded with such a busy pattern already.  I also think my ability to judge the curve of each line could probably have been better....  But I'll keep that in mind if I ever try this pattern again.

(Combined because I'm cheating)

I Never Saw a Purple Cow... (Day 6)

I never saw a purple cow,

I never hope to see one.

But I can tell you anyhow,

I'd rather see than be one.

Today's manicure (or actually yesterday's, and the day before's, since I'm not quite caught up on my blogging...) was one of my more creative ideas so far, and a lot of fun to do.  When I was little, I remember a set of books, one of which had a section with a bunch of poems about colors.  The one at the beginning of the post was the one for purple, and for some reason, when I was wondering what to do for the purple day, my mind immediately went to this.

But goodness, was this hard to photograph!  I used China Glaze Spontaneous, topped with Grape Pop for the spots.  The cows' noses were ORLY Decades of Dysfunction, and the eyes and nostrils were Art Deco's black nail art polish (applied with a dotting tool, though, but it's the only opaque black I have).  For some reason, it kept showing up absurdly blue-toned, and those few pictures up there were the only ones I got that showed it anywhere near as warm-toned as it actually was.

I tried taking pictures of it holding different things, and that didn't work well, either.

This one probably shows the colors the truest, but it still wasn't a very good picture.

(Combined because I'm cheating)

I Just Blue Myself (Day 5)

As in love as I am with the entirety of the Arrested Development series, hands down my favorite scene to quote, and one that never fails to make me giggle uncontrollably when I see it, is the one below:

So of course, that is what my extremely mature self had to title today's blue-themed manicure.  I used a base of Sally Hansen Insta-Dri in Freeze! which I believe was a limited edition color for this fall.  It's now sold out of all the drugstores I've checked (all two of them...) and I'm sad because I've used almost a third of the bottle within a month of having it, and it's definitely my favorite bright blue polish.

The dots are OPI Russian Navy Suede.  I was going for a contrasting matte and shimmer look, but somehow most of the matte finish on them rubbed off while I wore them during the day, and it ended up all looking fairly shiny.

I really love how the colors worked together.  Russian Navy Suede is very similar in the appearance of the "texture" to Freeze!, although I sort of wish I had done some sort of diagonal striping with them instead.  Oh well, perhaps some other time.  I don't want to waste any more of my precious Freeze! for the time being.

(Combined because I'm cheating)

Finally Came Up With Some Rules....

Well, it wasn't actually I who came up with any of it.  I recently had a friend tell me that unless I was going to actually follow a budget he gave me, he wouldn't listen to me whining about being upset with how I spent my money.  So I have $30 a month, besides what I spend on food, for everything I want to buy.  With the exception of Christmas/birthday presents for people.  There will probably be more parts to this budget added later, but it's something to start with, at least.

Since we had this discussion in the middle of the month, and I refuse to keep a budget from the 12th of one month to the 11th of the next, I decided that I had $15 for the rest of October, and then I'd start again with $30 in November (Yeah, curious to see how that works with Black Friday sales being the only time I ever buy anything new all year....)

I went to Goodwill yesterday looking for boots and sweaters.  I actually have plenty of sweaters, I just really want a green one and a black one that actually fit me.  And I have some boots, but lately I've not been so into the tall scrunchy look that was so "in" 2 or 3 years ago when I bought all my boots, but since I do already have a few pairs, I can't justify buying them new, even on sale.

I found this pair of Merrell boots, in my size (amazingly--almost nobody wears size 9 1/2-10), for only $6.99, which I consider an accomplishment since Goodwill has gotten it into their heads that they're some hipster boutique that can charge $25 for used shoes in moderately good condition.  There's a bit of wear around the tops, but nothing is actually wearing out or breaking, that I can tell.  They're extremely comfortable, but I think they're still nice enough that I can dress them up a bit.

This is a hoodie I've had since my sophomore year of high school (and I'm now a senior in college).  I got it from a church yard sale where they had clothing $7 for everything you could fit in a paper bag.  So it cost me less than a dollar, but after 6 years of frequent wear, in addition to being used when I got it, it's starting to fall apart a bit.

Ta-da!  Same exact shade of blue (A&F and Hollister are owned by the same company, so it's not too surprising) which is actually a more dusty navy blue than it's showing in the pictures.  This one was $4.99, but compared to what it would have cost new (not that I'd have ever paid that), I'd say it's still a good deal.

Glittery Green Gradient! (Day 4)

 Amazingly enough, I hadn't even considered the title when I thought up the design for today's nail art: Green nails.  Green has always been my favorite color, so I wanted to do something fun.

I initially wanted to do just ORLY Mermaid Tale over a solid green creme.  I tested out a few, and thought I'd settled on Sally Hansen Insta-Dri in Lickety Split Lime, but I remembered a darker green jelly polish I made a while ago and wanted to try that out.

Clearly I should never attempt a gradient on its own.  Unfortunately, I think that's coming up at some point later in the challenge, but maybe I'll just do glitter for that, too.

I'm incredibly happy with how this turned out.  I really like the effect if the gradient under the glitter, as well as loving this glitter in the first place (enough to pay $3 for it--even on clearance!--which is unheard of, for me).  I think I'll try to wear this over the weekend, but it seems to be having difficulty fully drying, so if I mess it up while sleeping, I'll probably take it off tomorrow afternoon.

(Because I'm cheating and combining both of them)

Taking a short break from the 31 day thing...

Yesterday I had a cell bio test as well as a religion quiz, and today I had an o chem quiz, so I've been rather busy studying over the past few days.  Since the next thing in the 31 day challenge is green nails--my favorite color--I wanted to devote a significant amount of time and effort to whatever I decide to do for that.  But I also don't like not painting my nails when they're just staring at me like blank canvasses begging to be painted, so for today, I did what was intended to just be a quick application of a one-coat color, but then of course I had to stick glitter on top.

I used one coat of Wet n Wild Penny For Your Thoughts from the Chrome collection, topped with Finger Paints Fall of Surprises!  It was supposed to just be a subtle glitter coat on my ring fingers, but there is SO MUCH GLITTER in this polish that I got way more than I'd intended on there, and to make it look less weird in comparison to my other nails, I painted a light coat of it on the rest of them.  I really love the way it turned out, with the smaller pieces of glitter adding to the foil effect of Penny For Your Thoughts.

I should have my green manicure done tonight, but who knows, I might decide that for once in my life, I care more about going to bed than doing my nails.

Yellow Happy Nails! (Day 3)

For today, I considered doing bumblebees, or happy faces, polka dots, or something else fun.  Then I decided that nothing was happier than glitter--except the removal, of course--and I was going to make my nails a giant glitterbomb for today.  And probably the next couple days, as I like it decently well and don't want to bother getting it off my nails now.

I mixed my own glitter topcoat to put over Sally Hansen Insta-Dri in Quick Canary (purchased on clearance for $1.49 at Walgreens a couple weeks ago) from some Martha Stewart glitters I have.  WARNING:  These glitters bleed.  Don't try to store any frankens you make with them, but they're soooo pretty, I use them by just mixing a small amount at a time in single-use batches.

Carrara marble, a matte white glitter; Lemon drop, a yellow holo glitter; Orange sorbet, a reddish orange holo glitter; and Lemon Drop (again, from a different set), a holo bar glitter.  Actually these were from 3 different sets.  A set of matte/metallic glitters, a set of holo glitters, and a set of bar glitters.  They were all purchased at JoAnn on clearance about a year ago, so I have no idea if they're still available, or where.

Unfortunately, most of the pictures I tried to take really didn't do the color justice.  In person, it's a much stronger holo appearance, and there's more of a pink sheen to the glitter, not the orangey green in comes up in the picture.  The polish looks a bit more toward pastel and less mustardy.

I even tried an underwater picture to accentuate the glitter, but it still didn't really pick up all the wonderful holographic shininess I have going on on my nails currently.

Oh and I did end up doing smileys on my thumbs.  I just can't resist smiley faces :)  They got a bit bubbly, though, because of my hasty application of Quick Canary thinking it was all going to be covered.