My first gradient attempt

I think this came out pretty good for a first try! I've always liked the look of gradient manis, and I figured today was as good a day as any to attempt one. Before I try this again I'm going to pick up some Seche Vite to level the bumpiness that the sponging left on the nail.

Photos are clickable.









Light purple: Confetti Purple Pizzazz
Darker purple: CQ Mystical
Black: NYC 119A

I think my camera is dying. It won't focus on anything and it's driving me crazy. :(

Fancy fancy lady!

I didn't have time to remove La Paz-itively Hot this morning, so I just decided to go crazy and try to fancy it up a bit. I added Wet n Wild Black Creme tips and Love My Nails Angel Baby over everything. It's really different for me, but I can see myself doing more stuff like this in the future.

The sun was being a jerk, but I did what I could. Photos are clickable!



Would you be interested in seeing more manicures like this in addition to swatches?



I also want to tell you guys about something really exciting. My sister (in law), Colleen, has been bitten by the nail polish bug. She's actually starting her own nail blog, which I will be sure to show you guys once it is up and running. Being the amazing and supportive person that she is, she want out and bought me 66 new polishes. Yes, you read that correctly. I am beyond excited and ridiculously grateful to her for helping me to more than double my stash. She lives in Texas while I'm in Massachusetts, so it will be a little while before I have all of these goodies in hand, but that's alright! Get ready for a lot of new polish on Dancing Phalanges!

Adventures in Layering!

China Glaze Ruby Pumps and Dorothy Who? over Wet n Wild Black Creme. I put the Ruby Pumps on before Dorothy Who? and you can't see it very well. Next time I'll pick one or the other. I was just curious to see what it would look like with both! I think I need to pick up some Seche Vite to try over polishes that aren't totally smooth (like this).

What are your favorite combos for layering?

OPI - Black Cherry Chutney

Black Cherry Chutney is from OPI's Spring/Summer 2008 "India" collection. This is the most vampy polish in my collection. I was never a huge fan of super dark colors, but the deep cherry shimmer in this polish sucked me in. The formula is fantastic and I wish every polish had this brush! The application is a bit messy, but that was 100% me. These photos show two coats in natural light.

My first attempt at nail art!

I have never done nail art in my life. Ever. I thought it might be fun to try, so I did. I suppose I did an alright job. I used a regular thin paint brush for the snowflake. This is also my first time doing an accent nail.

Black: Wet N Wild 424A
Silver: L.A. Colors Live



My cuticles are still disgusting and the light box is still being tweaked. All of my nails could really use a good filing but they're too short to try right now.







The black works in ONE COAT (but I used two for photos and applied the second way too thick). This polish was recommended to me and I'm so glad I picked it up. The silver is a really pretty silver foil which would probably work well for stamping, but it gets a lot of bald spots when used in a normal fashion and requires a lot of coats because of it.

I know I apologize for bad photos a lot lately, but the lighting inconsistencies in these...ugh. I could probably fix a lot of them if I had/knew how to use Photo Shop, but I don't (to both). I have a crappy photo editing program that doesn't do a whole lot of anything besides resizing. I drew a weird dark line around a finger in one of these because the lights blew the photo out all weird, but that's as fancy as I get. It's pretty pathetic, since I used to be a professional photographer. I really need a better camera and a better photo editing program. Maybe from Santa?

NYC - 119A

119A is black. Nothing fancy. It's very sheer, which I thought was weird for a black polish. This stuff took 4 coats to cover.


Natural light.

I've had this bottle for about 12 years (I wore it to a christening because I was a ~*rebel*~) and figured it might be useful for stamping when I eventually get the gear to do that. This stuff definitely would not work for stamping.


Natural light.

I really have no use for a black polish that I won't be able to stamp with, so I'll probably use this once I start attempting to franken some polishes.