Linkin Park Concert!

  One of my friends and I went to the Linkin Park concert last night - it was SO much fun!  I have to admit I am somewhat (aka majorly) naive to the concert scene - it is always bad timing or to expensive or I don't have someone to go with... so this was really awesome.  I have never been to a concert where everybody in the crowd sang at the top of their lungs to every song, haha.  I wanted to do something for the concert, and also for my KSU Wildcats who were playing (and got totally trampled, but I was expecting that) and I came up with...

Outdoors, sunlight, no flash

  Holo purple and silver!  I thought it fit perfectly for both events.  I started off with two coats of Color Club Wild at Heart, which is a gorgeous deep purple holographic.  This was my first Color Club and I love it - this will probably be my new go-to K-State color.  I was very impressed with the formula, covering excellently in two coats and with a very fast dry time.

Close-up of the holographic effect

  For stamping, I used Color Club Worth the Risque, a really great silver holo that is perfect for Konad.  I used plate m64 to add the swirled pattern to all but the ring finger, and then I added the music notes with plate m73 since they were my concert nails!  I topped it with a coat of Deborah Lippmann Addicted to Speed.  I am really enjoying these nails and have gotten several compliments on them.  I think I am going to have Linkin Park songs stuck in my head for quite awhile! :)

Adventures in Marbling, Part Two

I decided to try out water marbling again yesterday, this time for the K-State vs. Iowa State game (KSU won, by the way)!  It was an interesting experiment.

Outdoors, shade, no flash

  For this marbling, I used OPI Purple With A Purpose, Sally Hansen Xtreme White On, and Nicole by OPI Positive Energy.  I ran into a bit of a problem with this marbling - the purple did not want to cooperate at all.  I think this was because it was older, a bit over halfway gone, and starting to get just a touch too thick.  I had a hard time getting it to spread out in the water - on three of the nails, this caused the polish to simply collect up and then didn't settle nicely when I dipped the nail into the water, resulting in a bit of a jumbled mess.  As such, I was planning on making a tutorial this time around, but decided not to since I was having issues.  I will try again soon and hopefully get something more workable!  The following is my right hand:

Outdoors, shade, no flash

  Also, please excuse the horrible clean-up (or lack thereof), since it was very late last night when I did this and I was in a huge hurry this morning when I was taking the photos.  They are not nearly that messy now.  :)

  I tried to get a bit more of a true marbling look this time, rather than just a few blocks of colors.  While I was more successful at that, I still lack any sort of clear pattern, even though I did all of the nails one-at-a-time this time around.  I blame my issues with the polish on this, although it is probably also inexperience.  Next time!




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By September 30th

Wildcat Purple NOTD

  Last night I painted my nails in preparation for the Kansas State Wildcats football game on Saturday.  I am a huge K-State fan... so you may be seeing variations of purple/white/maybe silver often.  :)

Outdoors, overcast, no flash

  For these nails, I used OPI Purple with a Purpose.  It took me a long time to find the exact perfect KSU purple and this one is definitely it.  It is also a fairly similar color to OPI Funky Donkey, except this one has a light shimmer.  I love this polish!  This was two coats for full coverage.  Formula and drying time were really great.  For the Konad, I used m78 with Konad Special White.  I wanted to use something that was a bit of a wild animal print, since they are the wildcats, after all!  I may have to pick up the full leopard print Konad at some point in time for another game day.. :)

Indoors, artificial light, no flash (please forgive the fuzzy lack of macro here!)

  Once again, tried to stay a bit cleaner, and think it was much better this time.  I am also excited to try out the paint brush with acetone idea shown to me by one of my followers - hopefully that will help out even more!  Had a bit of problems picking up the full Konad one a few of these nails, but then got them almost all perfect on my non-picture hand.  I guess I should start with that hand and do the picture hand second, haha.  I also had a bit of smearing of the Konad this time, I don't think I waited long enough before the top coat - oops. These smudges are almost impossible to see on the real nails, but the macro sure picks them up well!

Go Cats!

  Do you all paint your nails up special for your favorite sports teams?  I would love to see some of your team-spirit nails!  :)