NOTD: Interview Nails 3- Son of the Interview

Another day, another interview. Job hunting can be exhausting, especially since I don't get to buy any new polish until I have a salary once again. As sad as it is, groceries and rent are more important than buying nail polish (but only by a little).

This one was for yet a third company, with an interesting twist- this would only be part time. If I got this, I'd probably just barely make enough to get by, so I wouldn't have to get another job, but I might. I might not, because something cool occurred to me if I get an offer for this one. I could use the extra time to get certified as a nail tech! Then I'd A- be an expert on nails and probably pick up tons of new skills I couldn't even imagine, and B- I'd have a viable alternate source of income, in case working in the high tech industry doesn't work out in the long run. I guess we'll see if/when I get this job.

Polishes used:

Orly- Au Champagne (base color)

Chic- White Flag

GA-DE- Black Orchid

Dalia- medium grey

This one is a little festive, because the interview was actually on Christmas (you see what I mean about people not even noticing it here? It's just a regular business day!). Later on I took it off and put on the Christmas Nails I posted a little bit back.

You know what's odd? In both of the previous interviews, there was a lady interviewer, but neither of them noticed my nails. In this interview it was a man, and he did notice them! Funny how these things work out.

NOTD: Interview nails 2- The Journey Continues

Indeed, I am still on the hunt for a new job. The first place I interviewed did not work out, sadly, but I landed this interview and got super excited- they are a great looking company, and not too far from where I live, either! For this one I water marbled, although it once again went unnoticed.

The base colors are all various purple shades from WOW, so I'm not going to list them by number (unless someone asks). To get the shimmer on top, I put a drop of Color Club Wild At Heart on the water and let it spread very thin, and then put all of my already marbled nails in at once. The result was a nice subtle top coat, and I'm definitely going to be using this technique a lot! I'd kept thinking of trying it and then forgetting, but this opportunity practically offered itself to me on a silver platter.

I actually got called up today to go in for the second interview for this place, so fingers crossed that it'll work out!

NOTD: Christmas nails!

Merry belated Christmas everybody! I don't celebrate it, and it's not even really noticed in Israel, but the internet's been so festive lately that I couldn't resist.

Pinky: Orly Au Champagne with Konad stamping polish and BM Plate 205
Ring: Orly Meet Me Under the Mistletoe with China Glaze Twinkle Lights
Middle: same as pinky, but with BM plate 208 and a dotting tool
Index finger: Golden Rose 122 (from the Jolly Jewels collection) with China Glaze Twinkle Lights
Thumb: a poor attempt at candy cane stripes where I was too lazy to get up to get my striping brush so I used the bottle brush. Hence not taking a photo of it :P

Last year I also did Christmas nails, it was what I have on my ring finger but on the entire hand.

I have newly short nails, because I just recently went to do some work in a recording studio! And in order to play the harp, I need short nails. There were plenty of pictures taken, so hopefully when they finally remember to send them along I'll make a blog post about it.

I also had two more job interviews (one on Christmas!) so I'm queuing up two more Interview nail posts as well

I hope your holiday was fun and you have a great new year!

Swatched: Maybelline Colorama Polka Dots collection

Maybelline Colorama is a funny animal around here. They're found in most pharmacies at reasonable prices, but virtually every pharmacy has a different range of colors. It actually took three different pharmacies to track down this set- I didn't do it consciously, I just compulsively buy this kind of polish. And as long as I have them, I might as well swatch them!

Without further ado, allow me to present you with:

okay so bottle shots aren't my forte shhhhhhh

For 200, 201, and 202, each shot has three coats alone on my ring finger and pinky, and two coats over a similar base on my index and middle fingers.

Swatches and reviews under the cut!

NOTD: Interview Nails

It seems my life has decided to continue being... interesting. My health has more or less evened out, thankfully, but now my company has closed *weary smile*. On the bright side, being back on the job market means more time for blogging! Last Wednesday I had my first job interview, and the company looks really great, so I hope I get it. Can't say I have any idea how I did, but I think I'll at least get a second interview. Wish me luck!

Figuring out what to wear on my nails to interviews is always tricky. Do you go for something mature and conservative, so you look professional? Or do you go for something interesting and unusual, so you possibly have a conversation starter to help forge a personal connection with the interviewer?

I decided to go for a compromise, a simple blue gradient that matched my shirt so it looked put-together, but blue isn't a color you see every day, and neither are gradients. The interviewers didn't notice in the end, but there's always second interview to look forward to! I confess, after the interview I had a busy day and ended up chipping my polish before I could photograph it, so this is a recreation.

Colors Used:  (top to bottom)

Perfect Chic - Out of the Blue

GA-DE - Dazzling Cobalt

GA-DE - Blue Blood

This may actually be my favorite gradient ever. It's definitely the most gradual color transition I've ever managed! I will probably adopt this idea into later designs.

Once the interview was over, I decided to spice it up with some stamping and glitter. The glitter may have been too much, but overall I like how it turned out:

For the stamping I used the Konad blue polish and a design from the QA27 plate which I bought from the Born Pretty Store. The black and white is from the Maybelline Polka Dots collection, all four of which I have swatched for my next post. (yay planning ahead! Haven't done that in a while.)

Swatched: GA-DE Liquid sands

Whoo, I haven't written a post on here in forever! I am really sorry :( I will put a tl;dr explanation at the end, but first, swatches!

So Israel has finally jumped on the liquid sand bandwagon and I am ecstatic. I mean... well they jumped on that like two months ago, I've just been really delinquent in my swatching duties. Sigh.

Both Chic and GA-DE have released lines of liquid sand, and I will probably swatch a number of them here over time. Although most of them will be redundant since I'm super late to the party. Whatever, I like swatching things!

50- Gold Sugar

With topcoat:

This one is definitely my favorite of the collection, although the next one is a close second. It's so shiny that the topcoat barely makes a difference to the appearance! In person the difference is somewhat more pronounced, but it's soooooooooooo sparkly.

55- Blue Sugar

With topcoat:

Can we talk about how much I love this color? Because I love this color so much. It is basically the perfect TARDIS blue (besides for, y'know, the sparkles. and the texture.) and the difference between with topcoat and without is so dramatic that this is almost two different polishes.

Overall, I highly recommend picking up a few of GA-DE's liquid sands if you have the opportunity.

Now for the tl;dr, under a cut for your convenience.

Liebster Award!

Wheeeeeee! I got sent this, not once but twice by two blogs I found over #31DC2013. I'm incredibly flattered! Especially since to my knowledge only like four people followed me before I began the challenge.

I was awarded this by Nailpolish in my Eyes and ALIQUID. (I didn't even realize they knew I existed!)

This award exists to draw attention to new and unknown bloggers, because us little people deserve some love too :) You have to have under 200 followers to qualify (so I qualify by a nice wide margin, huh!)

This got kind of long, so the rest goes under a cut.

Quick Update:

Regarding the last bit of 31DC, I'll have a last post up soon with all the days I need to catch up on. I've had a crazy time keeping  up because of the combination of holiday + new (violent) cat + convention. I'm going to do a convention post too!

I hit a snag- one of my nails broke off all the way down to the end of the free edge, so I am now back down to nubs. It's much harder to do art on these :( I have my pattern and my flag themed art ready, I just need to do the tutorial and the honor nails one.

Han also has a bunch of photos for me, so I'm gonna do her stuff in a separate post. She's also thinking of starting her own blog, and I'm going to enable the heck out of her :D

31DC2013 Day 25- Inspired by fashion

Shhhhhhhhhhh just go with it.

31DC2013 catch up- 22, 23, and 24

Welp. There's not much I can say about this. My cat and the geek convention and the holiday have really done a number on my ability to keep up with this challenge. I still managed to make nail art for the last three days though! Without much commentary, here they are:

Inspired by a song- Baba Yetu, from the soundtrack of Civilization 4- a computer game that I haven't played, but my god is the soundtrack incredible. Baba Yetu is the first track on the soundtrack. The lyrics themselves are actually the Lord's Prayer translated into Swahili, but the song represents dawn.

These are fun, but they are actually my least favorite of this entry. The next two are some of my favorite art ever, which is more the pity since this is so late, and no one will see them in the inlinkz widget.

Inspired by a movie: Wall-E. My favorite movie of all time! I tried it glossy at first, but it was hard to see the designs through the glare of the lamp light so I tried matteifying it. I like it both ways, so I added photos of both.

Inspired by a book- Fox in Socks. I've been looking for an excuse to use flocking powder for some time, and this was the perfect opening. I have this book practically memorized- I adored listening to the tongue twisters as a child, and at this point I can recite it extremely quickly.

I'm including the Inlinkz for day 24, but be sure to check out others too!

31DC2013 Day 21- Inspired by a color

Oh come on- you must know by now. It's going to be turquoise. What else?

I think I have more turquoise in my stash than any other color. Although I use that term very broadly- it also includes teal and aqua, since basically anything on the blue-to-green spectrum is incredibly appealing to me. For my blog I use the tag "blue-green" as a catch all for the color, but today I think it's fairly turquoise.

I rarely do design skittles, but I'm especially happy with these.I'm absolutely going to do some iteration of this manicure again once the challenge is over!

Tomorrow is the first day that really worries me. I honestly have no idea what I'm going to do!

To see who else is participating in today's challenge click the jump:

31DC2013 Day 20- Water Marble

It's funny, most people dread water marble day because it's a fairly advanced technique, but actually, water marbling is what got me into nail art in the first place. Later on down the line I've discovered that it is difficult when compared with other techniques, but there will always be a special place in my heart for marbling.

I actually like water marbling so much that I created my own spin on the technique. I tried to reproduce it here, but it went amazingly badly so I ended up going with a much more traditional marble.

I'm also noticing a bit of a pattern with my using this particular color scheme, so I'll have to try for some more variety on the future!

To see who else participated in today's challenge, click the jump:

31DC2013 Day 19- Galaxies

And now for the second (and much shorter) post for today- galaxy nails! My first attempt at these a few months ago was less than impressive- way too much glitter and way too little anything else. This time I'm much happier with the results:

I could still do with a little more subtlety and precision, but overall I think these look a lot more like galaxies! ...well nebulas. Galaxy is a slight misnomer.

Unfortunately, no Hannah nails today, although I'm sure she'll catch up later- galaxies are irresistible :) Hopefully tomorrow's post will be on time!

To see who else is participating today, click the jump!

31DC2013 Day 18 - Half Moons

Greetings! I'm late, late, late, late! But I have not missed a day of art. So I'm going to post twice in a row now, and again in less than 24 hours, for Water Marble day.

Without further ado, half-moons:

I don't know why, but for some reason I'm not good at half moons in particular. I did them the same way I do tape manis, but with round stickers. Still, I couldn't get the half moons perfectly smooth. I'm still fairly okay with the results, but close up the flaws are pretty obvious.

Hannah is doubling up her black-and-white day with half moons, and she went with something really adorable (and kind of literal)

To see who else participated in today's challenge, click the jump!