NOTD: Purple gradient x2

I'm baaaaaaack!

I've been gone for ages. Between Passover, the convention, and moving to a new apartment, I've been super MIA from this blog. I've been on Instagram and Facebook a little, but I slacked off there too. I've been making tons of new nail polishes though, and I'll share them here over time!

Recently I made two different nail arts on a similar purple gradient base. They're not identical, but because of their similarity I decided to put them both in one post.

This one is from shortly before I moved:

For this one I used a Golden Rose Color Expert lavender (which I have since broken so I can't remember the name), and Color Club Disco Dress in the gradient. I can't remember what I stamped with, but the colors I used to fill in the squares are Color Club Eternal Beauty (purple holo) and Cherubic (beige holo)

This one is from just recently:

For this mani I used OPI You're Such a Budapest and Golden Rose Color Expert 59. The music decals and the treble clef accent are both from the Born Pretty Store (if you go and buy them use my discount code to get 10% off! It's in the sidebar, check it out)

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!

31DC2013 Day 17- Glitter

Today I decided to keep it simple. I haven't had a break from nail art in a while, and it's all time-consuming stuff in the next few days, so I wanted a "break". Hannah's glitter nails are much more interesting, so she'll go first today.

This also doubles as her flower day submission.

Here's mine- just because I wanted to keep it simple doesn't mean that it can't be pretty!

I can never pass up an opportunity to show off GlitterBunny polish- this is one coat of You Can Do It, Brucey! over OPI Ink (indigo) and GA-DE Green Garnet (turquoise). This polish is adorable, and it's quite easy to use- mostly opaque in three coats! You can buy any of her lovely polishes at her BigCartel site so give her a visit! All of her polishes are vegan and cruelty free.

And now for a surprise guest- my friend Angela! She's not participating in the challenge in general, but she's a glitter addict, so today she couldn't resist:

This is a base of "Peace, Love, & OPI", with a layer of Vivid Laquer's "I Deglaze With Wine", topped off with Essie's matte topcoat. She seriously went to town!

To see other blogs who are participating in today's challenge, click the jump

31DC2013 Day 16- Tribal print

Um... okay. So, today is a little bit of a subversion on my part- I am really uncomfortable with the "tribal" theme. It feels kind of fetish-y... like, why are we using a stereotypical representation of someone else's culture and belief system as a fashion accessory? It just rubs me the wrong way. It's hard to call it "cultural appropriation" since the theme is so generic as to not even indicate a particular culture, but it's still... kinda weird.

The thing is: I do enjoy the aesthetic of stereotypical "tribal" nails. I think a lot of today's submissions are really beautiful. The fact that we are reducing them to simply an aesthetic with no meaning is what bothers me- I am all for celebrating cultural heritage, or even well-researched cultural homage. But I don't feel right just doing it because I like the look.

But I don't want to miss a day of the challenge, so I'm going to make art from the only tribe I don't feel uncomfortable using as decoration- my own tribe. I'm Jewish, and hey- we've got twelve tribes to choose from! No loss. I don't know exactly what tribe my father is, but my mother is a Levite, so I decided to go with that. The colorful dots on the pale gold background represent the High Priest's breastplate, from the elaborate and beautiful priesthood garb worn in the era of the Holy Temple. Each color is as close a match as I can approximate to the actual gem colors on the breastplate, according to historical documents.

Here's a cool note: This is my first attempt at taking a proper blog photo in artificial light! Not too shabby, don'cha think? It's pretty liberating, because it means I don't have to drag my camera to work to catch daylight hours. I'll probably still try to most of the time, but I think this is more than adequate for the days I can't. Or I can't get out at a perfect time to catch the light. No more crazy lady photographing her hands in the parking lot at peak exodus hours!

Hannah, meanwhile, also tapped into her own cultural heritage for her designs. She's Panamanian, so she based her design on a piece of Panamanian artwork from her grandmother:

And here is the artwork it's based on:

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

31DC2013 Day 15- Delicate print

We're now halfway through the challenge! And so far I've posted every single day, although there were a couple of close calls there. Here's to getting through the next 16 days!

So... I'm not sure how broadly we're defining "print" here, but I'll just take it to mean something delicate looking. Let's hope I'm at least in the ballpark!

For this mani I started with a white base and then sponged random arrangements of teal, fuchsia, and indigo over it. Then I added another layer of white and used the saran wrap technique to allow the colors to show through. I think the result is pretty delicate, don't you?

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