#31DC2015 Day 28- Inspired by a Flag

I honestly wasn't feeling this challenge so much. I haven't in previous years, either, so I guess this category just doesn't do it for me. On the other hand, this did give me the opportunity finally to sneak in some Steven Universe! The flag I chose for this challenge is Rose Quartz's battle flag. I also tried a drag marble on my pinky that's vaguely inspired by Rose's shield, but... it's kinda meh

Polishes used:
WOW cosmetics- 436 (darker pink)
Sacara- 032 (lighter pink)
Acrylic paint

An InLinkz Link-up

NOTD: Matte blue skittlette

I bought a whole bunch of stamping plates from the Born Pretty Store for black Friday, and as soon as I got them I immediately needed to play with them. The plate I used for this mani is BP-L 005. I'm really adoring how this one turned out! I forsee these stamping plates ending up in a lot of future manis.

Polishes used:
WOW Cosmetics 427
Konad white stamping polish
Fedoraharp Powdered Sugar
OPI Matte topcoat

I forgot about WOW!

Man, I knew there was something missing when I posted the giveaway. Turns out I forgot an important Israeli brand for my giveaway- WOW Cosmetics! So here they are. There are only four days left to enter the giveaway, so make sure you head right over there after this and enter!

WOW 368

This is a fun little mix of large and small purple and white matte hexes. Not much to say about it except that it's got a good payoff and applies evenly- shown here as one coat over white and black.

WOW 317

This is exactly the same as 368, except with mint green hexes instead of purple. The collection also came with a red version and a pink version, but I liked these two best.

Also, remember how I promised to upload better swatches of some of the prizes? Well here they are:

NOTD: Roses

Gosh, I haven't done an NOTD post in ages! I've done nail art here and there, but it has mostly been simplistic stuff that just went on instagram and wasn't worth making a whole post about. At the end of the month I'll do an instagram roundup for any who missed it, but yeah. Gotta get back to it.

On that note, here are some freehand roses!

These were surprisingly easy to do, actually. I got so many compliments too! I need to do art more often. All I used (besides the sponge for the gradient) was a detail brush. I kind of wish I'd done something different on the non-rose nails, but I don't mind it like this.

Look, even my right hand came out good!

Polishes Used:
Ga-De Blue Blood (dark blue)
Ga-de Majorelle Blue (medium blue)
Ga-de Azure Blue (light blue)
Ga-de Burgundy Velvet (dark pink)
WOW Cosmetics 415 (light  pink)
Dalia 393 (dark green)
Chic Crazy In Love (light green)

Don't forget to enter my giveaway!

Guest post at Flight of Whimsy!

Hey guys! I put together a guest post for Eva from Flight of Whimsy a while back for when she was going to be abroad, and it just made it's way through her queue! Go check it out :)

Back over here, I want to tell you about a funny thing that happened while I was making the post.

See, since Eva is coming here to Israel, I decided to use the guest post opportunity to showcase some of my favorite Israeli polish brands. That means bottle shots, which I don't do very often. See, I don't really have a lightbox per se. I have a lamp and my harp stool with a piece of black cloth draped over it. Most of the time that works just fine for nail shots, but for bottle shots it's a little more complicated.

My cat makes it complicated.

I think Simon (my cat) might have a burrowing rodent somewhere in his ancestry. You see, any time there is an opportunity for him to hide under something, he runs towards it. Usually he ignores my lighting setup because it's on the floor, but when I moved it to my bed to get a better angle on the bottle shots, this happened:

(please excuse the mess on my bed! If I'd known the bed itself would end up in a post I'd have tidied it up a bit...)

Which meant that any time I tried to place polishes in any kind of neat formation, the little bugger stuck his paw out from under the cloth and knocked them over! I eventually got a decent enough shot of the bottles, but man, who knew having a cat would affect my blogging this much? :P

2013 Roundup

Good morning 2014! Nice to meet you, I hope we have fun together!

I figured right around now would be a good time to look back and see if there was anything interesting over the last year or so.

So, let's start with my 10 favorite new polishes in 2013 (in no particular order):

WOW 427- This dries to a satin-y kind of finish, but it looks even more stunning fully matte. I love how unique it is, it's like a blue jeans color. It is also impossible to photograph. I had to play with dozens of combinations of settings and lighting to get it to look right. For some reason my camera kept reading it as a much brighter blue.

Ga-De Gold Sugar- And really, texture polishes in general this year. I'm not a gold person usually, but this one really blew me away.

???- 104- I'll be honest, I don't know what this brand is called. The bottle just says "Mirror effect" on it, and the other finishes from this brand all just have the name of the finish too. But I have a few of them, and they all look pretty awesome.

Autodidact- Not to toot my own horn here (well, technically yes), but I've been playing around with frankens, and I'm really quite happy with how some of them turned out! I would love to try out mixing polish from scrap, maybe this year I'll pull together the funds to actually buy supplies!

GlitterBunny- You Can Do It, Brucey!- Speaking of Indie polish, GlitterBunny! I have never bought indies before, and now I have a bunch from  GB and Indigo Bananas. I use this one constantly, it's an awesome glitter topper.

Born Pretty Store Holos- 12- This year also marks the year I could finally start ordering stuff online. And look at this sucker! Both the color and the holo quality are amazing.

Ciate- Beach Hut- This one scrapes in just under the wire, I bought it on December 29. I know Ciate has shown a really crappy attitude towards bloggers (with the "caviar nails" fiasco and all that), but I couldn't resist this glowy glittery orange.

Orly- Star Spangled- My picture doesn't even come close to doing justice to this incredible polish. It's a beautiful red jelly packed with microglitter, and it has incredible depth and finish. Basically, it's amazingness in a bottle. 

Inglot- 202 and 203- This one is a tie, because I couldn't choose between these two incredible duochrome flakie toppers. I mean, just look at them! (this time I do think the picture did them justice. I'm usually terrible at catching color shift but this one was nice and cooperative)

L'oreal Paris- Mysterious Icon- Last but not least, a brown-gold-taupe-indefinable-SOMETHING that seems to not quite fit into any category. It even has purple undertones, to make things more confusing. I love that I can't quite quantify this.

Since most people get bored once the photos end, the rest goes under a cut!

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!

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:

NOTD: Dot Gradient

Colors used:
צבעים ששומשו
WOW cosmetics- 350 (white)
Perfect Chic- Must Have (red)
No-name-brand yellow (it's either 09 or 60 but there's no indication of which way is up)
GA-DE- Sapphire Blue (blue)

I finally, finally, finally have a proper set of dotting tools! I've always had to make do with the one sad little tool that I could find- most places around here sell a particular size.

סוף סוף יש לי כלי ניקוד! עד עכשיו הסתדרתי אם אחד מסכן שהיו בו מנקדים ממש קטנים- עכשיו יש לי בהרבה גדלים שונים.

I'm also experimenting with colors- by nature I tend to gravitate towards darker/louder colors, so doing this on a white base was a change for me. Even though the end result is pretty loud, it's still much whiter than what I usually go for.

אני מתחילה להתנסות עם צבעים שונים- באופן טבעי אני משתמשת בצבעים כהים יותר או זוהרים יותר, אז להתחיל על בסיס לבן זה זר לי. אפילו שבסופו של דבר יש מלא צבעים, זה עדיין יותר לבן ממה שאני רגילה.

The lady in the post office was absolutely fascinated by this- judging by her reaction she hasn't seen much in the way of nail art. I'm always so pleased when I get compliments on my nails- I work in a predominantly male environment, and even among the few women, only the office manager is interested in loud fashion the way I am. (I may have even started to rub off on her- she sported a skittles many with a blingy top coat the other day!) I'm not doing this for the attention, of course, but it's nice to be occasionally recognized for my efforts.

האישה בדואר ממש התלהבה מזה- לפי התגובה שלה היא לא ראתה הרבה אומנות ציפורניים בעבר. אני תמיד אוהבת כשמחמיאים לי על הציפורניים- רוב העובדים במסרד שלי הם גברים, ואפילו המעוט הנשי לא כ"כ מעוניין באימנות. רק האחראית משרד מעניין אותה אופנת ציפורניים.  (נראה לי שהתחלתי להשפיע עליה, היא עשתה מניקיור סקיטלס עם טופקוט נצנצים לפני כמה ימים!) אני לא עושה את כל זה בשביל הצומי, כמובן, אבל כיף לפעמים כששמים לב להשקעה

Review: BPS feather decals

A while back I got a big order from the Born Pretty Store. I'm going to review a bunch of the items I received over the next few weeks. Overall I'm really happy about the site, it's good stuff for good prices, and best of all- free shipping! Shipping is impossible to Israel, usually it's super expensive.

לפני כמה זמן קיבלתי הזמנה גדולה מ-Born Pretty Store. בשבועות הקרובים אסקור את רובם. בגדול אני מאוד מרוצה מהאתר הזה- מוצרים די איכותיים במחירים טובים, והכי כיף- משלוח חינם! משלוחים לארץ הם בדרך כלל נורא יקרים, עד כדי שאני כמעט ולא מזמינה דברים באינטרנט.

More designs under the cut!

!עוד עיצובים תחת קאט 

NOTD: Stained glass

I'm trying something new today, I'm going to write this post both in English and in Hebrew. It's going to be a challenge, because while my spoken Hebrew is nearly native, my reading skills don't reflect that and my spelling is atrocious. Wish me luck!

היום אני מנסה משהו חדש- אני כותבת את הפוסט הזה גם בעברית וגם באנגלית. זו תהיה משימה לא קלה, כי למרות שהעברית המדוברת שלי היא ברמת שפת אם, היכולות כתיבה שלי הן לא משהו והאיות שלי היא על הפנים. שיהיה לי בהצלחה!

I have done this design a number of times, it's one of my favorites. I've even written about it before, but the picture quality was poor, so here it is again!

אני עשיתי את העיצוב הזה בעבר, הוא אחד האהובים עלי. אפילו כתבתי על זה, אבל איכות התמונה היתה נמוכה מאוד, אז הנה זה שוב!

Colors used:
צבעים ששומשו:

WOW Cosmetics 434 (שחור עם נצנצים כחולים- בסיס) (Black with blue glitter- base)
Chic Metalix- Peacock (טורקיז) (Turquoise)

Chic Metalix- Hot Fuchsia (ורוד זוהר) (Hot pink)

Chic Metalix- Citrine Gold (זהב) (Gold)

Color Club- Wild at Heart (סגול הולוגרפי) (Purple holo)

It's a pity that the Chic Metalix collection doesn't have a shade like that purple- it's the only thing missing. 

חבל שאין בקולקצית שיק מטליקס סגול כזה, הוא הצבע היחידי שחסר לי.

I am planning a bunch of new posts about some purchases I've made lately, I'm hoping to get at least one of them up this week. Thanks for reading!

אני מתכננת מספר פוסטים חדשים על כמה קניות שעשיתי בזמן האחרון, אני מקווה להעלות לפחות אחד מהם השבוע. תודה שקראתם!

NOTD: Water spotting

I've been meaning to update with some of the cool new stuff I got from the Born Pretty Store, but I keep not uploading the stuff to my computer. In the meantime, here's a little bit of nail art I had sitting around in my drafts folder for a while. I've been holding off because I want to post the swatches of this collection first, but since this post is all ready to go, the swatches will have to come later!

I recently came across a technique I'd never heard of before called 'water spotting'. In the pictures I'd seen, it looked like an easier method to create a splatter manicure look, and that's still my impression after trying it. It's still a very messy method, but there's a lot less fuss.

More pictures and instructions on how to recreate the look after the jump!

NOTD: Galaxy nails

Happy 50th post!

Today I tried galaxy nails for the first time, or at least the first attempt that was worth posting pictures for:

My thoughts? I used wayyyyyyyy too much glitter. Definitely have to tone down the bling next time, it barely looks like a galaxy. Other than that, I really enjoyed wearing this look.

Colors used:
WOW cosmetics- 393 (black cream)
Chic- Sexsy Emerald (yes that is how it's spelled, what can ya do- Israeli polish!) (turquoise)
Chic- Purple Rain
OPI- Pirouette My Whistle
Color Club- Magic Attraction (this is the one I should probably have skipped)
Essence- Hello Holo

NOTD: Chevrons

Hey all! Quick NOTD for today, not much to explain:

Polishes used:
Orly Faint of Heart
Orly Moonlit Madness
WOW 434 (in which there is a hidden teal shimmer, but you have to know you're looking for it)

I didn't get this perfect, I'm thinking I need a different kind of tape next time. Also I need to give the layers some time to dry before top coat, because I smudged pink over most fingers =/ other than that I was quite happy with this look and I'll probably do it again!

NOTD: Dotticure!

Hey everyone! I did a dot manicure on Friday, and managed to capture some pretty decent sunlight pics, too!

My nails are pretty short (I'm maintaining them as semi-nubs for now), so there wasn't much room, and I only have one dotting too size. Still, I'm really pleased with how this turned out! It's much prettier in real life. I debated wearing this with a matte topcoat, but I decided I prefer it shiny. Maybe in a few days I'll mattify it for variety! (That's right! I said a few days, I'm not going to take it off unless it chips off, because I really love it!)

Colors used:
WOW cosmetics 366 (magenta base and contrasting dots)
WOW Cosmetics 438 (turquoise base and contrasting dots)
WOW Cosmetics 304 (metallic teal dots)
WOW Cosmetics 315 (metallic purple dots)
Chic Metalix Peacock (microglitter turquoise dots)
Chic Metalix Hot Purple (microglitter magenta dots)

I did two posts in a row today, so don't forget to also check out my vlog post!