#31DC2015 Day 26- Inspired by a Pattern

Alternate post title: Leah discovers that it is Very Difficult to do hand poses with a mug

So I've actually kind of known what I wanted to do for this day since last year. About a day after the Pattern challenge last year, I walked into my work kitchen and facepalmed because we have these adorable mugs with hearts on them that would be PERFECT for this kind of thing.

I actually sent pictures of this mani sans mug to the R&D group chat at my work, challenging them to try and figure out where they recognize the pattern from. I don't think any of these guys had ever gotten excited over nail art before, but they have now! (followed by a lot of ppl casually commenting "why don't you do this for a living???")

And in case you're wondering, yes, I did have to steal this mug and bring it home with me in order to make sure I matched the colors well. No one noticed. I did bring it back I promise!

Here is the mug by itself (sitting, rather incriminatingly, in front of one of my nail polish shelves)

And here are the three least awkward attempts at me posting with said mug:

Polishes used:
Color club- French tip (white base)
Golden Rose Color Expert- 43 (light blue)
Ga-de- Blue Blood (navy blue)
Ga-de Candy Apple (red)
Laka- 85 (grey)
Chic- Crazy in Love (green)

An InLinkz Link-up

#31DC2015 Day 9- Rainbow

I'm actually kind of out of ideas on rainbows, honestly. I was gonna do the zig zag thing on all of my nails (holo is also rainbow, so double rainbow power!) but I messed up the other two, so I made it the accent. I really need vinyls, I think. This would have been much better if I'd done it with those instead of trying it with liquid latex! I still don't consider this a nail fail, because the end result is perfectly serviceable, but it's barely rainbow. Next time, I promise!

Polishes used:
LeChat- Black Magic (black cream)
ILNP- My Private Rainbow (holo topcoat over black)
Color Club- Harp On It (silver holo)
Chic- Must Have (red)
Chic- 49 (orange)
Ga-de- Mellow Yellow (yellow)
Laka- 108 (green)
Bourjois- In The Navy (blue)
Chic-Purple Rain (purple)

An InLinkz Link-up

Experiments with liquid sand

I have been putting off this post for a week, because I have been overwhelmed lately, and I can't think of a chatty way to encapsulate my recent life. So I'm going to skip the life bits and get to the polish bits.

I bought one, and only one, liquid sand. Not because I don't love the texture (I do!), but because the only brand that has it here is OPI, and OPI costs about $17 a bottle here!

Still, a lot of bloggers have been gushing about it lately, so I was curious to try it out. The thing is, based on the swatches I've seen, liquid sands are still a largely unexploited resource. I see some glitters, but mostly cream based colors, sometimes with a shimmer. This frustrates me greatly- you have a whole new kind of polish to play with, why are you making creams? And why are the shimmers you make almost exclusively one-note? Where are my holos, my multichromes, my blingy glitters?

So I decided to rectify this problem all by myself. The polish I have is "What Wizardry Is This?" which is a pretty crinkly texture, so a single coat of another polish on top still leaves the texture very visible. After a quick stash raid, allow me to present you with the best of my experiments:

Disclaimer: these swatches are very far from perfect. A number of these polishes are streaky or sheer with one coat, so the base shows through. The idea here is only to showcase the potential of liquid sands to work with a variety of finishes.

Creams:

Sunlight