NOTD: Born Pretty Store nail wraps!

Hahahahahaha, ok, I'm really glad that I decided that I'm not going to try to hold myself to any kind of posting schedule, because whatever that schedule would have been obviously I failed it. Whoops! It's not that I haven't been doing nail art (I even did two more Hanukkah manis), but I've had some IRL drama, particularly a bad computer crash that didn't allow me to even edit posts for a while. So I have a bit of a backlog to work through. I'm always active on Instagram though, so check me out there @fedoraharp if you want more regular updates and shop stuff like cool discounts!

Anyway, I got a tooooooon of really nice wraps from the Born Pretty Store for Black Friday, and I'm gonna start wearing them!

Polishes Used:
Ga-de- Rose Fiction (pinky)
Ga-de- Mint Green (index finger)
Color Club- French tip (white base for decals)

#31DC2015 Day 17- Glitter

Glitter is such a deceptively simple theme, isn't it? Since it's pretty broad, I decided to challenge myself to try something out of my comfort zone. In this case, that's bar glitter.

There's a story behind this polish: A while ago, my best went to America, land of the nail polish brands they don't have around here. Since she's also pretty into nail polish (although nowhere near obsessed like I am), I handed her $20 and said "surprise me". She came back with two really gorgeous glitter toppers, and this. I genuinely didn't know what to do with it, so it's been sitting on my shelf pretty much untried for over a year.

I have to say, having now tried it, I like this polish a lot more than I was expecting to! The color scheme is surprisingly flattering for my skin tone, and the bars don't bother me nearly as much as I was expecting. It's fairly opaque in three coats, but I sponged it on to save on "bulk", and then topped it with a couple of peacock feather decals from the Born Pretty Store. It's a little textured after one topcoat, but two layers of topcoat makes it almost completely smooth.

Now I'm thinking I might revisit some other short-matte-bar glitter polishes that I'd put on my destash shelf. I wonder if I'd like those too?

Polishes used:

Ga-de- Beige Caress (beige base)

Sally Hansen- All Yarned Up (glitter topper)

An InLinkz Link-up

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)

Happy halloween! Adorable BPS spooky decal review

I'm back! Whew, between 31DC and establishing my indie brand, I've been way too overwhelmed to post lately, but I'm back!

Over the course of 31DC, I was contacted by the Born Pretty Store to review some of their products, and of course I jumped to say yes! I have bought from them a few times in the past, and even blogged about them so I was excited to do an official review for them. They sent me four products, and luckily it arrived just in time for me to review this one- the cutest Halloween decals I have ever seen!

To use these decals, cut out the design you wish to use, and soak it in water for about 20 seconds (it floats if you lay it flat). After that, you can slide the design right off the backing paper, and you can use your fingers or tweezers to carefully place it on your nail. You should work with completely dry nail polish, that way there is some room for error- the decal can be moved around and repositioned for a little while after it's been placed on the nail. Once the decal is aligned to your liking, gently blot off any excess water with a cotton bud and seal it in with top coat.

I tried out this design both in glossy and in matte, and I like it both ways although I think matte came out slightly better. Aren't these the cutest? The words "Happy Halloween" on the witch's hat came out mirrored (I tried flipping it but the other side was completely white), but I don't mind at all.

I used Ga-De Orange Poppy (424) and Ciate Beach Hut as my base, and for the top coat I used Seche Vite for the glossy finish and OPI Matte top coat for the matte finish.

Be sure to check out the Born Pretty Store's extensive Nail Art section, they have a ton of really nice art supplies- both very affordable and with free shipping! Also, you can use my discount code of SMBQ10 for a 10% discount off your purchase.

Happy Halloween to my readers who celebrate it!

Disclaimer: These items were provided to me by the Born Pretty Store for my unbiased review

31DC2014 Day 27- Inspired by art

I decided to take a slightly more abstract approach to today's challenge. It's odd, because today's theme is possibly the most evocative of all of them, but try as I might I couldn't think of a piece of art that I wanted to work on. Either it was something beyond my ability to do justice to, or it was something that I knew a lot of other people would tap for inspiration.

So instead I decided to draw inspiration from a piece of music- not a song, mind you, a jazz composition. One of my favorites- Take Five by Dave Brubeck. I challenge you to give it a listen and tell me that's not a work of art.

I had already printed the sheet music out on water decal paper a long time ago, so it was simply a matter of finding a flattering and fun way to display it. I tried to give it a fun, lighthearted look. Here is what I came up with!

An InLinkz Link-up

31DC2014 Day 23- Inspired by a movie

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh man! I haven't updated in over a week! I've actually been keeping up with the art side of the challenge, but the photos have been piling up on my computer not getting posted =/ I've done some really cool stuff over the last week, so I'll be dedicating two catch-up posts to the whole thing. In the meantime, here's today!

I chose the movie Pacific Rim as my inspiration- specifically, the Kaiju, who have mottled grey skin with bright blue bioluminescent highlights running through them. I actually used a glow in the dark blue in this look, but unfortunately the bottle is pretty old and I couldn't get a glow out of them, even after "charging" them in the sun for five minutes and going into a pitch black room :(

Still, I do think I managed to capture an abstract kaiju-ish look, and I got a compliment from a waitress today!

An InLinkz Link-up

Catchup

Uh... whoops! I definitely didn't mean to abandon my blog for a month. That was not a planned hiatus. And now that I have a daunting number of NOTD posts built up, I don't want to find myself posting things I wore a month ago, so I'm just gonna post a bunch of them all together, right here and right now.

I have a big announcement coming up, and that's part of why I've been MIA recently... stay tuned!

Without further ado, nail art!

(inspiration)

(inspiration)

Hope to go back to posting regularly now that I've gotten that out of my system!

NOTD: Something Old, Something New

I'm participating in an Israeli beauty blogger's challenge, where we get abstract concepts and we have to make a post that relates to it. The first time it was a painting (which I missed), the second time was on the theme "Collections", and this round is "Time"

I could have done a TARDIS. I seriously considered it, even. But honestly I've done TARDIS nails a number of times before so I decided that this time I'd try something a little different:

I still have the very, very first polish I ever got- fourteen years ago. And it's still as good as new! I was twelve years old, and I'd been begging my mother to let me wear nail polish for a while- she said she'd think about it. Then one day I came home from school and she came over to me and said "I have a kiss for you" and pressed a nail polish gently to my cheek, and then she said "I have another kiss for you" and pressed another bottle to my other cheek. They were both by the brand Kiss Cosmetics, which I believe no longer has a core polish line (although they sell gels and nail art polish).

I have the oddest deja vu about this post- have I told this story before? I've checked through my recent posts and don't see anything about it, but let me know if I've mentioned this before.

Anyway, one of the polishes got lost a long time ago, but the other- a sheer pearly pink topper called Cotton Candy- that I still have. (shown here over Chic My Secret, which is a pale rosy peach)

As to the "new"- since I was using my very oldest polish in this NOTD, I decided to also make something completely brand new. I printed out water decals of sheet music for an old favorite song of mine, and when they were less than an hour old I applied them on top.

I wish I'd taken sunlight pictures of this, but the sun refused to cooperate with my work schedule.

To see the rest of the bloggers participating in this challenge, check out the widget!

An InLinkz Link-up

Convention! Passover 2014

Man, I keep forgetting to make convention posts. I've been doing them twice a year for three years now, but I've only made one post! Well, here's to a better job in the future.

Unfortunately, this con was fairly underwhelming for me, I had almost no customers. I'd been all excited too, since this year I made a whole bunch of nail decals to speed things up! I mean, I love hand drawn as much as the next person, but when you're at a sci fi convention you're not going to sit for forty minutes while your nails get done. Better a quick base coat and a cool decal or ten.

So here are a couple of clients:

Galaxy nails

Avatar (the last airbender) nails

Avatar nails part 2

Companion cube

Portal nails

Batman nails

Devil's trap (Supernatural) nails

And since I had a lot of down time, I did my own nails too. The white stamping polish smeared a little, but I still like how they came out:

I didn't photograph a lot of cosplays, but a friend of mine dressed up as a character from Death Note (I don't know which since I haven't watched it) 

And I did manage to photograph one cosplay (there were lots of really good ones), this was an amaaaaaaaaazing amazing amazing Winter Soldier- seriously, I'm putting it on the largest size, check out the intricacy on that arm! And the kid who made it is 16. I predict that he'll go places.

And finally, I didn't buy much but I did pick up some Tokidoki figurines:

I got two Spidermans- luck of the draw, I guess! Sadly, I didn't get more Avengers, only Captain America. But look how cute he is with his little hamburger and his skateboard!

For the record, these little fellas measure 4cm high.

Anyway, that's it for this time, hopefully next convention will be more productive. Reminder: Don't forget to enter my giveaway!