Showing posts with label sponge gradient. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sponge gradient. Show all posts
Monday, April 8, 2013

Digit-al Dozen Animal Week; Day 1

The challenge this month for the Digit-al Dozen is animals; this is the first mani I came up with!


Started with a base of two coats of Essie Jazz. 


Now, this next pix will make no sense at all because I messed up the mani (this whole mani was a mess and to be honest, I almost didn't post it...)  because I did a sponge gradient but when I did, I did it upside down!  So the blue was at the tips and the brown was at the cuticles, which wasn't in the plan. And I had all five fingers done before I realized my mistake believe it or not! So I took both colours and sponged them on again; the blue is Essie Borrowed and Blue.  A couple fails here; there are big ol' fibres in both the middle and index finger and the sponging turned out all lumpy and gritty looking on a couple fingers.  I didn't mind the gritty look so much as I thought it would add to the look of sand which was my intention, but I still don't know if the lumps were part of my sponge, or from over sponging and not waiting for the base to dry fully.


Topped with SV.


Added in mountains from fauxnad m50 using Konad black gold special polish. I messed up the middle stamping so drew it in with a brush but ultimately removed some of it because it didn't make sense what I did! I had a really hard time stamping in these mountains straight...you may or may not be able to see the behind the mountain on the middle finger where the base is thin from me removing it and taking some base off in the process.  I was pretty fed up by this point and all I could think of was I sure hope I have another mani in archives to use for the challenge as this one is a disaster!  And the mountains have lots of stamping fails in general. *sigh*


Stamped in dinosaurs.  Plates used were hot topic (thumb), SdP 46 (brown one on index), unnamed OMG XL (middle) SdP 49 (ring) and VL 002 (small on pinky and black one on index).  The stamping polishes used where Konad black and brown and I mixed them for a custom one on the thumb.  Really messed up the placement of the dinosaur on the thumb but couldn't correct it easily so by default, it was left in.


Added sun using Konad yellow special polish from fauxnad m50.  Also added a couple birds from H18 using black Konad special polish.


Zoya Pixie Dust in Godiva was added at tips to mimic sand then did some free hand grass using green and apple green Konad special polishes.


Decided to add snow to the peaks of the mountains so free handed white caps to them using white Konad special polish.  Also added some random grass to the mountains using apple green Konad special polish too.


 My fave digit; I think because I like the look of the mountains the best! Too bad about mis-stamping the dinosaur is right into the mountains; not very good placement at all.  It was just part and parcel of this whole mani which was one fail after another! 


Topped with SV.  I prefer the look of the mani without SV as I think it gives it more character, but its very odd to me not to topcoat a mani, so did it.


Despite so many fails along the way with this mani, it didn't turn out too badly! 

Thanks for looking....and don't forget to check out the other ladies mani's which are spectacular!


Thursday, October 18, 2012

Halloween Nails

With Halloween less than two weeks away, I thought I had better start to do some Halloween mani's.  Here's the mani I'm wearing today.


Did a sponge gradient for some mock candy corn over a base of two coats of OPI Bride's Bouquet (no pix of plain white as I've shown it many times before...and my posts are pix heavy enough!)  The colours used were Revlon Alluring Amber (orange), China Glaze Go Lucky (yellow) and OPI Bride's Bouquet (white).  My sponging technique still needs work... I'm sponging more of my skin than my nails which happened the last time I did this too!


After cleanup.  Sort of judging by this pix.


For a little accent glitter accent, added LA Colors Sparkling Apricot on index and ring fingers. 


Topped with Girly Bits Candy Corn, then SV.


Stamped using T23 (pumpkin on index, cat on ring and web on thumb), T29 (witch on middle), Dash 17 (skeleton on pinky) with Konad black special polish.


Filled in some bare spots by adding images from D04 (Boo on index) T29 and T43 (bat above cat on ring and random spiders on middle, pinky and thumb).


Topped with SV. 


Here's a rare glimpse of my right hand.  I used a base of two coats of OPI Bride's Bouquet, topped with layer of Girly Bits Candy Corn, then added stamping.  I didn't jot down the plate numbers as I didn't think I was going to share but some of the same images were used as other hand.


Hope you're having a great week....thanks for looking!


Monday, May 14, 2012

Beach Themed Gradient


I had a couple purposes for this mani...first of all, I'm in absolute love with the gradients I've seen from The Nailasaurus' new method of doing sponge gradients....the oh so faint and subtle gradient line is simply amazing!  So I thought I'd try my hand at it.  Unfortunately, while my end result was a gradient, my attempts did fail in that the gradient didn't flow or blend into one another; my colour lines are still too obvious.  THEN I reread the tutorial and seen where I went wrong, so I'll definitely have to try it again.  The second purpose of the mani was my contribution for this weeks Adventure in Stamping FB challenge, to do a mani with a plate that ends in 5.  This is what I came up with.


Started with a base of Sally Hansen Instadri in yellow.  It probably has a number, but I couldn't find a name.  I really liked how bright this colour is and it had great coverage in two coats; but I had bought it to use as a stamping polish and only used it in a pinch as I was away for the weekend and only had a limited number of polishes with me.  Unfortunately, the brush on these polishes really turn me off from using them for any nail polishing, just stamping. 


Then did my sponge gradient using the SH yellow, FingerPaints Original Orange and OPI Red My Fortune Cookie. As far as sponged gradients, I guess this is OK, but was a fail if it as my intention was for it to look like The Nailasaurus' gradual gradient.


Stamped using SdP 15 using Konad black special polish.


Top coated with SV.


Hope you had a fantastic weekend and thanks for looking!