Manicure the Seventh

Whew! What a crazy couple of weeks! First the earthquake then a hurricane and tornado and then just for some extra fun a tropical depression and flooding. And in the midst of it all hubs and I signed a contract for a new house and began renovations on our condo to ready it for rent. I spent all last week painting and painting and painting and for a change of pace...you guessed it...more painting. Hubs completely reno'd the bathroom and now I have a beautiful new bathroom that I'll probably get to enjoy for maybe a month before we move out to let the tenants move in. Oh well. Here's crazy manicure to go with my crazy week:





This awesome mani was a brand new experience for Tung. Fantastic results for her first time, huh? You would have never guessed the she hadn't done leopard spots before. For the French tips the base is China Glaze in Heaven with China Glaze Ginger Bells for the tips. The full colored nails are done in just the CG Ginger Bells, which went on beautifully in two coats and in the perfect shade of ginger bread and happened to work wonderfully with the look I was going for. The leopard spots are done free hand with acrylic paint in black and gold. You will notice that I also went with a rounded tip instead of my usual rounded square tips. I'll keep that reasoning secret for now and explain in tomorrow's swatch post. For now, enjoy!

Manicure the Fifth

My apologies to all my followers for the lack of posts recently. I have been under the weather and am just now getting things back on track. This gorgeous manicure was designed with a particular outfit of mine in mind. I chose one of my favorite China Glaze colors, Bohemian Chic, a classic burgundy that I always gravitate towards when I have a desire for a classy and simple look. Tung worked her artistic magic to hand paint some pretty flowers in colors to match my skirt. Check out the fantastic results:

Can you tell I've been practicing my photography? I also purchased some fancy new photo editing software for my iPad. I'm just loving the results. And while my condo's balcony banister needs repair work it does make for a lovely contrasting background. Despite the tremendous amount of rain, thunderstorms and cloudy skies recently, I did manage to get some swatching and photographing done this weekend so posts will resume as normal this week. TTFN!

Swatch the Tenth

I'm sure this is starting to sound really old, but don't forget to check out my giveaway, it ends August 1st!



This week's swatch is a bit of a fail to me.  I used two think coats of Orly's Royal Navy, a vibrant shade of blue (and one of my favorites), paired with China Glaze's Black Mesh Crackle.  I thought the Royal Navy would shine through a lot more than it did which is really the only reason I consider it a fail.  I think I'll stick with neons under the black crackle, they work better.

Orly Royal Navy

With Black Crackle



What do you think?

Manicure the Forth

Before I begin, I just wanted to give you all a quick reminder to enter my giveaway, just a few more days before the winner is chosen! This week's manicure is once again brought to you by LaRosa. This time Tung went with LaRosa's purple crackle (called Purple Rain). It's a metallic purple that cracked wonderfully with one thin coat. I was undecided on which color to go with for the undercoat so, we went with both of the two finalists: China Glaze's Caribbean Temptation and China Glaze's Turned Up Turquoise. Check out the results:

Despite Pink and Purple being such a classic color combo, I ended up liking the Turquoise much better. I think it showed off the purple crackle much better.

Swatch the Eighth

This is an old mani from a couple of weekends ago.  The hubby and I went with friends to see Creedence Clearwater Revisted and I thought the event required a mani full of bling.

This is two coats of China Glaze's First Mate with two coats of China Glaze's Treasure Chest and a top coat of Seche Vite.  The First Mate is a deep navy blue creme that went on with ease and was opaque in two coats. Treasure Chest is a gold hex glitter that added the perfect amount of bling and became smooth with just one topcoat of SV. 

I got a lot of compliments on this mani and will probably repeat it again.