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!

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.

Manicure the Third

Got my manicure a little earlier than usual this week since Monday was July 4th. 

Tung has picked up some great new polishes in the last couple of weeks, including LaRosa's line of crackle polishes.  So, despite it being the July 4th weekend I decided to go with a teal color with a white shatter on top.  Check it out:

This is two coats of Verity in Beach Blue with one coat of the LaRosa White Crackle on top. We had no problems with the LaRosa and the Verity was a decent polish as well.  The Verity in Beach Blue is a gorgeous shade of teal jelly that was fairly opaque in two coats.  I would suggest three if you use it without some sort of top coat effect (like the crackle or a glitter) but otherwise application was a breeze and it dried fairly quick.

Don't forget to check out my giveaway!

Manicure the Second

This week's manicure requires sunglasses for viewing.  I went with two very bright colors from Famous: #15 Baby Rose and #S31 Brazillian Waxed.  I had Tung alternate the colors on each nail with the tips being done the same way for a checker board look.  It was finished off with a holo nail glitter stripper and a top coat.

I love the look of the mani but let me tell you, the application was not easy.  Both polishes were very thin and required three heavy coats to cover and even then I still had bald spots and thanks to the numerous coats (including the top coat) there were bubbles visible on a couple of fingers. And the drying time took forever.  An hour after I left Tung's I ended up with dents and that's after a fast drying top coat, being under the dryer and drying drops.

Don't forget to sign up for my first giveaway!